HP m 3§£!§8ihb& • • •- • m HMHMHD - BffifmlraTHlI .•'■■• r: - '. ' Kb Btfi THE LIGHT OK THE NATIONS. BY CHARLES K. DEEMS, D. D., LIv. 33., ii Pastor of the Church of the Strangers, New York, and President of the American Institute of Christian Philosophy, AUTHOR OF " The Home Altar," "What Now?" " Weights and Wings," Etc. AND EDITOR OF "CHRISTIAN THOUGHT." ILLUSTRATED- SEP 19 188.4/ NEW YORK: ■■' y?A GAY BROTHERS & CO., 14 Barclay Street. Copyright, 1884, by C. F. Deems. INTRODUCTION. IMPORTANT TO BE READ BEFORE GOING- FORWARD. After all that lias been written for and against Jesus, there are millions who now believe that he is " The Light of the Nations." So important a historical figure deserves repeated examination, in the light of successive generations and of accumulating scientific skill and research. The law which an author sets to himself in the composition of a book must be known before proper criticism can begin. If this volume, or any portion of it, be judged as if I had attempted a Life of Christ, the most grievous misapprehension of the volume and its author may be made. It is no more such a book than it is a volume of sermons or of poems. It carefully abstains from being a Life of Christ. A Life of Christ necessarily starts with the assumption that Jesus was Christ. It must be dogmatic, and can be useful mainly to Christians. I have assumed no such thing. Nor have I assumed in this book that the original biographers, the four Evangelists and Paul, were inspired. I simply assume that their books are as trustworthy as those of Herodo- tus and Xenophon, of Tacitus and Csesar. They write about the man Jesus, who was the son of Mary. They preserve Memorabilia of his acts and words. I deal with these evangelic biographers as I would with those classic authors. I strive to make a harmonious narrative from their records, and to ascertain what was the consciousness of Jesus as he performed each act and spoke each word, according to the laws of thought so far as they are known to me. This book must not be judged from any theologic stand-point. If my views of theology are of any importance, they must be sought in my Sermons, not here. vii V1U INTRODUCTION. There will be found in this book a new translation of the sayings of Jesus. The ordinary rule in such cases is, not to make a literal render- ing of each word by its synonym in the tongue into which it is trans- ferred, but, to represent the idioms of one language by those of another. I have departed from that canon, because all who read this book will have in their hands the Common Version, which, generally, does that work for them. The translations here furnished differ from those in the Common Version, in being usually almost strictly literal, and they have been purposely made so, that such of my readers as are unacquainted with the original may have an opportunity to compare a literal with an idiomatic version. My renderings from the Greek must be judged by scholars in the light of this statement. The language employed by Jesus was what is called the Palestinian Aramaic, which is also called Hebrew by early ecclesiastical writers, ac- cording to Papias, Irenseus, Origen, Eusebius,. and Jerome. Matthew's Gospel was written in that language. Matthew may have written also the Greek version of his own Gospel. The books of Mark, and Luke, and John were written in Greek, a language which it is prob- able Jesus sometimes employed. The autographs of these four books are supposed to have perished, and so probably have all the copies made in the first three centuries. In addition to the usual causes for the disappearance of books, we may mention in this case the tho- rough manner in which were executed the decrees of Diocletian in the beginning of the fourth century (February, a.d. 303) for the destruction of all the sacred books of the Christians, for the purpose of extirpating " the superstition," as he called it. Notwithstanding the severe penal- ties which impelled every magistrate to execute those decrees, some copies escaped the flames. The Diocletian persecution closed a.d. 313. Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, ascended the throne a.d. 324. In a.d. 328 he re- 3alled Eusebius, who had been banished, and, in a letter which Eusebius quotes in his Life of Constantine, the Emperor directed him to cause " fifty copies of the Sacred Scriptures to be written on prepared parch- ment, in a legible manner, and in a commodious and portable form, by transcribers thoroughly practised in the art." The completion of this work Constantine acknowledged in a subsequent letter to Eusebius, INTRODUCTION. IX One of those copies, or perhaps the oldest copy of one of them, is the property of the Emperor of Russia. It is called the Codex Sinaiticus, because found in a convent on Mount Sinai, by Tischendorf, a learned German. That copy, being the oldest *extant, is the basis of my transla- tion. Whenever, therefore, the reader finds any of the words of Jesus in this book different from those in the common version, he will under- stand that he is thereby carried nearer to the fountain-head of the literature produced by Jesus and his utterances. The difference in the characteristics of the four authors, commonly called The Evangelists, is worthy of note. Matthew was a practical man of business ; Mark was an aesthetic observer ; Luke had a scientific bias, and John was devoutly metaphysical. We are permitted to see Jesus as he presented himself to four such students of his acts and char- acter. Our skill is to be exercised in combining their impressions. It is a great advantage to have a subject placed in so many different lights Jesus was the Founder of a Faith. He lived centuries ago. The most diverse claims have been made for his person and his teachings. Almost every saying of his has become the basis of a dogma. It will not be wonderful, then, that historians come upon actions and utterances of his which involve difficulties. Some of these are still difficulties to me. In such cases I have frankly said, " I do not understand this." So would it be, I think, with any other honest student and fair writer. By this candor I cannot lose the esteem of those whose esteem is worth having. But, I have not avoided the hard places. Timid readers may wish I had. Wherever there seemed to me to be an explanation, I have given it. It may satisfy some. It may lead others to discover what is more satisfactory to themselves. In no case, I believe, will unlearned readers of good sense be perplexed, and in no case, I trust, will scholars be scandalized. There has been no ambition to appear learned. To those who are not acquainted with the languages in which the Evangelists wrote, or the languages in which learned men have commented on these works, I have endeavored to make the way plain by all needed helps. Nor has there been an ambition of originality. WTierever I have used the labors of others I have given credit, so far as I recollect. If any failure on this point has occurred, it has been through inadvertence. To repair that, and to send students to the sources of my own stream of information, X INTRODUCTION. I have supplied a list of the books used in the preparation of this vol* ume. I have read up in the literature of the subject as well as I could. All writers on this subject have difficulty with the chronology. In this book the terminal points of birth and death, I think, are trustwor- thy, especially the latter ; but many of the incidents in the life have been arranged in an order which I have seen reason to change several times. The result of my investigation is the conviction that it is not now in the power of human skill to arrange a harmony of the facts in this biography, which should be positively asserted to be the precise order in which they occurred. Here and there are some that we know preceded one the other. There can be no doubt as to the order of the Baptism, the Temptation, the Sermon on the Mount, the Transfiguration, etc., but minor incidents puzzle every chronologer. The historical and bio- graphical groupings in this book, as it goes to the printer, are the last result of my most careful study, and have been adopted in no in- stance simply for picturesque effect. It is proper to say that almost all the spots which Jesus made memorable by his personal presence have been visited by the author during a sojourn of several months in the Holy Land. He has thus had what aid geography can give to his- tory, and so has verified the topographical statements in this book. In the preparation of these pages I am sure that there has been no am- bition of novelty ; but I have not been afraid of new things, nor has any oninion commended itself to me because it was old. On the other hand, novelty has been no recommendation and antiquity no disparagement. I have sought to know the truth. When I believed I had found it, I wrote it, and now publish it without stopping to inquire whether these honest opinions will please or displease, or whether they put Jesus at an advantage or a disadvantage. In this I have sought to imitate the spirit and style of the Evangelists. A man would be sadly stupid who should spend some years on a subject which, more than any other, has engrossed the study of thoughtful men, without improving the opinions he formed 'in earlier life on less investigation. The preparation of this book baa been, to me, its own " exceeding great reward." As far as practicable, I have laid aside all dogmatic prepossession* But in writing this book I have been preparing a Memoir of my Dear- est Friend, and if, for that Friend's sake, and in the spirit of that Friend, I have dealt with all the records most honestly, it is also fair to INTRODUCTION. XJ state that I have treated them with the reverence of manly love ; and, whatever may be the final decision of my readers, I conclude this work with a love for Jesus deeper and better than that which I feel for any other man dead or living. I have a final request. When my readers shall have read the whole book, and have attempted to answer the closing question on the 710th page, they will do themselves and me a favor if they will return to this page and answer this question : — If such a case can be made out by a rational examination of the Four Evangelists, on the ground that their memoirs are merely human in all respects, who is jesus, on the further supposition that those memoirs are divinely inspired records? My own belief is that they are inspired. That belief receives fresh confirmation from every examination of these books. On this grave subject I would not have myself misunderstood. It is because I am so thoroughly satisfied in my belief in the inspiration of these records that I have felt so safe in resting the argument of this volume on a basis which does not include that high claim. Charles F. Deems OHAPEL OP THE " CHURCH OP THE STRANGERS," ) 4 Winthrop Place, New York. J CONTENTS PAET I. THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. < [From B.C. 6 to A.D. 8. Thirteen years and a half.] CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY EVENTS, The birth of John Baptist announced, 15. — Mary and her genealogy, 17. — The birth of Jesus s» nounced, 19.— Mary's visit to Elizabeth, 20.— Birth of John, 21. — John's early life, 22. CHAPTER II. THE BIRTH OF JESUS.* ITS DATE. Joseph's dream, 23. — Jesus born, 23. — Examination of the chronology, 23. — Probable date, 28.— Another mode of approximation, 28. — From the death of Herod, 29. — From the astronomical cal- culation, 30. — From the slaying of the Bethlehemite infants, 30. — From the taxing, or census, 31. CHAPTER III. THE PLACE OF THE BIRTH : THE CIRCUMCISION. Bethlehem, 36. — Site never lost, 37. — The caravanserai, 40. — Vision of angels by shepherds, 40. — Jesus circumcised, 41. — Simeon, 41. — Anna, 42. CHAPTER TV. HIS FIRST YEARS. The Magi : who and whence, 43. — They find Jesus, 46. — They elude Herod, 47. — Joseph dreams again, 47. — The flight into Egypt, 47. — Herod massacres the babes of Bethlehem, 48. — The return from Egypt, 49. — Nazareth, the home of Jesus, 50. — Jesus, at twelve years of age, in the Temple, 51. — Missed and found, 52. — His life in Nazareth, 54. CHAPTER V. STATE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS DURING THE CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH OF JESUS. JUD.2EA. Herod the Great, 56. — Family of Herod, 56. — His will, 58. — His funeral, 58. — Archelaus, 58. — Troubles in settling the succession, 58. — Sabinus, 59. — Varus, 60. — Archelaus confirmed, 60. — The pseudo- Alexander, 61.— Cyrenius, 62. — The revolt under Judas, 62. — Menahem, 63.— Coponius, 63. — The Samaritans pollute the Temple, 63. — Pontius Pilate outrages the Jews, 64. — Tacitus and Josephus speak of Jesus, 65. Galilee. Herod Antipas, 65. — In love with Herodias, 66. — Quarrels with Pilate, 66. — Herodias, 66. — Character of Herod Antipas, 67. The Church. The High-priesthood, .67. — Caiaphas and Annas, 67. — The Sanhedrim, 68. The Sects. The Pharisees, 71.— The Sadducees, 71. — The Essenes, 72. — The Herodians, 72. PAET II. INTRODUCTION OF JESUS TO HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY. [From A.D. 26 to A.D. 27. About one year.] CHAPTER I. JOHN'S PREACHING AND MINISTRY. ''The Baptist" 1 opens the way for Jesus, 73. — Elijah, 73. — John's consecration, 74. — His ministry, 75. — Substance of his discourses : Repentance, 77. — Against formalism and scepticism, 78. — An- nounces a coming kingdom, 79. — Announces the presence of the ruler, 80. — His baptism, 80. — His ministry not permanently effective, 82. CHAPTER II. JESUS DESIGNATED AT HIS BAPTISM BY JOHN. Jesus comes to be baptized by John, 84. — Why Jesus was baptized, 84.— Certain mistakes, 84. — John's previous acquaintance with Jesus, 86. — John declines to baptize Jesus, 87. — Momentous crisis, 87. — The descending dove, 88. — John and Jesus, 88. — John the discoverer of Jesus, 88. — A voice, 89. (Xii) CONTENTS. Xll] CHAPTER III. THE TEMPTATION. Accounts by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 91. — Place of the temptation, 92. — Explanatory theories, 9V — Sense of his humanity in Jesus, 95. — Excitement of Jesus at his baptism, 96. — The collapse, 96. — His narrative given humanly, 98. Batan, 98. — Idea of Satan not preposterous, 98. — Rational probabilities of the existence of Satan, 99, 100.— Satan of Jesus not Jewish, 100.— The Jewish idea not Persian, 100.— The Satan of Job, 101. —Of David, 101.— Of the Chronicles, 101.— Of Zechariah, 101.— What Jesus believed about tha temptation, 102. First temptation, " the lust of the flesh," 103. — Second temptation, "the lust of the eye." 103.— Third temptation, "the pride of life." 104. — Assault on the Messiah side of Jesus, 105. — Satan's admis- sion, 105. Ministry of angels, 106.— Angels the highest creatures, 106.— Their power, 107.— Their activity, 107. —Their intelligence, 107.— Their holiness, 108.— Their numbers, 108.— Agents of God, 109.— "The Angel of Jehovah," 109. — The angels minister to Jesus, 111. CHAPTER TV. THE FIRST DISCIPLES. Committee from the Sanhedrim, 112. — John's testimony to Jesus, 112. — "The Lamb of God," 113. — First two disciples, 113. — Andrew and John, 114. — Simon (Peter), 114. — Philip, 115.— Nathanael, 115.—" The Son of Man," 118.— The son of David, 119.— Bartholomew, 119. CHAPTER V. IN CANA AND CAPERNAUM. Cana of Galilee, 120. — The first miracle, 120. — The most memorable wedding, 121.— The mother of Jesus, 122. — The water-pots, 123. — The miracle, 124. — The lesson, 125.— A visit to Capernaum, 125. PART III. FROM THE FIRST TO THE SECOND PASSOVER IN THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS. [One pear: probably from April, A.D. 27, to April, AD. 28.] CHAPTER I. CLEANSINQ THE TEMPLE. The brokers expelled by Jesus, 127. — His authority demanded, 127. — Reply of Jesun, 128. — The Tem- ple, 128. — Painful national recollections, 129. — Retort of the Jews, 130. — The nation shocked, 130. — The resurrection-thought, 131. — An Appeal, 131. — Jesus had no "policy," 132. CHAPTER II. NICODEMUS. Nicodemus, 133. — His address, 134. — Its caution, 135. — Reply of Jesus, 135. — Meaning of that reply, 136. — "The Kingdom of God," 13S. — Nicodemus's reply, 138. — Response of Jesus, 139. — "Spirit" and "wind," 140. — Surprise of Nicodemus, 141. — Jesus claims pre-existence, 142. — Another lofty claim, 143.— Two great doctrines, 143. CHAPTER III. FROM 3VDMK TO SAMARIA. John and the disciples of Jesus baptizing, 145. — John's self -conquest, 146. — His last testimony for Jesus, 147. — Mactuerus, 148. — Herod imprisons John, 148. — Jesus returns to Galilee, 149. — Shechem, 149. — Origin of the Samaritans, 150. — Hatred between Jews and Samaritans, 151. — Jacob's well, 152. — Samaritan woman at the well, 153. — A strange promise, 154. — The woman attempts con- troversy, 155. — Reply of Jesus, 156. —He declares himself the Messiah, 157 —Return of the disci- pies, 157. — Arrivals from the city, 158. — Samaritan ideas of the Messiah, 158. CHAPTER IV. FROM SAMARIA TO GALILEE. Je?us begins to preach, 160. — Heals the nobleman's son, 161. — In Nazareth, 162. — The synagogue, 162. — Its influence, 103. — Its officers, 163.— Its service, 104. — Jesus reads from Isaiah, 1(55. — He shocks their prejudices, 165. — He is driven from Nazareth, 166. — Makes Capernaum his headquar- ters, 167. — Description of Capernaum, 167. — Its surrounding, 169. — Jesus preaches from a boat, 170.— Wotderful draught of fishes, 170.— The fishermen follow Jesus, 171. CHAPTER V. DEMONIACS. The man with the unclean spirit, 172. — Demoniacal possessions : classical authorities, 173. — Jewish opinion, 174. — The New Testament writers, 174. — One theory, with its reasons, 174. — The opposing theory, with its reasons, 176. — Most probable theory, 179. — A demoniac cured in the synagogue, 179 XIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. THE FIBST TOUR OF GALILEE. Jesus heals Simon's mother-in-law, 181.— Exhaustive effects on Jesus, 182.— Jesus travels in Galilee, 183.— The leprosy, 183.— Supposed to be incurable, 185.— Jesus heals a leper, 186.— The sufferer and the healer, 187.— Jesus withdraws from the public, 189.— Heals a paralytic, 189.— Importance of a word, 190.— An awful claim, 190 — CaU of Matthew, 191.— Matthew's feast, 192.— John's dis- ciples object, 193 The Old and the New, 194.— Illustrations, 195.— Jesus the dividing line of his- tory, 196. PAET IT. FEOM THE SECOND UNTIL THE THIRD PASSOVER IN THE PUBLIC MINISTRY OF JESUS. [From A.D. 28 to A.D. 29. One pear.] CHAPTER I. THE SABBATH QUESTION. The House of Oiitpouring, 198.— The impotent man, 200.— Cured on the Sabbath, 200.— The Sabbath before Moses, 201. — The Sabbath in the Decalogue, 202. — Its lessons, 203.— Pharisaic exactions, 204. — Jesus never broke the Sabbath law, 205.— His reply to accusations, 206. — Remarkable dis- course, 206. — Jesus no egotist, 209.— The battle begun, 210. CHAPTER II. THE SABBATH QUESTION AGAIN. The disciples in the grain-field, 211 — The example of David, 211. — Example of the priests, 212. — Key to the Sabbath-idea, 212. — The battle continued, 213. — Question of healing on the Sabbath, 213. — A counter-question, 214. — An ad hominem question, 215. — The cure of the withered hand, 215. — The Herodians, 216. — Crowds follow Jesus, 216. — A movable pulpit, 217. CHAPTER III. THE TWELVE. A crisis, 218.— Selection of the twelve, 219.— Simon L, or Peter, 219.— Andrew, 221.— James I., 222.— < John, 223.— Philip, 225.— Nathanael, 226.— Levi, or Matthew, 227.— Thomas, 227.— James II., 228.— Judas I., 230.— Simon II., 231.— Judas II. (Iscariot), 232.— "The Twelve," 235.— Why thii number, 235.— Their order, 236.— Types, 237.— Nothing of the "church" idea 239. CHAPTER IV. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. Place of delivery, 241. — Reports by Matthew and Luke, 242. — The time, 245. — The Text: Character, 245. — The Beatitudes: Elements of lofty character, 248. — The poor in spirit, 248.— Those who mourn, 251. — The meek, 252. — Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, 254. — The merci- ful, 255.— The pure in heart, 256. — The peace-makers, 258.— The persecuted, 259. — The reviled, 260. — Value of a lofty character, 261. — Jesus the completer of the law, 263. — Refutation of Pharisaic errors, 266.— Of murder, 266.— Of adultery, 271.— Of divorce, 272.— Of perjury, 273. — Of revenge, 274. — Love and hatred, 277. — Directions for the discharge of duty, 280. —Alms-giving, 281.— Prayer, 282.— "The Lord's Prayer," 284.— Forgiveness, 292.— Fasting, 293.— Warnings: Against covetousness, 294. — Against double-mindedness, 294. — Against excessive anxiety, 295. — Against harsh judgments, 299. — Against doubting God, 301. — Against the broad way, 301.— Against hypocrisy, 303.— Conclusion : The safe foundation of cfiaracter, 304.— The manner of Jesus, 305. CHAPTER V. IN CAPERNAUM AND NAIN. The centurion's servant, 307. — The centurion's humility, 308. — Jesus aamires him, 308. — The servant healed, 309. — In Nain, 309. — Jesus raises the dead, 310.— John hears of the works of Jesus, 312. — His message to Jesus and reply, 312.— Defence of John by Jesus, 313.— Relative estimate of John, 314. — Both John and Jesus rejected, 315. — Jesus dines with a Pharisee and is anointed by a woman, 317. — The delicacy of Jesus, 318. CHAPTER VI. THE SECOND TOUR OF GALILEE AND RETURN TO CAPERNAUM. A-ocompanied by women, 320.— Magdala, 320.— Mary Magdalene, 321.— Her devotion to Jesus, 322.— The most beautiful of loves, 323. — Capernaum, 324. — The blind and dumb demoniac, 324.— Phari- saic conspirators, 325.— The charge that Jesus has a demon, 325. — The reply of Jesus, 326. — He is more powerful than Satan, 326.— Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, 327. — The sign of Jonah, 331. — A woman's compliment, 333. — Mary and her sons, 333. — Jesus eats with a Pharisee and denounces Pharisaism, 334.— A "lawyer," 335.— Warning against hypocrisy, 337.— Parable of the rich fool, 337.— One of Pilate's outrages, 341.— Parable of the fig-tree, 343. CONTENTS. XV CHAPTER VII. A CHAPTER OF PARABLES. Parable of the sower, 345.— Of the tares, 346.— Of the patient farmer, 346.— Of the mustard-seed, 346, — Of the leaven, 347.— Explication of the parable of the sower, 349.— Of the patient farmer, 355. — Of the mustard-seed, 356.— Of the leaven, 357. — Similitudes, 357. — The treasure in the field, 357.— The pearl-buyer, 358.— The drag-net, 359. CHAPTER VIII. A CHAPTER OP MIRACLES. Jesus had no politics, 361.— A political follower, 361.— A hard saying, 362.— Its difficulty, 363. — It» lesson, 363. — Another lesson, 364. — Storm on the lake, 364. — Jesus stills the storm, 265. — Gadara, 365. — The demoniac, 367. — The swine, 368.— In Capernaum, 370.— Juirus, 371.— The woman with the hemorrhage, 371. — Is healed in touching Jesus, 371.— Death of Jairus's daughter, 372.— Jestu restores the daughter of Jairus to life, 373. — Two blind men restored, 375. — Jesus cures a dumb de- moniac, 375. — In Nazareth, 377.— Again rejected by his own people, 377. CHAPTER IX THE THIRD TOUR OF GALILEE AND RETURN TO CAPERNAUM. In Galilee, 379. — A missionary movement, 379. — Address of Jesus, 380. — The route of the twelve, 381. — The home-altar, 382. — A warning, 382. — A consolation, 383. — The gospel to be a discrimination, 384.— A frightful figure, 385.— A great step forward, 385.— John Baptist beheaded, 385.— Herod hears of Jesus, 386.— Return of the twelve, 3S6.— Miraculous feeding of five thousand, 388.— Storm on the lake, 390i — Jesus walking on the waters, 391. — Progressiveness of Jesus, 392. — In- tense excitement, 393. — The bread-seekers, 394. — They demand a sign, 395. — Jesus again offends the Pharisees, 396. — Their puzzle, 397. — Jesus sifts his followers, 398. PAET V. PROM THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE ENSUING FEAST OF TABERNACLES. [From April to October, A.D. 29. Six months.] CHAPTER I. UNSETTLED. Tradition, 399. — Jesus rebukes the Pharisees, 400. — What defiles a man, 401. — In Phoenicia, 402. — The Syro-Phoenician woman, 403. — Jesus appreciates holy wit, 406. — The Decapolis, 406. — Cure of the deaf stammerer, 408. — Healing, 409. — Feeding of four thousand, 409. — Dalmanutha, 410. — A sign demanded, 411. — Addressed to weather-prophets, 412. — The leaven of the Pharisees, 413. — Bethsaida, 413. CHAPTER II. THE GREAT CONFESSION. Csesarea Philippi, 415. — Another crisis, 415. — Not struck root, 416. — Peter's solemn confession, 417. — Jesus receives Messianic homage, 417. — Address of Jesus to Peter, 418. — The word "church," 420. —His "congregation," 420. — The power of the keys, 421. — Jesus controls history, 423. — He pre- dicts his resurrection, 424. — Rebukes Peter, 424. — Address to his disciples, 425. — Its meaning, 425. CHAPTER in. THE TRANSFIGURATION. Account by the Evangelists, 427.— Why Elijah must first come, 428.— Site of the transfiguration, 428. —Peter's conjecture, 429. — The voice, 429. — Influence on the disciples, 430. — A perplexity, 430. — Another perplexity, 430. — Region of Csesarea Philippi, 431. — The demoniac boy, 432. — Jesus healfl him, 433. CHAPTER TV. LAST DAYS IN GALILEE. Through Northern Galilee, 435.— The Temple-tax, 436.— A miracle of knowledge, 437.— Messianio hopes, 438. — The rule of precedence, 438. — John's frank confession, 439.— Schism, 440.—" If two agree," 441.— Idea of a true church, 442.— Parable of the unmerciful servant, 442. — The mission of the Seventy, 444.— Lnhospitable Samaritan village, 446. PAET VI. FROM THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST PASSOVER WEEK. [From October, A.D. 29, to April, A.D. 30. Six Months.] CHAPTER I. AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. rhe Feast of Tabernacles; 447.— Evening service, 448.— Supplemental festival, 449.— Jesus at the feast, 449.— His defensive speech, 450. — He attacks his enemies, 451.— Asserts his heavenly origin, 452. £V1 CONTENTS. —An alarming speech, 453.— The great day of the feast, 454.— The fountain of Siloam, 454.— They cannot arrest Jesus, 455. — In the treasury, 456. — The woman taken in adultery, 456. — Caught in their own trap, 457. — Conflict of Jesus with his enemies, 457. —Jesus more deeply in- censes his enemies, 460. — Jesus charged with having a demon, 461.— His reply, 462. — Jesus before Abraham, 462. - CHAPTER II. THE FEAST OP DEDICATION. Near Jericho, 463. — Parable of the Good Samaritan, 464. — From Jerusalem to Jericho, 465. — Bethany : Mary and Martha, 466. — Reply of Jesus to Martha, 467.— The blind man, 469.— Existence of evil, 469. — The ancient pagan idea, 470.— The Hebrew idea, 470. — "Who did sin ? " 471. — What Jesus thought of it, 472.— Manner of the healing, 473.— Healed on the Sabbath, 473.— The patient and his parents examined, 474.— Jesus meets him, 477. — Discourse of the shepherd and the sheep, 478. — Division among his enemies, 479.— A challenge, 480.— Exalted claims, 480. CHAPTER III. IN PEREA. Bethany, east of Jordan, 482. — Jesus visits the place of his baptism, 482. — The dropsical man, 484. — Parable of the Great Supper, 485. — Terms of discipleship, 486.— Parable of the Lost Sheep, 487.— Of the Lost Coin, 487.— Of the Prodigal Son, 4S7.— Of the Unjust Steward, 489.— Meaning of the parable, 489. — Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, 491. — Prayers to saints. 493. — Of offences and forgiveness. 494. — A prayer for faith, 494. — Sickness and death of Lazarus, 495. — Devotion of Thomas, 497. CHAPTER IV. JESUS ON HIS LAST CIRCUIT. Bethany, near Jerusalem, 498. — Jesus claims to be The Resurrection, 500. — Mary and Jesus, 501. — The grief of Jesus, 502. — At the grave, 503. — Lazarus raised from the dead, 504. — The Sanhedrim, 505. — Acknowledge his miracles, 505. — Reject him as Messiah, 506. — Caiaphas, 506. — His prophecy, 507.— Ephron, 507.— Ten lepers healed, 509.— The Parousia of the Son of Man, 511.— Parable of the Unjust Judge, 512. — Its lesson, 513. — Despondency of Jesus, 514. — Parable of the Pharisee and Publican, 514. — Final departure from Galilee, 516. — Divorce, 516.— Mosaic law of divorce, 517.— True law of divorce, 520. CHAPTER V. GOING TO JERUSALEM. Jesus blesses little children, 523. — The rich ruler, 524. — " Who can be saved ? " 527. — The Palingenesia, 528. — Parable of the laborers, 528. — The lesson, 530. — A third warning, 530. — The ambitious brothers, 532. — The blind nien, 533. — Blind Bartimseus healed, 535.— Jericho, 536. — Zacchasus, 537. —His conversion, 538. — Parable of the pounds, 539. — Bethany: House of Lazarus, 541. — Crowds nock to see Jesus, 542. — His last Sabbath, 542. PAET VII. THE LAST WEEK. [From April 2 to April 8, A.D. 30.] CHAPTER I. THE FIRST DAT. Palm-Sunday, 543. — Jesus riding, 544. — Great excitement, 545. — "The church" frightened, 546. — In sight of Jerusalem, 547. — Jesus apostrophizes Jerusalem, 548. — Entering the city and the Temple, 548.— Greeks seek him, 549.— The JBath-ITol, 550.— What was it? 551.— Jesus knew it, 552. CHAPTER II. THE SECOND DAT. The barren fig-tree cursed, 554. — Trouble in the narrative. 555.— A great lesson, 556. — A grand truth, 557. — The second cleansing of the Temple, 557. — Fine discriminations, 558. — An act of mercy, 558. CHAPTER III. THE THIRD DAT. " 3y what authority?" 561. — A counter-dilemma, 562. — Puzzled priests, 563. — Parable of the Two Sons, 564. — Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, 564. — Parable of the Marriage of the King's Son, 565. — Without the wedding-garment, 567. — Conspiracy, 56S. — Attempt to ensnare Jesus, 569.— An adroit question, 570. — The net torn, 571. — A profound lesson, 571. — Question by the Sadducees, 673. — Reply of Jesus, 574. — Jesus against Pantheism, 574. — The great commandment, 576. — The reply of Jesus, 576. — David's son and David's Lord, 578. — The valedictory to the Jews, 579. — Con- trasted with the " Sermon on the Mount," 581. — Final woe, 587.— Last times, 587.— The heart of Jesus melts, 588. — The widow's mite, 589.— Last utterance of Jesus in the Temple. 5S9.— Parable of the Ten Virgins, 593. — A prophecy, 594.— Jerusalem to be destroyed, 595. — Pseudo-Christs, 596. — General judgment of mankind, 596. — Jesus the representative of humanity, 598. — Absence ot dogmatism, 59y. CONTENTS. XV11 CHAPTER IV. THE FOURTH DAY. Disappointed hopes, 600. — Feast in Simon's house, 600. — Mary anoints Jesus, 600. — Jndas objects, 601. — Reply of Jesus, 601. — A meeting of conspirators, 602. — The capture postponed, 602. — Judas cornel to them, 603.— The case of Judas, 603.— Fresh examination, 604-611. CHAPTER V. THE FIFTH DAT. The first day of unleavened bread, 613.— Preparations for the Paschal Supper, 614. — At whose house, 614. — Between the evenings, 615. CHAPTER VI. THE SIXTH DAY. Sec. 1. The Supper. Jesus's opening speech, 616. — Washes their feet, 617. — Peter's refusal, 617. — The lessoD, 618. — Sad prediction, 619. — Self-inspection, 619. — Judas leaves, 620. — Peter puzzled, 620. — Consoling words, 622. — Philip's materialism. 623. — Thaddeus perplexed, 624. Sec. 2. The Valedictory and Last Prayer. The Hallel, 624.— An out door discourse, 625. — A pause, 626. — Disciples express belief, 627. — The last prayer with the disciples, 627. Sec. 3. Gethsemane. The Ivedron valley, 628. — In the garden, 630. — Solitary prayer, 630. — A horror, 630. — The sweat of blood, 631. — The betrayal, 631. — Jewish criminal law, 632. — Prejudgment, 633 — Irregularities, 633. — The signal. 634.— The arrest, 634.— Peter's zeal, 635.— Forsaken, 635. Sec. 4. The Trial, 636. Fresh outrage, 636.— Annas, 636.— Caiaphas, 637.— Reply of Jesus, 038.- Peter, 638.- -His denials, 637-640. — Daybreak, 641. — False witnesses, 641. — Jesus put on oath. 042 — The judge in a rage, 643. — Intense excitement, 6-14. Sec. 5. Pilate. The Procurator, 644.— The jus gladii, 644.— To Pilato. 645.— Play of passions, 645 —A halt, 646.— Change of ground, 647. — In the praetorium, 648. — Jesus replies to Pilate, 649. — A contrast, 650. Sec. 6. Herod. Herod and Jesus, 650. — Herod and Pilate, 651. — Jesus sent to Herod, 651. — Jesua speechless, 652. Sec. 7. Back to Pilate. Pilate and the Sanhedrim, 652. — The people against Jesus. 653.— Barabbas, 654. — Pilate's wife's dream, 654.— The unstable people, 655. — Pilate washes his hands, 656. — Jesus scourged and mocked, 656. — Pilate in trouble, 657. — "Ecce Homo ! " 657. — Pilate seeks to release Jesus, 658. — " Caesar's Friend," 659. — A dying nationality, 660. — The sentence, 660. Sec. 8. The last of Judas. His hopes and fears, 660. — The ground gives way, 661. — He returns to the priests, 661.— They regard him a fool, 662. — He flings the money away, 662.— Potter's Field, 663. Sec. 9. Going to Calvary. Bearing the cross, 663. — The Cyrenian, 663. — Form of the cross, 664. — Daughters of Jerusalem, 664. — Jesus prophesies, 665. — Golgotha. 665. — The sour wine, 666. Sec. 10. From Nine o'clock till Noon. Jesus prays for his tormentors, 667. — The seamless gar- ment, 667. — The epigraph, 668. — Caesar's verdict, 668. — Jesus reviled, 669. — The impenitent thief , 669. — The penitent thief, 670. — Jesus accepts him, 671. — Near noon, 671. — His mother, 672. Sec. 11. From Noon until Three o'clock. Noon and darkness, 673. — The cry, 674. — A mys- tery, 674. — The light returns, 675. — Jesus thirsts and dies, 676. — An earthquake, 676. — The cen- turion, 676. Sec. 12. From Three o'clock until Evening. A ritualistic difficulty, 677. — The thieves killed, 678. — The spear-thrust, 67S. — Physical causes of death of Jesus, 679. — What was his agony ? 683. — Joseph and Nicodemus, 684. — Secret disciples, 684. — In a garden, 685. — Love's last vigiL 685. PAET YIII. RESURRECTION OF JESUS AND SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. [Forty Days. From April 9 to May 19, A V. 30.] I. The Sabbath after crucifixion, 686. — The sepulchre guarded. 687. — Preparations for embalming, 687. — A vision in the sepulchre, 688. — A message to Peter, 688. — John and Peter, 689. — Mary of Magdala sees Jesus, 690.— Her obedience, 690.— The other women, 691.— The watch, 691.— The Sanhedrim, 691.— The conspiracy, 692. — On the way to Emmaus, 693. — Jesus reveals himself, 695. —He appears to Peter, 696. — First assembly of the disciples. 697. — Jesus in their midst, 697. — The Holy Spirit, 698. — Absolution, 698. — Thomas incredulous, 699. — The second assemblage, 700. II. The' Apostles in Galilee, 700.— Jesus by the lake, 701. — Peter's ordeal, 702.— A prediction, 703. — John, 703. . III. Tabor. 704. — "Five hundred brethren at once," 704. — Jesus reappears, 705. — The commission, 705.— The last recorded word, 705.— Jesus's concept of God, 706.— All restrictions removed, 706. — A universal religion, 707. — A claim and a prediction, 707. — The fulfilmp.nt, 707. IV. The Ascension, 709. Appendices. Chronology of the Birth of Jesus, 711.— Capernaum, 711. — Addition to note on page 189, 711.— Slaves at Jubilee, 711.— Mary of Magdala, 712. — A translation explained, 712. — Discipline, 712. The woman taken hi adultery, 713.— Bethany =Bethabara, 713. — Translation of Mattiew rriv. 10, 713.— Physical cause of the death of Jesus, 713. Description of Illustrations, 729. o/ne' S^mm' or p/m' oA / atwnd>. Ikfrt of lien f Ijc Bations ujlricl) are $aneo aflalh in tbe Ctgljt PART I. THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS FROM B.O. 6 TO A.D. 8-ABOUT THIRTEEN YEARS AND A HALT. CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY EVENTS. In the reign of Herod the Great, in Judea, lived Zacharias and Elizabeth. They were of priestly descent and of great age, were childless and without hope of children. Their Jives had been blameless. Their family, their employment, and their character gave them an air of sanctity. Zacharias was of the course of Abia, being the eighth of the twenty-four courses established by David. (1 Chron. xxiv. 10.) One day, in the order of his course, according to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of Jehovah. While engaged in this solemn act, he beheld an apparition standing on the right side of the altar of incense. The sight troubled Zacharias. Luke says it was an angel, and that Zacharias was told by the angel that his name was Gabriel. This is the name of the man whom Daniel had 15 16 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. Birth of John announced. seen in a vision, and from whom he learned the time when the Messiah should appear. (Daniel ix. 21-23. Gabriel=Man oi God.) Gabriel predicted to Zacharias that Eliza- beth should bear a son, whose name should be called John (in Hebrew, Jehoanan, meaning the gift of Jehovah, equivalent to Theodore) ; that he should drink neither wine nor strong drink (Numbers vi. 1-21), but that he should be filled with the Holy Ghost, and have the power and office of Elias, namely, to go before the Lord and turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and to make the people ready for the Lord, as Malachi had predicted in the last words of the Old Testament. Zacharias, being incredulous, asked a sign of Gabriel. It was given. He was to be dumb until the birth of his child. While this was going on, the whole congregation — at this time viiusually large — were silently praying in the outer court. The people wondered at the tarrying of Zacharias. "When he came forth he could not speak. From his solemn manner and speech- lessness the people concluded that he had seen a vision. They were then in expectation of the Messiah. Zacharias finished his week's work and departed to his own house, which was probably in Hebron, or Juttah. There Eliza- beth conceived, and hid herself five months, saying, " Thus hath Jehovah dealt with me, in the days wherein He looked on me, to take away my reproach among men." As a Deliverer was always looked for, the highest desire of a Hebrew bride, in the line of David, was to become a mother — if perhaps it might be, mother of the great Expected King. Barrenness, therefore, was a reproach. While Elizabeth was quietly awaiting her time in the hill coun- try of Judea, another wonder occurred in the obscure little city of Nazareth, in the heart of Galilee of the Gen- tiles, far from the splendid temple where Zacha- rias had beheld his vision. In that remote place dwelt a simple Hebrew maiden, whose name was Maky. She was poor. Her society was that of the common work-people. She was betrothed to a kinsman, a carpenter,* named Joseph. But royal blood ran * The word translated "carpenter" means any worker in wood, builder of houses or of ships, or maker of wooden furniture. We know that Joseph was not a ship -builder. It is not probable that he was a house-builder, because of the scarcity of wood and the custom of building stone houses. He was probably a maker or mender of furniture. It haa been suggested that he was an architect. PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 17 through her veins, and the gifted King David was her ancestor. So great, however, had been the decline of her people, that even the race of Jewish kings had failed to keep so accurate an account of their genealogy as to save historians from great perplexity. Two tables of genealogy have been preserved — one in the bio- graphical sketch by Matthew, and another in that by Luke. It is noticed that both trace the descent of Joseph rather than of Mary, for whom it is specially Mar !. nea 0gy ° necessary to make a descent from David, seeing that her wonderful Son is reputed to have had no earthly father. But if Mary was the daughter of Jacob, as has been supposed, she was the first cousin of Joseph, so that a table of his genealogy is in fact, if not in form, a table of Mary's. These two tables present very grave difficulties, but not per- haps insurmountable. Matthew says that Joseph was the son of Jacob ; Luke says that he was the son of Heli. The former pre- serves the genealogy of Joseph as legal successor to the throne of David, the latter his private genealogy, showing his real birth as a descendant of David. Jacob and Heli might both have been sons of Matthan, who was thus grandfather to both Joseph and Mary. Jacob might have been Mary's father, as was generally supposed, and Heli Joseph's father. Or, Mary might have been Matthan's granddaughter by her mother, whose name has not been pre- served. This latter is asserted to have been the fact by Hippo- lytus of Thebes, in the 10th century ; but his statement probably rested upon tradition, the value of which we cannot now ascertain. But if it were true, then Jacob might really have had no son, and Matthew gave his name as Matthan's eldest son, because Matthew was making a list of successive heirs to the throne, not of succes- sive progenitors, the latter being the work of Luke. If we compare Luke's personal table with Matthew's official table of genealogy, we find that the lineal descent was broken in Jechonias (Matt. i. 12), who could not have been literally the father of Salathiel, as he is declared childless in Jeremiah xxii. 30. It is clear from this that Matthew could have been giving only the names of the heirs to the throne. And this simple ex- planation, if applied to Matthew's table, according to the Jewish law in Numbers xxvii. 8-11, may go far towards clearing up diffi- culties. Even if, with Dean Alford, we take the ground that the difficulties created by the two tables cannot be solved without 2 18 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. knowledge which we do not possess, it would not be positive proof against the general conclusion which the tables undertake to reach, namely, that Jesus was a descendant of David, because the writers may have had knowledge which we do not possess, — or there may have crept some clerical errors into the text, which do not vitiate the general line. If even the tables were abandoned, there still remain such ev- idences as these : (1). The nearly contemporaneous biographies of , ., Jesus, all indeed upon which we base our knowl- edge of him, speak of him as the " Son of Da- vid." He was repeatedly addressed as such, and never declined the title. Unless we accept it, we are obliged to consider Jesus an arrant impostor. There can be no middle ground. So great a man could never, without being a very bad man, be party to what the gifted M. Renan mischievously calls " innocent frauds" a solecism in language and a contradiction in thought.* (2). Paul was a scrupulous Pharisee. He knew where to find the records and how to satisfy himself. In 2 Tim. ii. 8 he speaks positively of " Jesus Christ of the seed of David," '*» a-Trsp^ccrt^ &*$}. (3). " The Emperor Domitian was at first uneasy at this illus- trious descent, which might lend itself to ambitious or seditious views, but was reassured on seeing the horny hands of these children of a king, become common artisans." (De Pressense's " Jesus Christ," book ii.) * M. Renan denies the existence of the family of David, on such slender grounds as the following question indi- cates : "If the family of David still formed a distinct and well-known group, how happens it that we never see it figuring by the side of the Sadokites, the Boethuses, the Asmoneans, or the Herods, in the great struggles of the times?" (Life of Jesus, ch. xv.) That is fery good for a poet, but very poor for a historian. A question may be answered by a question : Should not M. Renan have known that when he wrote there were delapsed families of royal blood liv- ing in Europe, who were not ' 'figuring by the side" of the Bonapartes or the Bis- marcks, ' ' in the great struggles of these times " ? He says the Asmoneans never claimed descent from David. Is that an argument ? Because people who do not belong to a certain family make no claim to the relationship, is that a proof that another man's claim is false ? He admits that Jesus seemed to take pleas- ure in the name of the " Son of David," ' ' for he performed most graciously those miracles which were sought of him in this name." And to verify this M. Re- nan cites several passages in Matthew, Mark, and Luke ! Is it not surprising that any man can be in such a moral state as to write a glowing, almost ador- ing, poetical romance of one whom he begins by representing as a sneaking impostor? In that view the " Vie de Jesus " is the most remarkable mora) phenomenon in modern literature. PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 19 The simple maiden Mary was residing in Nazareth, a small town among the hills which constitute the south ridges of Leba- non. The historians give her no worship, no idealizing, no halo. They describe her as a quiet soul, looking and longing for the salvation of her nation. Her becoming a mother was supernatu- ral, in the sense of a loftier class of influences bearing down upon that world we call " the natural," by which we can reasonably mean only so much of the chain of cause and effect as we discern. It is as unphilosophical to deny supernature as to deny nature. In writing history we must follow our best authorities, and how- ever unsatisfactory they may be, they will always be our best until better be found. In this history we must mainly follow the writ- ers called the Evangelists. If they set forth before us what Neander calls "the divine ideal become a reality," shall we throw away this finest thing because it is so fine % Elizabeth was in her sixth month of retirement, when Mary, a virgin, saw an angelic apparition in the city of Nazareth. The angel is called Gabriel by the historians. Perhaps this is the name he gave to Mary. Her report of the ann0U nced. interview was that the angel said to her, " Hail, highly favored ! The Lord is with you ; and blessed are you among women ! " This annunciation troubled the simple maiden, and she began to think what it might mean, when the angel spoke again and said, " Fear not, Mary : for you have found favor with God. And, see ! you shall conceive and bear a son, shall call his name Jesus.* called the Son of the Most High. , and you And he shall be great, and shall be And the Lord God shall give him the throne of his father David, and he shall rule the house of Jacob through the ages, and of his kingdom there shall be no end." Knowing herself to be of the lineage of David, she had no surprise at the assumption that her son should be a descendant of the great king; but that she should be at once a mother and a virgin was a puzzle to her, and she took courage to say as much to the angel. The angelic reply was, " The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall invest you * Jestis = Joshua == a Saviour. Joshua was a common name at that time, and the reason for its bestowment upon this Child of Miracle is given in Matt. i. 21, because he should "save his people from their sins." 20 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. like a cloud, in order that the holy thing shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, Elizabeth, your relative, even she is preg- nant with a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month to her called barren : for nothing is impossible with God." Mary was as devout as she was modest, and she said to the angel, "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word." And the angel left her, and she patiently awaited all the terrible misapprehensions and perils to which this honor God was about to give her would certainly ex- pose her. Yery shortly after this Mary paid a visit to her cousin Eliza- beth, in the "Highlands" of Judea, to congratulate that relative upon the prospective joys of maternity, and per- Elizabeth. na P s to receive counsel for her own behavior in her peculiar circumstances. She entered the house of Zacharias, and upon the delightful surprise caused by her salutation Elizabeth felt the first life-movement of her own unborn babe, and cried out with joy, "Happy are you among women, and happy your offspring ! And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me ? For lo ! as soon as the voice of your salutation sounded in my ears, the babe leaped within me for joy.* And blessed is she that believed : for there shall be a performance of those things that were told her of Jehovah!" Then Mary, as if by sudden inspiration, uttered that glorious canticle which the Christian church has made one of its chief hymns under the title of the Magnificat, and which is recorded in Luke i. 46-55. The Magnificat. " My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit exults in God my Saviour ; for He has looked on the low condition of His servant ; for, behold, from this time all generations shall call me blessed, because the mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is His name ; and His mercy is to generations and generations of them that fear Him. He has made strong His arm ; He has scattered the proud with the thought of their hearts ; He has brought down the mighty from thrones, and exalted the humble ; He has filled the hungry with goods, and sent the rich * Physicians designate this symp- tom of advanced gestation by the name of "quickening." It is a common phe- nomenon, produced by any sudden em© tion. PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 21 Birth of John. away eir.pty. He has helped Israel his servant, and remembered his mercy as he said to our fathers, to Abraham and his posterity forever." * After this Mary stayed with Elizabeth three months, until just before the birth of John, and then returned to her own home in Nazareth. Elizabeth's full time came, and she was the mother of a son. Her relatives and neighbors collected to congratulate her. On the eighth day, according to Jewish law, the child was to be circumcised. Some near relative seems to have attempted to officiate in the place of Zacharias, who was still dumb. He gave him his father's name, but the mother inter- posed and said, " No ; but he shall be called John," a name not belonging to her husband's family, but known in the house of Levi and among the Maccabaean princes. The friends remon- strated with Elizabeth, and appealed to Zacharias, who surprised the company by writing upon his tablets, " His name is John." Immediately his dumbness left him, and he broke forth into a canticle, which the Christian church has since preserved under the name of the JBenedictus. The Benedictus. "Blessed is the Lord, the God of Israel, because He has visited and redeemed 1 lis people, and raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David His servant, as He said by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old ; a salvation from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us, to perform His mercy with our fathers, and to remem- ber His holy covenant, the oath which he swore to Abraham our father, to grant us without fear, being delivered froni the hand of our enemies, to serve Him in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. "And you, little child, shall be called a prophet of the Most High; for you shall go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give a knowledge of salvation to His people, with a forgiveness of sins, on account of the com- passionate mercies of our God, by which a morning from on high has visited us, to illuminate those sitting in darkness and the shade of death, to direct our feet in the way of peace." The extraordinary circumstances attending the birth of John * We shall come often on the word translated "forever." In our English dictionaries and philosophical books we write it ceon. The Greek is a, and signifies a life -time of anything — the space of time in which anything exists. " Through the aeon " means while that thing or that state of affairs exists. Here it means as long as the posterity of Abraham exists. It does not involve the idea of absolute endlessness. E'tj top aiuiva may be translated " perpetu- ally." 22 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. produced a profound impression upon all who saw and heard. The fame of these things spread throughout the o s eary i an d ? an d deepened the conviction of the people that their nation was on the eve of great events, and quickened their hopes of speedy deliverance from the Roman yoke. The age of the prophets seemed to be rolled back. Per- haps this was Elijah ; he might even be the Messiah. And thus the very birth of John was a harbinger of Jesus. The boy grew in physical and mental vigor, in virtue and moral energy. As he approached manhood he separated himself from his worldly countrymen and hid himself in the deserts of Judea, a thinly peopled region west of the Dead Sea, where he gave himself to a life of asceticism and religious study until the time of his entrance upon his public ministry. AND FRUIT OP THE Ci ROB. — " HUSKS." CHAPTER II. BERTH OF JESUS I ITS DATE. The birth of Jesus occurred under the following circumstances: Joseph, to whom Mary was espoused, was a devout Jew. He knew nothing of the announcement which had been made to her by the angel. After her return from the visit to Elizabeth it became apparent that she was about to become a mother. Shocked at the discovery, Joseph thought of making an example of her. But his love was not wholly destroyed by her supposed misconduct, and he was minded to put her away privily, which was a milder course, as it saved her from the shame of public exposure. Pondering these things in his troubled and affectionate heart, he had a dream, in which the angel said, " Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto you Mary, your wife ; for that which is con- ceived in her is of the Holy Ghost; and she shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his peo- ple from their sins." Joseph seems to have been addressed by the title, " Son of David," as if the angel would assure him that though he came of royal blood, there should be no humiliation to him by taking Mary to wife. Joseph rose from his sleep next day and did as he had been bidden in the dream, taking his bride to his own home and await- ing the unfolding of events. In due time the great event occurred. Jesus was born. The date and the place of this Great Birth are important and intimately connected. Before other things let us strive to settle, as nearly as we may, the question of the time of the advent of Jesus to the world. Examination of /-. -i i tiio the chronology. Can we ascertain the year, the month, the day ? Christmas has been celebrated in the Latin Church, as the anni- versary of the birth of Jesus, on the 25th of December, and the year has been marked as the 754th after the founding of the city 24 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESU8. of Rome.* The tradition of the Latin Church first appears in the writings of Augustine, who was born a.d. 354, too late to make Uim any authority on such a question. It is now well ascertained that the point from which the Christian Era is dated is several years later than the actual xamma ion o j^^ f C nr j s t. He was born in some year B.C., the year. ° ' Before Christ. Let the reader recollect this. It may seem anomalous to have any other day for the Chris- tian epoch than the very day on which Jesus was really born ; but as the chronology of Christendom had gone on for years before thorough investigation was made, to whatever results they lead it would now clearly be impracticable to rectify the error. The confusion caused by adding the years and months and days necessary to conform the first of January, 1871, for instance, with the real time would be a much greater inconveni- ence than following the received chronology, especially when we shall show that the most recent researches and studies exhibit an error even in that of at least one year, and probably more. And this is not a matter affecting any man's faith, but is a mere ques- tion of historical inquiry. If even it could be shown that the evangelist Luke is inexact, his want of exactness is easily explained, and is of no manner of importance for the object which he had in view. In Luke iii. 1, it is recorded that in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod tetrarch of Galilee, John began to f T'b 66 " 1 yea P reacn 5 an( i that at that time " Jesus began to be about thirty years of age? Luke iii. 23. The word "about" must allude to something less than one year, and i af er to months or weeks. The " fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar " is now to be fixed. Tiberius Caesar was admitted to joint rule by Augustus some time before that emperor's death, at which time Tiberius became sole emperor. Does Luke's date refer to his associate reign or his solitary reign ? That it refers to the former is shown thus : * According to Dionysius Exiguus, in the 6th century. One fact shows that is at least four years too late, namely, that Herod died, as Josephus shows (An- tiquities, xviii. 9, § 3, xvii. 8, § 4), in u.c. 750, and Jesus was born before th« death of Herod. BIRTH OF JESUS I ITS DATE. 25 (1.) The public ministry of Jesus must, at the lowest calcula- tion, have covered between two and three years, as not less than three, and probably four, Passovers occurred. (See John ii. 13 ; vi. 4; xii. 1 ; v. 1.) It may have occupied more than three. Let us say two, of which we are certain. (2.) That public ministry closed, as all admit, during the con- sulship of the two Gemini, and that is fixed, as all agree, in the fifteenth year after the death of Augustus. Then Jesus could not have begun his ministry in the fifteenth year of the sole reign of Tiberius, and it must have been in the fifteenth year of some other reign, that is, of his associate reign. When did that associate reign begin ? Comparing Suetonius with Dio Cassius, it appears that Tiberius returned to Rome, triumphed, and dedicated temples in the consul- ship of M. Emilius Lepidus and T. Statilius Taurus,* in the month of January. It would seem that this is the time of his probable accession to joint power Avith Augustus. Indeed Suetonius says : ".Not long after (the dedication of the temples) a law being pro- posed by the senate that he (Tiberius) should administer the government of the provinces in common with Augustus, he departed into Illyricum." It must have been, at longest, only a few weeks after January of this year. Let us say February. Now the consulship of M. Emilius Lepidus and T. Statilius Taurus was in the third year before the death of Augustus. When did Augustus die? On the 19th of August, in the year in which Sextus Appu- leius and Sextus Pompeius were consuls. What a.d. was that % From some ascertained coincidence of an event in some con- sulship with a certain year in our era modern chronologers have reckoned back and arranged the consular tables so that we have : .. £.. j M. Aur. Yerus Anton. Cses., called the Philosopher. Death of Augus- tus. L. ^Elius Aur. Yerus Cses., called " Commodus." In copying and otherwise it seems that some confusion has come are very important in these investigations. The Romans kept their dates by consulships as we do by the "Year of our Lord." The preser- vation of the succession of consuls was of the utmost importance in their chro- nology. It is as if we had no A.D., and the English dated everything by the year of their reigning sovereign, and the Americans by the year of their Presi- dent. The Fasti among the Romans were marbles in which were carved this succession of consuls. Fragments of these marbles still exist. A.D. 16(M A.D. 161 I 26 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. in at this point of the chronological calculation, and two sets oi consuls have been shrunk into one year. The authority of three lists (those of Cassiodorus, Victorius, and the Paschal Chronicle) makes two years, while that of one list (Idatius) makes one year. It is safer to follow the stronger authority, and by correcting the mistakes of copyists, the consular list at this particular period is restored thus : ' T. El. Aur. Antoninus " Pius," Emperor (who died this year), and M. El. Aurelius Anton., the Philosopher (who suc- ceeded him). M. El. Aurelius Anton., the Philosopher, and L. Aur. Ant. Yerus, called " Commodus." It will be perceived that this pushes back all the other consul- ships one year, so that those for 160 must be placed in a.d. 159, and so all the way back through the list. The consulship of Sextus Appuleius and Sextus Pompeius, usually entered a.d. 14 (Julian Period 4727), must be one year earlier. The result is that Augustus died on the 19th of August, a.d. 13:* the associate reign of Tiberius began three years before this, namely, a.d. 10, in February : in the fifteenth year of that reign — between February, a.d. 24, and February, a.d. 25 — Jesus reached his thirtieth year. This is marked, because it was the legal time of entering upon the Jewish priesthood, and was the age at which Jesus actually began his public ministry. From that date deduct thirty years, and the conclusion is reached that Jesus was born between the Februaries of the years 6 and 7 before the beginning of the Vulgar Era. Seeing that this event has been by different writers assigned to every month in the year, can we ascertain the very day f If not, let us see how nearly it can be approximated. The Latin Church has kept the 25th of December; the Greek Church originally observed the 6th of January, but subsequently came over to the Latin calendar. Neither date has any conclusive authority. According to Josephus, Jerusalem was taken m the second year of the reign of Vespasian, on the 8th day of Sep- E !r in f i° n ° f tember, a.d. 70, which was in the year of the month and day. . ■ ' ' _ 1 ^ _ city (a.tt.) 823, and the temple was destroyed on * Be careful to notice that this is | the actual birth of Jesus. the Vulgar Era, not an era dated from BIRTH OF JESUS J ITS DATE. 27 the 4th of August. According to the Jewish Mishna — compiled in Palestine toward the close of the second century — on that day the first sacerdotal class of the twenty-four which officiated in rotation, each a week (1 Chron. xxiv., and Nehemiah xii.), entered upon their duties. Computing the number of sacerdotal cycles between a.d. 70 and b.c 8, we ascertain * that on the 4th day of August, b.c 8, there were nine weeks and five days needed to complete the cycle. Add these to 4th of August and we reach October 11 as the recommencement of the cycle. The eighth class, that to which, according to Luke i. 5, Zacharias belonged, would enter upon duty on the forty-ninth day after October 11 ; that is, November 29 (b.c. 8). A simple arithmetical calculation shows that Zacharias must have been serving on the following days : B.c. 9. .August 12 I b.c. 8. .July 14 I b.c. 7. .May 16 b.c. 8. .January 27 | b.c. 8. .November 29 I b.c. 7. .October 31 Add to these dates fourteen months and twenty-two days, by which allowance is made of seven days for Zacharias' s ministry, five months and fifteen days for Elizabeth's time before the Annun- ciation, and the usual period of nine months for Mary's time, from the Annunciation to the birth of Jesus, and you have the follow ing table : b.c. 8. .November 3 I b.c 7. .October b.c. 7. .April 18 1 b.c 6. .February 6 I b.c 6. .August 7 20 I b.c 5.. January 22 These six dates are all that seem possible on the calculation by the courses of the priests. It is not necessary to point out objec- tions to any single date, as our previous calculations have shown that it must have been b.c. 6. Was it February 20 or August 7 ? To decide between these dates we are helped by the statement in Luke ii. 8, that at the Nativity "there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night." Would this have been in the month of February % In Buhle's Economical Calendar of Palestine (it may be found as the 454th of the fragments in the 4to edition of Calmet), which contains a very satisfactory account of the weather for each month, it is shown that February is rainy and snows are frequent * In this way : The interval between the dates is 77 years, being 28,124 days, being 4,017 weeks and 5 days, which, divided by 24, gives 166 cycles, with 9 weeks and 5 days over. 28 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. in the southern part. It was not a month for shepherds to be watching their flocks at night in the open air. Nor is it probable that the enrolment which was had at the imperial order would have been assigned to so distressing a portion of the year, nor that Mary, in her condition, conld have taken this journey in February. The 7 th day of August, b.c. 6 (a.tj.c. 747), is the nearest approach we can make to the date of the birth of Jesus. Within a fort- night of that day this great event most probably Jesus born pro- occurre d. BC q In reaching this date I have used the most direct and most trustworthy mode of calculation, and yet find only a probable conclusion, after having read an im- mense amount of matter on this question. It is annoying to see learned men use the same apparatus of calculation and reach the most diverse results.* It is bewildering to attempt a reconcilia- tion of these varying calculations. It may be proper to consider the other data used in these calculations, and give the reader the benefit of the latest investigations. It is recorded in Matthew ii. 1-10: " Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is bom King of the Jews ? for we have seen his proximation. ** &P " star * n tne east ' an ^ are come to worship him. When He- rod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judea : for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda : for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel. Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child ; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also. When they had heard the king, they departed ; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy." * For example : the birth of our Lord is placed in B.C. 1 by Pearson and Hug; B.C. 2 by Scaliger; B.C. 3 by Baronius ind Paulus ; B.c. 4 by Bengel, Wieseler, and Greswell; B.C. 5 by Usher and Pe- tavius; B.C. 6 by Strong, Luvin, and Clark; B.C. 7 by Ideler and Sancle- mente. BIRTH OF JESUS : ITS DATE. 29 " The data in this passage furnish little help towards precision, but do fix the exterior limit of the Nativity. "We learn from it that Christ was born before the death of He- -i jttjj*j' j* t i- Date of Herod's rod y and Herod died, according to Josepnus , , (Ant. xvii. 8, § 1), 'having reigned thirty-four years from the time that he had procured Antigonus to be slain ; but thirty-seven from the time he had been declared king by the Romans ' (see also B. J. i. 33, § 8). His appointment as king, according to the same writer (Ant. xiv. 14, § 5), coincides with the 184th Olympiad, and the consulship of C. Domitius Calvinus and C. Asinius Pollio. It appears that he was made king by the joint influence of Antony and Octavius ; and the reconciliation of these two men took place on the death of Fulvia, in the year 714. Again, the death of Antigonus and the siege of Jerusalem, which form the basis of calculation for the thirty-four years, co- incide (Joseph. Ant. xiv. 16, § 4) with the consulship of M. Yip- sanius Agrippa and L. Caninius Gallus, that is, with the year of Rome 717 ; and occurred in the month Sivan (= June or July). From these facts we are justified in placing the death of Herod in a.tj.c. 750. Those who place it one year later overlook the mode in which Josephus reckons Jewish reigns. Wieseler shows by several passages that he reckons the year from the month Nisan to Nisan, and that he counts the fragment of a year at either extreme as one complete year. In this mode, thirty-four years, from June or July, 717, would apply to any date between the first of Msan, 750, and the first of Msan, 751. And thirty- seven years from 714 would apply likewise to any date within the same termini. Wieseler finds facts confirmatory of this in the dates of the reigns of Herod Antipas and Archelaus (see his Chronologische Synqpse, p. 55). Between these two dates Josephus furnishes means for a more exact determination. Just after Herod's death the Passover occurred (Nisan 15th), and upon Herod's death Archelaus caused a seven-days' mourning to be kept for him (Ant. xvii. 9, § 3, xvii. 8, § 4) ; so that it would appear that Herod died somewhat more than seven days before the Passover in 750, and therefore in the first few days of the month Nisan, a.tj.c. 750." — Smith's Dictionary (Hurd & Hough- ton's edition), p. 1381). It has also been noticed that Josephus mentions (Ant. xvii. 6, 4 fin.) an eclipse of the moon not long before the death of He- 30 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. rod, which by calculation can have been only that which occurred on the night between March 12 and March 13, a.u.c 750. Now, as Jesus was born before the death of Herod, it follows that the Dionysian era, which corresponds to a.u.c. 754, is at least four years too late. But the question arises, How long before Herod's death did the Nativity occur ? We can approximate this only by allowing suffi- cient space for all the events which are recorded, Astronomical . . . „ . __„. _. _ , _ y calculations. namely, the journey or the Wise Men and the sojourn of Joseph and Mary in Egypt. An as- tronomical calculation by Kepler found a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, in the sign of the Pisces, a.u.c. 747, which is before the vulgar era 6, the date I assigned to the Birth. But Kepler found the same conjunction again in the spring of the next year, with the planet Mars added, and from this would place the Birth in 748. But Ideler, on the same kind of calculation, places it in 747. Although these calculations favor the date which, for other reasons, I believe to be correct, I place no great reliance upon them, because we have no certainty that the star mentioned in Matthew has the same time as the celestial phenomenon found by astronomical calculations. The coincidence, however, must be acknowledged as very interesting. In Matthew ii. 16, it is said that Herod, when he saw that the Wise Men had mocked him, was very angry, and sent and slew all Killing- of the the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all children in Beth- the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, lehem. « according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the Wise Men." How long before Herod's death was this ? We have no means of knowing. But it was some time. And that time must be added to the two years which he had learned by diligent inquiry of the Wise Men had elapsed before this slaughter and the time they had seen the star. Then, the Nativity occurred more than two years before another period, which period was some time before the spring or summer of a.u.c 750. If these two undetermined periods amount to one year, then the Nativity is placed somewhere in the summer of A..U.C. 747, the time reached by the date assigned in this work. But this is presented as only an approximation. Luke (ii. 1-7) says : " It came to pass in those days that there we fit out a decree from Csesar Augustus that all the world should BIRTH OF JESUS ! ITS DATE. Difficult pas- be taxed ; and this taxing was first made when Cyrenius [Quirinus] was governor [that is, proconsul or lord-lieuten- The Taxin ^ ant] of Syria ; and all went to be taxed, every one to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Gali- lee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the house, and lineage of David), to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her first-born son." . . . This is admitted to be one of the most perplexing passages in the Evangelists. Dean Alford thinks it unmanageable. Neander thinks it may be inexact. The destructive critics have made the most of it as affecting the author- ity of the Evangelists. It does not seem to help us in settling the date of the Nativity, but as it will help us to something much more important than the mere date, we must consider its difficulties, which are simply chrono- logical. 1. It is said that there is no record in any other history of a census of the whole Roman empire under Augustus. It has been argued in reply that the Legis Actiones Objections :— and their abrogation were quite as important in No other history respect to the early Roman history as the Census of this census - of the Empire was to the latter, and as Livy, Dionysius, and Polybius make no record of the former, we are not to be sur- prised that later historians do not mention the latter. Our knowl- edge of the former is derived from a law-book, namely, " The Institutes of Gains : " if any perfect copy of a similar law book, covering the times of the alleged census, made no mention of it, then the argument from silence (argumentum de tacittwnitate) might have some force.* It is to be remembered that Suetonius and Tacitus are very brief, and that in the history by Dio Cassius there is a gap of ten years, from a.tt.c 747 to 757, the very period in which Luke says the census was begun. The argument from silence would prove that no important events occurred in * Huschke in Wieseler, p. 78. The ■ame author says: "If Suetonius in his life [of Augustus] does not mention this census, neither does Spartian in his life of Hadrian devote a single syllable to the edictum perpetuum, which, in later times, has chiefly adorned th« name of that emperor. " O'A THE B1ETH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. the long reign of Augustus, except those which the fragmentary history of the times has preserved. But it is known that the subtle Augustus was centralizing the empire, and that about five years before the birth of Jesus all the procurators of the empire were brought over to his control. (Dion. Cass., liii. 32.) From several sources we learn that esti- mates of the empire were being made about this time, enrolments which required many years for their completion. And unless some proof can be produced to show that no such census was actually had, it is to be borne always in mind that, apart from all notion of inspiration, as m,ere human authority Luke is,, to say the least, as good as Tacitus, Philo, Josephus, or any other ancient historian whose works have been preserved. 2. It is said that if such a census had been ordered it would not have included Judea, which was not yet a Boman province. It would not I n re pty> reference is made to a passage in Taci- have included Ju- tus. Augustus directed, as we learn, a " brevia- dea - rium totius imperii " to be made, in which, accord ing to Tacitus, " Opes publican continebantur : quantum civium sociorumque in armis, quot classes, regna, provincise, tributa ant vectigalia et necessitates ac largitiones." (Tacit. Ann., i. 11.) If the " soeiorum," "regna," and " provincise " did not elude such a principality as Herod's, it would be difficult to lei. n to what these words are to be applied. Moreover, the -connection of Judea with the province of Syria, first established by Pompey, was never considered as dissolved by Herod's elevation to the throne. 3. It is objected that the Roman mode of taking the census was according to actual residence. But, even if that was so, and even if the census of Augustus did not neces- mode sarily embrace Judea, we know that Herod at this time had state reasons for desiring to propitiate the emperor, and might on that account have ordered a census ; which, as he did it as of his own motion, he might prefer to take in the Jewish way, that is, in the place whence the family sprung, rather than in the Roman manner, that is, in the place of actual residence. Or even if Herod had simply proclaimed a census, it is quite easy to see that the Jews would prefer to go to the place of nativity, as that had been their custom. 4. Again, it is objected that the state of Mary's health would BIBTH OF JESUS I ITS DATE. 33 have precluded such a journey. It is answered, that if the enrol ment was made by tribes, a Jew of the house and Mary > s h ea ith. lineage of David would make great exertions and sacrifices to present himself in his proper place and secure the recognition of his position. This motive would operate equally upon Joseph and Mary, as both were of the family of David. Quiet women have enormous reservoirs of determination. When one of them sets her heart on any course it is only an insur- mountable obstacle that can divert her. 5. Another objection is that Luke seems to say that this census did not take place until at least ten years later. (Luke ii. 2.) This brings us to the real difficulty in the passage. It is an ob- jection urged by Dr. Strauss, but not by him fairly put. {Leben J~esu, i. iv. 32.) Let us examine this. Luke makes two statements : (1.) That Augustus decreed a taxing. (2.) That this taxing was made when Cyrenius was gov- ernor of Syria. Let the distinction between the statements be noticed. The first has been estab- ments seem con- lished above, as I think, conclusively. The his- tradictory. torian Luke asserts it, and there is nothing in history, so far as we now know, to cast the slightest discredit on it. The difficulty is to reconcile the second statement of Luke with his first, or to clear away somehow the difficulties of the passage. Cyrenius was governor twelve years after the date of the Nativity assigned above, and this passage seems to make the birth of Jesus to have occurred during his governorship. The following explanations are tendered : (a.) Herod undertook the census after the Jewish form, accord- ing to the imperial decree, but died before it was finished. The Evangelist knew that as soon as a census was t .,, -r . , , . ; How explained, mentioned persons conversant with Jewish history would think at once of the census which was had about twelve years later, after the banishment of Archelaus, which was notori- ously a Roman census, and caused an insurrection (Josephus, Ant. *cviii. 1, § 1), and therefore he added the second verse, which is equivalent to this : " No census was actually completed then : and I knew that the first Roman census was had after the banishment of Archelaus ; but the decree went out much earlier, namely, in the time of Herod." This is the explanation of Dr. Thomson, Archbishop of York. 3 84: the smiH Am) childhood of jestts. (b.) Cyrenius, it is said, may have been twice governor. Prof. A. W. Zumpt, of Berlin, has published a work entitled Com- mentatio de Syria Romanorum provincia a Ccesare Augusto ad T. Vespasianum, in which, by a long course of argument, he shows that it is probable Cyrenius was twice governor ; but then he makes his first term of office too late by several years to agree with our date of the Nativity. Lardner (i. 329) suggests, which is perhaps better, that he was* a commissioner extraordinary sent from Rome for the special purpose of superintending this census ; and we learn from Tacitus that he had a special fitness for this kind of work, and was at this time absent in the East. (c.) Helief is sought on the side of philology. The passage in the Original (Luke ii. 2) is, avrr] a7roypa l oca ti n there have never been li. Bethlehem, ° ..,.,., , -_ . the birthplace of doubts. It is identical with the present Beit- Jesus. Lahm, " House of Flesh," of the Arabs. It is six miles, and two hours' travel, south from Jerusalem, east of the main road to Hebron. (Robinson's ^Researches in Palestine, vol. ii., p. 159.) BETHLEHEM EPHEATH. The original name of the town was Epheath, or Epheatah. In Micah v. 2, it is called Bethlehem-Epheatah. Its first PLACE OF THE BIRTH : THE CIRCUMCISION. 37 fame came to it from its being the birthplace of David, who, however, did nothing to advance it, even after his elevation to the throne. His ancestor Boaz had possessions here, and in some of the meadows in sight of the town Ruth gleaned. But it never rose to the dignity of a capital. The birth of Jesus has made it to be known to the whole world. Since that event tradition has never lost sight of Bethlehem. Justin Martyr visited it in the second century ; Origen in the third ; afterwards Eusebius, Jerome, the Bordeaux Pilgrim, and thousands of others. The Emperor Hadrian planted a grove of Adonis on the spot, to desecrate it. This grove kept up the identification. It remained from 135 to 315 a.d. About a.d. 330, Constantine or the Empress Helena erected a church which remains to this day. In the twelfth cen- tury it was elevated into an episcopal see. There is shown a cave in which Jesus is said to have been born ; but the precise spot can- not now be known, and it seems absurd to suppose that cattle were kept twenty feet under ground. But we know the town.* * The birth of Jesus in Bethlehem be- ing coincident with the prophecies of the birthplace of the Messiah, the destruc- tive critics attack it as being a false statement ; but it is observable that no one has proved its incorrectness, nor even presented anything worth calling an argument. For instance, Dr. Strauss (Book i. 31) says: "But the opposite hypothesis as to the original dwelling- place of his parents, from which these Evangelists start in the accounts they give, shows that they are not following any historical authority, but simply a dogmatic conclusion, drawn from the passage in the prophet Micah, v. 1. " Can such modes mislead thinking men ? A historian says that two people, husband and wife, live in New York, but finding it important to go to London in person on or before a given day, to attend to mat- ters of great importance, the wife is theie delivered of a son, the distinguished subject of the historian's biography, and who afterwards spends a great part of bis life in New York. Some subsequent critic says: "Nay, but he was born in New York, for does not the historian ' start ' with that as ' the original dwell- ing-place of his parents ? ' " Such a critic would equal Dr. Strauss. But then Dr. Strauss proceeds on the theory that he was a native of Nazareth. Why not say he was born at Damascus ? On what authority do these writers assume that he was born in Nazareth ? On the au- thority of the Evangelists. Dr. Strauss makes fifteen references to the four Evangelists, which, if the reader will consult, will be found to contain no state- ment whatever as to his birthplace, but simply speak of Jesus as a Nazarene or a Galilean. Two (Matt, xxvi 69, 71) are the accusations made against Peter by women, that he was an associate of " Je- sus of Galilee," or " Jesus of Nazareth." A third is the speech of the unclean spirit (Mark i. 24), " What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth ? " A fourth is Mark's account of what Mat- thew gives in chapter xxvi. A fifth is Luke xviii. 37, where the blind man in- quires the meaning of the noise, and the multitude tell him that " Jesus oi Naza- reth passes by. " This is the amount of Dr. Strauss' s argument. 38 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. It lies on the eastern and northeastern brow of a ridge, run ning east and west, from the top of which there is an exten- The utter want of fairness is seen in three ways : 1. In the case supposed above, of an American born of American parents in London, his subsequently re- turning and being called ' ' Mr. Blank, of New York," or " Mr. Blank, the Ameri- can," would certainly not prove that he was born in New York, and most certainly not prove that he was not born in Lon- don. 2. Take his reference to Luke. To prove that Jesus was born in Nazareth he produces the reply of a miscellaneous crowd to a beggar. They called him a "Nazarene." But if that passage in Luke be good authority we must take the whole, what the beggar said as well as what the multitude said. The beggar cried out, "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me." Then Jesus was gener- ally reputed to be the son of David. But this Dr. Strauss denies, and because he is following ' ' simply a dogmatic conclu- sion drawn from " his theory of myths, he is anxious to show that Jesus was not born in Bethlehem, the city of David, and was not the son of David at all, and was not believed to be the son of David. (Leben Jesu, chap. ii. ) But his own au- thority confutes him. 3. He cites Luke xxiv. 19 to prove that Jesus was born in Nazareth. Does Luke, in that passage or any where else, say so ? Not at all. But this same Luke, Dr. Strauss's wit- ness, does say, distinctly, ii. 6, 7, that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. In all this there is nothing supernatu- ral, so that Dr. Strauss might not answer that we had gone out of the region of realities. It is purely a matter of fact. If Dr. Strauss denied the whole, and said, " No man knows where Jesus was born," it would be another thing. But he affirms that he was born in Nazareth. It was no more miraculous to be born in Bethlehem than in Nazareth. But it does connect Jesus with the house of David, and does connect him with what the Jews regarded as a prophecy, and so obstinate is Dr. Strauss in his adherence to his naturalistic theory, that no fair reader of his book can fail to see that there never was a theologic zealot more bent to his creed than Dr. Strauss to his dogma. But historians must avoid all dogmatism. M. Renan (chap, ii.) says distinctly, " Jesus was born at Nazareth." Why not say that he was born at Capernaum ? What is his authority ? He has none but Matthew, Mark, and John! He cites Matthew (xiii. 54, et seq.). The reader will see upon inspection that there is not the slightest allusion whatever to the birthplace of Jesus, or of any other per- son, in any portion of this chapter. It simply speaks of the return of Jesus to his own country, but does not say where that country is ; and if it be assumed to be Nazareth, that would not prove that he was born there, as thousands of men who were born in Europe speak of Amer ica as their country, since it has been their place of residence for many years. The fact that in manhood Jesus should speak of Nazareth as his country, and others should so speak of him, has no bearing on the question of the place of his nativity. But how does M. Renan know that this is a fact ? On the au- thority of Matthew. Then Matthew is his witness, and he says explicitly that Jesus was born in, Bethlehem (ii. 1). Again, M. Renan cites Mark, and refers to vi. 1, where it is written : " And he went out from thence and came into his own country." No mention is made of any town in the whole passage. And this is cited to prove that Jesus was bom in Nazareth ! ! M. Renan' s last authority is John i. 45, 46, where it is said that Philip found Nathanael and said: "We have found PLACE OF THE BIKTH I THE CIRCUMCISION. 39 Bive view toward the east and south, in the direction of Jericho, the Dead Sea, and the mountains of Moab. In the time of the captivity there was an inn, or caravanserai, close to Bethlehem, which appears to have been a point of departure for Egypt. (Jeremiah xli. 17.) Perhaps this was the very inn where Jesus was born. The prophet Micah (v. 2) had said of this city of David : " Thou Bethlehem-Ephratah ! though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall he come unto me to be the Ruler of Israel ; whose goings forth have been from old, from the days of eternity ! " It is said that the inn or caravanserai in Bethlehem was so crowded that Joseph and Mary were obliged to find lodging in the stable. There Jesus was born, the first child of Mary.* It would seem that his birth occurred in the night. There him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. " Would any man in a court of law bring such testimony for- ward to establish the birthplace of an individual ? It might prove that Jesus resided at Nazareth when he was about thirty years of age, but it has no bearing whatever upon the question of the place of his nativity. A man having resided in New York a few years, called to make affidavit, might describe himself gener- ally as "of New York," unless the doc- uments were known by him to be about to be used on the question of the place of his nativity or citizenship. The fact that John says that Philip spoke of Jesus at thirty as being ' ' of Nazareth, " is nothing to the point ; but two historians, one having had personal intercourse for years with the subject of his biography, say distinctly that he was born in Beth- lehem, and that settles the question until better evidence can be produced showing that he was born elsewhere. Of a piece with this is M. Kenan's Btatement in Life of Jesus, chap. xv. : " The family of David had become, it would seem, long since extinct," when M. Renan, as one of his notes shows, knew that the doctors Hillel and Gama- liel were reputed of the race of David, and Dr. Strauss' s reference to Luke xviii. brings up a passage in which a blind beggar by the way-side salutes Je- sus as the " son of David," no one of the multitude present objecting, show- ing that Jesus was publicly and notori- ously recognized as of that race and lineage. It is to be noticed how unreliable are the quotations and references of those who attack the Evangelists. A great par- ade is made in foot-notes and parentheses. They look like authority. The shrewd writers knew that not one in a thousand of their readers will consult the passages referred to. Take this instance: M. Renan positively names the place of the birth of Jesus, and then in a foot-note quotes three distinct ancient authors, and gives chapter and verse. That looks like settling the question. But an exam- ination shows that not one of these au- thors alludes in these places to the sub- ject, and one of them, who knew Jesua personally, positively affirms that he was born in another 'place ! * Mary appears to have been the mother of several children, sons and daughters, younger than Jesus. Four sons are named, and daughters are al- luded to in Matthew xiii. 55, and Mark vi. 3. 40 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. were shepherds watching their flocks in one of the pasture grounds, which may still be seen near Bethlehem.* To them appeared INN. CAEAVANSERAI. KHAN. a vision, and they believed that God told them not to fear, that there was born that day, in the city of David, j ' Jesus, who was the Anointed Lord, the Messiah. That they might be assured, it was told them that they should And him in swaddling-clothes and lying in a manger, one of those exterior stalls usually attached to caravanserais. Im- mediately there burst upon the ears of the shepherds a chorus sung by multitudes of voices, saying, " Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will to men." If it be inquired how this statement came into history, the answer is, that it is probable that Luke, when he came to writing the biography of his Master, made diligent search for all he could find of the early life of Jesus, and in that search received from the lips of one of the shepherds his simple account of the transaction. This sounds like the narrative of an eye-witness. It may not have literal accuracy, but it has been noticed how re- markably free it is from all materialism, how very pure and ele-., vated is the statement of the transaction. It occurred as any well- balanced mind might reasonably suppose it would, if the Great Father ever m?„de any such communication to men. The shepherds went to Bethlehem and found the place, the mother and the babe. Then they made known what they had heard in the plain, and returned rejoicing. * About a mile east of Bethlehem I lage of the Shepherds, there is a little village called the Vil- j . PLACE OF THE BERTH : THE CIRCUMCISION. 41 Luke asserts that Mary's child was circumcised, according to the Levitical law, on the eighth day, and received the name of Jesus. t a*"™*" •* Jesus. The Mosaic law required the presentation to the Lord of every first-born male, but allowed children to be redeemed from exclusive devotion to religious pursuits by the payment of five shekels, which is about thirty . ^ su f pre ^ en e r J ' ^ in the temple. American gold dollars. See Levit. xii. 24 ; .Num- bers xviii. 15, 16. At the same time the parents were to offer a sacrifice of a pair of turtle-doves or young pigeons. (Leviticus xii. 8.) In this service consisted the legal purification of the mother. The rich offered a lamb ; the poor gave pigeons. Mary had only doves to bring. If this history had been written by an impostor he would have given a different turn to the story. These sacrifices imply sin. If Jesus be that Holy One from the birth, why were these offer- ings made % The straightforwardness of the story gives a gen- eral air of truthfulness to the whole narrative. There is no myth here. Mythical narratives elevate. This depresses. It places Jesus in the race of sinners. A writer of myths, as Neander suggests, would have brought in an angel to hinder Mary from submitting her child to a ceremony so unworthy his dignity. But here there appears strikingly that mingling of humiliation and glory which marks all the main passages of the life of Jesus. Amid the general spiritual declension of the T ,i . , j -i.j.i.1 i t i. i Simeon and Anna. J ews there existed a little band, not perhaps con- sociated so as to be called a society, but well known to one another, of those who made careful culture of the spiritual life, and who were waiting for some special revelation of mercy from Almighty God. Among these were two aged people, named Simeon and Anna, who looked earnestly for the coming of the Consoler of Israel. Simeon had received what he believed a divine intimation that he should not die before he had seen Je- hovah's Anointed. Moved by special spiritual impulse he came into the temple the very day of Mary's purification, which was forty days after the circumcision of the child. There was something in the babe which responded to the cry of the soul of Simeon. In him he recognized the long-looked- for Redeemer, and taking the child in his arms he broke into that rapture Tvhich the Chris- tian Church has preserved under the name of the Nunc Dimittis : 42 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESTJS. " Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word: for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all the peoples ; a light to enlighten the nations, and the glory of Thy people Israel." (Luke ii. 29-32.) Although Jesus never recognized Joseph as his father, Luke speaks of Joseph and Mary together as the parents of Jesus, as they naturally would generally be taken to be, and says that this display of rapture, upon the part of Simeon, caused Joseph and Mary to marvel. Although Mary knew of Jesus's miraculous birth, each new wonder would impress her with fresh awe. Per- ceiving this, Simeon said to Mary, " Behold, this is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel ; and for a sign to be spoken against ; and a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also, that out of many hearts evil thoughts may be revealed." In the words of Simeon we discover a feeling very much in advance of the general state of the Jewish mind. They display a softness, a hopefulness, and a liberality to which the hard Jew- ish heart of his day was generally a stranger. It contains the idea of development through struggle, a spread beyond the limits of Judaism, and a final triumph, which, while it should break up the exclusiveness of that ancient faith, should bestow upon it a greater glory than any of its anterior traditions. There was also one Anna,» " a prophetess," daughter of Pha nuel, of the tribe of Asher. In early womanhood she had mar ried. After seven years her husband died. She had been more than fifty years a widow, and had devoted herself to the tem- ple-service, not departing from the house of God, whom she served night and day with fasting and prayers. Coming in at this moment she joined Simeon's thanksgiving, and reported the case " to all that looked for redemption in Jerusalem." * * Schleiermacher's conjecture that the narrative came indirectly from Anna Beems plausible, seeing that she is more minutely described than Simeon, while Simeon's words are reported and her's are not. CHAPTEE IV. HIS FIRST TEARS. In the course of the year following the birth of Jesus, there arrived in Jerusalem a company of men described as the " Wise men from the East." (Matt. ii. 1.) Who were they ? Matthew calls them /i&yoi. By this name Magi the Greeks denoted the priests of Persia, just as we now speak of the Brah- mins of India. The Magi may have been a tribe, as Herodotus says thev were. To them among . * ' n ' } lslt " . J , " -r , T & of the Magi. the Persians, as to the Levites among the Jews, were intrusted all the public matters of religion. Their chiefs educated the prince ; they were royal counsellors and judges; they kept sacred traditions, and were thought to be able in various ways to divine the future, especially by watching the stars and by in- terpreting dreams. In the Roman Empire their name was generally assumed by magicians. The bad character of this class is clear from a decree of the Senate, which banished them from Pome in the year 16. Matthew used the term in its original, in its national and honor- able sense. This is certain from Herod's honorable treatment of these Magi. For in the whole world there were only two classes of men who would have been at all safe in coming to the capital of so jealous and bloody a tyrant with the question, "Where is he that is born King of the Jews ? " even though, as was the case with these Magi, they were understood to be seeking not for a spiritual, but for a temporal lord ; these two classes were citizens of Pome and subjects of the Parthian kings, and it would have been well that even such should have had more than a common claim to the protection of their governments. The Parthians, a small but warlike tribe, had gotten the upper hand in Persia. They were haughty and fierce, and so wielded the military power of that country as to make it dreaded even by 44 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. the Romans. Herod's kingdom was exposed to their sudden inroads, and in his youth he had fled before them from Jerusalem. Against their anger his dependence even on the Roman power was no sufficient protection. In Babylonia, which was then a province of the Parthian Empire, was the city of Ctesiphon, on the river Tigris, one of several of the Parthian capitals. If these pilgrims came from Ctesiphon under a safe-conduct from the Parthian king, or were Magi of his court, Herod would not have dared to touch a hair of their heads, and would have been driven to some such policy as that to which he did resort. His treat- ment of them, especially his calling together the Sanhedrim, a body of men who in their sacerdotal and learned character much resembled them, proves that these Magi were men of very high rank, though they were not kings, as they were commonly held to be in the Middle Ages. This tradition seems to have grown very naturally out of their reception at Herod's court; and it was probably right in making them three in number, for this seems to be indicated by their presents to the infant Jesus. These Magi are described in our version as from " the East," and it is said they were in the East when they saw the Star. In the original the Greek word is the same in both places, but with such a difference in its form as would make the difference made in English by prefixing to the former the word far, which thus means the Far East. In some of the later Books of Hebrew Scripture Babylonia is called the East, and Persia lies next beyond it and in the same line. History, geography, and Hebrew usage leave no reasonable doubt that these strangers were Persians, and saw the Star in Babylonia, then a Persian province. Zoroaster, the famous Persian teacher of religion, who may have lived as far back as 1500 years before Christ, or not far from the time of Moses, was no idolater, and in the Bible the Persians are not classed with the heathen. Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, was predicted by Isaiah (xliv. 24 ; xlv. 1-6) ; by him the Temple of God in Jerusalem, which had been burned by the king of Babylon, was ordered to be rebuilt ; and in his proclamation to that effect (Neh. i. 1-2) he acknowledges the God of the Persians and of the Hebrews to be the same Lord God of Heaven. Daniel was high in honor with this king ; and the Magi had an idea of a Sosiosh, or Redeemer, to come, that in certain respects was strik- ingly like his. From the time of Cyrus there were ever many HIS FIRST YEARS. 45 Jews in the Persian or Parthian country, and many things per taining to the Hebrew religion must have been well known to some of the Magi. But how did they come by their idea of the Star ? It was the universal belief of their times that the stars controlled the fates of men. The science that professed to look into their influences was called Astrology, and the Magi were astrologers. An ancient prophet, who was of the East, and who was not a Jew, had foretold a Jewish Messiah in the remarkable prediction, " There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel " (Numb. xxiv. 17), words then understood as foretelling that a new star would shine at his birth. In all Syria there was in their time an expectation that this personage would soon appear, which must have been common also to the Jews in the East and in the Far East. Within that very century, this belief, as Suetonius and Tacitus* state, had much to do with the uprising of the Jews against the Pom an s, in which Jerusalem perished. That which is further required to explain why they were so sure they saw the Star of the King of the Jews is furnished by a discovery of Kepler. He traced back the orbits of the planets, and found that near the time of the birth of Jesus cer- tain of the planets were in positions of great import in astrology ; Jupiter and Saturn were in conjunction; that is, were very close to each other, and were in such a place in the zodiac that the like happens but once in 800 years ; and there were other astrological signs, all giving the idea that some great event was to come to pass in Judaea, as Kepler says, " according to the rules of Chaldean art as existing even till his own time." The new star therefore seemed to them the Star of the King of the Jews ; and it seems providential that Kepler enables us to see how the Magi came scientifically to this opinion, for the silence of the Bible as to any- thing supernatural in this proves it was not revealed to them. The conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn occurred twice, in the spring and in the autumn of the same year, and some have thought the Magi saw the earlier one when they were in the East, the later Dne when they left Jerusalem, and that it was in the direction of * Suetonius says : " Pererebuerat Ori- ente toto vetus et constans opinio, esse in fatis, ut eo tempore Judaea profecti rerumpotirentur." Tacitus says : "Plu- ribus persuasio inerat, antiquis sacer- dotum liberis, contineri, eo ipso tempore fore ut valesceret Oriens, profectique Judaea rerum potirentur.'' 46 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. Herod and the Magi Bethlehem, and so acted as a guide to them. But it is neither manly nor honest thus to evade the astronomical difficulties of their guidance by the star. It does not suit the words of Mat- thew, who says it was a star, and that it went before them ; and the latest astronomical researches, while they prove the accuracy of Kepler's discovery, prove that this conjunction was not in such a direction from Jerusalem that it could in any way have been a guide to Bethlehem.* Upon arriving in Jerusalem the Magi seem to have gone at once to the king's palace. At any rate, Herod learned that they were present in the city, and ascertained the object of their coming. "With his usual craftiness he called together the Sanhedrim to learn where, according to the sacred books of the Hebrews, the Messiah should be born. They recited to him the well-known prophecy in Micah (v. 2) pointing to Bethlehem. Calling the Magi to him, Herod care- fnlly inquired the time at which the remarkable "star" had made its appearance. Then he directed them to go forthwith to Beth- lehem and ascertain exactly all the facts in the case and report to him, pretending that he was equally desirous to pay due deference to the royal infant. The Magi resumed their journey, still beholding the luminous appearance in the heavens, until they reached Bethlehem, where, of course, in so small a village, they had no difficulty in ascer- taining the place where the infant Jesus actually was, as the star indicated somehow the very spot. They worshipped him, and opened their treasures ; and, according to oriental etiquette, pre- sented him costly gifts — gold and frankincense and myrrh. * There is not room in a work like this to enter into details for the reasons on which every statement is based and from which every conclusion is drawn. Dr. Francis W. Upham's book, "The Wise Men: Who they were and how they came to Jerusalem," New York, 1871, is the first successful attempt that I have seen to clear up this pil- grimage. After reading it, I cancelled what I had before written on the subject. Besides solving what hereto- fore has been a mystery, this book gives new ideas and facts as to the history of our religion in the early ages of the world, which are of great value to the people as well as to scholars, and espe- cially so in their bearings on the dis- cussions of these times. I cordially concur with Dr. Tayler Lewis in saying : "Whoever reads this book must a< quire a new interest in the study of the Scriptures. There is hardly a page in which we are not startled by some- thing strikingly original, while at the same time leaving on the mind an im- pression of its profound truth." HIS FIRST YEARS. 47 Flight into Egypt. That night they dreamed. And in their dreams they were warned not to return to Herod. They were believers in visions. They hearkened to this. Instead of going back to Jerusalem they returned to their own country, by some other way, probably going south of the Dead Sea. The night after the departure of the Magi, Joseph dreamed a dream, in which he saw an angel, who said to him, " Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be there until I bring you word ; for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him." Joseph obeyed the warning, and conveyed the mother and child to Egypt. This country was the 'most convenient refuge for them, being easy of access, politically disconnected from Judaea, and inhabited by many Jews, who had been long settled in the country.* Tradition makes Joseph's route by way of Hebron, Gaza, and the desert, and there could have been no more direct course. They still point out at Hebron a spot where the family encamped for the night. Not far from Heliopolis, on the way towards Cairo, is the village Metariyeh, where it is said Joseph made his 6ojourn while in Egypt, which is probable, because of the many * Matthew cites this as a fulfilment of the saying in Hosea xi. 1, "And called my son out of Egypt. " But the saying in Hosea has, to a modern reader, no reference to the Messiah whatever, and is not prophetical, but is a mere statement of a fact in early Jewish his- tory. The explanation seems to be that it was the habit of the Hebrew mind to refer everything to the Messiah, to make every past event somehow typical of him, and that Matthew was familiar with the fact that before the coming Jesus the Jews believed, from this of passage, that the Messiah was to repeat in his history what had occurred in the history of his people. With this knowl- edge Matthew naturally cited this verse of Hosea. A similar accommodation occurs in Matt. ii. 18: "In Rama was there a voice heard, Rachel weeping for her children," etc., quoted from Jeremiah xxxi. 15, where it was applied to cir- cumstances connected with the Baby- lonish captivity. Dean Alf ord says : " We must seek an explanation in the acknowledged system of prophetic inter- pretation among the Jews, still extant in their rabbinical books, and now sanc- tioned to us by New Testament usage ; at the same time remembering, for our caution, how little even now we under- stand of the full bearing of prophetical words and acts. None of the expres- sions of this prophecy must be closely and literally pressed. The link of con- nection seems to be Rachel's sepulchre, which (Gen. xxxv. 19) was ' in the way to Bethlehem,' and perhaps from that circumstance the inhabitants of the place were called her children. " (Alf ord's Greek Test. , in loco.) 48 THE BIRTH AKD CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. Jews who resided at that time in Heliopolis. But there is no historic certainty in this. The nearness of Bethlehem to Jerusalem allowed B erod to inform himself promptly of the movements of the Magi. When he ascertained that they had eluded him he was Bethlehem babes, exceedingly angry, and sent and slew all the male children in Bethlehem " from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the Wise Men." This great crime is consistent with the character of the man He had ascended the throne through blood ; in blood he had sus- tained himself; he had murdered his wife and three sons through the suspicion of jealousy ; and he had arranged that the principal men of the Jewish nation should be slaughtered at his death, that the people might have some occasion to mourn, as he foreknew what a joy of relief they would feel at the death of their tyrant. He was suffering the pain of a horrible and incur- able disease, loving life yet looking for speedy death. He was just in the condition to commit this outrage. That Josephus does not mention this circumstance is nothing to the purpose. Josephus did not know everything. Josephus did not tell all he knew. So many and great were the outrageous crimes committed by Herod that, even if this came to the knowl- edge of Josephus, it might not have occurred to him to mention it. It did not specially bear on anything he had in hand, and he had told enough of Herod's history to depict the character of the wretch of whom the Emperor Augustus is reported to have said, "Herodis mcdlim porcus esse quamfilius: " " I would rather be Herod's hog than Herod's son." There is every probability in the history, and nothing against it.* And Matthew is as good historical author- ity as any other ancient writer, and better than Josephus. f He has a reason for mentioning this circumstance, and he states what * Unless you say that it is too horri- ble to be believed : but why ? Herod murdered his wife Mariamne, and his three sons, Alexander, Aristobulus, and Antipater, the latter just before his own djath — perhaps about the time of the Bethlehem massacre. If he killed his own family, would he feel any com- punction at killing some of the children of the hated inhabitants of an obscure Jewish village ? f Lichtenstein suggests that Josephus would purposely avoid everything that drew attention to the Messianic hopes of his people : Lardner that he could not have mentioned this case without giving the Christian cause a great ad vantage. t HIS FIRST YEARS. 49 consists with the well-known character of the man of whom it is related. How many children fell we cannot now know. Voltaire, who was always ready to adopt any calculations which would tend to throw discredit on the history in the New Testament, supposes, according to an old Gentile tradition, that the number would be 14,000 ! nearly three times as many as the largest assigned popula- tion of Bethlehem. Sepp supposed the number of inhabitants tc have been about 5,000, and this would make the number of chil- dren of the specified age to be about ninety. Townsend makes the number of inhabitants at 2,000 ; the number of slain children would then be about fifty. Some have said fifteen. No or>e knows. Upon the death of Herod Joseph had another dream, in which he saw an angel who told him to return to his native land with Mary and the child, as his enemies were now dead. Joseph obeyed immediately. He seems to have naturally supposed that David's city was the place where David's son should be reared, and so prepared to return to Bethlehem. But upon reaching the confines of Judsea, he learned that Archelaus had succeeded to the throne of his father Herod. He knew that this prince had inherited his father's cruelty and contempt of holy things, and so he was afraid to return to Bethlehem, which was within the ter- ritories of Archelaus. Joseph having again been warned in a dream to go to Galilee, which was under the dominion of the mild Antipas, seems to have made a detour, travelling east of the Jordan, within the territory of Herod Philip, until he came to be opposite Galilee, which he entered, and, proceeding to Nazareth, settled his family in that city. Jesus thus became confounded with the despised Nazarenes.* In this town the first twelve years of the life of Jesus were spent. History gives us little insight into this period of his exist- ence. Luke says that lie "grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled Return and set- tlement in Naza- reth. * Matthew says, " that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene. " So far as I can discover, the Old Testa- ment does not contain any text in which the word Nazarene is applied to the Messiah. The explanation may be that prophets had described the Messiah as a despised person, as the Nazarenes were. See John i. 46, where Nathanael quotes the proverb, " Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ? " In Isaiah liii. we have a specimen of the general prophecy. *>0 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. with wisdom ; and the grace of God was upon him." He had for his playmates his younger half-brothers, children born to Mary after Jesus, together with his cousins, the children of Cleopas. At his mother's knee he learned language and the elements of religious thought. He was probably engaged in assisting in the ordinary affairs of the household as he grew older, and perhaps assisted his reputed father Joseph in his business as a carpenter. The silence of history is filled with the babblings of tradition, which seems to delight to crowd these twelve years with wonder- ful fantasies. We may rely only upon what is certainly affirmed, and yet it is reasonable to suppose that the wonderful child car- ried with him the unconscious air of an innocent soul that has uncommon depths of spiritual introspection, and is being fitted for a marvellous destiny. So great is the influence of the surroundings of the young that the situation and the scenery of Nazareth must hereafter forever be a study of profound interest to every student of the growth of character. There is none more glowing than the following, with which M. Kenan closes the second chapter of his "Life of Jesus" : " Nazareth was a little town, situated in a fold of land broadly open at the summit of the group of mountains which closes on the north the plain of Esdraelon. The population is now from three to four thousand, and it can- not have varied much. It is quite cold in winter, and the climate is very healthy. The town, like all the Jewish villages of the time, was a mass of dwellings built without pretensions to style, and must have presented that poor and uninteresting appearance which is offered by villages in Semitic countries. The houses, from all that appears, did not differ much from those cubes of stone, without interior or exterior elegance, which now cover the richest portion of Lebanon, and which, in the midst of vines and fig-trees, are nevertheless very pleasant. The environs, moreover, are charming, and no place in the world was so well adapted to dreams of absolute happiness. "Even in our days Nazareth is a delightful sojourn, the only place perhaps in Palestine where the soul feels a little relieved of the burden which weighs upon it in the midst of this unequalled desolation. The people are friendly and good-natured; the gardens are fresh and green. Antonius Martyr, at the end of the sixth century, draws an enchanting picture of the fertility of the environs, which he compares to paradise. Some valleys on the western side fully justify his description. The fountain, about which the life and gayety of the little town centred, has been destroyed ; its broken channels now give but a turbid water. But the beauty of the women who gather there at night — this beauty which was already remarked in the sixth century, and in which was seen the gift of the Virgin Mary, has been surprisingly well HIS FIRST YEAES. 51 preserved. It is the Syrian type, in all its languishing grace. There is no doubt that Mary was there nearly every day, and took her place, with her urn upon her shoulder, in the same line with her unremenibered countrywomen. Antonius Martyr remarks that the Jewish women, elsewhere disdainful to Christians, are here full of affability. Even at this day religious animosities are less intense at Nazareth than elsewhere. " The horizon of the town is limited ; but if we ascend a little to the pla- teau, swept by a perpetual breeze, which commands the highest houses, the prospect is splendid. To the west are unfolded the beautiful lines of Carmel, terminating in an abrupt point, which seems to plunge into the sea. Then stretch away the double summit which looks down upon Megiddo, the moun- tains of the country of Shechem, with their holy places of the patriarchal age, the mountains of Gilboa, the picturesque little group with which are associated the graceful and terrible memories of Solam and Endor, and Thabor, with its finely rounded form, which antiquity compared to a breast. Through a depression between the mountains of Solam and Thabor are seen the valley of the Jordan and the high plains of Parsea, which form a contin- uous line in the east. To the north, the mountains of Safed, sloping towards the sea, hide St. Jean d'Acre, but disclose the gulf of Khaifa. Such was the horizon of Jesus. " This enchanted circle, the cradle of the kingdom of God, represented the world to him for years. His life even went little beyond the limits familiar to his childhood. For beyond, to the north, you almost see upon the slope of Heraion, Cesarea Philippi, his most advanced point into the Gentile world, and to the south, you feel behind these already less cheerful mountains of Samaria, sad Judaea, withered as by a burning blast of abstraction and of death." Joseph and Mary were accustomed to go up annually to Jerusa- lem to attend the Passover Festival. "When Jesus reached the age of twelve he was carried to the Temple, to be initiated into the regular study of the law, and , e f us amon S t p i n . i to tne doctors. to begin the observance ox the festivals and fasts of the Jewish church. The Jews believed the age of twelve to be the line dividing childhood from youth. At that period one was called "son of the law," and first incurred legal responsi- bility.* This incident is the only passage in the early life of Jesus of which we have any reliable historical account. But it is full of interest. He was a remarkable child, born under remarkable circum- stances, which had undoubtedly been narrated to him, and which * Josephus states that when he was | city met with him to put questions tc fourteen years of age the priests of the | him about the law 52 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JEStXS. lie had pondered as he read the law and the prophets, or heard them read. He had never been in the Temple since he was an infant. Now the sight of the solemn fane and the holy rites, amid the excitement of the great crowds who were present, must have stirred the depths of this profound young soul. A solemn sense of his spiritual capabilities, and perhaps an awful presenti- ment of his tremendous destiny must have come upon him. He began to be revealed to himself. He did not put himself forward as a teacher among those white-haired rabbis. His hour had not yet come. But he was neither a stupid nor a frivolous boy. His rare fine spirit had been developing itself amid the quiet scenes of nature, and he had been looking into the faces of the most profound and puzzling questions. Many a bright day from the heights near Nazareth he had gazed upon the grand scenery about him, turning over what he had heard of the historic associations of such famous places as were in sight, feeling his blood tingle with the touches of autumnal breezes or glowing in the rich warmth of the first spring ; and Life and Man, the Seen and the Unseen, Nature and Supernature, held their problems up to his soul. And he dared to study them. At twelve he was ready to ask questions even of rabbis. The custom of the Jewish schools was for the scholars to ask questions of the teachers, and much of rabbinical literature consists of answers to such interrogato- ries. The questions a man asks are as indicative of his character as the positive sayings that go out of his mouth. If history had preserved these questions which he asked in the Temple, we should be helped in our study of Jesus. It records simply the general fact that his learned hearers were astonished at his under- standing. When the Paschal ceremonies were ended, Joseph and Mary started to return to Nazareth. They did not at first perceive that Jesus was not of the company. They had been M ssed by Jo- gQ acclls t omec [ to his obedience as to rely upon his seph and Mary. ,, . . . promptness. Eastern travellers m ancient times ordinarily made a short journey on the first day. Perhaps Joseph and Mary did not start until some time in the afternoon, and then in company with many others. When they pitched their tents that night they discovered his absence. They returned to Jerusalem. Luke says that "after three days they found him." This probably includes their first day out, the second day, in which HIS FIRST YEAES. 53 they returned and inquired, and the third day, when they found him. He was in the Temple, among the rabbis, astounding them by asking questions, startling by reason of their artless depth and amazing significance.* Mary — not Joseph — spoke to him. She and Joseph knew their relations to the boy. And Mary said, " Son, why have you dealt so with us? Behold, your father and I have sought you sorrow- ing." Up to that time he seems to have regarded Joseph as his father, and to have behaved towards him in that relation. But in his public teachings he never acknowledged Joseph as his father. If Mary had said "we," the remarkable answer in which Jesus ex- presses his sense of his own intimate relationship with God could not have been given. But "your father aud I" brings it. With tender reproachf ulness Jesus replied : " How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father's busi- ness?" As if he would remind his mother that she ought to know from his extraordinary introduction to the world that his was to be an extraordinary life. As if he would remind her of the fact that at the Annunciation she had been told by the angel that her child was to be the " Son of the Most High." All this she knew; but now it comes home to her with power, when that simple, ingenuous, noble child stands up in the house of God and claims his Divine Paternity. Of this only authenticated saying of Jesus in his childhood, Stier beautifully says: " Solitary floweret out of the wonderful inclosed garden of thirty years, plucked precisely there where the swollen bud, at a distinctive crisis, bursts into flower. To mark that is assuredly the design and the meaning of this record. The child Jesus sought to know himself, and his whole life of childhood was this seeking." All these things Mary laid up in her heart, and most probably after the death of Jesus told them to Luke. This sounds like a mother's narrative repeated by a historian. That Jesus had accumulated a vast number of questions touch- ing God and man, life and death, the seen and the invisible, it is most natural to suppose. One also naturally thinks that those questions must have been based largely upon the Hebrew sacred * u To answer children is indeed an sxamen rigororum, " says Hamann. And again, ' ' He who will stop the mouths of scribes and sophists must know how to put questions." (Edition of Roth, ii, 424.) 54 THE BERTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. books, and that when he should find an opportunity of going to ecclesiastical headquarters and visiting the appointed expounders of the law and the official explainers of the prophets, he would propound such questions, and that his interrogatories would not be captious or critical or superficial, about tithes and such trifles, but such as the solemn tone and the special deep phrases of the Hebrew oracles would suggest to a child of such exquisite genius and such extraordinary spirituality. Would they not naturally run along the lofty line of Messianic hope and promise which his gifted ancestor David had drawn ? Would they not push against the doors to spiritual freedom and the emancipation of humanity which Isaiah seems to have set ajar? When this marvellous child came amid the rabbis and began to ask these questions, no wonder they were amazed. But he must have been disappointed. Blindness was on the eyes of the teachers in Jerusalem. The more he pressed his simple questions the more he must have felt that sense of his own sonship, of that intimate nearness to the Father of spirits which has singled him from among the company of the sons of God as the elder brother of humanity. They could not instruct him as to Jehovah's An- nointed. Years after, on his last visit to Jerusalem, in the last week of his public ministry, in this same Temple, Jesus pro- pounded to this same school of teaching the questions, "What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he ? " (Matt. xxii. 42.) Did not his first questions have the same bearing? Two things seem to have come strongly to him from this visit; his own Peculiarity and the Worthlessness of the religious teach- ing of his nation. To what extent the former we do not know. If it was a wide view and a profound conviction, he kept it hum- bly folded in his soul and bided his time. Then he went down with Mary and Joseph to Nazareth, and abode with them, and was subject to them. For another space, covering eighteen years, we have an unbroken in Nazareth silence as to Jesus. History does not utter a sylla- ble. But during all that season he was ripening ; and the times were ripening. He lived a life of some activity, probably working with his reputed father at the bench of the car- penter. He led also probably a social life, making and receiving visits, as his presence at the marriage in Cana would seem to im- ply that he was in friendly, cheerful intercourse with the people HIS FIRST YEARS. 55 of his neighborhood. Beyond this we cannot penetrate. "We only know that when a man achieves in a few years a great work , the influence of which lasts, he must somehow through his pre - vious life have been accumulating assets of power to meet the drafts of his crisis. Jesus was no exception. He was thirty years growing in the preparation to do the work of three. That preparation could hardly have embraced what we call " learning," in any sense beyond a study of the ancient Hebrew Scripture. Hellenism, which embraces what we generally con- ceive to be the culture of the Greeks, had not penetrated to the obscure town in which Jesus spent his early life. Indeed it was discouraged by the Jews throughout Judea. In the Talmud of Jerusalem (Peah. i. 1) a story is told of a learned rabbi, who, when asked at what time it was proper to teach a child the wis- dom of the Greeks, replied : " At the hour when it is neither day nor night, for it is written of the law, ' Thou shalt study it day and night.' " He must also have been preserved from what M. Renan happily calls the " grotesque scholasticism " at that time taught in Jerusalem, and which shortly after was embodied in the Talmud. He had no regular theological training. CHAPTER V. PUBLIC AFFAIRS DURING THE CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH OF JESUS. JUDAEA. "When Jesus was born Herod was near his end, perishing of an incurable disease. His reign had been one of oppression and H , terror to the Jews, but so skilful a politician was he that no combination had been able to break his influence at Rome. He continued his crimes up to the very day of his death. He had slain his wife on suspicion, that Mariamne whom he so loved that after her death he would go howling for her through his palace. He had slain his two sons, Alexander and Aristobulus, and just before he died he slew a third son, Antipater. He had outraged the religious sentiments of the Jews. He had built a theatre in the Holy City. He had introduced Roman games, in which gladiators and wild beasts fought. He had put up the Golden Eagle over the gate of the temple, probably about the time he had inscribed the name of Agrippa over the gate. The Jews regarded this as a breach of the Second Command- ment. It was intolerable to them. It was " an abomination of desolation." At the instigation of two rabbis there was an up- rising, and on a false report of the death of Herod the young men of the city tore down the hated thing in open daylight. Herod caused the rabbis to be burnt alive, the high-priest Mat- thias to be deposed, and Joazar to take his place. This, in brief, was the state of affairs in Jerusalem when He- rod died, as related at large by Josephus (Ant., book xvii.) To understand the history of the times of Jesus we must know the condition of the Jews and the course of their rulers, of F ii f H d wnom members of the family of Herod were chief in the first year of Jesus. We need only notice the children of the first five wives of Herod, in a table adapted from Smith's JST. T. History. PUBLIC AFFAIKS DURING THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. 57 1. Before his accession to the throne Herod married Doris ; and her only son, Antdpater, was the victim of his father's dying rage. 2. Aristobulus, his eldest (son by Jfariamne, the grand- daughter of Hyrcanus), was the parent of a large family, and from him were descended the two Agrlppas, the first of whom was the " King Herod " who slew James and imprisoned Peter ; the second the " King Agrd?pa " before whom Paul pleaded. 3. After the murder of Mariamne Herod married another Mariamne, daughter of the high-priest Simon : her son was He- rod Phild?, whose marriage with his niece Herodias, daughter of Aristobulus, followed by her divorce of him to marry his half- brother, Herod Antipas, to whom she stood in the same relation, led to the martyrdom of John the Baptist. He is often con- founded with his half-brother Philip, the Tetrarch of Itursea. 4:. His next wife, Ifalthace, a Samaritan, was the mother of Herod Antipas and Archelaus. 5. By Cleopatra he had two Bons, the younger of whom was Philip, the Tetrarch of Itursea and the adjacent districts, with Trachonitis. 6. His other wives and their children are of no consequence in the history. These complicated relations will be made clearer by the following con- spectus of the chief personages with whom the history is con- cerned for the four generations of the family : A. — Herod the Great. Wives. Sons. 1. Doris 1. Antipater. ) -^ , , , ., . » 2. Mariamne, grandd. of Hyrca- ( 2. Aristobulus. (Executed by their fa- nus II \ 3. Alexander. f ther m ^ Metlme - 3. Mariamne, d. of Simon \ 4 ' Herod TT Pb j lip L [ Lived as a P rivate P er ' ' ( m. Herodias. ) son. 4. Malthace, a Samaritan \ 5 ' ? er , od M P»> ■ • ■ ^ rar( * of , ? aUlee - / o. Archelaus Mhnarch ot Judaea. 5. Cleopatra \ m. Salome^f Philip I Te * rarcl1 of Northern ( I. and of Herodias. ) rer£ea > etc - B. — Children op Aristobulus. 1. Herod Agrippa I King of Judaea. 2. Herodias. m. — (1.) Herod Philip I. (2.) Herod Antipas. C— Children of Herod Agrippa I. 1. Herod Agrippa II. (titular king) Tetrarch of N. Persea. eta 2. Bernice Named in Acts xxv. 23. 8. Drusilla, m. to Felix Named in Acts xxiv. 24. 58 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OP JESUS. Herod made a will in favor of the children of Malthace, name- ly, Herod Antipas and Archelaus. At first Antipas was named as the successor: but the final codicil gave the Herod's will. , A \ , m a .• i /v i succession to Archelaus. lo Antipas was left the government of Galilee and Persea, with the title of tetrarch. In his domain Jesus spent the larger portion of his life. To Herod Philip II. was left the territory and government of Itursea, Gau- lonitis, and Batnsea, with the title of tetrarch. As soon as Herod's death was known the soldiery were gath- ered together in the amphitheatre. A letter from Herod was read, in which he thanked the army for their fidelity to him, and exhorted them to be as faithful to Archelaus. Then the kind's last testament was read, in which he named his successor. Ar- chelaus was acclaimed king. He addressed himself at once to the discharge of his last filial duties. He took care that the funeral of his father should be most sumptuous. A golden bier, embroidered , " with precious stones, held the body, which was covered with purple. The dead monarch had a diadem upon his head, over which was a crown of gold ; he also had a sceptre in his right hand. The bier was surrounded by the sons and numerous relatives of the deceased. Next to these the guard and band, dressed according to their nationalities — Thra- cians, Germans, Galatians — then the whole army followed " in the same manner as they used to go out to war, and as they used to be put in array by their muster-masters and centurions ; these were followed by five hundred of his domestics carrying spices. And so," says Josephus (Ant., book xvi. chap. 8), " they went eight furlongs to Herodium, for there by his own command he was to be buried." From Jericho, where Herod died, to Herodium, where he was buried, was a distance of two hundred furlongs, and if the account of Josephus means that the procession moved at the rate of eight furlongs a day, this pomp continued no less than twenty days. While Archelaus was thus publicly mourning for his father, he was said to be privately spending his nights in revelry. The mourning done, he went up to the Temple, took Archelaus. Trou- -j^g sea t -upon a throne of gold, spoke conciliating- bles in settling the , , r . . . . I ,, ,i • succession v to tne multitude, promised them everytlungj but declined to assume the crown until the will of his father had been ratified by Csesar. PUBLIC AFFAIRS DURING- THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. 59 But, almost immediately after, a sedition was raised in the city. The people began a lamentation for the two martyrs who had perished in the affair of the Eagle. At the Passover, at the time of the evening sacrifice, this feeling became deep, and broke into cries for vengeance. Archelaus sent his general to explain and remon- strate. But it was of no avail. The upshot of the riot was the slaughter of three thousand men and the breaking up of the feast. Archelaus then went to Borne to secure the establishment of his kingdom by an imperial edict. He carried with him the eloquent orator Nicholas of Damascus, who had been a faithful friend of his father. With him ^ also was his intriguing aunt, Salome, who was secretly in the interest of his brother, Herod Antipas. The Jews sent after him a deputation of five hundred of their chief men, praying Caesar to abolish the monarchy and let them be governed by their own laws. They made what capital they could of the inauspicious events which had attended the beginning of his government.* While Archelaus was in Borne, Jerusalem was in charge of Sabinus, the Boman procurator of the province. He was a vio- lent, tyrannical, avaricious coward. He made diligent search for the late king's treasure, and did not scruple to take even the sacred treasure. He seemed to devise means to exasperate the Jews. The smouldering fires of fanatic determination to free their country from the Boman yoke were fanned into a flame. When Pentecost came vast multitudes of men from all parts of the country flocked to Jerusalem, mani- festly full of bitterness and ready for mischief. They encamped about the Temple, and besieged Sabinus, who from a lofty tower, to which he had betaken himself for safety, gave a signal to his troops to issue forth against the besiegers. Much slaughter was on both sides. The Jews were repulsed, but betook themselves to the Temple, from the heights of which they rained arrows on the Bomans, who could not reach their enemies. The Bomans, * Perhaps it is to this that Jesus allud- ed in the parable reported by Luke (xix. 12-27) : "A certain nobleman ( t yev»??, a man of birth or rank, tlie son of Herod) went into a far country {Italy) to re- ceive for himself a kingdom (Jucksea), and to return. But his citizens (tha Jews) hated him, and sent a message (or embassy) after him (to Augustus Ccesaj'), saying, ' We will not have this man to reign over us.' " 60 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. Varus. however, set fire to the cloisters, the roof fell in, and many were precipitated into the flames. Those who were not, were either slain by the Romans or threw themselves upon their swords or into the fire. The troops of Sabinus broke into the Temple and plun- dered the sacred treasures ; but the Jews, furious at these outrages, continued the siege. Meanwhile disbanded troops of Herod roamed over the coun- try plundering and ravaging. The people were driven about, and many of the villages were destroyed. The utmost confusion prevailed in Jerusalem and in the rural districts. Yarus, the prefect of Syria, marched to the relief of Sabinus with a great force. The insurgents laid down their arms ; two thousand were crucified, and the others sent to Rome for trial. Notwithstanding the influence brought to bear against him, Archelaus succeeded in securing from Augustus so much of a confirmation of his father Herod's will as to make re e aus con- ^.^ nQt k[ n g indeed over the whole country, but ethnarch of Judsea, Idumsea, and Samaria, one- half of that which had been subject to Herod. Archelaus was also promised the royal dignity if he should govern so as to deserve it. He retained also the chief cities of Jerusalem, Se- baste, Csesarea, and Joppa. His income was six hundred talents.* Upon his return he seemed disposed in some measure to conciliate the Jews. The only act of his, however, which had much con- cern with their history, was his displacement of Joazar, whom Herod had made high-priest after the affair of the Eagle, and the substitution of Eleazar, Joazar's brother. But his general course was tyrannous towards Jews and Samaritans, and the hatred of the Jews for him was increased by his violation of their law. Glaphyra was his sister-in-law, having been the wife of his brother Alexander. After his father Herod had killed him, Gla- phyra married Juba, king of Lydia, and when he died Archelaus divorced his wife Mariamne and married Glaphyra. She had had three children by his brother Alexander, which made it offensive to the Jewish law for Archelaus to marry her. The Jewish people made sufficient interest in Rome to cause Archelaus to be recalled * A shekel, in the times of Josephus, from whom we have the statements in the text, was worth about 70 cents in gold, and 3,000 shekels being to a talent, the talent was worth about $2,100; and the income of Archelaus must havf been about $1,860,000 in gold. PUBLIC AFFAIRS DURING THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. 61 and examined. The result was that Augustus stripped him of his rule, at the end of ten years after his appointment, took away his money, and banished him to Vienne, in Gaul, where he died, the year unknown. In the meantime the excited state of the public mind rendered it possible for many pretenders and impostors to palm themselves upon the people and add to the general troubles and perplexities. One case was notable. There was in the city of Sidon a young man, by birth a Jew, who had been educated by a Roman freedman. His resemblance to Alexander, one of the sons of Herod whom he had slain, was so striking that many were ready f pseu ~ ^ J exanuer. to attest that he was Alexander. Discovering this he turned it to his own account, and united with " an ill man " who had great cunning. The story put forth was, that he was the real Alexander, brother of Aristobulus, and that those whom Herod sent to destroy him had actually saved him and his brother, slaying other men in their stead. In Crete and in Melos the Jews believed him the true Alexander, and gave him much money. He had the audacity to go to Rome. The Jews of that city, learning that he was coming, went out to meet him, brought him in a royal litter through the streets, and adorned him with ornaments at their own expense. There was great joy at what they supposed a special providence. So great a stir did this make that the report reached Augustus, who sent for this pseudo- Alexander and his accomplice. The emperor soon detected the imposture. The Prince Alexander had lived in his palace, and Augustus knew his physique. This man's hands and body had all the roughness which belongs to a laboring man, while Alex- ander's had had the smoothness of those who are reared delicately in kings' palaces. So Augustus took the young man aside and told him of the discovery, and that he thought the plan too deep to have been concocted by one so young, and that if he would reveal his accomplices his life should be spared. He did. He was put to the galleys and his accomplice was put to death. * And so, again, had the hopes of the Jews been raised and dashed. Upon the banishment of Archelaus, Judaea, including Samaria, was reduced to the state of a Roman province and governed by a * Josephus, Ant., book xvii ch. 12. 62 THE BIETH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. procurator, who was the subordinate of the Prefect of Syria. The Roman dependencies were of two classes, — those which were gov- erned solely by the Emperor, and those which were under the direction of the Senate. The former were the imperial, the latter the senatorian provinces ; the former were under the immediate government of Legates, the latter of Proconsuls. The Legates col- lected the revenues through procurators, procuratores Ccesaris • the proconsuls through quaestors. All these officers were men of rank. Publius Sulpicius Quirinus, called in the New Testament Cyrenius, had been consul a.it.c. 742, b.c. 12. Upon the banish- ment of Archelaus he was made Prefect of 'Syria to finish the enrolment — the beginning of the making of which had called Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem — or to collect the tax consequent upon such enrolment. The pro- curator under Quirinus was Coponius, whose residence was at Caesarea, on the coast. Quirinus himself came over to Judaea to look after the late king's treasures. The enforcement of the tax caused great disturbance. To the Jews it was always most detesta- ble on religious grounds. Jerusalem was kept comparatively quiet by the wise influence of Joazar, who was for a short time again high-priest. The rural districts, however, were full of turbulence. There was one Judas who came out of Galilee and headed a revolt " in the days of the taxing." * According to Josephus {Ant., xviii. 1, § 1) he was a Gaulonite of the city T , of Gamala, and was called a Galilean probably because his revolt first broke out in that province. The watchword of his party, " We have no Lord and master but God," is a key to the character of this uprising. It was theo- cratic. God was king ; Caesar was not. To give tribute to Caesar was treason to God. Under God was freedom, under Caesar slavery. He taught all the scrupulous external and ceremonial morality of the Pharisees, while he inspired his followers with an intense love of freedom and a fanatical disregard of life, so that rather than call any man " master " they should prefer to surren- der themselves and their friends to the death. He was a man of fiery eloquence, and attracted large numbers to his standard. They became lawless, and committed many depredations before the Roman power suppressed them. * He is referred to by Gamaliel in his speech before the Sanhedrim, Acts v. 37. PUBLIC AFFAIRS DURING THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. 63 Judas was killed, and his immediate followers, who were called Gaulonites, were dispersed. But the spirit of this insurrection survived many years, and animated the Zealots and Sicarii of later days, to whose obstinate fanaticism Josephus attributes the subsequent troubles of his country and the destruction of Jerusalem, as in a.d. 47 two sons of Judas renewed the revolt, and for twenty years their younger brother, Menahem, took the lead of a band of desperadoes, laid siege to Jerusalem, captured the city, assumed the name and state of king, and committed many outrages, when he was slain by the partisans of Eleazar the high-priest, a.d. 66* It was in the procuratorship of Coponius that Jesus was in the Temple, about a year after Annas had been made coponius high-priest. Under his government it was that the Samaritans polluted the Temple, after the maimer adopted by Josiah toward the idolatrous shrines, by secretly bringing dead men's bones and strewing them in the cloisters during the night of the Passover, when the priests had opened the temple gates, as their wont was, immediately after midnight. Thenceforward the Samaritans were excluded from the Temple. It was another matter of distress and public perplexity and increase of hate between Jews and Samaritans. About a.d. 10, Coponius was succeeded in the procuratorship by M. AMBrvius, and he was succeeded by Annius Pufus. Upon the death of Augustus (a.d. 14), his successor, Tiberius, ap- pointed a new procurator, Yalerius Gratus, w T ho held office till he was succeeded by Pontius Pilatus. There had been a succession of high-priests, whose his- tory is not now important. Pilatus, or Pilate, as we know him, found Joseph Caiaphas in the high-priest's office. The jprcenomen of Pilate is lost. Of his early history we have no authentic information. There is a German legend which rep- resents him as the bastard son of Tyrus, king of Mayence. The story further goes that having been guilty of a murder in Pome, whither his father had sent him as a hostage, he was sent into Pontus, where, having subdued certain barbarous tribes, he rose to honor, received the name of Pontius, and was sent as procura- tor to Judsea. But his name may indicate that he was of the gens * Milman's Hist. Jews, ii 152, 231. 64 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. of tlie Pontii, whose first distinguished member was the famoas Samnite general C. Pontius Telesimes. Pilate was the sixth Roman procurator of Judsea. The usual official residence was at Caesarea ; but during the festivals it was the custom of the procurator to be present in Jerusalem, for the better oversight of the turbulent population who ordinarily then assembled, and were on such occasions most easily excited to vio- lence. Shortly after his appointment, Pilate removed the army to Jerusalem for winter-quarters, "in order," says Josephus, "to abolish the Jewish laws." In the night-time, Pilate outrages w i t i 10ut fl^ knowledge of the people, the Roman the Jews. to . L L ' . standards were brought m and set up m the city. These standards bore the image of Caesar; and because the re- ligious regulations of the Jews were so stringent against images, former procurators had respected religious scruples, which Pilate disregarded and defied. The infuriated people rushed to Csesarea in multitudes and interceded with Pilate to remove the offence. This was continued for five days with increasing vehemence. Pilate refused, on the ground that the removal would be an af- front to Caesar. The people still persevered in their pleadings. On the sixth day they renewed their obtestations before Pilate, who was seated on a throne in an open space, and had troops so arranged that at a given signal they surrounded the suppliants. Pilate then threat- ened them with immediate death unless they ceased disturbing him and went to their homes. Upon this they threw themselves upon the ground, made bare their necks, and declared that they would sooner die than see their laws so violated. Their numbers and the firmness of their resolution prevailed. Pilate ordered the standards to be brought back from Jerusalem to Caesarea. Not warned by this, Pilate attempted another outrage on the feelings of the Jews. In his palace at Jerusalem he hung up certain gilt shields without images, but bearing the names of heathen deities.* The people had not forgotten the clandestine introduction of the standards, and this new act greatly inflamed them. They appealed to the Emperor Tiberius, who ordered their removal. This must have weakened Pilate's influence at Rome. The Corban f among the Jews was any oblation, but especially ♦Philo, Ad Caium, § 38, ii. 589. J \ Jahn, Bib. Arch., v. §§ 392 394. PUBLIC AFFAIRS DURING THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. 65 in the fulfilment of a vow, which was dedicated to the Temple. It might be money, cattle, lands and houses, and . , ■■ t > ,i m i i ^ j. The Corban. it became the property or the lemple, only that the land might be redeemed in the year of Jubilee. (Lev. xxvii. 1-24.) It was, of course, held as very sacred. But this treasure was diverted by Pilate to the building of an aqueduct to bring water into Jerusalem. This so incensed the Jews that, in the language of Josephus, "many ten thousands of the people got together and made a clamor against him. Pilate dressed a num- ber of his soldiers like the Jews, and had daggers concealed on their persons. When the Jews would not forbear, he gave the soldiers the signal agreed on beforehand, and they fell upon the unarmed and surprised populace, striking the innocent as well as the guilty, so that many were slain and others wounded." * This was the kind of man under whose procuratorship Jesus spent his whole public life and exercised his public ministry, under whom he suffered and died, as the Evangelists and other historians relate. Tacitus says: "Christus, Tiberio Imperate, per procuratorum Pontium Pilatum supplicio adf ectus erat." f The following is the only mention of Jesus which occurs in the writings of Josephus : J " Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was (the) Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Chris- tians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day." GALILEE. We turn now from Judaea to Galilee. By the first will of Herod, Antipas was to be his successor; but a change of the will gave precedence to Archelaus : and Augustus Caesar confirmed Herod Antipas as Tetrarch of Galilee, Herod Antipas, according to the altered will of his father; and tr ^ rch hence he is mentioned by Matthew and Luke as * Josephus, Ant., book xviii. ch. iii I \ Josephus, Ant., bookxviii. ch. iii. § 3. f Ann. xv. 44. 5 66 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD 01 JESUS. Herod the Tetearch. The name of " king," given him by Mark, (vi. 14) must be regarded as a title of courtesy. His first wife was the daughter of Aretas, king of Arabia Petrsea. While liv- ing with her he fell in love with Herodias, the daughter of Aris- tobulus, who was his own half-brother. She was then the wife of Herod Philip I. (another half-brother of Herod Antipas), and by him had had one daughter, Salome. He was living in retire- ment in Pome. Herodias disliked this obscurity and forsook him and accepted the offer of Herod Antipas to live with him. This outraged Aretas, the father of his first wife, whom he had divorced to please Herodias. Aretas made war upon him and destroyed his army, and was restrained only by a movement of the Emperor Tiberius, who ordered Yitellius to march against Aretas, which command failed of fulfilment because of the death of Tiberius. But the Jews regarded this disaster to Herod Antipas as the ven- geance of heaven for the murder of John the Baptist, who had rebuked Herod Antipas and Herodias for the sinful lives they were leading. This Herod had quarrelled with Pilate the procurator in Judaea, it is supposed because of those " Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices," a circumstance Pil t arre S W1 mentioned in Luke (xiii. 1, xxiiL 12). There seems to be no mention made elsewhere of this ; but the Galileans were foremost in the frays which occurred at the festivals, and these difficulties were so frequent that it is not to be wondered that one of them escaped the notice of Josephus. Herod would naturally resent Pilate's punishing his subjects, whatever might have been their guilt ; not to mention the fact that he assumed the role of patron of the Jews. The court he paid the Jews is shown by his attendance upon the Passover in Jerusalem. That visit gave Pilate an opportunity to propitiate him by acknowledging his jurisdiction over Galileans ; so that when he learned that Jesus was a Galilean he sent him to Herod Antipas. By Herodias he was instigated to a movement which ended in his ruin. His" nephew, Herod Agrippa I. (under whom, years after, came all the territory which had been ruled over by his grandfather, Herod the Great), was a favorite with Caligula, having been imprisoned for expressing a wish for Caligula's early succession to the imperial throne. PUBLIC AFFAIRS DURING THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. 67 Upon him Caligula showered favors. What specially moved Herod Antipas and Herodias was that Herod Agrippa had at- tained to a royal estate. So they determined to go to Home, osten- sibly to petition for the royal title, but really to intrigue against Agrippa, who, on his side, brought accusation against his uncle Antipas, whom the Emperor Caligula banished to Gaul, where he died. Herodias showed at least this good trait, that she shared his exile. Josephus puts a very pretty speech into her mouth, making her say to Caius : " Thou indeed, O Emperor ! actest after a magnificent manner, and as becomes thyself in what thou off erest me ; but the kindness which I have for my husband hinders me from partaking of the favor of thy gift ; for it is not just that I, who have been made a partner in his prosperity, should for- sake him in his misfortunes." (Josephus, Ant., book xviii. chap, viii.) The character of this prince can be easily gathered from the record. He was not so great a tyrant as his father Herod. But he was unscrupulous. He shut up John in prison for no crime nor violation of the peace, but TT t^f 1 ° tip Herod Antipas. because that faithful teacher reproved him for his adultery with Herodias, and for his general wickedness of life. He was cunning. Jesus, generally so mild and careful in his speech, calls him a " fox." (Luke xiii. 32.) He was weak and superstitious. For a time he heard John gladly (Mark vi. 20), and wished to see Jesus, that he might witness some miracle. (Luke xxiii. 8.) Because of a foolish oath, uttered in wine, he slew John, and was afterward filled with remorse ; and although a Sadducee, not believing in spirits and the resurrection, he was frightened when he heard of Jesus, fearing it might be John come back from the dead. (Mark vi. 14.) He was willing to have Jesus destroyed, but contrived to roll the responsibility upon Pilate. He was unscrupulous, capricious, sensual, superstitious, and weak. THE CHURCH. The office of the High-Priest had felt the general unsettling effect of these turbulent times, so that there seems r • , o \ , n ,-, . The Hign-Priest- to be some confusion at the date of the opening hood c a i apca3 of the public ministry of Jesus. Luke says a nd Annas, (iii. 2) that Annas and Caiaphas were high-priests. An investigation of all available records gives us the follow- ing result: The real and acting High-Priest was Joseph, 68 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. surnamed Caiaphas ; and his Yicar, or Deputy, was his father-in law, called Annas by Lnke, Ananus by Josephus, but probably called in his own time and place Hananiah. Caiaphas was ap- pointed to the office by the procurator, Valerius Gratus, about a.d. 25, and held it through all the procuratorship of Pontius Pi- late, and was consequently High-Priest through the whole public ministry of John and of Jesus. He married the daughter of a former High-Priest, Annas, who still possessed great influence, several of his family having held the highest sacerdotal position. The mention of these two jointly by Luke has made some per- plexity, which has given rise to various explanations, of which it is necessary to state only that which seems satisfactory, namely, that of Wieseler, who, in his Chronology, and more recently in an article in Herzog's Heal-cyclopddie, maintains that the two, Annas and Caiaphas, were jointly at the head of the Jewish people, the latter being the actual High-Priest, and Annas being president of the Sanhedrim. In this latter position he might have acted as vicar to his son-in-law, in an office called in the Hebrew ■po, Sagan, and mentioned by the Talmudists. This is the opinion of Kuinol. It is suggested that such position would not be unworthy of one who had held the office of High-Priest, since the dignity of the Sagan was very great. Lightf oot shows, for in- stance, that he might on urgent occasions enter the Holiest of Holies. {Hot. TIeb. Luc, iii. 2.) It is not strange that having been actually a High-Priest, and being now president of the Sanhedrim, ho should still be called by the name of the lofty office he had filled. We shall meet Caiaphas as the history shall progress. It may merely be mentioned here that he was a Saddncee, and used his influence oppressively, the Sadducees usually being more intolerant than the Pharisees : and frequently it has been remarked that no people are more illiberal than those who claim, par excellence, the name of Liberals, and that no sectaries have been more intoler- ant than those who have had no creed. The word Sanhedrim — or more accurately Sanhedrin, coming from the Greek avvsdgiov, no Hebrew etymology The Sanhedrim. . . , ~ i _c ♦. -i • ^ -i a having been found for it — designates the bupreme Council of the Jewish people as it existed in the times of Jesus and long before. In the Talmud it is called " The Great Sanhedrim ;" in the Mishna, " The House of Judgment? The Mishna traces the origin of this assembly to the times of PUBLIC AFFAIRS DURING THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. 69 Its origin. Moses, who was directed (Num. xi. 16, 17) to associate with him seventy elders in the government. But Vorstius (De SynJiedriis, § 25-40) seems to show that the identity of this Council of Moses and the Sanhedrim of later days was a mere conjecture of the rabbins, as we find no trace of the continuance of the Council of Moses in Deut. xvii. 8, 10, where it surely w r ould have been mentioned if then existing, nor in the age of Joshua and the judges, nor in the times of the kings ; so that that council seems to have been temporary. The Greek etymology of the word points to a time subsequent to Alexan- der's supremacy in Judaea.* It has been conjectured that the yegovoux twv 'lovdaiMv of 2 Mace. i. 10 ; iv. 44; xi. 27, designates the Sanhedrim. If so, it is the earliest historical trace of the institu- tion. Many learned men agree in believing that it arose after the return of the Jews from Babylon, and in the time of the Seleu- cidse or of the Hasmonean princes. The fact stated by Jose- phus,t that Herod, when procurator of Galilee, b.c 47, was called before the Sanhedrim on the charge that he had usurped the func- tions of that body in putting men to death, shows how great its power was at that day, and the probability that it w T as not then of recent origin. For the constitution of the Sanhedrim we are compelled to rely upon the incidental notices in the New Testament, namely, Matt. xxvi. 57, 59 : Mark xv. 1 ; Luke xxii. 6Q ; T . ... ,. ' ' ' ' Its constitution. and Acts v. 21. From these it probably appears that the body consisted of the High-Priests (and those who had been High-Priests) and 'aQxisgslg, chief-priests, that is to say, the heads of the twenty-four classes into which the priests w^ere divided ; notvSvisQoi, elders, men of age and experience ; and YQot^iaiuQ^ scribes, men learned in the law. The number was probably eeventy-one. There was nearly perfect unanimity of opinion among the Jews, and that was expressed in the Mishna, which says {Sanedr. i. 61) that there were seventy- one judges. The reason assigned for this number is not sound, namely, that in ISTum. xi. 6, Moses is required to gather seventy elders, who with himself would make seventy-one, as we have shown it probable that no connec- Its size. * Livy expressly states (xiv. 32) : " Pronunciatum quod at statum Mace- Jonise pertinebat senatores, quos syne- dros vocant, legendos esse, quorum oon- silio respublica administraretur." f Ant. , xiv. 9, § 4. 70 THE BERTH AOT> CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. tion existed between the Council of Moses and the Sanhedrim Our reception of this number is to be based upon the tradition of the Jews, which has its probability increased by the sug- gestion that the modern Council would, as far as possible, have been formed upon the model of that of Moses. The President was styled " Nasi," and was chosen on account of his eminent worth and wisdom, and was supposed to occupy Its President ^ G P^ ace °^ Moses. Sometimes the High-Priest had this honor. At the condemnation of Jesus the High-Priest was presiding, as we learn from Matt. xxvi. 62. The Vice-President was called " Ab-Beth-Din," and sat at the right hand of the President. The Babylonian G-emara states that there were two scribes, one to record the votes of acquittal and one those of condemnation. The lictors, or attendants of the Sanhedrim, are called vnr { geTai, in Matt. xxvi. 58, and in Mark xiv. 54. While in session the Sanhedrim sat in form of a semicircle in the front of the President. The place of the meeting of the Sanhedrim, it is supposed, was in a building near the Temple ; but that it might be assembled elsewhere we learn from Matt. xxvi. 3, when meeting- ^ seems ^° nave me t in the residence of the High-Priest. The jurisdiction of this body was mainly over questions of religion, as the trial of a tribe for idolatry, the trial of false it ' ' di t' prophets, and of the High-Priest,* and other priests. \ Jesus was arraigned as a false prophet,:); and Peter, John, Stephen, and Paul, as teachers of pestilential errors. Its jurisdiction seems to have extended beyond Palestine. The power of capital punishment was taken from this body forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem.§ It was for this rea- son the Jews answered Pilate : " It 2s not lawful for us to put any man to death." (John xix. 31.) The Sanhedrim arrested, tried, convicted, and then handed the condemned over to the secular power, represented by the Poman procurator. There appears an exception (in Acts vii. 56, etc.) in the case of Stephen : but that was "a tumultuous proceeding or an illegal assumption of * Mislma, Sanhedr. L \ % That is, according to the Jerusa f Middoth, v. lem Gemara, quoted by Selden, book J John xi. 47. i ii., chap. 5, 11. PUBLIO AFFAIRS DURING THE CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. 71 power," as the execution of James in the absence of the procura- tor is declared by Josephus* to have been. The religious sects of the day were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. We shall soon see that the ministry of Jesus was antagonistic to all these, and in studying that antagonism we shall more clearly understand the distinctive tenets and tempers of these several religionists. It is sufficient in this place to ren- der a mere synopsis. The Pharisees (separatists, as their name implies) were the Puri- tans of the time, claiming superior sanctity. They taught that tradition was as binding as the written law : that ™ . & ' Pharisees. God must have communicated much religious truth to Moses orally, as the people generally held, and had from time immemorial held, certain doctrines to be as well settled as the law, although they are not mentioned in the Pentateuch, of which prayer and the resurrection of the dead are notable in- stances, and that this oral law was as binding as the written law. The classical passage in the Mishna f on this subject is the follow- ing: "Moses received the (oral) law from Sinai, and delivered it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the pro- phets, and the prophets to the men of the Great Synagogue." They held themselves to be in the succession and to have the right to interpret and apply the law. They had become the most ex- treme ritualists. They were formalists. They had smothered spiritual religion to death under ceremonials. They laid on the conscience " burdens too heavy for men to bear." The Sadducees were a sect owing their existence to a reaction against Pharisaic teaching. The Sadducees held that the oral law was not at all binding, that nothing* was binding A -, =>' to & Sadducees. except the written law. To them it was a logical consequence to deny a future state of rewards and punishments. As in the written law, in all the pleadings of the great lawgiver for good living, and in all his threatenings against evil-doing, Moses had never called to his aid the consolation of the doctrine of future rewards nor the terror of future punishments, it seemed to them inconceivable that he should have believed in any such doctrine. They proceeded to deny the immortality of the soul, and then the existence of the soul itself. * They believed in neither angel nor spirit. * Antiq. , xx. 9, § 1. | f Quoted in Smith's Dictionary. 72 THE BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD OF JESUS. The Essenes represented rather a tendency than a sect. But they grew into a community. They separated themselves from « the distraction of business. They were Pharisees in doctrine, in general terms ; but they held to* wards the Pharisees very much the relation which the Pharisees maintained toward the mass of the common people. They were the Quakers of the day of Jesus. They opposed wai and slavery and commerce. They were monks, ascetics, mystics. They ex- erted little influence on Christianity, and Jesus made no special allusion to them. His life and doctrine did not accord with their views and practices. The Herodians were a politico-religious sect or party. Herod the Great was of foreign descent, but was a Jew in his religious professions. There were many Jews who saw no way to sustain the national independence, in face of the Poman power, except in the continuance of the reign of Herod ; and, as they believed that the preservation of their nation- ality was necessary to the glory of their destiny, they would sup- port Herod, in whom they saw a protection against direct heathen rule. Others were quite willing to have a compromise between the old Hebrew faith and the culture of the Pagans, such as Herod seemed to be making. The political wing of the Hero- dians would side with the Pharisees, and the religious wing with the Sadducees. But the Herodians seem never to have attempted to harmonize the doctrines of the two sects. It is, perhaps, more nearly proper to call the Herodians a coalition than a party or a sect. PAET II. INTRODUCTION OF JESUS TO HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY. FROM A.D. 26 TO A.D. 27— ABOUT ONE YEAR. CHAPTER I, John, called " the Baptist," performed a ministry in Judaea which certainly opened the way for the public work of Jesus, and hence he is spoken of as the Harbinger. Of the wonderful circumstances attending the . * ,' m .7. & l. ; Luke in. birth of this very extraordinary man we have already spoken. In his case, as in that of his cousin Jesus, a silence covers the years of his youth. His marvellous birth, and the manner in which he obtained his name, must have had a great effect upon the character of the child, making his very boyhood and youth sacred and solemn. He grew up in the study of the law, grieved at the spiritual deadness of his times, and the hard conventionalities which had enervated the heart of the nation. Upon his spirit must have fallen, also, the influence of the gen- eral expectation of a Mighty One, a Messiah, a Deliverer. His nation had pondered the strange intimations of the prophets, and the uprising of Elijah in their midst would not have been to them a surprising event. If Moses be excepted, there was no figure among all the mighty men of their earlier history who filled so large space in the Hebrew mind, and filled it so solemnly, as Elij ah. To their imagination he was colossal. To the modern mind he is " the grandest and most romantic charac- 74 INTRODUCTION OF JESUS TO HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY. ter that Israel ever produced." * His history fascinates us. " Hig rare, sudden, and brief appearances, — his undaunted courage and fiery zeal, — the brilliancy of his triumphs, — the pathos of his des- pondency, — and the glory of his departure, — threw such a halo of brightness around him as is equalled by none of his compeers in the sacred story." f H e nas been well called "Prodigiosus Thes- bites " X — the prodigious Tishbite. It is noticeable that the very last sentence which fell from the lips of Prophecy, before they were sealed into silence, contained the prediction of the reap- pearance of Elijah (Malachi iv. 5, 6) ; and whenever any man of extraordinary power appeared, it seemed to the Jews, in their political troubles and degradation, that Elijah had come. Such was their expectation when this holy JSTazarite, John, fol- lowing the example of many good men who were discouraged by the degeneracy of the times, retired to the desert region beyond the Jordan and gave himself to the self-discipline of meditation and prayer. After years of stern training the hour of his manifestation came, and he broke upon the world with preaching that roused the nation. His appearance was not comely. His physique had none of the plumpness, his complexion none of the richness, which comes from generous diet. His food was locusts § and wild honey. His dress was removed as far as possible from the elegance of fashion and the pomp of office ; it was a vestment of camel's hair,] bound about his waist by a leathern girdle. His address was blunt and brusque. He held no office and had no official sanction. He was not a priest, nor a rabbi. As De Pressense well says : " It was not priests or doctors that were wanting ; the very spirit of John's cration. * Stanley, S. and P., 328. f Smith's Diet. , Art. Elijah. % Acta Sanctor. § The dicpig, permitted to be eaten (Levit. xi. 22), was used as food by the lower orders in Judsea, and mentioned by Strabo and Pliny as eaten by the Ethiopians, and by many other authors as articles of food. Jerome, adv. Jo- vinian, 2, 6, says: " Apud Orientales et Libyse populos quia per desertam et calidam eremi vastitatem locustarem nubes reperiuntur, locustis vesci moris est : hoc verum esse Joannes quoque Baptista probat." Shaw found locusts eaten by the Moors in Barbary . ( Travels, p. 164.) Seel Sam. xiv. 25. Here again there is no need to suppose anything else meant but honey made by wild bees. | The garment of camel's hair was not the camel's skin with the hair on, which would be too heavy to wear, but raiment woven of camel's hair, such as Josephus speaks of (B. J. i. 24, 3). From Zech. xiii. 4, it seems that such a dress was known as the prophetic garb : " Neither shall they (the prophets) weal a rough garment to deceive." John's preaching and ministry. 75 Judaism was stifled under rites and traditions. It was this spirit that had to be reanimated and freed from all that oppressed it." For this work John needed, as he took, a free, broad space. His ministry is remarkable for the absence of two things, namely, miracles and an organization. He pretended to no miracle ; he formed no school. Of the multitudes , , i • t • l • 'ii John's ministry. who came to him, some remained in his neighbor- hood and gained what benefit they could from his society and his teaching. But he did not add another sect to the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. He was simply a preacher, a herald. As to his style, two things are to be noticed : 1. His earnestness. He believed that he had a great message to his generation. He could not forbear. He had no specially favorable position for its delivery, but it was in him and it grew, and it became too large and strong for him to hold, and there was room in the wilderness and he went there " crying." One can fancy that he cried and cried until a stray traveller across the wilderness heard him, listened, went and reported the sound ; and another came and heard, and reported the strange voice crying in the wilderness ; and they that went alone hung timidly on the outskirts of the desert, and held their hands behind their ears to catch the flying sounds, and trembled as they heard the cry, " Repent ! Repent ! " then drew near in groups and beheld the strange wild man who, when he saw them, opened his great eyes wide upon them, and cried, " Re- pent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Frightened, they fled. But there is a fascination in earnestness. The tones of the prophet's voice rang in their ears whether they waked or slept, and they could not stay away. And when they went again he cried, " Bring forth fruits meet for repentance." He was in full earnest. He believed that before he came Isaiah heard him with his own prophetic ears, and exclaimed, " Hark ! a voice is crying in the wilderness ! " 2. The message was indiscriminate. The crowds of common people drew the great and learned to this powerful preacher. He had no compliments for the rabbis, no gallant speeches for the ladies, no politic utterances for the powerful. He saw before him men and women, full of sin, concealed from them- selves by their conventionalities, and he thundered the truth at them indiscriminately. They had Abraham to their father 76 INTRODUCTION OF JESUS TO HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY. and needed no special moral illumination, certainly no spiritual regeneration — so they thought of themselves. But he believed that they did need spiritual regeneration, and believed that that regeneration was the most important thing in all the world. The matter of his preaching we gather from the few notices in the Evangelists. ,. Matthew reports him as saying, " Repent ye : preaching. r J & ' r J for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." (iii. 2.) " But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, i O generation of Matthew's re- ii.lt i A n ji i vipers, who hath warned you to nee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance : and think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father : for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees : therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance : but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear : he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire : whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner ; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.' " (iii. 7-13.) Mark says that he preached, saying, "There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I indeed have baptized you with water : but he shall bap- tize you with the Holy Ghost." (i. 7, 8.) Lake reports that he said to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, " i O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come ? Bring forth u repo . ^heref ore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father : for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees : every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.' And the people asked him, saying, ' What shall we do then ? ' He answered and said unto them, ' He that hath two coats, let him impart tc him that hath none ; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.' John's preaching and ministry. 77 Then came also publicans to be baptized, and said unto him, ' Master, what shall we do ? ' And he said unto them, < Exact no more than that which is appointed you.' And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, < And what shall we do % ' And he said unto them, ' Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely ; and be content with your wages.' And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ, or not ; John answered, saying unto them all, ' I indeed baptize you with water ; but one migh- tier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose : he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire : whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner ; but the chaif he will burn with fire unquenchable.' " (iii. 7-17.) John the Evangelist, speaking of John the Baptist, says :-*» i( And this is the record of John when the Jews sent priests and Levi tea from Jerusalem to ask him, ' Who art thou?' And he confessed, and denied not: but .. ., 7 . 7 gelist s report. confessed, ' I am not the Christ. And they asked him, < What then % Art thou Elias ? ' And he saith, £ 1 am not.' ' Art thou that Prophet % ' And he answered, ' ISTo.' Then said they unto him, l Who art thou % that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?' He said, ' I am the voice of one crying 'in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.' — And they which were sent were of the Pharisees. And they asked him, and said unto him, ' Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that Prophet % ' John answered them, saying, ' I baptize with water : but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not : he it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose.' " (i. 19-27.) It will be seen that this startling preacher not only trampled under foot all prejudices as to appearance and style, but also that he spared no prejudice of national pride or eccle- . ,-i -i , , t -i Substance of hia siastical precedent or ancient creed or modern ^. r m Discourses. rationalism. Let us analyze these very brief re- ports of his discourses and see what the substance was. 1. His most impressive discourses seemed to be of repentance. This he pressed upon the people of all classes vehemently. It was 78 INTRODUCTION OF JESUS TO HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY. not to be a mere outward reformation, an abandonment of noto- rious sin — nor simply the observance of strict Repentance. -i r» t** , i -n , • -r-r i rules oi lire, mere external purification, lie knew nothing of the dogma of sin resident in the flesh, and of the theory of purifying the life by lacerating the body, or by reduc- ing it by ascetic observances. He had a mission to others, not a humiliating work to perform on himself, like the Jewish masses that were around him in the desert. He tore conventionalities and creeds and orthodoxies to shreds, and flung them to the winds. He went at once into the inmost man, and insisted that his hear- ers should make a total change of their minds in every depart- ment — in intellections, in emotions, in volitions. He knew that if this internal rectification could be secured everything necessary in the outward life would follow, " fruits meet for repentance." So when the people asked for more distinct instruction he gave it without vagueness. He had the art of discovering just where the fester was in the sore, and the great surgical talent of bold yet skilful probing. Even the publicans — that most hated class — were drawn to him. He told them plainly that they should exact no more than they were authorized to require. This was their besetting sin, greatly nourished by their position, which gave them so much opportunity to enrich themselves by oppres- sing others without being called to account. — There were soldiers in the neighborhood. And they flocked to hear this strange preacher, and asked for instruction. He warned them against their well-known vices, charging them to assault no one ; nor accuse any of the people to their superiors on frivolous pre- tences ; nor be discontented with their wages. It is to be observed that John, radical as he was, and reformer, made no assault upon the existing institutions of society. He was a radical not in the sense of tearing everything up by the roots, but of improving all growing things by purifying the roots. In this particular we shall see that Jesus resembled him. 2. He preached against the formalism and the scepticism of the times, the phariseeism and sadduceeism that divided the ruling minds of his nation. This led him to deal roughly Against formal- w ^ ^ e c h er j s h e ol traditional religion of his peo- dsm ^ 3CeP 1_ P^ e ' -^ e ^ad as ^^ e a PP rec i a tion for this as he had for sacerdotal succession. Men are not to be drilled and marched in platoons. The business of life is individ- John's preaching and ministry. 79 ual culture in holiness. No man does a great thing in any proces- sion or succession. He must step out. He is not to fancy, because it is a fact that he is descended from Abraham, that he is all that lie should be. The stern preacher looked at the shingle of pebbles and stones at his feet, and laughed their traditional claims to scorn by exclaiming, " Children of Abraham are you ? God can of these stones raise up children to Abraham." It is difficult to conceive at this distance and with our culture how shocking such a statement must have sounded in Jewish ears. As members of the theocracy they held that they had a prescriptive right to a place in the kingdom of the coming Messiah when he should arrive. And they believed that that kingdom would be restricted to their nation. There was a broad dash of liberalism in John's discourses. It hit the formal Pharisee and the unspiritual Sad- ducee equally hard to be told that God could, by his Spirit, out of stones raise up children to Abraham ; as if he had said, " God is able to transform the most uncultivated portions of the human race into a people of highest spiritual character and prospects." 3. He announced an approaching kingdom, and called it " the kingdom of the heavens." If the kingdom were to be such as they and their fathers had expected, there had then been no need of " change of mind " repent- nn ^ e \ ' . L coming kingdom. ance. They longed for a kingdom of earth, whose mighty Ruler should be to them a deliverer from everj foreign yoke. He was to be revealed from heaven with great wonders, resuscitate the race of Abraham, subjugate the Roman power to the Jewish theocracy, carry a war of triumph against all the Gentiles — all nations that were not Jews — and then establish a personal reign of a thousand years, in which the Jewish people were to reach a condition of unimaginable splendor. John plainly told them that that was all nonsense. That, so far from that being the case, the axe was already laid to the root of the tree of their nation and religion, and that in a little while, if no sign of an inward life appeared, that whole tree, deep as its roots had struck, and wide as its branches had waved, would be cut down. It was inward spiritual life which God required in every man. The kingdom was to be a spiritual kingdom, in which the will of each man was to be conformable to the will of God, a kingdom which was to cover earth with heaven and obliterate the distinction of 6acred and profane. 80 INTKODUCTION" OF JESUS TO HIS PUBLIC MTNISTET. startling Announces the presence of the Ruler. 4. He declared the nearness of that kingdom, and made the announcement to his hearers that the .Ruler in that kingdom was then actually standing, unknown, in their very midst ! He magnified that Euler, and spoke of himself in contrast as quite the most humble of persons. He was not worthy to untie and carry the shoes * of that Potentate. That Kuler was mightier than he. He baptized only with water; the Coming One should baptize with fire. He was no one, — not Christ, — not Elias, — nothing — but a Yoice. The committee that waited on him from the Sanhedrim catechised him closely as to the nature of his %)erson, that which is most important to narrow people. He made no allusion to the subject of their inquiries in his replies, but always spoke of his office and work, as being, to the broad view of a liberal mind, a much more important subject. The Coming One stood with his fan in his hand. He should blow away from the threshing-floor of earth all chaff, all that — whatsoever it was — which had been useful in the rearing of the real wheat, but being no longer useful, whether it be ceremonial or philosophic, he would burn in a fire which none that loved the chaff could by any means extinguish. Chaff should not be. That was settled. So, have done with chaff and appreciate wheat. Address your- selves, he seemed to say, to practical living of lives of .inward purity, of justice, mercy, and humility. Be ready for this king- dom of heaven which lies all about you, like a sea about an island below its level, an island from which the inrush of the sea is prevented by dikes. Make a crevasse in all your old high piled traditionary prejudices, and the kingdom of heaven will sweep in. That seemed to be the substance of the matter of his preach- To preaching he united a rite of baptism. Perhaps the origin of baptism can never be discovered. The wash- Baptism. c , , , mg 01 the outer man seems always and every- where to have been considered as somehow emblematic cf the purifi * The expression, "whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose," has its force intensified by comparison with a passage in the Talmud : " Every office a servant will do for his master a scholar should perform for his teach- er, excepting loosing- his sandal thong. v — Tract. Kidduschin, xxii. 2. John's preaching and ministry. 81 cation of the spirit.* Much discussion has been had by the learned on the question whether John's baptism was equivalent to the bap- tism of proselytes ; but it has not been settled whether that was introduced before or after the ministry of John. But through all the Mosaic law and ritual there ran the idea of a connection be- tween the filth of the body and the impurity of the soul, and the Jewish mind was familiar with the thought of effects attributed to a rite which involved the application of water for the removal of unhealthy taints. The Pharisees and Sadducees are represented as coming to the baptism of John, — but not the Essenes. A large part of their religion consisted in frequent ablution of the body. And so, when John began to preach spiritual holiness, it is not won- derful that he should adopt and administer the rite of baptism. But it was not Christian baptism, of course, as Christianity was not yet inaugurated. It did not rise to the height of a sacrament. But it must have had a deeper significance than any baptism pre- viously known to the Jews, and John's specific instruction must have unfolded that deeper meaning. A very great use of John's baptism — perhaps it was so designed — was that it broke through all priestism, all churchism, all ritual- ism. He was a private person. He was, as to his ministry, in no " succession." He had no ecclesiastical position, no " authority." But he baptized. The rite, as he administered it, was private. He was breaking up the soil for a new kingdom which was to be very free and spiritual, for a new form of the ever-during church that was to have no priesthood, no close corporation of authorized dis- pensers of truth or pardon. And so he baptized. He that had no more " right " than any other man, used an ordinance indicative of spiritual purification. After all, the ministry of John — brief , vehement, attractive, and powerful as it was — seemed to have had little permanent effect upon his generation. It was like a rushing mountain torrent that * Milman says {Hist. Christianity, Book i., chap, iii.) : " The sacred Ganges cleanses all moral pollution from the Indian ; among the Greeks and Ro- mans even the murderer might, it was supposed, wash the blood dean from his hands ■; and (in many of their religious rites) lustrations or ablutions, either in 6 the running stream or in the sea, puri- fied the candidate for divine favor, and made him fit to approach the shrines of the gods." He quotes the lines of Ovid: — ' ' Ah nimium f aciles, qui tristia crimina csedis, Tolli fluminea posse putatis aqul' 82 INTRODUCTION OP JESUS TO HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY. permanently fective, moved some stones and floatwood, and cnt a channel deeper, but soon passed away. " For a season " the mass His ministry not f the people rejoiced in him; and such a hold e " had he secured upon the popular mind that the Pharisees did not dare to deny the divine au- thority of his mission when they were publicly questioned by Jesus. But the people's passion is not steady. They were falling away from the high excitement to which the sudden thunders of John's arousing preaching had flung them. Bishop Ellicott elo- quently says : " We may with reason believe that the harbinger's message might have arrested, aroused, and awakened ; but that the general influence of that baptism of water was comparatively limited, and that its memory would soon have died away if He that baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire had not invested it with a new and more vital significance. John struck the first chords, but the sounds would have soon died out into silence if a mightier hand had not swept the yet vibrating strings." — Histor- ical Lectures, p. 105. In following regularly the career of Jesus we shall come upon an occasion when he gave his estimate of the character of John. CHAPTEE II. .TESTIS DESIGNATED AT HIS BAPTISM BY JOHN. Jesus now comes forward from his long obscurity. We have seen him only once before since his infancy. Now he comes to the Jordan to be baptized of John. Let ns col- . . , Jesus reappears. late the records. Matt m , Mark L Matthew's account (iii. 13) is this: "Then cometh Jesns from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbade him, saying : ' I have need to be baptized of thee, and! comest thou to meV And Jesus answering said unto him, 'Suffer it to be so now : for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.' Then he suffered him. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him : and lo a voice from heaven, saying, i This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' " Mark (i. 9) says: "It came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jor- dan. And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him : and there came a voice from heaven, saying, 'Thou art my be- loved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' " Lukds narrative (iii. 21) is this: "Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and pray- ing, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, 'Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.' " Luke adds (verse 23) : "And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age." John does not give a narrative of the ceremony of the baptism, but records the testimony of John the Baptist (i. 29). Here is the fact that Jesus was baptized of John in Jordan. To tliis all the four New Testament historians testify. They give nc 84 INTRODUCTION OF JESUS TO HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY. intimation of the place. That was not important. In the open- ing of the public ministry of Jesus we may take Jesus comes to occasion to say that nowhere do we find these four John ^ J wr it ers striving to make out a case, striving tc agree in details of narrative, or ministering any- thing to superstition. ~No portrait, no autograph, no description oi the physique of Jesus is preserved by them. They do not attempt to invest any place in which he did anything with a sacredness which should make it the focus of superstition. But they tell their story with the artlessness of guileless children, and leave the impression to deepen and brighten in the mind of the reader. We shall strive to deal with the case in the same spirit of simple unaffected reverence for Nature and Supernature, feeling that we have no more right to ignore the one than to set aside the other. The fact that Jesus submitted voluntarily to John's baptism is wholly unaccountable on certain dogmas long assumed to be un- questionable. The commentators who adopt these Why Jesus was d g mas f H w one another in a dreary march baptized. ° . J around what they suppose to be a difficulty, which they really make into a difficulty for other minds, but which they do not remove. The simple statement of John himself ought to throw much light on the subject. He says, "that he should he made known to Israel; therefore am I come baptizing with water." That seems quite explicit. The hope of a Messiah was intensifying its element of expectation when John's ministry opened. He felt the depths of his great nature stirred with a call to arouse his people to a preparation of heart for the great Advent. He did not entertain those thoroughly spiritualistic views of the Messiah's kingdom which have since obtained. He believed in his personal reign, a great spiritual improvement, a discrimination, a dividing, a burning up the chaff of his own nation, a cleansing of the Jewish people for the establishment of a purified theocracy to be administered by The Christ in proper person. It was not simply the kingdom he was to announce, but the kino;. Something in this man's soul told him that in the course of his ministry of heralding the kingdom the Certain mistakes. ,. ■. ,-,, -i-i,!* j ^ 7 1 n king should be revealed to mm, and lie should point oui; that being to his people, and that there his ministry was virtually to cease. Upon the inauguration of Jesus, John was 1 ' |,l!l ■'■ -'^ISHWS JEStJS DESIGNATED AT HIS BAPTISM BY JOHN. 85 functus officio. Jesus did not come to John for instruction, surely Every reader of the history, who reads it even in the most com- mon human way, must see that as a teacher the man Jesus was superior to the man John. He did not come to him to be bap- tized with a baptism of repentance, change of mind, for he had held these views of the spiritual theocracy as long as John had. He was at least John's fellow-prophet of the coming kingdom. He had thrown no obstacles in the way. He was not a priest, a conventionalist, a ritualist, a fossilized conservative of decent heterodoxes. It was not a sacrament that John was to administer to. him. It was not an induction into a priestly .office. The bap tism administered by John to Jesus had no precedent and was not a precedent. It was a singular act and fact in human his- tory. The Man who was to be the Ruler of the human mind in the ages to come, and was to ascend to the highest throne in the kingdom of thought; the Man who was to be the Huler of the human heart in the ages to come, so that no one was to be so deeply, highly, tenderly, reverently loved as He, — this man was the Son of Mary. He had been ordained to this place in the harmonious arrangement of the universe, and hence is called the Christus. The time for his inauguration had come. He was to be revealed to the world through the ministry of John. One needs to be very tender and thoughtful as one studies this great passage ; great not only in the history of Jesus, but in the history of the world ; for the history of all humanity was from this time forth to be changed by him. Whatever there is of fact should be studied with historical discrimination, and whatever there is of poetry, wonder, awe, and beauty, should, if possible, be studied w T ith poetic appreciation. It has been well said that — "It is of manifest importance that what we see we should see clearly. We are not indeed to require, as an absolute condition of faith, that we should be able to see, or even to image distinctly to the mind, the thing in which we are to believe. Because there are things ^ff^ of distinct ° ° mental picture. which, from their very nature, do not admit of being pic- tured even to the imagination, such as God or one's own soul. (See Edinburgh Rev., vol. xlvi., p. 339, Eng. ed.) But when the matter proposed is confessedly an object of sense, a scene that addresses the eye, clear vision is supremely desirable. We may not ask to see those things which eye hath never seen and can never see. But of that which professes visibility, let us have the distinct- est sight. Accordingly, it is necessary to a due faith in the Baptism of Jesus, 86 INTRODUCTION OF JESUS TO HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY. with its attendant circumstances as a fact, that it should be distinctly repre sented to the mind. With this understanding, and a single desire to appre- hend the actual state of the case, what it was that occurred on this occasion, let us examine the above account." — Jesus and his Biographers, by Furness, p. 147. Jesus came voluntarily to John's baptism uninvited. Had John seen him before ? Possibly several times : they were kins- men. Probably seldom : they lived apart in a John's previous ., , . • , . , acquaintance. country not very easily traversed m their day. Possibly never. There is no history. John says (John i. 31), " I knew him not." This may mean one of two* things : either that he had no knowledge of the person of Jesus, so that he should recognize him on sight, or that he did not know that this was the wonderful Being whose arrival his great life- work was to announce ; did not know that he was the "Erkome- nos" the Coming Man, until certain wonderful phenomena made the whole plain to his mind. The submission of Jesus to the baptism of John was another blow at churchism, priestism, and all that form of thought which attempts to run the streams of God's gra- k blow at church- . . ., , . 1 . , , T ism ciousness through ecclesiastical aqueducts. Jesus was a layman. So was John. Jesus was about to begin the Ministry of Grace, to assume the kingliness of the Power of Purity. He did not order the conduct of the pomp of the inauguration at Imperial Pome, nor at Sacerdotal Jerusa- lem. Not in palace, not in temple ! He went out into the open air, under the open sky, beside the running stream. He would not have lictors and chamberlains and priests about him. A rough, unlearned layman, exhorting the people to be ready for him, that was a sufficient herald. He was going to lay the world open to goodness and to God. He was going to rend the veil of the temple and of all temples. He was going to abolish heredi- tary religions and tear away whatever stood between God and man, whether it were temple veil or erroneous thought, a chancel rail or a dogma, or a rubric or a canon, — whatever stood between the Father and the Child he was to destroy. He was never to use the phrase " The Church " in all his ministry. His kingdom was to be inclusive, not exclusive. His people were to be every man a king and every man a priest, a royal priesthood, a holy generation that should know no distinction between " clergyman " and " layman." JESUS DESIGNATED AT HIS BAPTISM BY JOHN. 87 When Jesus approached John for baptism, the latter hesitated If he had never seen him before, or not since early childhood there was something in the appearance of Jesus which arrested his attention. He was not like to baptize Jesua die people who usually nocked to his ministry. There must have been a remarkable absence of traces of world- liness, — world-care, world-sorrow, world-passion, — on the brow of this rare young man, who had grown up under influences so pure from a birth so marvellous. He must have looked like one who had always been in " the kingdom of the heavens," the coming of which John was preaching. Why should lie be baptized ? With all his vehemence and power, the great-hearted John was modest. When he looked at Jesus he declined to baptize him, and said, " I have need to be baptized of you : and do you come to me? " The reply of Jesus was simple and decisive : " Suffer it now : for tints it becomes us to fulfil all righteousness." As though he had said, "Whatever you perceive which you ^ , , T ' . . . Reply of Jesus, think is against your baptizing me, proceed with the rite, and you shall then know something beyond. If you are divinely moved to believe that in the regular discharge of your ministry of preparation the Anointed One is to be revealed to you, your obvious duty is to go forward baptizing every comer until HE come. If there be anything in me, in all my previous growth, in all the development of my soul, that predicts for me and to myself a great and solemn destiny, I must not refuse a baptism of heralding the kingdom of the heavens. If your work be of God, O humble layman, and I have come from God, I must make no divergence, and no opposition, but go through with it, and then it shall come to pass that I shall be revealed to you, and shall be certified in my own soul of that calling of which from earliest childhood I have had growing intimations." How much of this Jesus said, or whether he said merely what is recorded in the text, and looked the rest, we cannot know. But John knew the history of his birth and the marvels thereon at- tending. And he baptized him. It was a momentous crisis for both parties. John was to have a sign of the Messiah when the Messiah should appear. Jesus was to come to the fulness of the perception of his place in the world and the world's history. Others went down to the water confessing, and 88 INTRODUCTION OF JESUS TO HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY. came up shouting. He descended in solemn silence, and as cended from the river with face upturned in worship. Then occurred a phenomenon mentioned by all the historians, Something like a dove descended upon Jesus. That much is The descending P atent > what else we ma J discover by rereading dove. tne passages. We must either accept these books as histories or reject them. I accept. They must then be dealt with as other histories, and what is marvellous must no more be explained away than what is commonplace. What was this that appeared " like a dove ? " All the four historians use that same phrase, whatever may be their variations elsewhere I believe it was actually a dove. If I were to read four accounts of the coronation of a king, in all which there was represented that something " like a dove " descended upon him, I should say " It was a dove." I say so here. Eow, let us bring the scene and the personages clearly before as. We are standing beside Jordan. Here is a powerful, masterly John and Jesus. man Proclaiming a coming kingdom. And here is a man who is to take the lead of all the world's men, upon whom as never upon any other there had come gifts of insight, purity, and elevation of character. John does not know this of Jesus, as later men shall know it. He knows him a child miraculously born, in whose early history there had been passages not common in human biography. He is looking daily for the Christ of God, the Anointed of Jehovah. He feels that Jesus is his superior. On sight he acknowledges that superi- ority. What must have been the face of that man whose pres- ence hushes the outspoken John, that John whom mobs of sol- diers and peasants, and crowds of rabbis, and committees of Sanhedrims only roused into intenser name of hatred against sin ! He that is higher than John is on the pinnacle of all that is hu- man. The man that overawes John has the mastery of humanity. With what intense excitement must John have gazed upon Jesus ! And when Jesus came up from the water, praying, trans- figured with his own intense intellectual and spir- John the discov- ., -i .. , •.'.., « r , ltual excitement, it was a moment or rapt awe erer or Jesus. ' . \ to both. At that instant a dove descended on Jesus. Whence, no one saw. It seemed to come from heaven. John had had the assurance that a sign should be given him when the Messiah rose to his vision. He was advancing along the line JESUS DESIGNATED AT HIS BAPTISM BY JOHN. 89 of his ministry when this remarkable state of affairs was come upon, namely ; a man of wondrous sanctity of appearance comes to his baptism ; John feels that this is his superior, and is com- pelled to acknowledge it; the candidate makes no confession; he comes from the water in a state of great spiritual exaltation ; a dove from parts unseen descends upon him. It was to John the Holy Spirit of the great Jehovah designating the expected and Anointed Deliverer, according to previous intimations. Now, if the presence of Jesus could have produced such an uprising of the mind of John, there must have been something divinely pow- erful in Jesus. It was John who was selected to discover the Messiah and to declare him to his generation. There was not only the -appearance of a dove out of the opening heavens, but the sound of a voice. The voice Avas not a mere rumble, as of thunder. There could have been no thunder-storm. It was clear in a rare degree, for the " heavens " were " opened." The sound was articulate. It was the vouchsafed sign. John heard it : " This is my beloved Son, in whom, lam well pleased." Jesus heard it: " Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased? Any theory may be set forth, but here are the facts. It may be said that it was an intense state of mental excitement which made these men hear what they supposed to be a voice. Suppose that. If God speak to you ar- f ticulately, just as a human being does, or prefer so to quicken your inward being that you receive thereon precise- ly such impressions as come to you ordinarily and normally through your senses, it is to you precisely the same. There is no difference in the result. All great souls that have dedicated themselves to great deeds of self-abnegation and heroism have felt, seen, heard powerful communications from the Great Cre- ator. Impressions are frequently made directly upon the mind without intervention of the organs of sense; and they seem just such as men are accustomed to receive through those organs ; and then they are spoken of as visions or voices, as the case may be. It is not a question of such vast concern in which way came this con- firmation to John. He was not a cold, hard materialist. He was a man of high-wrought spirituality. And Jesus was the finest piece of human organism of which any history gives us any ac- count. These men met in a circle of circumstances described by 90 INTRODUCTION OF JESUS TO HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY. one of them. John says: " I saw, and hare record that this is the Son of God? If he was satisfied, surely we ought to be. Tt is as unphilosophic to be incredulous as to be superstitious. Men have no reward when they exert their intellects to reason them- selves out of their faith. Faith of what can be believed is as important as science of what can be known. Jesus thus inaugurated his public ministry. CHAPTEK III. THE TEMPTATION. Immediately after the exciting scene of Lis baptism, Jesns en- tered upon a fearful season of spiritual trial and depression. It is usually known as The Temptation. The history is given by Matthew and Luke, a brief statement being made by Mark also. Matthew's narrative is this : " Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, after- ward he huno-ered. And when the tempter came ° r count. to him, he said, ' If thou art the Son of God, com- mand that these stones be made bread.' But he answered and said, ' It is written, Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word proceeding through the mouth of God.' Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on the battlement of the temple, and saith to him, 'If thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee : and upon their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.' Jesus said unto him, ' It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.' Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them ; and said to him, ' All these things will I give thee, if falling down thou wilt do me homage.' Then saith Jesus unto him, c Go away, Satan : for it is written, Thou shalt do hom- age to the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou worship.' Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him." (Matt. iv. 1-11.) All that Mark records is in ch. i. vv. 12, 13 : " And immedi- ately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness. And he was there in the wilderness forty days ,!f, s f cc tempted of Satan ; and was with the wild beasts ; and the angels ministered unto him." 92 INTRODUCTION OF JESUS TO HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY. St. Luke (iv. 1-13) gives an account of this transaction which is substantially the same as that of Matthew. It cannot now be known in what place this passage in the his- tory of Jesus occurred. Tradition assigns it to one of the moun- tains opposite Jericho, called now Quarantania, ace o e f rom the forty days of fasting, a name probably given it in the times of the Crusades. Thomson {Land and Book, vol. ii. p. 450) thus describes it: — " Directly west, at a distance of a mile and a half, is the high and precipi- tous mountain called Quarantania, from a tradition that our Saviour here fasted forty days and nights, and also that this is the 'high mountain ' from whose top the tempter exhibited ' all the kingdoms of this world, and the glory of them.' The side facing the plain is as perpendicular and apparently as high as the rock of Gibraltar, and upon the very summit are still visible the ruins of an ancient convent. Midway below are caverns hewn in the per- pendicular rock, where hermits formerly retired to fast and pray, in imitation of the 'forty days,' and it is said that even at the present time there is to be found an occasional Coptor Abyssinian languishing out his Quarantania in this doleful place." The general reader would be amazed to see the immense amount of literature there is upon the subject of the Temptation of Jesus. Through much of it we have painfully waded, to come back to the conclusion that the simplest way is to read the history in the light of common sense, and derive what lessons our present scien- tific culture may enable us to educe. It is obvious that the narrative is substantially made by Jesus. The historians could have gathered it from no other source. Un- less they made great blunders in understanding The narrative ^ statements, or in recording them, we have the whole affair before us as it appeared to the mind of Jesus, quite as nearly indeed as language can convey thought from one mind to another. It may be instructive to see how many views have been taken of this portion of the history of Jesus. They show how men allow themselves to interpret facts by dogmas, Explanatory an( ^ t j iat this is quite as common among sceptics theories. . , , , . . as among the credulous, — no more characteristic of the one than of the other, although generally charged vehe mently upon the latter by the former. 1. It has been regarded as an external occurrence, and, as such, THE TEMPTATION. 93 (a) as real, the literal apparition of Satan in the form of a man or of an angel ; * (h) as a myth,f in which tradition invests the sym- bolical idea of a contest between Messiah and Satan ; or (c) as a narrative in symbolical language, the real tempter being a man.J 2. It has been regarded as an internal occurrence; in other words, a vision: and, as such (a), as excited in the brain of Jesus by the Devil ;§ (h) as created by God;|| (c) as produced by natu- ral causes,!" or (d), as "a significant morning dream." *"* 3. It has been considered an inward ethical transaction, or a psychological occurrence ; and, as such (a), a conflict in the imag- ination of Jesus ; ff (b) an inward conflict excited by the Devil ; ^ (c) a subjective (inward) transaction, to which the New Testament historians gave an objective (outward) form; or (d), as a frag- mentary, symbolical representation of transactions in the inner life of Jesus, grouped into one statement. §§ 4. It has been considered as sparable, to instruct the disciples of Jesus as to their spiritual perils and remedies. ||| 5. It has been pronounced a myth.*^ This classification and these references are given so that if there be any readers having time, patience, and curiosity enough, they may make a study of this subject for themselves. To many minds the refutation of these positions must have occurred as they have been stated. In all of them there are difficulties. The theories which involve the appearance of Satan in bodily form, whether of man or angel, are open to the objections (1), That * This is, I think, the view of most of the commentators who consider them- selves orthodox. f I need hardly say that this is the view of Dr. Strauss. % The man being-, as some hold, a member of the Jewish Sanhedrim. Ben- gel says : ' ' The tempter did not wish it to be known that he was Satan, yet Christ, at the conclusion of the inter- view, calls him Satan, after that Satan had plainly betrayed his satanifcy." He adds : " The tempter seems to have ap- peared under the form of a ypannu rear it up in three days ? " This must refer to the completion of some main portion or principal wing of the Temple. Herod the Great had a taste for building, and had expended, and was still expending, vast sums and much time on this great work, in which he was assisted by the piety, the wealth, and the patri- otic pride of the Jews. From the time he had commenced this work to the time this reply was made to Jesus it was just forty-six years. Josephus (Ant., xvi. 11. 1) says that he began in the eighteenth year of his reign ; but in his Wars of the Jews (i. 21. 1) he says in the fifteenth, the dates being founded respectively upon the death of Antigonus and Herod's appointment by the Romans. If the latter date be taken, it will give twenty years to the birth of Jesus, and thirty years to this passover, making fifty from which if we take four years to correct our era, the epoch of which is just that much too late, we have forty-six years.* It was to Jewish ears a preposterous and a blasphemous thing in Jesus to intimate that the Temple should be destroyed, and to assert that he could rebuild it in three days. They shocked never forgave him. lie had hurt them in every sensibility. And Jesus knew it. And he made no reply and no explanation. In his first public acts he had ex- hibited a zeal that seemed headstrong ; he had certainly per- formed a most impolitic act. But it cannot be charged as an in- discretion or inadvertence, such as occur in every public man's life and give him great regrets. Jesus never regretted it. He * Alf ord (on John ii. 20) notices that the Temple was not completed till A.D. 64, under Herod Agrippa II. and the procurator Albums; so that "was in building" must have referred to the greater part of the work then com- pleted. CLEANSING THE TEMPLE. 131 must have known that he had virtually signed his own death- warrant. He awaited the result. We shall see how this one sentence of his rankled in the heart of the nation, was made the strength of the indictment on which he was executed, and con- fronted him in the shape of gibe amid the horrors of his cru- cifixion. He meant his own body. He thought of his death by violence, and his belief that he had power to take up his life again. He knew the unity of his own meaning and compre- hended the multiplicity of its relations. It might ,, e ^ surrec 10n refer to the desecration of the Temple by the men around him, or to its destruction by the Romans ; it might refer to the abolition of the Jewish form of religion and the recon- struction of faith on the basis of his resurrection. Here as throughout his whole public life (compare Matt. xii. 40) this thought of his resurrection was ever present to his mind. Subsequently he seems to have told John and the other disciples that his allu- sion, in the offending speech, was to "the temple of his body." But even then they could not comprehend, they seemed scarcely able to apprehend, the idea of the resurrection of the body. The whole meaning came upon them only after they believed that they had seen him alive after death.* An appeal may now be made to the candor of mankind against the disingenuousness of some modern critics. H any public man, say Pericles, or Csesar, or Cromwell, or AVashing- xt \ i -. t -. • it tp An appeal, ton, or JN apoleon, had plunged into public life as Jesus did, would it be fair to charge that his intent was to pan- der to the public taste, to study the tides of fortune, to adapt him- self to the desires of the masses, and thus to popularize himself? Suppose the act of cleansing the Temple would be agreeable to a few unsecularized devout old Jews ; it would be disagreeable to the large majority of ruling, influential people, and hugely dis- gusting to the traffickers themselves; while the speech of the Temple would give point to the rancor of those whom the act had offended, and shield their resentment from the allegation of being based upon personal grounds, while it would be poignantly afflic- tive to the sensibilities of the pious few who would, but for the speech, have favored the act. * Bead with care John iL 21, 22. 132 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. On grounds of policy the act and the accompanying speech are wholly indefensible. If Jesus undertook the enterprise which is charged upon him by the critics, then he was sim- j. ' ply a fool, whose folly it would be difficult to match from all the recorded mistakes of men. But whatever else be charged, he is not accused of folly. Then, he did not seek to draw men to his fellowship by going to their opinions. Then, he was an independent thinker and actor. Then, he was not politic. If, since his death, it be ascertained that he has exerted a vast influence over human thought and action, — if now he reigns king in the hearts of multitudes of men, — then it is possible to live a great life and die a great death without a policy. If devout men see in the life of Jesus something supernaturally beautiful, we shall find, in an undogmatic study of his career, the thing of all things most beautiful, pure naturalness. It would seem from the history that during his attendance upon the Passover Jesus did many wonderful things, even performed miracles, which convinced many that he was the d rfuT ""k 7 W ° n " Messiah. They seemed more willing to trust him than he was to trust them. His intimate friend and biographer says that it was because "he knew what was in man." He knew that in the fervor of recent conviction they might soon form a mob of excited adherents, whose fidelity could not endure the test which such teaching and discipline as he would enforce would bring upon them. He was in no haste. He came to plant principles and demonstrate truths, not to create factions and secure partisans. CHAPTER II. NICODEMUS. Jesus was a light that could not be hid. The more thoughtful had begun to study the phenomena of his character and career. Even members of the Sanhedrim began to take , . , . , . . .,, j. -,. P Nicodemus. John interest m Ins teachings, — most with reelings or aversion, a few with solicitude, and one at least with kindly inclination. That one was Nicodemus. There must have been others whose observation had led them to desire to know more of Jesus. Such was Joseph of- Arimathea, who be- came a disciple, " but secretly for fear of the Jews." (See John xix. 38.) How many more men of mark were in this circle we have no means of knowing. John says (xii. 42) that " among the chief rulers many believed on him." Of these we take Nicode- mus as at once the leading spirit and the representative man. He was a Pharisee as to faith, and a member of the Sanhedrim as to position. He had all the traditionary influence of his sect and his office to bind him to propriety and conservatism. He was not young. The Talmud * speaks of a rich Sanhedrist, called Nicodemus Bonai, who, at a great age, was alive at the destruc- tion of Jerusalem. There are no means of identifying this man with the Nicodemus spoken of by John, but there is no reason, so far as I know, why he may not have been the same. This Nicodemus came to Jesus by night. The interview is re- ported condensedly by John, but is exceedingly interesting, as showing how ready Jesus was to set forth the most profound doc- trines to any willing mind, even when that mind is still held in the bondage of old prejudices. Timid, afraid of the ban of his * The Nicodemus of the Talmudists the disciples of Jesus. Olshausen re- is called k ' son of GTorion," is represented as one of the three richest men in Jeru- salem, living at the time of the destruc- tion of Jerusalem, being then among fers to Sanhedr., fol. xliii. 1; Aboth Rab. Nathan, cap. 6; Tract. Gittin, fol. lvi. 1, etc L34 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. Jesus regarded with mistrust. caste, holding tenaciously to his prejudices by force of habit, yet candid, loving truth, seeking a sure footing cautiously, he felt himself bound, as all honest minds are bound, to give a fair hearing to every new word and an impartial examination to all new claims. Jesus had not yet classed — as he did afterward — the hypocrite with the infidel, the Pharisee with the Sadducee. He had not re- peated with emphasis the denunciations of John the Baptist. But his style was not such as would be pleasing to the Pharisees, and they did not know how far he was to advance his claims. They regarded him, therefore, with mistrust. Nicodemus saw more in him than most of the other Pharisees perceived. Just such was the posture of his mind when he determined for truth's sake to have an inter- view with Jesus, but for the sake of prudence to have it at night. Let us now examine the narrative in John in the true historic spirit, laying aside the dogmatic prejudices of education. Nicodemus calls Jesus "Pabbi," the title of respect to an teacher. His opening speech is complimentary, but cautious. It gives a sufficient reason for his coming, and implies a careful guarding against admitting too much. " We know that from God thou hast come — a Teacher" Who are " we " ? It was not con- fined to himself.* There would have been no propriety in such stately official mode of expression in a secret nocturnal interview. He was representing others as well as Knnself , what a very few others, like Joseph of Arimathsea, were ready to admit, and what Nicodemus thought the whole Sanhedrim, at that time, in their hearts, believed. Here is a discovery of the impression already made by Jesus upon the most elevated and thoughtful minds of his nation. "We know this much, that thou hast come from God — that thou hast a divine mission to the people — as a teacher." Only that, no more, is admitted. They are not carried away by any enthusiasm in his behalf, but they are stimulated to learn what he can teach them. He must not be elated by this admis- sion, for it is qualified by a logical reason : " for no man can do the wonderful things thou doest, if God be not with him." acknowledged Address Nicodemus. of * It is noticed that the phrase "we know" is the current characteristic formula of the proud Pharisees, who held the key of knowledge for them- selves and withheld it from the common people. We shall meet it frequently as we proceed. NICODEMUS. 135 To what does all this amount? Not very much. It implies that while the chiefs had made no high estimate of John, be- cause John had performed no miracle, Jesus had made a profound impression upon the rulers: Caution of . , . , . . Nicodemus's ad- one is sent, or comes, to examine nis claims pri- ^ vately and dispassionately. He says " we," very generally perhaps, as Stier thinks, to shelter himself from express- ing his own convictions, and so as to be able to draw back if necessary : " thou hast come " is in Greek a pointer to ep-fcofievos, the " Coming One," and if Nicodemus used a precisely parallel word in Hebrew or Aramaic — in one of which dialects the con- versation must have been maintained — he might have seemed to involve a recognition of the Messianic mission of Jesus ; which recognition, however, is immediately withdrawn in the word " teacher," — the Messiah expected by the Jews being not teacher but king. He further proceeds to thin out his address by the phrase, " if God be not with him." A great fall from the almost promise of recognizing the Mes- siah ! He is so afraid of making that acknowledgment of the Messiahship of Jesus that he stops short and fails to ask a question as to the coming kingdom of God. He had long felt that the heavenly kingdom should come, and must be near, in spiritual power. His whole people were ardently longing for it. From that lofty expectation he drops down to the idea of a mere science, learning, a school, the founder being a mere teacher ! The idea was not Jewish. Those who had come from God were prophets, foretelling and denouncing, or announcing, not teaching. This scientific Sanhedrist begins to blunder as soon as he mingles the spiritual and the material. A teacher working miracles indeed ! And yet a sincere desire to know the truth must have been at the bottom of this man's heart. The mysterious young Rabbi recognized this, as his whole treatment shows. As soon as Mcodemus had " laboriously achieved Ms introductory speech," as Stier describes it, or, as I think, paused from mere confusion, having given no good reason for his visit, Jesus made a reply, which is the first and perhaps the most dogmatic of his utterances. He lets down upon the mind of Nicodemus the weight of the central truth of his system, veiled in figurative language. Looking down into the eyes and heart of the learned Pharisee, he says solemnly : " Verily ', verily ', J say to 136 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. you, if any man be not lorn anew, he cannot enjoy the kingdom of God:' Jesus knew the general expectation of the approaching king- dom. Nicodemus shared it. He had approached Jesns to ascer- tain, it would seem, what connection existed between his miracles and his doctrine. The miracles seemed phenomena wnicn de- clared the nearness of the kingdom of the Messiah which Daniel (vii. 14) had taught him and his nation to expect. As a Jew, a Pharisee, a ruler, he had prescriptive right to a place in this kingdom ; but it was quite probable that this young teacher could give him instruction as to the best way to enter, to see, to enjoy the Messianic kingdom. The general drift of this sudden speech seems to be this : You have come to me as if learning could do everything ; but it is not by new learning, but by new life, that one is to eamug o is en £ er G- 0( p s kingdom : and a new life comes by a reply. . new birth. Luther paraphrases it thus: "My teaching is not of doing and leaving undone, but of a change in the man : it is not new works done, but a new man to do them ; not another mode of living only, but a new birth." He takes Mcodemus down from the lofty platform of his official rank and Pharisaic self-sufficiency, and throws him out among the multi- tude of men by telling him that not rank and learning will save, but any man, whoever he may be, who has not had the experience which Jesus indicates by the phrase yevvrjOr) avwOev, "be born afresh," such a man cannot understand by experiencing and enjoy- ing (for such the word Ihelv means) the kingdom of God. Nicodemus would have received no shock from the idea of the new birth if it had been spoken of the proselytes from the heathen, who stood at the door of Judaism applying for admission. When such a one was baptized he was, in the Rabbinical view, " sicut parvulus jam natus," as a new-born babe. But the shock lay in the sweeping statement which turned all the Jews — rulers, Phari- sees, Scribes — out-doors, to seek admittance afresh. The word avcoOev in this conversation has been a puzzle to critics. And it is the important word, on our understanding of which will depend our comprehension of this puzze oc speech of Jesus. It is to be recollected that Jesus spoke in the Aramaic tongue most probably, and John records in Greek the conversation which Jesus had reported tc NICODEMTTS. 13'l him. Now, for the Greek word is there a corresponding word in the Aramaic, with a double meaning? If so, then the more remote meaning might throw light npon the word, showing that it meant of God, as the kingdom of God is mentioned, or that it bore the meaning which the Apostolical nsage subsequently closely connected with the being born again, namely, from heaven, e/c tov ovpavov, so that avcoOev might be synonymed with ovpavoOev. But Grotius has shown that there is no such word in the Aramaic. We must, therefore, give the closest possible translation of ayco0ev, and that must mean " anew," or " afresh," or " entirely anew," or " from the beginning." Nicodemus makes a reply which shows that he so understood it, namety, as a totally new birth experi- enced by one at his maturity. This is not conclusive, as Mco- demus might have misunderstood Jesus, but it is corroborative, as it gets exactly the most natural meaning of the word. In all these studies of Jesus we are not concerned to learn what the official expounders, commentators, and preachers have agreed is to be the conventional interpretation of the words of Jesus, but to discover by calm and patient research into the original documents what this remarkable Teacher really did mean. We are not, however, to despise the opinions of others, especially when they seem formed upon impartial examination. In this spirit we are to encounter another phrase, namely, " the 'kingdom of God." It may be noticed here that it is not usual with John. Indeed it does not occur in his gospel outside this conversation. This is inci- dental evidence of the fidelity with which John reports the conversa- tion, not changing any phrase, however it differ from his own modes of thought and expression, as any critic must see that this does. We know that the Jews looked for a temporal kingdom of material splendor, in which Jehovah's Messiah should reign, and which should have sanctity from the Divine Presence and won- derful spiritual manifestations, as it should have paramount authority from its political predominance. Now, just as a Jew was gross and materialistic in his tendencies, this kingdom fig- ured itself to him on its earthly and material side ; and just as he was devout and spiritual in his tendencies, this kingdom presented itself to him at of the soul and spirit of a man, with heavenly characteristics. Nicodemus seems to have had very mixed ideas of the kingdom. 138 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. " The kingdom of God " must reasonably mean as much aa this : a government in which God is king, which, being an ab- straction, we can concretely think of, so far as The kingdom of , . i i ^ i * G , each man is concerned, only as the surrender of that man to the rule of God, the total removal of rebellion out of his heart, the destruction of the principle and spirit of rebellion from his soul, so that freely and affectionately is he loyal to God, — a spiritual change so great that it is quite equivalent to a new creation, a new birth into a new life ; and then, as two or more come to be in that state, we have a com- munity bound to God by the allegiance of love, and to one another by the loving temper which comes into the heart when it yields its will to the will of God. Now, if we have really found not only a reasonable but a probable meaning of this phrase, as Jesus used it, it will follow that all his conversation with Mcodemus and all his subsequent discourses will consist with this theory, and that he directed the labors of his life to the forming upon earth just such a body of loving subjects to the law of love and to, the Lord of love. If this shall fail to appear as we evolve the biography of Jesus, then have we failed of reaching his meaning. Let us see. The reply of Nicodemus was, " How is a man able to be born, being old ? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" If this be taken as proof that eaiaingo .. i< > j^ co( j eiimg understood Jesus as meaning fleshlv dermis s reply. , ° " birth, it would simply prove him a fool, and with such an idiot Jesus could have had no conversation. It is sur- prising how generally this has been supposed to be the meaning of Nicodemus. But let the reader reflect that this was no child, but a man advanced in years, holding a high office, having a trained mind, being skilful in detecting the meaning of speech, learned in the Scriptures of his religion, which must have made his mind familiar with the couching of deepest spiritual significa- tion in figurative language. He knew that Jesus meant a rebuke and an instruction. The rebuke was this: You, Nicodemus, have come to me as to a mere teacher to be told something new about the kingdom of God ; I tell you this, that you cannot be instructed into that kingdom, schooled into it, educated into it You cannot see the kingdom of God from afar. You cannot see t with your natural senses. You must be spiritually re-created, NICODEMTTS. 139 must have not exactly a palingenesis, being born again, bnt a totally new, fresh birth into a life no emotions of which you have ever felt, and no function of which you have ever discharged. The reply of Nicodemus is in the disputatious temper of the learned. It ran somehow thus : Is that your view of " the king- dom of God " % If so, it throws all our mere Scriptural learning, ecclesiastical position, and supposed prescriptive rights to the winds. But, young man, you are undertaking a most fruitless mission. Such spiritual fresh-generation is wholly impracticable. It is easier to effect physical changes than spiritual. It is easier to create a body than a soul. But you know that no old man can repeat the process of his physical birth : it will be more clearly impracticable for him to have a new spiritual birth. It was not that ISTicodemus failed so much to tcnderstand Jesus as to believe him. He saw the meaning, but attempted to confute the proposition of Jesus by a kind of reductio r AT . , Lack of belief. ad aosurdum. JNicodemus answered as many a learned man answers when some new phase of truth is presented which he cannot fail to see, but which he cannot embrace because he has not the moral strength — indeed, who has ? — to throw down all the prejudices of his education. The response of Jesus is : "I most assuredly declare unto you, if one be not born of water and the spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh ; what is born of the spirit is spirit." The esponse baptism of proselytes was considered a new crea- tion, so that old relationships were so totally broken as to permit a convert to marry his own sister without crime. Nicodemus knew what baptism was — that of the Jewish ritual and that of John. He and the other Pharisees had despised the baptism of John because it was a baptism of repentance. Jesus must have known that the mind of Mcodemus would revert to baptism at once. The language must, then, have some reasonable inter- pretation consistent with that fact. Baptism was known by Nico- demus and by Jesus to be a mere external rite, a cleansing of the outward man, but as intended to symbolize an interna] puri- fication, else it were a senseless ceremony. The religions of the world had aimed at the reformation of the external man. Juda- ism especially did so, more especially Phariseeism. It was water Spirit was needed. There must come a spiritual new creation. 140 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LD7E OF JESUS. Then, in reply to Nicodemus's reductio ad ahsurdum, Jesns makes statement of a well-known principle in physiology and psychology, that that which begets imparts its nature to that which is begotten. If a man could go into his mother's womb and be horn again he would be horn the same, and nothing would come of this. If the Spirit of the Almighty God make the new spiritual creation there is no longer any difficulty to be objected. Did he mean the highest spiritual activity in the universe, namely, the Spirit of God f In the original the word Trvevfjua is used where we have " spirit " and where we have "wind" in the common English version, which is quite accurate in both cases, notwithstanding the uncriti- cal suggestion that the word should be translated by " spirit " or " wind " throughout the passage. We know that the word means both spirit and wind, and, if there be nothing to the contrary, should be translated by one word or the other in any passage, unless a grammatical reason appears to the contrary. Such rea- son does occur here in the word ovtcds, translated " so " — " so is every one," etc. This means comparison, and comparison involves at least two ideas. If ISTicodemus had had time to reflect he might have recol- lected that water cannot produce water ; dead flesh, a body with- out a soul, has no power to procreate ; spirit, life, must be in man or woman before fatherhood and motherhood — so all gen- eration, or all creation, strictly speaking, comes from the Spirit of God, that Spirit being the real primal creator. That seems the reason why water, having been alluded to, is not mentioned again nor pressed ; as if he had said, " You may have a body, you may have a soul, you may have conformed outwardly and mended your external life, as baptism or water indicates ; all very well, but there must he a fresh creation of the soul." In the report of this conversation, Alford * has called attention to the use of the neuter in the original to yeyevvrj/jLevov (that which is begotten or born) as denoting the universal application of this truth, and Bengelf to the same grammatical fact, as denoting the very first stamina or groundwork of new life, before sex can be predicated of the embryo. The reception of spirit into this merest flesh gives the first impulse of life, from which * Greek Testament, in loco. \ t Grammar, in loco. NICODEMUS. 141 everything else is determined. The effect of the loftiest spiritual actor is to elevate and spiritualize the very spirit of man. Perhaps at this moment Jesus and ISTicodemus heard the breath ing of the night-wind. And then was adduced the most natural possible illustratior from the physical world in the case of the wind — most natural because in the language which Jesus spoke, as well as in that in which John reported, the same ., a ^ nsges e r ' the word. word means wind and spirit. In Ecclesiastes (xi. 5) it is used as an image of the inexplicable, and in Xeno- phon * as a symbol of the Deity, whose essence is invisible and who is to be traced only by his operations, f The points of re- semblance are striking. The motion of the spirit of a man is more nearly resistless than his body, and the spirit of God must be wholly resistless when it moves. The results of the operations of the spirit of man are perceptible, and so are those of God's spirit. The mode of operation, in each case, is totally incompre- hensible. In these three particulars the resemblance is striking. The whence, the where, the whither, in each case, are unknown. We can examine only results. All this speech of Jesus should have shown Mcodemus that Jesus taught that for entrance into, and enjoyment of, the king- dom of God, a man needs something, the production of which cannot be traced, as in the case of culture or education of any kind, and is as necessary as natural birth, in which spirit comes to join flesh, and is as incomprehensible. No man understands his birth ; every man knows that he was born, and is conscious that he is alive. Eo man understands the coming of the Spirit of God into his spirit, but he must know that it has come. Nicodemus replied, " How can these things be ! " It is not a question for information. It is the exclamation of surprise. He has been carried into mysteries Surprise of Nl * _ , ■*■ _ J codemus. ot the soul. Jesus answered, " Art thou a teacher of Israel, and hast thou had no experience of these great spiritual changes ? " This is a humiliating rebuke to his arrogant excla- mation. He ought to have known such scriptures as Psalm li. 12 ; Ezek. xviii. 31 ; xxxvi. 24-28 ; Jeremiah xxxi. 33 ; Zechariah xiii. 1 ; and he ought to have had spiritual experiences of his * Memorab, iv. 3, 14. | f Tholuck, in loco. 142 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LD7E OF JEStJS. own. Then Jesus began to teach him. " I solemnly declare untc you that we * speak what we know, and testify what we have seen, and yet ye receive not our testimony." The plural form has no special significance, unless Jesus in- tended to give a large and solemn dignity to the utterance, or to set his " we know " against Mcodemus's " we know." The affir- mation is of positive personal knowledge on the side of Jesus, and the allegation is of an unbelieving rejection upon the part of Mcodemus and the Jews. Jesus adds: "If I have shown you things of the earth, and you believe not, how can you believe if ] show you things of heaven ? Eo one has ascended into heaven but he that came down from heaven, namely, the Son of Man, whose residence is in heaven." Here Jesus makes claims for himself of the most extraordinary character. He affirms himself to be a personal witness of the things which are invisible to men, all the heaven- Jesus claims i ,1 • tt l. t_* • j. tt ly things. He asserts his own pre-existence. He pre-existence. J - o # r asserts his coming into the world on a mission. He asserts that his real residence is in heaven ; that where he is is heaven. There is no evading this meaning. He intended Mco- demus to understand him so. We have a phrase in English to this effect — " the words were calculated to make a certain impres- sion," — meaning that such would be a hearer's natural interpreta- tion, although such meaning might have been totally absent from the mind of the speaker. But here we go further than that, and say that Jesus meant to convey what the words are calculated to convey. He was too wise, Mcodemus was too important a lis- tener, the conversation was on too solemn a theme to allow the slightest carelessness of diction. He must have given it with pre- cision to his biographer John, and John must have been most careful in the report, for this is altogether the most important oc- casion of speech which Jesus ever had. The point in his life and the character of his listener made it the occasion to render the most careful version of his doctrine. Whether his doctrine was * It may entertain the reader to see how much learned difference there has been about this simple use of the plural form. Euthymius, a Byzantine commentator of the twelfth century, says that it means Himself and his Father ; Bengel, Himself and the Holy Spirit ; Beza and Tholuck, Himself and the Prophets ; Luther and Knapp, Him- self and John the Baptist ; Meyer, Him- self and Teachers like Him ; Lange and Wesley, All who are born of the Spirit ; while De Wette and Liicke regard it as only a rhetorical plural. NICODEMUS. 143 true or not, it is not our purpose now to decide ; we are simply striving to ascertain what he said and what he meant. It must be remarked that Jesus claims another thing: that what he says must be believed, not known or understood, because lie says it. He flings away the title of teacher, which Nicodemus bestowed. He is the Heavenly Hef Assertor of heavenly things and speaks with par- amount authority. And Jesus made this solemn statement to Nicodemus : " As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, it is absolutely necessary that thus the Son of Man be lifted, that every man trusting in him should have perpetual life. For God loved the world so, that he gave His son, the only begotten, that every one who trusts in him may obtain perpetual life and not perish. For God sent not His Son into the world that he should damn (or condemn) the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He who trusts in him is not damned (or condemned) ; but he who trusts not is damned already, because he has not confided' in the name of the only begotten Son of God. But this is the- damnation (condemnation), that light has entered the world, and men have preferred the darkness to the light because their deeds were evil ; for every one who does vilely hates the light, and shuns it, lest his deeds should be detected and convicted. But he that does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be mani- fested that they are done in God." Here is an open statement by Jesus that he knows — he is con- sciously positive — that he is the " only begotten " Son of God, whatever that may mean. John must have receiv- ed the word from Jesus himself, and it can only , . no 7 J claim. mean a more intense nearness to God than it is pos- sible for language to convey. The word tells us something which we can understand, and, as is often the case with prof oundest think- ers, intimates more. We see the ocean out to the horizon, but the soul feels that the ocean stretches far beyond. Not simply as Eugene but as Monogene Jesus was known in the spiritual world. He says still further, that Moses lifted up the serpent on the pole in the wilderness, as related in Numbers xxi., as a symbol of himself, whether Moses so L . w0 grea c , . ' trines. understood it or not. He claims this act as typical. So he was to be crucified. It was a necessity. He, as 144 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. harmless as the Nechustan to which Moses directed the eyes of the people who had been bitten by the harmful fiery serpents, — he must be lifted up and crucified. And that accomplished, every man who put his trust in that crucified Only Begotten would have a life that is endless. Here are the two main doc- trines of Jesus clearly set forth: 1, That his religion was not to consist in any intellectual assent to any statement of any moral proposition, but in a personal attachment to his person and a per- fect trust in Mm ; and, 2, That no caste, prescriptive right, rank, learning, or nationality, or form of creed, gave title to place in the kingdom of God, nor did any or all of these exclude any man. It thus threw down the barriers of Jewish prejudice and bigotry, and let the nations, the Gentiles, into the kingdom of God. The Jews believed that when the Messiah came he * n e -,, Ca ! ° 1C1 J would " damn " the Gentiles, and make them of God's love. ' " perish." Jesus told Mcodemus that it should not be so ; that God loved the world in sublime catholicity of affec- tion, in intensest depth of devotion, — so loved it as to give his peculiar one, his Monogene, that the world might hold to him as he held to God, that thus they might be drawn from perdition and lifted into the light ; that salvation, not damnation, was the intent of his coming, and that salvation lay not in knowledge but in faith ; not in processes of intellection and ratiocination but in the culture of the human heart planted in the divine heart, so that a man's deeds should be done " in God." He asserted salvation and everlasting life to be by trust in himself when crucified. Whether that be true or false, Jes%is taught it. Whether Nicodemus believed him or not, we shall see that Jesus never changed the essence of his dogmatic statement, never developed in himself thereafter, but told all out at the beginning, and demonstrated not only his belief in the truth of what he said, but the very truth of his sayings, as far as it is conceivable that any human being could render such demonstration, by any possi- ble life and any possible death. CIIAPTEK III. FROM JUD.EA TO SAMARIA. Some time after the Passover at which he had performed mir- acles, and had had the conference with Mcodernus, Jesus went with his disciples into the rural districts of Judaea, probably along the western side of the Jordan, _ Matfc - *y-» Mark opposite East Bethany. Precisely how long after . ' '* the Passover, there is no means of ascertaining. Nor do we know how he was en^a^ed in that interval. That he was constantly preparing the way for that " kingdom of God" oi which he spoke to Nicodemus there can be no doubt. Upon leav- ing the metropolis he seems to have been engaged in active min- istry, teaching and preaching, while his disciples baptized. The question naturally arises, why Jesus should have baptized \ Perhaps this is an answer. John came with the baptism of repent- ance, that the people might turn from their sins, and make ready to receive the Messiah. Such he i owe( j} 1 i sd ^ 1S i i recognized Jesus to be, and changed his style of to baptize, preaching, his place of baptizing, and perhaps his very formula. It was all now employed in concentrating the atten- tion of the people on Jesus as the Messiah. His first baptism had respect to the Coining One ; his second, to the One Come. Jesus in the beginning of his ministry may have had a baptism unto repent- ance administered by his disciples, because the question now had come to be whether the nation would accept him as the Messiah, and certainty none but those who were penitent could. If they had submitted to this baptism Jesus would have instructed them further in the doctrines of the kingdom of God. At this time John was baptizing in JEnon, near to Salim. It ig not possible to fix this site with precision positively. John (iii. 23) assigns as a reason for the selection of this spot that there were many springs there. The expression in John iii. 26 fixes it as on the west side of the Jordan. It could scarcely have been imme- 10 146 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. diateiy on the river, else the statement of its abundance of water would be superfluous. Eusebins and Jerome place Salim eight Roman miles south of Scythopolis. Dr. Thomson, who visited Scythopolis, now called Beisan, represents the valley as abound- ing in water, and as being one of the most fertile in Palestine. The tradition in this case is most probably correct. Mr Van de Velde reports finding a Mussulman oratory, called Sheykh Salim, near a heap of ruins about six English miles south of Scythopolis and two west of Jordan. ^Enon would seem to be the name of the district, and Salim of the town. Both the cousins were now baptizing, Jesus at the Jordan and John in Samaria. It would seem that some Jewish proselyte to Jesus had had a discussion with some of John's John and Jesus digciples in which he fi ke slightingly of the baptizing. i ff. i reformatory baptism of their master, and magni- fied the discipleship of Jesus, as if the latter had rendered the former superfluous. This kindled their sectarian and partisan zeal. Heated with this discussion, they immediately repaired to John, as if they were about to communicate some alarming intel- ligence. " Rabbi, he who was with you beyond Jordan, to whom you bore witness, behold the same is baptizing, and all come to him." They seem to have regarded the act of Jesus as a usurpa- tion of the place and the functions of John. The very phrase, " to whom you bore witness," shows that the disciples felt that John was superior to Jesus, and that the latter derived his chief consideration from the eulogy pronounced on him by John. This appeal brings forth from John a testimony for Jesus, re- markable not only as indorsing the new teacher in the most em- phatic possible way, but as presenting the char- JoJm'B 8elf - con - acter of John in the most sublime possible light. There is nothing grander in all history or fiction. No human being ever more thoroughly conquered his own spirit or governed his whole nature by a sense of right than did John the Baptist. He had felt stirring in him his wonderful genius for religion. Under what he believed to be divine impulses he attacked the sins and follies of the day in a style so vigorous as to attract atten- tion to himself. He had been the most popular public speaker of his generation. He had swayed the masses and made even roy- alty quail beneath his power. He had been the great prophet, FROM JUDJ31A TO SAMABIA. 147 and had enjoyed all the consideration which that position gives to any man. ISTow he sees another, one who had come to him for baptism, rising into public notice, attracting the attention of the highest ecclesiastics, and, as his own disciples inform him, with drawing the masses from himself. There is not a particle of env\ or anger or jealousy. The news which saddens his weak disciples gladdens their grand and glorious master. He had had a mission from heaven. He had fulfilled that mission. His work was done. There was nothing lacking but some movement on the part of the Divine Providence which should as clearly point out the way of his exit as it had designated his mode of entry, or should forcefully withdraw him from public life. He had not entered of his own accord ; he would not leave. He saw and felt that he was declining. He held himself ready to be extinguished. Grand man! There never was any other human being more sorely tempted ; there was never a man more triumphant over temptation. Beside one such noble act as this how all the achieve- ments of the Mmrods and Alexanders, the Caesars and the Napo- leons dwindle ! " He that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city ! " His final testimony to Jesus is worth considering. I shall attempt a faithful paraphrase. He first lays down a general principle, and then applies it to Jesus and himself : — A man can assume nothing which heaven does not give: Each man lias his mission : To take anything else, assume any other character, is wholly useless : It would have been folly in me to attempt to play the part of the Messiah: The mask would have fallen at last : But I have done no such thing ; for I knew my mission : That mission is at the beginning of its end : You yourselves must bear me witness that I said that I was not the Anointed of Jehovah, but only his harbinger: Our ancient Scriptures have represented Humanity as the Bride, and the Coming Christ as the Bridegroom, the desire of the nations : I am only the paranymph, the Bridegroom's Friend : * I rejoice in the occasion which gives Humanity to the arms of her Lover and Bridegroom: The sound of the voice of the Bridegroom is to me the assurance that my mission, so far from being a failure, John's last testi- mony for Jesus. * The nich as suited them, and were therein wrong. Both had come to regard the outward form as more important than the inner spirit, and therein both were wrong. It was, therefore, not a trivial question, nor was it of only temporary importance. But Jesus brought in a new view, a great, wide, glorious view of the re- lationship between God and Man, and of the nature of the wor- ship which must be rendered to God. He says with great solem- nity, " Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when ye shall worship the Father, but not only in this mountain and not only in Jerusalem. The hour approaches, and is now present, when the real worshippers shall adore the Father inwardly and sincerely : for the Father seeks such to adore him." Between these two sen- tences he encloses the statement, " Ye worship ye know not what : we worship what we know : because salvation is of the Jews." The Samaritans had distinctly set aside a portion of God's word, the prophetical writings, because they pointed to a Saviour who was to spring from the Jews. The latter, of course, accepted them theoretically, and were that far right; but practically rejected them, and in this were as wrong as the Samaritans. But the Jews knew whom they worshipped. Their religion was based upon something quite sure, namely, God's promise of a Deliv- erer. Here is the basis of the religion which Jesus promulgated God is Spirit, not a spirit. He is essential Spirit. He is the Father. He not only allows but seeks worship. The worship FROM JUDAEA TO SAMAEIA. 157 must be in the inmost spirit. Outward forms are nothing unless they be phenomena produced by the motions of the noiiinenon^ the expression of spirit through matter. God is without material form. The spirit that is in man is that which is most like God, and that which touches God. The worship God seeks is down below all organism that makes utter- ances and gestures. The worship offered him miifil also be per- fectly sincere. It can only escape totally all the siniiUer influence of mixed motives when offered directly from the set! to God. Every discussion of ceremonials and topographies lies outside all true religion. The outward modes and the visible places five insig- nificant. Ritualism is thoroughly worthless. The Koliest of Holies is in the soul of man. There the man is to find nud wor- ship God. Then each continent and island is a Holy Lf\\\i 3 and each soul the Temple of Jehovah. Such was the teaching of Jesus. The woman replied, " These matters I do not quite comprehend, but 1 know that Jehovah's Anointed is coming, and upon his arrival he will expound all these things." Jesus said, " I am ,. .„ , * He, now speaking to you." Here is a direct and s i a j 1> unequivocal declaration of his Messiahship. He had not declared it in Jerusalem, but in Samaria ; not to the learned Xicodemus, nor to his own disciples, but to an ignorant stranger ; not to any man, but to a woman ; not to a pure and cultivated lady, but to a prostitute ! It seems marvellous, a»nd, as a policy, wholly inexplicable. Hereupon his disciples arrived with the provisions they had gone to purchase, and were amazed to see him talking familiarly with a woman, yet did not venture to question him. In the mean time the woman had left her ,. . . disciples. water-pot, forgetting her errand, and had re- turned to the town and roused her neighbors, exciting them by the statement that out by Jacob's Well was sitting a man who had told her all her life. Was not this the Messiah, the Christ ? Her earnestness brought forth a crowd. In the mean time the disciples requested him to eat. But he had become so rapt by lofty thought, and so engaged in his ear- nest effort to plant the principles of his religion in one soul that al] physical appetite failed him. " I have meat to eat that ye know not of. My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me." Look 158 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. ing up, he saw the field in the beautiful valley, just sown with the seed it would require four months to ripen, and he saw at the same time the people pouring out, perhaps from their mid-day meal, at the invitation of a woman whom they knew to have been wicked but now see to be happy. Jesus called their attention to these two facts and declared a great spiritual law : " You say that now the seed is in the ground men must wait four months for the harvest* That is so in the physical world. But in the spiritual world there is more rapid ripening. An hour ago I dropped a seed of spiritual truth into the heart of a base woman. See how it springs to maturity! Look on the spiritual fields. They whiten already to the harvest, as the crowd coming across the valley from Sychar demonstrates. That shows that the laborers in spiritual fields reap rewards as laborers in other fields. You have a proverb which is true, ' One sows and another reaps.' I am sending you forth to gather a harvest for which you have not toiled." Upon this the inhabitants of the town arrived. They besought him to remain with them, which he did for the space of two days, many believing at first from what the woman said, and many afterwards from hearing the doctrines of Jesus directly from his own lips. The Samaritans were in expectation of a Messiah, and while their ideas were not those of the Jews upon this subject, they were much more definite than the general vague Samaritan ideas s\ • ^ i L ^ ji L i • n /n f th M " h Oriental expectation or the coming or a vrreat One. The Samaritans rejected the prophets but held to the law, and seem to have rested their expectations upon some vague intimation in the books of Moses, such as the predic- tion that Jehovah would raise up a prophet like unto Moses, f The fact of the indefiniteness of their grounds of belief left them free from the secular notions and rigid pride of the Jews. It really seems to have prepared them to look for the Messiah in a Moral Reformer rather than in a conquering hero, who should Arrivals the city. from * It is proper to say that this may allude to some proverbial expression among the people, preserved only in this place; a proverb appropriate to some religious anniversary perhaps connected with sowing, when it would be appro- priate to say, ' ' We must now wait six months for the harvest."* f Modern Samaritans refer to such passages as Chron. xlix.10 ; Numb. xxiv. 17, and Deut. xviii. 15. FROM JITDMA TO SAMARIA. 159 beat all nations under his feet, themselves included. The Mes- siah the Jews longed for is precisely the Messiah the Samaritans would reject.* They hailed Jesus not as the Saviour of the Jews, or of any particular people, but as the Saviour of the world. * Milman, in a note, refers to Ber- tholdt, chap. vii. , which contains ex- tracts from the celebrated Samaritan letters and references to the modern writers who have discussed them. Ge- senius, in a note to the curious Samari- tan poems which he has published, says that the name of the expected Samari- tan Deliverer was to be Husch-hab, o? Hat-7iab, which he translates " Conven er," one who is to convert the peoxjl^ to a higher state of religion. Dr. Rob inson says that even to this day the Samaritans are looking for the coming of the Messiah, under the title of d-Muhdy, the Guide SAMARITAN PRIEST. CHAPTEE IV. FKOM SAMARIA TO GAJLILEE. On the third day after his interview with the Samaritan woman, Jesus went on his way to Galilee. The Galilseans gave him a hearty welcome, because of the miracles which Matt. iv. ; Mark J - * jll . \ , , . - i • Luke iv v • man y °* them had seen him perform. borne John iv. have supposed that the fact that he had had no reputation among his own people until he had made a sensation in the metropolis, and the contrast between the treatment he had formerly received in Galilee and that which had just been bestowed upon him by the Samaritans, led him to quote the proverb, " A prophet hath no honor in his own coun- try." But John seems to have meant that Jesus went into Gal- ilee to avoid notoriety, because a prophet has little ado made over him by his own people. He had moved from his place on the Jordan f or this very reason, and he had refused to stay among the Samaritans, where he was creating a great sensation. He went among his own people feeling perfectly certain that the divine power which resided in his teaching would cause it to grow, and he preferred to sow the seed where there was no storm of popular applause, or even excitement. It was not the utterance of disappointed pride, so far as we can discern, but a wise action based on a well-known principle. If popularity was what he sought, why did he leave Samaria ? But many of the Galilseans had witnessed his works at the feast in Jerusalem, and learned that he had a metropolitan fame. They now received him as a miracle-worker, not as a prophet. Then Jesus began to preach. (Matt. iv. 17 ; Mark i. 14, 15.) He declared that the time for the fulfilling of the ancient prophe- cies had arrived, that the reign of the Messiah, b ' the kingdom of God, had begun, and that it was proper that they should prepare to enjoy that kingdom by an abandonment of their sins. He repeated these FBOM SAMARIA TO GALILEE. 161 Heals the noble- man's son. John iv. 46-54. sayings, presenting them privately in his intercourse with the peo- ple, and urging them publicly in the Jewish chapels of that re- gion. John and Jesus equally urged repentance, the former by threatenings of wrath and the latter by the attractive persuasive- ness of promise. The manner of Jesus won the admiration of the people, and his fame grew. (Luke iv. 15.) In his circuit of preaching he went to Cana, where he had made the water wine, reviving by his presence the remembrance of that first and very remarkable miracle. While in Cana he received a visit from a nobleman, who was a functionary in the court of Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee, or a high military officer. This person was a Jew by birth or by conversion. He may have been Chuza, Herod's steward (Luke viii. 3), but of this we can have no certain knowledge. His resi- dence was at Capernaum, on the lake shore, twenty-five miles dis- tant from Cana. Learning that the great teacher had returned to Galilee, he came to Jesus with the request that he would heal his sick son, who was at the point of death. The very name of Cana probably reminded him of the wonderful power which Jesus had exerted in that town before his departure for Jerusalem. To his request Jesus said : " Except ye see signs and miracles ye will not believe." The words seem merely to indicate a contrast between the read- iness with which the Samaritans believed because of his words, and received him as a prophet, and the obstinacy of the Jews in refusing to believe without a miracle, and not always yielding even to such evidence. He may have also alluded to the fact that this nobleman had been brought to him not by any necessities of his spiritual nature, but because of the sickness of his son. Jesus neither made parade of his power to work miracles, nor un- dervalued their weight as credentials to his character as a great religious reformer. As in other cases (Matt. xv. 27), he may have been testing the sincerity of the applicant ; not for any knowl- edge he might gain, for no other person ever read character as Jesus did, but that the nobleman might discover what was in his own heart. The distressed parent implores him : " Sir, do come down be- fore my boy die." His faith was sound as far as it went, but it was narrow. He never had dreamed of any man having power 11 162 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. to raise the dead. He even supposed that the presence of the Great Worker was necessary. But Jesus said: lea " Go, your son lives." He believed. Quietly and leisurely he went his way. He could easily have reached home at sundown, for it was just one o'clock in the after- noon when Jesus spoke those words. He felt so sure that his child was safe that he did not return to his residence until next day. Then on the way he met his faithful servants, who had come out to seek him and to relieve his solicitude. His question to them shows that all he had hoped of Jesus was to save his child from death and commence a convalescence which should be gradual. "When did the child begin to amend?" asked he. " He did not begin at all," said they, " but yesterday at one o'clock in the afternoon he suddenly recovered; the fever totally left him." The unexpected completeness of this recovery and the pre- cise correspondence between the language of Jesus and that of the servants, and the identity of the hour of the word of Jesus and the recovery of the boy, added this nobleman and his whole family to the discipleship of Jesus. They not only believed that a great miracle had been wrought, but that Jesus was the Messiah. If this nobleman was Chuza, Herod's steward, his wife Joanna afterward became an ardent supporter of Jesus. (Luke viii. 3.) In a missionary circuit which Jesus undertook he came to the town of Nazareth, where he had been brought up. His fame as a In N z th preacher had preceded him. When the Sabbath Luke iv. 16-30. day came he went, as his religious custom had been, into the synagogue. The time had come when he was to announce himself in his own town and to his own people. Many a time had he taken his place of humble silence to listen to the reading and exposition of the law and the pro- phets. Now the day of his revelation had come. The synagogue was a remarkable characteristic of later Juda- ism. The Hebrew name, Beth-ha-Cenneseth, meaning House of the Congregation, has its equivalent in the Greek Sunagoge, which is used in the Septuagint as a translation of two Hebrew words, each of which implies a gath- ering. A very great antiquity has been claimed for the synagogue by Jewish writers, but not on good grounds. There does not seem to have been anything in earlier Judaism providing for the spiritual edification of the people in public congregations outside FROM SAMARIA TO GALILEE. 163 the Temple service, which, however, was suspended during the exile. Then the devout Jews who were cut off from the holy city and from the Temple of Jehovah held frequent and, it would seem, regular meetings for religious instruction. (Ezek. viii. 1 ; xiv. 1 ; xx. 1 ; xxxiii. 31.) " The whole history of Ezra presupposes a habit of solemn, probably of periodic meetings." * (Ezra viii. 15 ; Ken. viii. 2 ; ix. 1 ; Zech. vii. 5.) In his time the synagogue either had its origin, or such distinct revival and organization, that we may date the establishment of the synagogue service from his period — about b.c. 500. Its influence was prodigious. It was church, school-house, lec- ture-room, and weekly newspaper. Regular periodical assembling for any purpose exerts a silent but powerful influ- ence. In this case it embedded the law in the minds of the Jews, and bound them together with a band whose strength was made manifest in holding them, after the Maccabean struggle, to the faith of their fathers, and from the degradation of idolatry. It lacked the pomp and splendor of the Temple, but it was favorable to simple and hearty devotion. Its very freedom from magnificent ceremonial gave scope to the exercise of thought and of speech. Its unperceived but certain effect was to destroy the power and influence of the hereditary hierarchy, and prepare for the bringing in of what Jesus gave, freedom to teach, for any one who has the intellectual and moral qualifications. In towns where the population allowed a full organization, there was a college of " elders " (Luke vii. 3), whose president was called the Archisynagogus, Ruler of the Synagogue. These elders managed the secular J ° ° ° synagogue. affairs of the synagogue, and had the power of pronouncing excommunication. There was also an officer called Sheliach, or Legate, who represented the people, leading them in their prayers, etc. He was required to be an adult, active, the father of a family, not engaged in secular business, not rich, having a good voice, and aptness to teach. There was also an officer named the Chazzan (called " the minister" in Luke iv. 20), whose duties seemed to be those of a sub-deacon or sexton. He took care of the building and prepared it for service, and had charge of the sacred furniture. It is believed that during the * See Smith's Diet, on " Synagogue," for full account of the institution. 164: FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER IS THE LIFE OF JESUS. week he acted as the village schoolmaster. Moreover, there w*»re ten men, Batlanim, meaning men of leisure, without whom no synagogue was complete. It is difficult to say precisely what duties specially devolved upon these. The most probable conjec- ture seems to be that as ten was the minimum number for a con- gregation, without which number no public service could go for- ward, these men were to be always on hand, so that there should be no delay, and no single worshipper should be disappointed. Perhaps these ten held the several offices of the church. Light- foot says that they consisted of the Chazzan, or Minister, whom he. makes the same as the Sheliach, or Legate, three Judges, three Parnasim (whom he compares with the deacons of the early church, whose business was to attend to the alms), the Targumist or Interpreter, the Schoolmaster and his Assistant. This classifi cation, however, seems purely conjectural. The service of the synagogue was much less stately than that of the Temple, but there was a regularly appointed series of les- sons out of the law and the prophets, and there The service of ^ -. , . , . . -,, -, t «,<* c.™„^™ «. was also a ritual which was rigidly observed. tne synagogue. t> J The ritualistic controversy raged at times in the Jewish Church, and continued after the days of Jesus. We learn that one Eliezer of Lydda, about the close of the first century, set forth that the Legatus of the synagogue should discard the fixed prayers, doxologies, and benedictions, and pray as his heart prompted him. This suggestion was a sin greater than an ordi- nary immorality. He was never forgiven, but died in Cesarea an excommunicated man. The Jews of that day, it appears, had no more sense or piety than some baptized Christians of our own times. The first lesson was from the law and the second from the prophets, and then followed a discourse, expository or hor- tatory, somewhat like our modern sermon. It is called by the writer of the Acts (xiii. 15) the " word of exhortation." It appears that whoever had a word to say took that occasion to utter it. And so from synagogue to church the form of popular address has been transferred, and by Christianity been rendered a power in civilization in propagating opinions and sentiments. When a member of the synagogue wished to speak, he stood up to signify that desire. For the first time then, upon coming back to his own town, when the Sabbath arrived, Jesus entered the familiar place of FEOM SAMATJIA TO GALILEE. 165 woi6hip, and stood up to read. The President caused the roll of the Prophets to be handed him, and he turned i j. j/l • a. j i £ i.i j Jesus reads from perhaps to the appointed lesson tor the day, per- T . haps to what came under his eye as the roll unfurled. It was what in our version is Isaiah lxi. 1, 2. He read : "The Spirit of Jehovah is on me : because Jehovah has anointed me. To briny good tidings to the humble has he sent me / to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim to the captives freedom, and to the bounden perfect liberty : to proclaim the year of favor with Jehovah" * He sat down. All e} r es must have been riveted on him. He opened his exposition with the deliberate and solemn announcement of himself as the expected Messiah, in the words, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." They all knew that the passage stood in the middle of the third great division of the book of Isaiah, that which they always considered as predicting the person, the offices, and the triumphs of the Messiah. That made the announcement all the more impressive. In words of hearty and moving eloquence Jesus proceeded to expound Isaiah. " Gracious words," says the historian, " proceeded out of his month." As he pressed his doctrine of universal charity upon them, a kingdom not restrained by Jewish limits and bearing no vengeance against other peoples, their old traditional preju- ,. , , -i i mi -n , i i • Jesus shocks their dices began to be excited. I hey recollected his . . ,. obscure origin. They said among themselves, " Is not this the son of Joseph ?" As if they had said, Is not this a most pretentious thing in so young and unknown a man ? Jesus perceived their captiousness and said, "You will by all means scornfully apply to me the proverb, Physician, heal thyself de- manding me to do in my own country what you have heard that I have done in Capernaum. I reply with another proverb, JVo prophet is accepted in his own country. In coming among you * This gives the words as they stand in the original, in a translation as near- ly literal as practicable. The historian Luke varies the passage a little. Pro- bably he quoted from memory from the Septuagint, and so gives ' ' recovering of eight to the blind " as a translation for w the opening of the prison to them that ore bound," and inserts after it, ' ' to set at liberty them that are bound," appar- ently taken from the Septuagint version of "let the oppressed go free," in Isa. lviii. 6, as if to complete the sense (See note, Strong's Harmony.) The phrase, " and to the bounden perfect liberty," ia still more strictly literally " open open- ing," which may mean of eyes or of prison-doors. (See Alexander, in loco.) 166 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. I knew that I should encounter the ordinary prejudice against every great moral teacher which exists in the minds of his own people, who have known him in childhood and amid ordinary secular employments. I refuse to perform miracles at your dicta- tion. I recall for your instruction some passages in the history of the two greatest of the earlier prophets, showing that God's grace has gone over to strangers who had not the advantage of intimacy with the oracles of God such as you possess, and that God distributes his favors freely and will not have them extorted. In the days of Elijah, when the heavens dropped no rain for the space of three years and six months, when a great famine was throughout the land, the prophet was sent to none of the many suffering widows of Israel, but to a Gentile widow in Zarephath, a town of the Phoenicians. Again, when Elisha was discharging the functions of a prophet there were many lepers in Israel, but he cured none but Naaman, a foreigner, a Syrian general. And thus the history of the prophets shows that God causes miracles according to His sovereign will and wisdom, and bestows such blessings where they will be appreciated." This whole speech was construed by his hearers into a reproach for their un worthiness. They had always suffered under the stigma which rested upon their town. It had from Nazareth. P asse d into an adage that " No good comes out of Nazareth." He might redeem them. But now he seems unpatriotically to prefer Gentiles to his own people. They became enraged, and thus proved their unworthiness of him. Their frenzy grew to such a pitch that they took this elo- quent preacher, who had gone about the country finding welcome in all the synagogues, and led him to a precipitous place on the range of hills on which Nazareth stands, intending to cast him headlong down.* But Jesus, how we do not know, passed through the midst of them and went away. There seems to have been no miracle here, no rendering of himself invisible, no striking his per- * " Most readers probably imagine a town built on the summit of a mountain, from which summit the intended pre- cipitation was to take place. This is not the situation of Nazareth. Yet its position is still in accordance with the narrative. It is built ( upon,' that is, on the side of 'a mountain,' but the brow is not beneath but over the town, and such a cliff as is here implied is to be found, as all modern travellers de- scribe, in the abrupt face of limestone rock, about thirty or forty feet high, overhanging the Maronite convent at the south-west corner of the town.' ; Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, p. 359. FEOM SAMATCLA TO GALILEE. 167 Becntors blind, nor any " slipping away," taking advantage of narrow streets or tortuous ways. There was something in him which seemed to overawe or overpower them. He " passed through the midst of them," is the historian's statement. Perhaps, as Stier suggests, there came such an appearance of majesty upon him, that the crowd began to dispart and give way right and left, as he moved along. Pf eninger graphically says : " They stood — stopped — inquired — were ashamed — separated — fled ! " Upon quitting Nazareth after the bad treatment he had received from his townsmen, Jesus went to Capernaum, and thereafter made that place his head-quarters. The name Capernaum signifies, according to a e f. ape *" . naum Jus head- some authorities, " the Village of Kahum," accord- q uar ters. ing to others, " the Tillage of Consolation." As we follow the history of Jesus we shall discover that many of his mighty works were wrought, and many of his most impressive words were spoken in Capernaum. The infidelity of the inhabi- tants, after all the discourses and wonderful works which he had done among them, brought out the saying of Jesus, " And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven shalt be cast down to hell." (Matt. xi. 23.) So thoroughly has this prediction been fulfilled that no trace of the city remains, and the very site which it occupied is now a matter of conjecture, there being even no ecclesiastical tradition of the locality. At the present day two spots have claims which are urged, each with such arguments of probability as to make the whole question the most difficult in sacred topography. Those who desire to examine the relative claims may consult the references given in the note below.* We shall probably never be able to know the exact fact. Jesus damn- ed it to oblivion, and there it lies. We shall content ourselves with the New Testament notices as bearing on the work of Jesus. We learn that it was somewhere on the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. (Compare Matt. iv. 13, with John vi. 24.) It was near or i n " the land of Gennesaret" (compare Matt. xiv. Capernaum 34, with John vi. 17, 21, 24), a plain about three miles long and one mile wide, which we learn from Josephus was * See Kobinson's Bibl. Researches, iii. 288-294 ; new edition, iii. 348 ; Bonar, p. 437-41 ; Thomson, Land and Book, i. 542 ; Wilson, Lands of the Bible, ii. 139-149 ; Biblioth. Sacra, April, 1855, p. 162. 168 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LD7E OF JESUS. one of the most prosperous and crowded districts of Palestine. It was probably on the great road leading from Damascus to the south, " by the way of the sea." (Matt. iv. 15.) There was great wisdom in selecting this as a place to open a great public ministry. It was full of a busy population. The exceeding richness of the TELL ET7M RUIN& wonderful plain of Gennesaret supported the mass of inhabi- tants it attracted. Josephus (B. J., iii. x. 3) gives a glowing de- scription of this land. He says that the soil was so fruitful that all sorts of trees could grow upon it ; that the air was so mixed as to nourish the walnut, which requires the cold, as well as the palm- tree, which demands the heat. " One may call this place the ambition of nature," because it forces those trees to grow together which are natural enemies. It afforded, to his fancy, a happy contention of the seasons, as if each claimed the land for its own. He gives a luscious picture of the fruitage, and the natural foun- tains. He says that the people thought the fountain Caphar- naum to be a vein of the Nile, "because it produced fishes like a Corbe bred in a lake near Alexandria." In modern times Professor Stanley, of the University of Oxford, gives quite as FROM SAMARIA TO GALILEE. 169 glowing a description of this plain. (See Sinai and Palestine, p. 365, et seq.) Such was the region in which was located Jesus's new centra of activity. From Capernaum, by land, he could command large portions of Galilee ; by boats he could cross from west to east, from north to south, from the juris- ssurroun m S 3 - diction of one prince to that of another. He was where the fisheries made life on the lake and the shore ; where pleasure pa- laces brought the gay and the rich ; where warm springs attracted opulent invalids; where the great thoroughfare from Babylon and Damascus brought companies of travelling merchants into Pales- tine ; where royalty attracted officials and dignitaries ; where gar- risons established to give dignity to sovereignty, or to suppress the neighboring turbulent Galilean peasantry, brought military com- manders and troops of common soldiers ; where trade and traffic on a frontier established custom-houses, and where a land of exu- berant fertility made agricultural products abundant and stimu- lated the activities of the people. So many foreigners, for busi- ness or for pleasure, had fixed their residence in this vicinity that it acquired the name of " Galilee of the Gentiles" The lake of Galilee was the Como of Syria ; for the Herodian family, famous for love of magnificent architecture, had made a portion of its shore splendid with the palaces which mingled with the synagogues of all the line of cities and villages which overlooked the sea. There were work, pleasure, life, and energy, all around the new teacher. Here he found congregations and helpers, friends and disciples, and the people, who, moving all about, with almost the restlessness which characterizes modern times, were ready to pro- pagate his fame and attract other hearers to his teaching. He went into the very thick of life. His seasons of long solitude were over. His time had arrived to exert all the moral force he had been accumulating in study and prayer. He went among the people who were working and toiling with their hands, know- ing that they were ordinarily the people whose brains were active. He had a powerful friend in the nobleman whose son he had healed, a man who was probably of Herod's household. So there, where sea and mount and desert met, Jesus broke upon Galilee, a light whose rays were to reach every nook and corner of the globe, and illuminate the pathway of thought and sentiment down all the succeeding centuries. 170 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LD7E OF JESUS. Soon after his arrival at Capernaum, one day as Jesus walked beside the Lake of Gennesaret, perhaps a little south of the town, he came upon Simon, called Peter, and his Jesus preaches , ,-, A -. . ■, -, -, . , . brother Andrew, feimon, as we have already from a boat. ' J learned, had met Jesus on the banks of the Jordan. As Jesus walked out of the town the people began to gather about him and accompany him, to hear other gracious words from his lips, and to witness other great works from his hands. There were two fishing-boats at the shore. The fishermen had gone to wash their nets. But the owner of one of them was Simon Peter, who, at the request of Jesus, pushed it from the shore a distance sufficient to preserve the attractive preacher from the pressure of the crowd, and yet not so far as to make it incon- venient for the people to hear. And from this floating pulpit Jesus delivered a discourse on the doctrines of the religion he had come to propagate. At the conclusion of the discourse he directed Simon to launch out to a deeper place in the lake and let down his net for fish, for Jesus would not use any man's time or e won e u ^^ ^^o^ rewarding him. Simon told him draught of fishes. ° that all night they had toiled and no fish had been caught. But there was something so commanding and inspiring in the words of Jesus that Simon immediately added, " Nevertheless, at thy word, I will let down the net." So he called his brother Andrew, and the net was lowered ; and so great was the number of the fish enclosed that the net began to break : and they called for their partners, James and John, the two sons of Zebe- dee, to come and help them ; and so great was the haul that both ships came near sinking with the weight. "When Simon (Peter) saw this wonder he fell at the feet of Jesus with mingled adoration and supplication. The rapidity of discernment and depth of feeling which we shall T e e ect on ^^ ^ -^ cnarac teristic of this energetic man come out m this passage. Ihere was some power in this new teacher which was not human : Peter believed it to be divine. He was a rough, profane man, but he had that sense of contrast between purity and sinfulness which is not the mark of a degraded mind, but rather of a spirit that has not lost its moral sensitiveness. " My Lord, be pleased to leave my ship, for I am not saintly enough to endure thine august presence of holy FEOM SAMATCTA TO GALILEE. 171 power ! " That seemed to be the tenor of his address. " Be not afraid," said Jesus ; " for from this time thou shalt catch men." A call to discipleship had been already made, after which Peter had gone home to his work. Now, Jesus gives him a deepei intimation of his intention to attach him strongly to his service, and gives an increase to his faith by the great wonder he beheld, and exhilarates him by a figure taken from his own pursuits. If to bring so great a haul of fish to land be joy, what rapture must it not be to " catch men ! " Hereafter emperors and kings and queens and philosophers and scholars and poets and merchant- princes shall be in the net which these simple Galilsean fishermen were to let down into the deep waters of the lake of human life. So they brought their fish to land, drew up their boats upon the shore, and abandoned boats and nets that they might follow this wonderful Being. Going along the shore they found their partners, James and John, the f „ T sons of Zebedee, who, while this profound con- versation was going on between Jesus and Simon and Andrew, had betaken themselves to repairing their own nets. It would seem that when called by Simon and Andrew to render help, they had put their own net under the overburdened net of their partners, to prevent the escape of the fish and the increase of the rent, and that thus their own net had become damaged. The invi- tation he had given Simon and Andrew, Jesus extended to James and John, and they left the implements of their business with their father and the servants, and obeyed the call to a higher work. CHAPTEK V. DEMONIACS. On the Sabbath following his return to Capernaum Jesus went with his disciples to the service of the synagogue, and, according to his custom, expounded the Holy Scriptures. ^k^i ' ^^ There seems t0 nave been g reat simplicity in his mode of treating all subjects, but it is remarked on this occasion that there was an element in his method which not only interested but astonished his audience. He spoke on the most profound and important subjects, not as one discussing them, showing what can be said on both sides, nor as one striving merely to stimulate the intellects of his hearers, nor as a learned man, reporting the results of the researches of the best minds, but de- cisively, with authority, as declaring truths which were not to be questioned, with an authority from which there was no appeal, and with a spirit full of power. The contrast which this afforded with the pedantry, the pretence, the sophistry, and the quibbling of the scribes, made Jesus notable. On this particular Sabbath there came into the synagogue a person described by Mark (i. 23) as " a man with an unclean spirit," by Luke (iv. 33) as "a man which had a man wi g -^ f an unc ] ean devil." Combining the nar- an unclean spirit. c ° ratives of these two historians, we have the fol- lowing account : The man cried out, "Ah! what to us and to thee, Jesus the Nazarene % Hast thou come to destroy us % I know thee who thou art, the Holy of God." Jesus spoke sharply to him and said: "Be silent and leave him." Then the "devil," or "unclean spirit," threw him down, tore him, howled, and left him. And the people were astonished, and questioned among themselves and said, " What thing is this % what new doctrine is this ? for with authority and power he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him." This occurrence greatly and rapidly increased DEMONIACS. 173 the fame of Jesus through all Galilee, for then, as now, a crazy man was an object of general notice. It brings ns at once to the consideration of the perplexing qnes tion of what is ordinarily called demoniacal possession. In examining this subject we have the disadvantage of not hav ing in our own times anything that quite corresponds with this remarkable class of phenomena, or which is recognized as falling into this category of maladies. We are remitted to the ancient writers, and must learn what we can gather from the notices in the classical authors and New-Testament historians. So far as the latter are concerned, it is to be noticed that the word used by them in reference to all these cases is one which does not mean the Devil, Satan, but demons. The classical writers, except when they indicate by a special epithet the contrary, used the word as describing good-natured, or at least not malevolent beings ; but the New-Testament writers, on the supposition that they meant beings distinct from the afflicted individuals, invariably repre- sent them as sinister or positively malevolent. The classical writers sometimes loosely employed the word to mean any spiritual existences out of man, from the spirits of the departed up to the ^Supreme Being, the Father of the gods ; but when they pretended to be precise they described them as intermediate beings between man and the gods. Plato says : "Every demon is a middle being between God and mor- tal." He further says, that " Demons are reporters and carriers from men to the gods, and again from the Is to men, of the suppli- cations and prayers of the one and of - injunctions and rewards of devotion from the other." * There were two kinds of demons. The souls of good men after their departure were called heroes, and raised to the dignity of demons ; \ and there were also sup- posed to be demons who had never inhabited a mortal body 4 Philo§ says that the ancients held souls, demons, and angels as the same. The demons who had once been in human bodies became objects of worship among the heathen, and Jehovah is so often called " the living God" to distinguish Him from these.) The classical authorities. * Plato, Sympos. , pp. 202, 203. \ Plutarch, De Defect. Orac. , and Plato, Cratylus. X Plato, Tim n and Apuleius, De Deo Socratis. % Philo, De Gigantibus. | Deut. xxvi 14 ; Ps. cvi viii. 19; Deut. v. 26. Isaiah 174 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVEB IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. The Jewish opinions. The New-Testa- ment writers. Josephus * incidentally gives us his opinion, and we su] pose the opinion commonly entertained by his countrymen, of demons, who, he says, " are the spirits of wicked men that enter into the bodies of the living and kill them if they do not obtain help." The New-Testament historians seem to give the impression that they believed in the existence of separate spirits, for they call them irvevfiara y \ who were intelligent,^: power- ful^ evil,|| and unclean.^" Whether they held the opinion of Josephus, that they were the spirits of wicked men who after death entered the bodies of the living to torment them, or used the word in the sense of the classical authors, is a question we must examine in the light of all that is said by these historians in their narratives of cases of apparent demoniacal possession. In regard to those possessions there are two theories, which may be stated with their reasons in advance, and we shall see how far each accounts for the phenomena re- corded in the biographies of Jesus which we possess. We are to ascertain what was the opinion held by Jesus and the New-Testa- ment historians. It is held by some that Jesus and the writers severally called Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, believed that demoniacs were persons into whom evil spirits had entered, who- ever those spirits were, but generally supposed to be devils, Satan's angels, who held or possessed the demoniac, using his body for their evil purposes. The reasons assigned for this opinion are these : 1. The demoniacs beseech Jesus not to torment them ; they ask and answer questions in a rational manner ; they are said to leave men and enter swine, etc. 2. Physical diseases are mentioned of those possessed with dev • ils, where no mental ailment is suggested, as in Matt. ix. 32, where it is said that " they brought to him a dumb man possessed with a devil;" and as in Matt. xii. 22,." one possessed with a devil, blind and dumb." 3. In the case of the youth described in Luke ix. 39, the symp- * Wovrs of the Jews, vii. 6, § 3. f Compare Matt. viii. 16 ; x. 1 ; Mark ix. 20 ; Luke x. 20. {Mark! 24; Luke iv. 34 § Matt. viii. 28-32 ; Mark ix. | Matt. xii. 45. 1 Matt. x. 1. DEMONIACS. 175 toms are those of epilepsy ; but the father assigns them to the in fluence of a demon, and Jesus and his disciples say nothing tc contradict this theory. 4. The demoniacs professed that they were possessed of de- mons, as in Mark v. 9, and the same was asserted by their nearest relatives, as in Matt. xv. 22, and Mark ix. 17. 5. The writers of the New-Testament histories observe a dis- tinction between those who were diseased and those who were possessed. In Mark i. 32 it is recorded : " They brought unto him all that were diseased, and them that were possessed of devils." The same distinction is in the passage in Luke vi. 17, 18. It is said that Jesns himself maintains the distinction in a very marked manner in his commission to his disciples, recorded in Matt. x. 8 : "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils." 6. The demoniacs knew Jesus to be the Son of God and the Christ, as we learn from Matt. viii. 29, Mark i. 24, and Luke iv. 41 ; and Jesus forbade them from proclaiming him as the Messiah. 7. There are at least live cases in which Jesus seems to address demons as existences separate from the persons afflicted. These are recorded severally in Mark i. 25 ; v. IS ; Luke iv. 35 ; Matt. viii. 32, and Mark ix. 25. In the first case Jesus bids the demons be silent, and in the last to enter no more into the person who had been possessed. 8. Jesus connects Satan with the demons ; as when the seventy returned from their mission and reported that even the demons were subject to them through the name of Jesu?, lie replied (Luke x. 18) : "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." It is also observed that in Matt. xii. 25, Jesus replies to the suggestion of his enemies that he was casting out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils, with the argument that Satan cannot be di- vided against Satan, else his kingdom would not stand. It may be added, that the woman who had a spirit of infirmity is repre- sented by Jesus to have been bound by Satan. (Luke xiii. 11, 16.) 9. In Matt. xii. (43 et seq.) Jesus speaks of an unclean spirit going out of a man, and the man afterwards taking seven other spirits ; and in Matt. xvii. 21, he says : " This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting ; " which seem like facts in their nat- ural history. 10. Finally, it is contended that it detracts from the dignity of 176 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER m THE LIFE OF JESUS. the miracles of Jesus to suppose that he only healed diseases, the casting out of devils being supposed a greater display of divine power. The opposing theory is that in reality there never was such a fact as a demon or evil spirit, whether formerly in human flesh _, . or always a separate existence, taking possession The opposing J r . I i V the oi a man and having such control over him as to be able to torment and destroy him ; that all the recorded cases are of persons miserably diseased in mind or body, or both, and that because the phenomena were inexplicable the popular mind assigned them to the influence of demons ; and that Jesus, in order to be understood by his contemporaries, adopted the usual forms of expression as most readily indicating this special class of diseases. It is further contended that whereas all parties agree that, so far as appears in the records, whatever the possessed did cannot be distinguished from the acts of the demon, the in- quiry is reduced to the simple question, Can these phenomena be accounted for without recourse to the supernatural ? ~No devout scholar hesitates to accept the theory of the supernatural when necessary ; but equally does he never resort to it to explain what is readily explicable by well-known physical or psychological laws ; and all the phenomena correspond with what we know of hypochondria, epilepsy, and insanity; that the New-Testament historians give as plain intimations as we could demand that they were employing popular phraseology, and not in these cases giv- ing utterance to doctrines or asserting facts ; and that the doc- trine of the agency of departed spirits upon the bodies of men is contrary to other doctrines expressly taught by Jesus. Those who hold this theory, in reply to the arguments cited above by the advocates of real demoniac possession, say : 1. These insane people believed themselves possessed. They had been brought up in a community holding that doctrine, and in their raving made utterances consistent with their crazy view of their own cases, a thing we frequently meet in our modern asylums for the insane. Locke's description of madmen {Essay on Human Understanding, chap. ii. 11, 13) is, that " they reason right on false principles, and taking their fancies for realities, make right deductions from them." 2. The demoniacs at Gadara (Mark and Luke speak of only one) had the fantasy that they were possessed by innumerable DEMONIACS. 171 devils, and so when Jesus asked the name * it was given as " Legion," and the possessed men, believing themselves speaking for the demons, begged that they should not be driven out of the country, but allowed to enter into the swine, and that when Jesus flung the disease from the man or men to the hogs, it was as great a miracle as any casting out of demons would have been.f Actual demons would not have chosen to go into the swine. And it is specially remarked that Luke, who was a physician, speaks of this demoniac, upon his recovery, as being in his right mind. In the case of the blind and dumb, or simply dumb, the disease? in the organs was popularly ascribed to demons. In Matt. ix. 32 the historian specifically mentions that the man, not the demon, was dumb. 3. The fact that the father of the epileptic youth (in Luke ix. 39) assigned his trouble to a demon, shows only that it was his opinion, in which he participated in a popular superstition. 4. If this argument is good here, it is valid as establishing witch- craft, as many have professed to be bewitched, and some have con- fessed that they practised this black art. But who now believes them 1 5. It is doubted whether the New-Testament historians made a distinction between the sick and the demoniacs, and it is held that they spoke of demoniacs as only one kind of sick persons. In Matt. iv. 24 are three kinds of ailments mentioned, those possessed of demons, those who were lunatic, and those who were palsied, all coming under the general description " divers diseases." Oc- casionally demoniacs are omitted in the general recital of miracu- lous cures, as in the notable reply of Jesus to John, in Matt. xi. 5, in which an account is given of miraculous evidences attending the ministry of Jesus. If these demoniacs were not merely a class of sick people, would not Jesus have brought forward their cure with great emphasis ? 6. It is alleged that it does not appear that all the demons knew Jesus. That some of these insane people did recognize Jesus and call him by high and holy names is not to be wondered at when we recollect how his person was coming to be known, and what great things were notoriously done by him every day. * It really is quite noticeable that in the original,, in Mark v. 9, it is said, xai enrtpwra avroi-, he asked the man, not avro 1 the demon. 12 f It is paralleled by the transference of the leprosy from Naaman to Gehazi, in 2 Kings v. 27. 178 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESTJb. 7. The supposed addresses of Jesus to the demons may be easily understood to be, first, an accommodation to the fancy of the de- ranged persons, and, secondly, to the understanding of spectators. His bidding the demon depart, and no more enter the man, is of a piece with his bidding the fever leave a patient, which he did in the case of Peter's mother-in-law. 8. In regard to the mention of Satan by Jesus, in connection with demons, it is urged that the saying, " I beheld Satan as light- ning fall from the heavens " (Luke x. 18), cannot be taken liter- ally except as referring to his original expulsion from heaven. In that case it would be wholly irrelevant. The choice is then left among the various figurative interpretations. Satan is a name given to anything inimical to what is good. Jesus meant, it is said, that he had foreseen the glorious triumphs of his disci- ples over the most formidable obstacles. And as to his argument with his enemies, he simply took them upon their own grounds, and, not affirming those grounds solid, showed that, even presum- ing them so, there was no place for their objection to him : so that nothing can be inferred from that. 9. In the case of the man who took to himself seven other spirits, it is a mere illustration, taken as public speakers frequently do take such, from the popular beliefs, as one might illustrate a principle by reference to a well-known fairy story, without in- dorsing it. 10. That no detraction is made from the dignity of Jesus ; for those who hold this view, quite equally with their opponents, be- lieve in the divine power of Jesus, and that it was quite as great a miracle to restore an insane man instantaneously to reason, and rectify the shocks his mind had received, as it would have been to cast out from the body of a man the wicked spirit of some dead man who had come to torment and destroy him. Perhaps the strongest thing that can be said on the other side is this : That while a perfectly truthful person may accommodate himself to popular fancies and phrases under cir- Strong- argument x * , , J- , . , for first theory cumstances which do not confirm hurtful error, nor misrepresent his own beliefs, — as a scientific man of to-day may speak of the rising and the setting of the sun, and call deranged men lunatics, although he does not believe that the sun moves round the earth nor that mental ailments are caused by the moon, — yet no truthful man would always speak as if he DEMONIACS. 179 adopted a theory which he really believed to be false, and knew to be injurious, which is the case with this theory of demoniacal pos- session. If untrue, it was a very hurtful superstition, and a great and good teacher would not have countenanced it. I think that a critical examination of all that is said in the New Testament on this subject will probably lead most candid readers to the conclusion that a distinction is made be- tween those who suffered merely from physical t h e0 ry. ailments and those who are represented as demo- niacs. In the latter case the patients seem to have psychical ail- ments which came from physical disorders. They are troubled by a sense of double consciousness, and distracted by what seems a double will. If paralytics or those who suffer neuralgias have their pains from physical causes, and lunatics theirs from mental disorders, it is merely in accordance with analogy that we sup- pose there are those whose miseries arise from psychical derange- ments, soul-disorders. If the atmosphere act on the body, and one mind on another, why should not one spirit on another spirit % And this seems to have been the case with demoniacs.* We return now to the demoniac in the synagogue of Caper- naum. His symptoms are such as we now see in persons who are known to be insane. His insanity was by his coun- , , J , pi * , ^ Demoniac cured trymen traced to the agency of a demon. As the m the synagogue . insane are often strangely moved by the presence, the voice, and the words of certain persons, so was this man moved by the intonations and language of Jesus. Believing him- self possessed of many devils, he suddenly lost his self-control and gave vent to such a shriek of rage and fear as such beings would be supposed to utter under the circumstances, crying out at first inarticulately, and then making an appeal to Jesus, and then call- ing him "the Holy One of God." On the theory of demons, they recognized the holiness of Jesus and his powerful influence, and thus in a paroxysm of rage gave their testimony to him. He de- clined it, but said : " Hold thy peace and come out of him." We see in our lunatic asylums men who are terribly afflicted with moral insanity, as we call it, showing all these symptoms. In the * If the reader wish to investigate this subject further, he is referred to Trench on Miracles, the chapter on " The De- moniacs in the Country of the Gada- renes ; " to Farmer's Essay on tlie De- moniacs of the New Testament; and Kitto's Cyclopcedia, Art. " Demoniacs. M 180 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. days of Jesus they would have been said to be possessed with an unclean spirit, or demon. In all ages, until the tender and wise teachings of Jesus began to prevail in the world, such people were objects of dread, and were cut off from the kind offices of soci- ety. Jesus treated the case differently. He pitied. In his own name and by his own authority he pronounced a command, which was followed by a shriek, and the maniac passed through a con- vulsion into health and peace. The assembled people were aston- ished and delighted. The synagogue broke up, and men wenl away wondering and praising. SCBIBES AND CHAPTEK VI. THE FIRST TOUR OF GALILEE, Upon leaving the synagogue Jesus went to the house of SimoL Peter, who was a married man.* His wife's mother lay ill of a fever. The marshes about Capernaum bred ma- larious diseases, which specially manifested them- Capernaum. Je- . -i • o • i sus heals Simon's selves m the autumn and winter, sometimes they ^^g mo ther were light intermittent, arid sometimes violent fevers. Luke, who was a physician, seems to designate the dis- ease in this case as being of the more violent kind.f Peter and his brother Andrew had witnessed the miraculous cure of the demoniac in the synagogue, and besought Jesus to heal the sick woman He came and stood over her, and took her hands, and in the poetic language applied to the cure of demoniacs and to the stilling of the waves, he "rebuked the fever," $ and it left her in- stantly. She did not convalesce. She was immediately and totally whole. She did not pass through a season of weakness. She came back at once to strength, and rose and discharged her house- hold duties by providing a meal for her guests. It was a festive day for them. t This miracle and that in the synagogue made Jesus famous in Capernaum. Before the setting of the sun, probably accounts of these wonders had been rendered in every house in the city, and * And we learn from 1 Cor. ix. 5, that his married state continued through his apostolic ministry. He was much more fortunate than Paul. f It is not certain that Luke intended to make the distinction between the dif- ferent kinds of fever, as Alford inti- mates that he does. If he had so in- tended would the article have been omitted in Luke iv. 38. where it is sim- ply nvpcToi jxtyays, ? It being a violent fever is sufficient to make this a remark- able miracle. % It is to be noticed that Jesus treated disease as a hostile potency, to be " re- buked" and to be resisted, as though sickness were somehow akin to sin. Early commentators, among them Cyril of Alexandria, noticed the peculiar ex- pression in the original Greek as some- how conveying this idea. 182 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVEK IN THE MFE OF JESUS. the hearts of the people were thrilling with the thought that so marvellous a personage was residing in theii Crowds of sick midst It was the SabbatL The str i c tness of Jewish observance of that day is known. It has been illustrated by divers incidents in the history of the people, but by none perhaps so strikingly as the fact that in the Maeca- bean revolt against Antiochus the insurgents, who had been sur- prised on the Sabbath, tamely submitted to butchery rather than violate the sanctity of the day by defensive warfare.* But the Sabbath ended with the sunset. Admiration brought crowds to Peter's house, and many who were diseased came or were brought by their friends. The lame hobbled towards the Healer, and the blind came groping, and the palsied came trembling, and the epi- leptic brought his mysterious malady, and even " the possessed " were present. The streets about the house were so crowded that Peter felt that " all the city was gathered together at the door." (Mark i. 33.) And none went away unblessed. He laid his hands on all. The palsy-stricken, the man with the epilepsy, the suf- ferers from chronic neuralgias, felt instant ease, refreshment, and health infused into all parts of their bodies ; the deaf instantly heard the exclamations of the demoniacs amidst the shouts of the healed, the praises of the disciples, and the murmur of the popu- lace ; and through them all, like music through a storm, swept the voice of Jesus, with all authority and sweetness, silencing demo- niacs and rebuking disease, while eyes that had been long blind looked for the first time upon the faces of their friends, upon the multitude, and upon Jesus, as he stood in the foreground of a soft Syrian sunset. Virtue went out of him as it entered all these. He became ex- hausted and nervous and faint. (Mark i. 35.) And when the time for bed had arrived, after this wonderful Exhausting ef- Sabbath j esus cou]d not s i eep . He rose in the fects on Jesus. . 7 . x night and went out into a solitary place that he might pray. When the day had come, Peter and they that were with him sought Jesus, and told him what an excitement his deeds had created among the people, and urged him to stay in the city and go amongst those who so earnestly sought him. His reply was, " Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach the king- * See Milman's Christianity, i 211. THE FIRST TOUR OF GALILEE. 183 dom of God there also ; for therefore came I forth." Then com- menced his first circuit of missionary preaching. The earnest teacher " went about all Galilee," as Matthew says, meaning probably Upper Galilee, which formed the most northern part of Palestine, embracing a tract of country about fifty miles loner and twenty-five broad. Matt - iv - 33; Mark i. 39 ■ Luke It was bounded on the west by Phoenicia and the iv ^ ' Mediterranean Sea, on the east by the Jordan and the Lake of Tiberias, on the north by Coele -Syria, and on the south by Samaria. It was a fertile country, full of romantic valleys, and containing, it is said, two hundred towns and villages ; and Josephus says ( Wars, iii. 3, § 3) that the smallest contained more than fifteen thousand inhabitants. The people were earnest, intelligent, and remarkable for their bravery, but despised by the inhabitants of Judaea, because their dialect was uncouth and the land filled with " Gentiles," who had been attracted thither by the delightfulness of the country. Through this region Jesus made a tour. He went into the syn- agogues and discharged the functions of a rabbi. In his time the rabbi was not a regularly graduated teacher of the law, as somewhat later, but was still re- Ga ^ s travels in garded by the people as the successor- of the ancient prophet. Jesus preached his doctrine of "the kingdom," and exerted his marvellous power of healing, so much that by his words and deeds he created a fame of himself that went through- out all Syria, through Palestine and Phoenicia, carried probably by the caravans that went from Damascus by the Sea of Galilee to the Mediterranean. Great multitudes followed him from all parts of Galilee, and from the " Decapolis " (a region so called from its ten cities, which were inhabited mainly by Gentiles, and is said by Hitter to have been founded by the veterans of the army of Alexander), and from the neighborhood and the city of. Jerusa- lem, and from Perea, beyond Jordan. On this journey occurred, in some town not named, the healing of a leper. The leprosy is the most horrible of diseases, and all the details of its symptoms and effects strike our imaginations most painfully. Although not strictly exclusively confined to the Orient, it is the special scourge of the East. When it first made its appearance we shall probably never be able 184 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. to learn. Perhaps the earliest recorded mention of this plague is in the books of Moses. Of the leprosy in general the origin is readily found in the nature of the climate in eastern lands. The dryness and hotness of the atmosphere of Egypt and Syria would naturally generate cutaneous diseases, which, among the lower classes, would be aggravated by unwholesome diet and the want of personal cleanliness. In modern books of medicine a " brick- layer's itch " and a " baker's itch " are specified. Leprosy appears under four forms — elephantiasis, black leprosy, red leprosy, and white leprosy. The first of these is especially an Egyptian form, and is known sometimes by the name ulcus JEgypti. Its name comes from the swelling and hardening of the ankle-joints, so that the feet come to resemble the hoofs of the elephant. It produces melancholy, sleeplessness, voracious hun- ger, and unquenchable thirst. It is not rapid. The patient may live twenty years in this horrible condition, and then die of suf- focation. The white leprosy is known as the lepra Mosaica, and is described with a minuteness that is painful in Leviticus xiii. Yery great diversity of opinion has existed on the question of the contagiousness of the leprosy. Dean Alford and Archbishop Trench deny that it is contagious. They cite the ,on agious- ^ age o £ Naaman (2 Kings v.), who while he was ness, a leper held place at court and commanded the forces of the Syrian king ; and also the case of Grehazi (2 Kings viii.), who, while he was an incurable leper, held familiar conver- sation with the king of Israel. The leper's exclusion these learned authors assign to the fact that he was ceremonially unclean. Modern travellers and writers tell us that in Palestine it is still an open question whether mere contact will communicate the disease ; but all "the police regulations about Jerusalem and Damascus, and even among the Arabs, show that there is a dread of touching lepers. They are excluded from the camp and city, are separated from their kinspeople and acquaintances, and live in a commu- nity of wretchedness, having no companionship but that of sufferers afflicted like themselves. But it is " hereditary, with an awfully infallible certainty. 1 ' * The child of leprous parents may exhibit * Dr. Thomson's The Land and the taneously, without hereditary or aiiy Book, vol. ii. p. 519. This author says other possible connection with those also, that " fresh cases appear from time previously diseased." to time, in which it seems to arise spon- THE FIRST TOUR OF GALILEE. 185 all the usual sweetness of infancy and be bright and beautiful ; but j ast as certainly as it lives it will begin to show the terrify- ing ngnsof the horrible disease, and will finally perish of a malady which medical science has discovered no skill to cure and almost none to mitigate. The symptoms and the effects of this disease are very loath- some. There comes a white swelling or scab, with a change of the color of the hair on the part from its natural , mil n . Symptoms. hue to yellow; then the appearance or a taint going deeper than the skin, or raw flesh appearing in the swell- ing. Then it spreads and attacks the cartilaginous portions of the body. The nails loosen and drop off, the gums are absorbed, and the teeth decay and fall out ; the breath is a stench, the nose decays ; fingers, hands, feet, may be lost, or the eyes eaten out. The human beauty has gone into corruption, and the patient f eeh that he is being eaten as by a fiend, who consumes him slowly in a long remorseless meal that will not end until he be destroyed. He is shut out from his fellows. As they approach he must cry, " Unclean ! unclean ! " that all humanity may be warned from his precincts. He must abandon wife and child. He must go to live with other lepers, in disheartening view of miseries similar to his own. He must dwell in dismantled houses or in the tombs. He is, as Trench says, a dreadful parable of death. By the laws of Moses (Lev. xiii. 45 ; Num. vi. 9 ; Ezek. xxiv. 17) he was com- pelled, as if he were mourning for his own decease, to bear about him the emblems of death, the rent garments ; he was to keep his head bare and his lip covered, as was the custom with those who were in communion with the dead. When the Crusaders brought the leprosy from the East, it was usual to clothe the leper in a shroud, and to say for him the masses for the dead.* In all ages this indescribably horrible malady has been con sidered incurable. The Jews believed that it was inflicted by Jehovah directly, as a punishment for some extra- t ., , t , £ Incurable, ordinary perversity or some transcendent act or sinfulness, and that only God could heal it. When Naaman was cured, and his flesh came back like that of a little child, he said, "Now I know that there is no Grod in all the earth but in Isiael." (2 Kings v. 14, 15.) It was to be the test of the Messiah, the * Trench on Miracles, p. 176. 186 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. Deliverer sent out from Jehovah, that he should be able to cure the leprosy. Cyril of Alexandria calls it iraOos ov/c taacfiov, the in- curable disease. The report of it struck horror into the minds of peoples afar. The Greek poet ^Eschylus * has a few powerful lines in which he describes the symptoms, and dwells, as Moses did, upon the fact of the spreading energy of the evil, and makes that an argument for the theory that the leprosy was the special scourge of God. Tacitus f describes the Jews as " a race detested by the gods," saying that when they were in Egypt they all had the leprosy, and that when the king inquired of Jupiter Ammon how the kingdom could be freed from this great calamity, he was told that it could be effected only by driving this wretched race from the country. Such is the leprosy, and such were lepers in the days of Je- sus. Other sufferers had sympathy and help. The leper was regarded as stricken of God, smitten of Him, and afflicted by Him.J No one sat by his couch of pain ; no hand touched his brow with cooling moisture ; no kiss of love ever distilled itself on his lips. A poor wretch corroded with leprosy had heard of the power and goodness of Jesus, whose reputation had gone down among the outcasts in the tombs. He came near the wonder-worker, and kneeled, and fell on his face, and worshipped, and said with extraordinary faith and pathos, " Thou canst make me clean, if thou wilt." The historians of the New Testament tell a calmness which seems itself miraculous. We ordinary historians are moved by the touching postures, and acts, and fancied accents of these two men. Laying all dogmas aside, here is a historic group of profound and powerful poetic interest. Standing there is a young teacher, who has aroused the dull ears of plodding, stupid, ritualistic religionists of his day, and attracted the attention of the fashionable, the gay, the heathen rulers of his people, and of the busy merchants intent on trade. A populous region begins to be full of his praises. He is stirring his people and his age by religious views the most practical, full of common Jesus heals a leper. Matt. viii. 1-4; Mark i. 40- 45; Luke v. 12- 14. this story with * .Esch., CJiarph., 271-274. f Tacitus, Ann., lib. v. % In quoting from Isaiah the phrases usually understood to be prophetic of ' ' the Christ," I am reminded of a strange old Jewish tradition that the was to be a leper. THE FIRST TOUR OF GALILEE. 187 sense, adapted to human wants, yet lofty and spiritnal, and uttered in a tone of paramount authority. His life is blamelessly pure. The innocency of infancy, the tenderness of womanhood, the strength of manhood, the gravity of a sage, the endurance of a martyr, and the daring of a hero must have been the mingled elements of his aspect and his manners. Serene and lofty and sweet, Jesus stands, while at his feet a leper lies, disgusting, loathsome, rotten. He has been burning with fever for many years., for he is " full of leprosy." It is in his blood and flesh, a fret and a torment. He has no hope from medicine or nursing. He can look forward only to a death-in-lif e existence, whose nights shall be filled with dreams that scare and visions that terrify (Job vii.), and whose mornings shall be an awakening to face an approaching and inevitable doom. This is his only, his lasl chance. He has heard of the mighty deeds of Jesus. His faith in the power of Jesus is unfaltering. The Messiah will be a leper-curer. This is the Messiah. He can. Will he % That is the question. T^the goodness of this wonderful Eabbi be equal to his power the leper will be saved. But perhaps the leprosy is the one evil God has determined not yet to remedy, and this, after all, may not be the Messiah. It is not improbable that all these thoughts passed through the mind of the sufferer. He saw in fancy his home, his wife, his babes, and all that makes the home circle powerful in its attrac- tions. H the Great Teacher should cure him he should go back to all those dear delights. If he refused, then the tombs and wretched companionship and despair ! Will he % Let us look up from the suppliant to that face of lofty lovingness. Jesus is moved — moved with compassion. No one else had ever felt so for the leper. All others had been moved, but it had been with disgust or „ . S1 * 7 & the healer. horror. The brow of Jesus lifts itself. The eyes of the teacher soften and brighten. His hands stir slightly. His lips quiver with emotion. His frame is, perhaps, agitated. All-health, unbroken Wholesomeness, untainted Physical Purity, stands face to face with Disease and Corruption. It is a moment of critical conflict. He is about to speak a word which is to bo decisive of his power or his feebleness. There can be no half- success. It will be complete, and surpass in its effects all other words that ever passed human lips, or be instantly followed by a 188 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVEK IN THE LD7E OF JESUS. surrender oi moral power. He dares to utter that word, and does it with elevated calmness, fearless of ceremonial impurity or infectious disease. Stepping forward, he breaks through the whole ceremonial law that severed this abject sufferer from de- cent people, and laying his lingers on the hot head of the throb- bing leper, thrilled the sufferer with a delicious sensation, and into his ears, all stuffed with matter of corruption, shot the music of the simple speech of love and power : " I will : be clean." More quickly than can be written the man at his feet felt new fountains of health created at his heart, new blood coursing through his veins, new flesh as of a babe's pushing the rottenness from off his bones, and he arose, shook himself, sloughed off his leprosy, and stood out clean. Immediately upon the performance of this miracle Jesus charged the healed man not to make it known until he had gone to the priest, and offered for his cleansing those argeo es i ^ im g w j 1 j[ c j 1 Moses had commanded "for a tes- to the healed man. # n timony unto them," says Mark (i. 44). The Jew- ish law at that time was that if a person should be restored from the leprosy lie should be examined by the priest of his district. After seven days he underwent a second examination, performed a lustration, and then went to Jerusalem, where he offered a pre- scribed sacrifice and was pronounced clean. There were slight forms of leprosy, as still may be found in Palestine, which were curable. The sanitary regulations referred to these. But still, as they were forms of leprosy, the separation had to be made. Seat- ed leprosy was considered incurable, and, until the days of Jesus, no cure is recorded except of those who were miraculously healed in the times of the prophets. Generally Jesus enjoined silence upon those whom he restored, and the reasons are appar- ent. The importance of his ministry, as is always the case with great men, lay in his spiritual influence rather than in the mere words and acts which conveyed it. His miracles were, only acces- sories. For the spiritual as well as physical good of the restored he commanded quiet. Nor did he desire to have his deeds so bruited abroad as that his ministry should be obstructed by great crowds, nor such enthusiasm generated as should lead to mobs or political complications. These were general prudential reasons. In one case, at least (Mark v. 9), we shall find that he gave an opposite direction. But in each case, in addition to the general, there was THE FIRST TOUR OF G^XILEE. 189 Matt. ix. 2-8; Mark ii. 4-12 ; Luke v. 17-26. a special reason. The priest had pronounced him a leper : if the priest, unmoved by the knowledge that Jesus had cleansed him, should pronounce him healed, the " testimony to them " would be complete that Jesus had really performed this wonderful deed and had thus established his claims to the Messiahship. But the glad and grateful man could not be restrained. He blazed the matter abroad so much that crowds came flocking to Jesus, until he was compelled to „ ' ,'.,».■ , , from the public. withdraw himself into a solitary place. And there for some days he refreshed his soul by devotional exercises. It was needful, for trouble was brewing for the great teacher. A Messiah that removed himself from the public was not the Messiah for the Jews. He returned to his chosen home in Capernaum. His fame had grown in his absence. People nocked to the house he occupied. Whether it was a residence he had hired, or one that belonged to some disciple, we cannot learn. But it was known tc the inhabitants of Capernaum, and to the strangers therein. He commenced teaching. Among his hearers were certain Phari- sees and doctors of the law, who had come down from Jerusalem. It is not quite easy to determine the motives of these listeners. They may have been drawn by the fame of Jesus, or they may have been emissaries come to collect testimony against the young rabbi who had made such a commotion on his visit to Jerusalem. Both classes probably were represented in this assembly, for Luke intimates that he healed some,* while some were severely critical upon his mode of expression in a miracle which he performed in their midst. The miracle was on this wise : Four men brought upon a pallet their friend, who was a paraly- tic. The entrance to Oriental houses is ordinarily by the one front door. This was blocked by the excessive crowd, so that it was impracticable to press through; but the desire of these men, increased probably by the urgency of the patient, was so great that they ascended the roof, probably through the adjoining house, and, crossing the parapet, either removed the hatchway, if Jesus was sitting in the Jesus heals paralytic. * The construction here is a little difficult. The avrovs in the original has no grammatical antecedent. It is rather unnatural to interpret it as meaning these Pharisees and doctors, as on its face it seems to do, for there was noth- ing in their cases to make them recep tive of his curative power. 190 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVEK IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. upper chamber or removed the awning, if Jesus was sitting in the court-yard. In reading the statement of the evangelical histo- rians we must recollect the construction of eastern houses. What might be impossible as European and American houses are built in our cities was not an insuperable difficulty in the East. But it was a difficulty; and when Jesus saw the earnestness of all parties he said to the paralytic, " Son, be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee." How much depends upon a little word ! This speech by Jesus was the turning-point in his history. If he had said, " May thy sins be forgiven," he would simply have uttered mportanceo a an aS pi ra ti Ti of piety. But undertaking to de- clare upon his own individual authority the for- giveness of the man's sins, in other words, forgiving Mm, he vol- untarily took a vast step forward, ascended to a higher and more conspicuous platform of claim, and aroused against himself all the philosophic, religious, and traditionary prejudices of his peo- ple. It was the commission of a most, if not the most, grievous crime known to the Jews. It was blasphemy. It was a claim to exercise the prerogative of God. It was making himself equal with God. It was making himself God. And there was no re- treat for Jesus. He had said it. The learned visitors sat reason- ing with themselves, " Who can forgive sins but God only ? " Jesus read their thoughts, and manifested his penetration by tell- ing them just what was passing in their minds. He proceeded to establish this awful claim. Any fool or crazy man may claim anything which is not susceptible of proof or dis- proof. What evidence is furnished that heaven ratifies the assertion of any human being that the sins of another human being are forgiven? It is a pertinent question. The claim may be at once futile and sinful. Jesus asked them this question : "Which is easier — to say ' Thy sins are forgiven,' or to say 'Rise, take thy bed and walk?' " To forgive sins is not less difficult than to heal disease, to one who can do both ; but it is less easy of proof, as the latter is open to the senses. But neither can be done without the will of God, and God will not indorse blasphemy by a miracle, and therefore Jesus said to them, " That you may know that I have power to forgive sins, listen and behold." And turning to the sick man he said, "Rise, take up your bed, and go to your own house." There was no struggle, no slow stretching of himself, no padnful effort to drag THE FIRST TOUR OF GALILEE. 191 himself and his pallet through the crowd. Immediately he stood up before them, he gathered up that on which he had been lying, and started for his home. The crowd disparted. They made way for this new wonder. The man went home shouting. Amaze- ment, fear, and gladness took hold of the people. The great power of God had come down among men. It is to be noticed how Jesus, in the methods of this miracle, sets forth the close connection between an unwholesome spiritual con- dition and the physical maladies of mankind. „ , j. , .j. ., . Body and soul. He treats a disease somehow as it it were a sin. " Your sins are forgiven, rise up, go home." In this case, as per- haps invariably in cases of paralysis, some sin, some excessive 3elf -in dulgence, lies at the root of this bodily disablement. Jesus is compassionate to the sufferer, but honest with the sinner. He addresses him tenderly but faithfully. He calls him " son," but gives him to understand that his sympathy with suffering does not for a moment blind him to the badness of the sin from which it sprang So indescribably sublime was the self-possession of Jesus that no crisis threw him from his balance, and yet so obvious is it that he never thinks of self-possession and mental equipoise. His greatness inheres. Shortly after the healing of the paralytic Jesus was found at the sea-side, teaching multitudes who gathered about him. Making a short excursion from Capernaum along the Lake of Gennesaret, discoursing on religious subjects, he came to the road from Damascus, which, crossing the Jordan by "Jacob's Bridge," went along the lake coast to ^^"'*^ the neighboring cities. On this road, near Caper- . Mark 'ji naum or some other town, it is quite probable there would be a toll-house. Such a station somewhere Jesus came upon, and there found Matthew, called also Levi, who was discharging the duties of a Roman portitor, or tax-gatherer, com- monly called " publican " in our version. It was the most degrad- ing employment in which a Jew could be found. It was making himself, for gain, a servant of the oppressor of his people. Jesus seems to have known him. He simply said to him, " Follow me," and Matthew immediately obeyed. Here was another shock given to Jewish prejudice. It was intolerable that he should select his circle of nearest friends and disciples from men whose reputation was so ruinously bad. 192 FIKST AND SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JEStJS. Matthew's feast. But something more was done, probably on that very day, to in- tensify the growing opposition. The newly called disciple made a great feast at his house. All his old companions were welcome to his table. On this day he must have consulted Jesus, who did not object to dining with publicans and those technically called sinners by the scientifically religious Pharisees. And so there was a great crowd of bad men, and Jesus and his disciples eating with them. This seemed the crowning outrage. He had pronounced a man forgiven who had not gone through the ritual, thus bursting the bands of sacerdotal succes- sion and ecclesiastical exclusiveness. He then broke down the pales of social life, which were also themselves of ecclesiastical construction. The Pharisees remonstrated with his disciples. But when Jesus heard it he said to them, with splendid irony, " They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. Go learn what God meant when he spake by his prophet, ' I will have mercy and not sacrifice.' (Hosea vi. 6.) And I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." His reply was silencing to the Pharisees, and should be instruc- tive to people of all ages. It first quotes the proverb, " The physi- cian is not for the whole, but for the sick," which fco th P Ph. ri SU was known to Jews and Gentiles, and is of uni- versal use.* It was employed ironically against these Pharisees. They were as unsound as the sinners that sat at meat with him, the difference being that the latter knew them- selves sin-sick and the former did not. Seriously, the place for the physician is in the wards of the hospital, and not in the crowd of hearty, healthy laborers. The man whose purity and exaltation of character are not such as will draw the low to his higher plat- form, and not be degraded to theirs, is not the man to be even a Moral Reformer, not to say a Great Regenerator. Men cannot from great distances do good to their fellow-men. It is amid the amenities of social life that much is done for good morals. And then he quoted from their sacred books : " I will have mercy and not sacrifice," says God. When afflictions come in His providence they may have a chastening effect ; but lacerations of ourselves or others, of our bodies or our son Is, are not accept- * It is found in the Talmud {Tal. Babyl, tit. Bara Kama, fol. 46, col. 2). Used by Antisthenes in Laertius, Dio- genes in Stobaeus, Pausanias in Plutarch, Ovid in " De Ponto." '■$? '..■ ;-'■' - -Jf ill £ THE FIRST TOUR OF GALILEE. 193 able to God, who prefers a life of love to all self-tormenting. Jesns seems to teach that whatever sacrifice a man may make fcr God, if there be no charity, it all counts for nothing ; that charity must animate all toils to make them beautiful in the sight of God. As if he had said, " You Pharisees offer great sacrifices, and yet are unmerciful to your poor brethren who make no religious pro- fession. You are merciless ; how can you expect mercy % " From the proverb and the scripture he ascends to an authorita- tive declaration concerning himself : " I am come to call sinners to repentance, not the righteous." In this there seems some irony, but the proposition involves a profound truth. In every age, from every teacher, only those receive benefit who are conscious of needing help. The Pharisees of every age are those whose ex- terior deceives them as to their inward condition, and they are the very people who receive the least good from the beneficial agencies abroad in the world. Sinners, who being sinners, know themselves to be sinners, are those to whom salvation comes. It is not the lack of power in the spiritual agencies that keeps men from being good, but generally the lack of a sense of their own need, and a willingness to throw themselves open to the sweet in- fluences of the spiritual world. And thus he answered the Pharisees. They had talked to his disciples ; then the disciples of John talked to him, and said, " We and the Pharisees fast often : why do not your disciples fast?" Let us make all n j. , ., j. ., mi • John's disciples allowance of charity for these men. 1 heirs was , . , a pitiable condition. Their master was in prison, and they could not bear to see Jesus in the midst of festivities. Their school had wellnigh broken up. Many of John's disciples had attached themselves to Jesus. There were probably a few of the stanchest and most obstinate followers of the Baptist, who were ready to acknowledge what was good in Jesus, but clung closely to the modes and teachings of John, and in their obstinacy classed themselves with the Pharisees. After such numberless demonstrations of the folly of such a course, it is amazing how men persist in clinging to the dawn, and in suffering as it broad- ens into the fulness of the day. Jesus answered them by almost echoing the words of their great master. John had spoken of the pleasure which the friend of the bridegroom enjoyed as he heard the voice of the bridegroom. Jesus replies to these querulous dis 13 194 FIRST AND SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. ciples of John, " Can the sons of the bridechamber mourn, aa long as the bridegroom is with them ? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall *hey fast. ISTo man putteth a patch of new cloth unto an old garment ; for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old skins: else skin bottles. fa e s k ms break, and the wiue runneth out, and the skins perish : but they put new wine into new skins, and both are preserved." He thus does several things in one reply. He reminds them of the light in which their master had received him, namely, as ful- filling the prophecies by coming to espouse the ep j o esus. ^^ (Isai. li v. 5-10.) It ought to be a festive season. The gladdest day of a man's life should be the day of his nuptials. The disciples were represented as the intimate friends of the bridegroom, those who were accustomed to go with him to the bride's house to bring her to her home with great re- joicings. It was not meet that they should fast, for it was the Jewish teaching, as we learn from Maimonides, " that all fasting should cease in the days of the Messiah, and that there should be then only holidays and festivals, as it is written in Zechariah viii. 19." He reminds them of the difference between the old and the hew. The old must pass away. He was come to inaugurate the new. In the old hard dispensation there were fast-days, when all must fast. There was to be new. J y nothing of the kind thereafter. It is amazing how this is overlooked by Church and by State in the absurd ap- pointing of special days when all the community must fast or feast together. What is one man's fast may be another man's festival. When a man has the sense of his Maker's love and presence — his Maker is his husband, according to the old Hebrew idea — he has no occasion to fast. As long as that remains he should keep perpetual holiday. It is only a sense of His absence that should make a man fast, and that might befall him on an appointed festival. And so, having spoken of a wedding, garments and wine are THE FIRST TOUR OF GALILEE. 195 naturally suggested, and from them he derives two very striking illustrations of the proposition, that it is prepos- terous to attempt to work the new into the old, the new Present into the old Past, the new Jesusism into the old Judaism. A man does not put a patch of new cloth on an old worn garment, lest the strong patch tear away the weak cloth in which it is inserted, and thus the rent become larger. Jesusism is to be a totally new thing. It is not to be worked into the cere- monials of Judaism. It is to be quite a new robe, all new. There is no more need of the old Judaism. You may give it away to poor beggarly creatures who may be content to cover their nakedness with the faded spangles and rent skirts of its threadbare ritualism, but the new ages are to wear a new dress. And how greatly every effort of the later times to make the work of Jesus a mere improvement upon Judaism, has made the whole matter worse. Jesus swept away old things; "old types, old ceremonies, old burdens, sacrifices, priests, sabbaths, and holy days are all passed away: behold all things have become new." * It was the style of Jesus to advance from some thought sug- gested by an occurrence, or question, or objection, to higher and higher truths, drawing men up to spiritual things x. ^ r * a 4=1 • * • Higher truths. by the ordinary methods or human intercommuni- cation. The garment is external. Wine in the skins f is some- thing internal. If these skins were old, the new and fermenting wine would burst them, so that the wine would be lost and the bottle be rendered worthless. Just such a result, Jesus taught, would take place when men attempted to put the new wine of his gospel into the old bottles of ceremonials : the whole would be lost. Very early men tried to hold the living spirit of Christian- ity in the dead body of Pharisaic Judaism, and the result was that they made neither good Christians nor decent Jews. The spirit which Jesus brought into the world was the spirit of regeneration rather than reformation of manners. In the individual man the new life of progress comes into him, and works itself out into the production of all proprieties. He cannot be made a new man by * Dean Alf ord. Greek Testament, in loco. f Milk and oil, water and wine, are still in the East, as they were in the days of Jesus, carried in bottles made of the skins of animals, commonly of goats. To this day they may be seen at almost every turn in Egypt and Syria. It is an ancient arrangement, as appears from Homer and Herodotus. 196 FIRST Aim SECOND PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. mending him outwardly. But if any attempt to confine the cur- rent of the gospel within the banks of certain prescribed forms, all good results will be lost. Jesus and the spirit of his gospel are against rubric and ritual and ceremonial, and churchism generally. He does not seek to make churchmen, but Christians. That is taught in the saying in reply to the question of the disciples of John. It is taught everywhere. But it is a lesson professed Christians seem loth to learn. They have repeated in all times the folly of putting new wine in old bottles. Examples might be produced from all the ages and all the sects. Men battle heroically for the liberty which they will not grant others. The history of the world is divided into two parts, and the line is the life of Jesus. Before him there was not the animating spirit of progress. Humanity went forward, but Jesus, the divid- .f „ -, . * o , • • -, ins- line of history went forward m a rut. Alter him it began to spread itself in all directions. But still men en- deavored to hand it down from generation to generation in old skins that would burst and spill the wine. Hence the delay of Christianity in taking the world. The intention of Jesus was to establish a religion which should have no binding forms, no pre- scribed temple-service, no priesthood, nothing of the old, but be new, and in spirit, and reside in the hearts of men ; and this we find frequently set forth in his teachings. It was the flinging away of the old bottles which has made modern times so progres- sive. It is the powerful influence of Jesus which helps men to do broad, great, good things, even if it be objected that they are not old things. It was such conduct as this, and such teaching, that brought against him the wrath of scribe and Pharisee, of priest and Levite. Old Bottles or If he had been content to put his " new wine " Deatl1 - into their " old bottles," they would have been ready for the arrangement. But so great was his spirit, and so far- seeing his indescribably clear intellect, that he never for a moment yielded to denominationalism and sectarianism. He knew what the result would be. He knew that he had not come into the world merely to reform the Jewish Church. He had come to emancipate and regenerate the ages, and to save the world. He flung the glove down to li the Church " then existing, and the re- sult was that he was finally murdered. Any pure man who at- THE FIRST TOUR OF GAXJXEE. 197 tempts to follow Jesus in this particular may expect some simi- lar fate. Old bottles are generally considered more valuable than new wine, by sectarians. " The Old Bottles or Death ! " is the alternative of their battle-cry. Jesus preferred to die and trust his new wine to the coming generations. ASTCIENT BOTTLES PART IV. FROM THE SECOND UNTIL THE THIRD PASSOVEK EST THE PUBLIC MINISTRY OF JESUS. ONE TEAK — PROBABLY FROM A.D. 28 TO A.D. 29. CHAPTER I, THE SABBATH QUESTION. So far from striving to allay the dislike engendered by his dis regard of the ceremonials and traditions of the Jews, Jesus soon makes an attack upon Pharisaism in its stronghold, namely, the punctilious observance of the Sabbath. The Passover * drew near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem to celebrate it. "Within the city, and near the Sheep-gate, there was a Jerusalem. House-of- P°°l> called in the Syro-Chaldee, which was the outpouring. John v. vernacular of Jesus, Baith-Hisdaw, or Bethesda, 1-47. that is, House-of- Outpouring, the precise location of which it is probably now impossible to indicate. For a long time Bethesda was supposed to be identical with a large excava- tion near St. Stephen's Gate, the immense depth of which, sev enty-five feet, makes this most improbable ; it is now believed to be a fosse which guarded the northern side of the fortress of An- tonia. The most probable site is, as Dr. Robinson (Researches, i. * This Passover commenced on Wed- nesday, the 9 th of April. That this festival is here meant, is evident not only from the whole context and con- nected history, but from a variety of other considerations, which cannot here be specified for want of space. The absence of the definite article (" a feast," verse 1) is no proof against this view, for where John refers to any other feast, he expressly mentions its appro- priate name (John vii. 2 ; x. 22). THE SABBATH QUESTION. 199 501, 508) has shown, the "Fountain of the Virgin," in the Yalley of Kedron, a short distance above the Pool of Siloam, with which it has subterranean connection, as perhaps also with the fountain under the Great Mosque. Around this pool were built five porches, which gave shelter to the invalids who came to POOL OF HEZEKIAH. enjoy the benefits supposed to be conferred by the medicinal pro- perties of this water. It was the popular belief of the Jews that at certain seasons an angel went down into this water and stirred it, and whoever thereupon first stepped into the pool was made whole.* Great numbers, therefore, of chronic cases of blindness, * The 4th verse of chapter v. of John reads thus : ' ' For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water : whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in, was made whole of what- soever disease he had." It is a con- troverted passage, but the weight of authority seems to me to fall against its genuineness. (But Dr. Howard Cros- by, who is high authority, is of the op- posite opinion and considers it genuine. ) It is easy to see how it might have come into the text. Take it out and you have the history, namely, that there was such a pool, and that impotent folk lay there, and that Jesus found one such and made him whole. To account for 200 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. The impotent man. of paralysis, of other diseases, brought themselves to these porches, and when the agitation of the water took place the first to enter it was believed would be benefited. It was the Sabbath-day. Jesus, in his walk, came upon the House-of-Mercy. Among the infirm persons he saw one who arrested his attention. He had been an invalid thirty-eight years. How long he had been on the watch for the stirring of the water is not recorded. Paralysis, it would seem, had stricken down body and mind. He was helpless and hopeless. Jesus said : " Will you be healed % " The man an- swered : " Sir, I have no one, when the pool is troubled, to put me in ; but while I am coming, another steps down before me." Poor man ! He had long and longingly gazed at the pool, and when the sudden rising came he strove to step in ; but so helpless was his body that he failed ; another preceded ; and this was repeated until he had grown hopeless and languid. Jesus said : " Pise, take up your bed, and walk." It was a command of power. He was not a convalescent ; he was well. He was not recovering ; he was whole. What was life to this man was death to the peace of Jesus. The cure was on the Sabbath-day. The joyful man went homeward cured on the Sab- carrying his pallet. Some Jewish elders met him bath-day. an( j re buked him for doing this on the Sabbath- day. The rej)ly of the man contained that undesigned appear- ance of ingenuity which we often find in perfect ingenuousness : "He that made me whole, the same said to me, Take up your bed the appearance of all these people at this pool some annotator gave truth- fully what was the popular opinion, and in niany copyings it would easily creep into the text, and thus seem to be, what it might not have been, the opinion of the historian. How it came to be the popular opinion is accounted for by some on the ground that the pool did possess some qualities which were bene- ficial to some invalids, which qualities came from gases generated in the earth or from the blood of the victims sacri- ficed in the Temple, and coming by pri- vate conduit down to this pool. To this day there is an irregularity in the flow of water in this fountain. Dr. Robinson and his companion discovered it one day when they were measuring the fountain. The water very suddenly rose more than a foot, and as suddenly subsided. A woman who came up at the moment, and who was accustomed to wash at the fountain daily, said that she had seen it dry, and men and cattle suffering from thirst, when all at once it would boil up again, and that this boiling or flowing was at irregular inter- vals. The common people have aban- doned the beautiful fancy of an angel in the fountain, and now say that a great dragon lies within ; that when he sleeps it flows, and when he wakes it stops. THE SABBATH QUESTION. 201 and walk." His argument lay in the assumption that whoso could do so great a thing as by one sentence to give entire health to a paralyzed man is one whose command to carry burdens on the Sabbath might be safely obeyed. But the leading learned men of the Jews did not think so. The health, or even the life of a human being: was not to be set in the scale against a tradition of the elders. They knew that Jesus was doing mighty works. They suspected, who had told the man to carry his bed. If Jesus — and who else could it be ? — they had an occasion for an open contro- versy with him. But the man did not know the name of his benefactor. Afterward Jesus found him in the Temple, and said to him : " Behold, you are made whole ; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto you." It would seem that his excesses J Recognizes Jesoa. had been the occasion of his physical ailments, and to the act of healing Jesus added, what is often better than a cure, an exhortation to a more sanitary mode of life. But the in- terview made Jesus known to the healed man, who went and told the elders that it was Jesus who had made him whole. It was not as informer that the man could have communicated this. The Sabbath question was not so important to him as his own re- covery. It was not who had commanded him to carry his little pallet home on the Sabbath, but who had healed him. He looked on that side, the elders on the other. It aroused the whole hate of their nature, and they opened with Jesus a controversy that was to terminate with his death. In our day it seems strange that such connection should exist ; that a most good man should be slaughtered because he would not conform to what even we might consider a wholesome regulation. But it did occur in the case of Jesus, and has occurred in times much nearer our own. At this point in the progress of Jesus we reach the Sabbath question. The references to this subject in the Old Testament may be supposed to be familiar to the readers of this book, but must be glanced at. The first is in the history of the ere- The sabbath before ation, in Genesis i. and ii. The next is in the Mosea - Patriarchal period, and in several places, some more patent and some more obscure. For instance, in Genesis iv. 3 is the phrase "In ^process of time . . Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord." In the Hebrew it is "At the 202 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVEE Etf THE LIFE OF JESUS. end of days" Again : in chapter vii. 4, 10, " seven days " are mentioned, as also in chapter viii. 10 and 12 : these in reference to the deluge. In chapter xxix. 25-30, the "week" is mentioned as a well-known division of time, and it will be seen that that other Sabbatic period of seven years is mentioned in the same passage. Tn chapter 1. it is said that " Joseph made a monrning for his father seven days." These are before the days of Moses. In Exodns xvi. we have the account of the sending of manna, and the ordinance that twice The sabbath in the the usual amount should be gathered on the sixth Decalogue. fay. Whether this whole passage indicates a pre- vious Sabbath observance or announces it as a new institution, each reader must determine for himself, as the position of the article in the Hebrew and the general passage may impress him.* The next passage is the most important in the history of the Sabbath. In Exodus xx. it is embodied in the Decalogue, with specifications. To the Jew the Decalogue was not merely a religious symbol, it was also a national ensign. To violate the Decalogue was to be guilty at once of sin and of treason, and they came afterward to make the Sabbath the chief of these ten items of national cove- nant, so that, as one of their writers said, " He that violates the Sabbath is as he that worships the stars, and both are heathens." Whoever fairly reads the Old Testament at large, whether he believes the Hebrew institutions to have been given by Almighty God or to be the product of the wisdom of man, Of divine origin. *■ -ir? must know that the Jews believed them to be oi divine origin, and must feel that under all the circumstances of Hebrew nationality they were wise and beneficent regulations. The law of the Sabbath is obviously such. It is to be remarked that a Sabbatic idea runs through all the Hebrew Institutes. There was to be a seventh day consecrated to rest, to enjoyment, and to religion. There was a seventh month set aside to festivals, opening with the Feast of Trumpets, and containing that most joyful of Hebrew holidays, the Feast of Tabernacles. There was the seventh year, in which the land was to rest from the hand of the tiller. At each close of seven times seven years, each week of years, came in the year of Jubilee, when debts were cancelled * The learned G-rotius believed that the day had been already known and observed as holy, but that the law as to labor was now given for the first time, and shortly after more implicitly im posed in the Fourth Commandment. THE SABBATH QUESTION. 203 and when slaves went free. The original intent, as indeed the original observance of the Sabbath, was not oppressive or afflictive bnt rather festive. At only one point of the Sabbatic cycle is any mention of humiliation. The people were to " afflict their souls on the Day of Atonement." (Levit. xxiii. 27-29.) Every Sab- bath except that was to be for recreation, by rest, by enjoyment, or by glad and happy devotion to the offices of religion. It will be perceived that the physical, social, and moral welfare of all the people was sought by these wise regulations. The lesson so important to know and so hard to learn, Lessons of the sab- that man has no proprietorship in anything earthly; bath - that he is holding it for God, and obtains its best uses only as ho uses it for God : this is the great lesson of the Sabbath. Time belongs to God, which man was to acknowledge by the tribute of the seventh day. Land belongs to God, which is recognized in the Sabbatic year. All things upon which a man may lay any claim of ownership, as upon the moneys due him from his credit- ors, as in the case of his servants, bought or inherited, belong at last to God, and to him must be remitted, as the Jubilee sets forth. Socially men were to be profited by the Sabbath. It was to be a festive day. The rich gave feasts. The poor saved their best for the seventh day enjoyment ; men walked abroad and visited, as well as met amid joyful celebrations of God's praise in taber- nacle, Temple, or synagogue. Labor was suspended. The body must rest; it rested on the Sabbath. No journeys, no business, no servile labor could be performed. It was a democratic insti- tution. Master and servant equally suspended toil and took re- freshment. In other parts of the law there were given constructions of the prohibition of labor in the Decalogue. It was forbidden to light a fire. (Exodus xxxv. 3.) Eor gathering sticks on the Sabbath a man was stoned. (Num. xv. 32.) Isaiah uttered solemn warnings against the violation of the Sabbath, and promises of blessings to those wmo should scrupu- lously observe it. (Isa. lviii. 13.) Jeremiah denounced the gen eral violation of the Sabbath in his day, when men wrought as much and carried burdens in their traffic as much as on other days. (Jerem. xvii. 21-27.) And in the days of Ezekiel there was such a general falling off that the secularization of the Sab- hath is ranked foremost among the national sins of the Jews Prohibitions. 204: SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. (Ezekiel xx. 12-24.) JSTehemiah (xiii. 15-22, and viii. 9-12) at- tributed their severe national calamity to the specialty heinous offence of neglecting the Sabbath ; and he gives an account of his measures for restoring the day to its proper observance, among which was the representation to the people that the Sabbath was a festival. " This day is holy unto the Lord your God : mourn not, nor weep. Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared ; for this day is wholly unto our Lord : neither be ye sorry ; for the joy of the Lord is your strength." " With many such words he cheered the people, and they went their way to eat and to drink, and to send portions, and to make a great mirth, because they had under- stood the words that were declared unto them." * It will be seen that this method of observing the Sabbath is very different from that prescribed by subsequent Jewish and modern Puritans, who have made the Sabbath a burden, a darkness, and a curse, whereas God meant it for a blessing, and considers " holy day " the equiv- alent of holiday. The Pharisees and the rabbins, following up the work of Ne- hemiah, committed the error of carrying their exactions too far, and thus absolutely abrogating the spirit by their super-exact adherence to the letter of the law. Because Moses had forbidden the Israelites to go out of the camp to gather manna against God's command, a sect was established whose prime article of faith and practice was the maintaining throughout the day the posture in which they should happen to be when they first awoke ; a terrible way of resting. This of course exceeded even the usual rigor of Sabbath observance. Because Jeremiah had denounced the bearing of the burdens of traffic, men were forbidden to lift any article. It was against the law to hunt on the Sabbath, therefore the Pharisaic and rab- Pharisaic exactions. * As showing that the Sabbath was not to be a day of gloom and weeping, compare with the above what is written in 2 Chron. xxx. 21-26, Ps. xcii., and many other passages in the Psalms ; Isa- iah xxx. 29, Jeremiah xxi. 12-14, Hosea ii. 11. This contrasts greatly with cer- tain Puritan regulations, such as these : "21 No one shall run on the Sabbath- day, or walk in his garden, or elsewhere, except reverently to and from meeting. 22. No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair or shave, on the Sabbath-day. 23. No woman shall kiss her child on the Sabbath. 24. The Sabbath shall begin at sunset on Saturday." See Blue Laws of New Haven Colony 1 etc., compiled by an An- tiquary, It. R. Hinman, Esq. (Hartford, 1838). THE SABBATH QUESTION. 205 binical schools forbade the catching of a ilea as a species of hunt- ing. The law prohibited the gathering of sticks, for the reason that that led to cooking, and while the Sabbath was to be a festival it was also to be a rest, so that the feast must be made ready on the sixth day : but these priests held that it was a violation of the law to mount a tree, because a branch or twig might thus be broken. Grass might not be walked upon, as it might be bruised, and that is a sort of threshing ! An examination of the records concerning Jesus will show, 1 think, that he never broke the Jewish law of the Sabbath, nor did his disciples ; they were never charged with j eS us never broke that. But he did set at naught the exactions of the Sabbath law - the traditions of the elders. He would not be bound by the regu- lations of those who had no authority to overload the word of God with their own fanciful interpretations ; but he did employ the Sabbath for all its sweet restoring uses, and did affirm the great principles on which the Sabbatic institutions rested. Thus, he walked out on the Sabbath-day. Laborious travel was forbidden, but not recreative exercise. He visited the "House of Mercy," and finding an abject suffer- But disregarded Pha- er there he healed him. He commanded him to risaic s losscs - take up his little pallet, such as beggars carried with them to rest upon, and go to his home. This was no toil that could weary him. He was in fresh strength. It would have been preposter- ous to lie there, just where Jesus found him, and continue all the remainder of the Sabbath-day in the posture which he held when healed. This would have been according to the teaching of the sect of Dositheus, but it would have been most unnatural. Jesus sent him home with his bed in his hands. The Jews raged and sought to kill Jesus, not the healed man. It was not, then, the burden-bearing, but the healing, that exasperated them. He addressed the spiritual leaders of the Jews in defence of himself. He does not appear to have been called before the San hedrim, or even any lower court; but the persons to whom the words were addressed had official position, and the words may therefore be considered as spoken in defence. The address drawn out by this Sabbath incident is given at large by John in his fifth chap ter, and is worthy our careful study. In reply to the charge of working on the Sabbath, Jesus said to them. " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." He corrects 206 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OE JESUS. their false ideas of God's rest, as if it were a barren cessatior His reply to accusa- f rom all activity. All the Sabbaths from the crea- tions# tion had been marked by the holy activity of the Creator, warming and shining in the sun, brightening in flowers, glowing and flowing in fountains and streams. As the Son of the Father, being in special relationship to him, Jesus claimed that just so he worked, and that his works were no more viola- tions of the Sabbath than were the works of the Father. Thie intensified their exasperation. He had broken the Sabbath law ; he had involved Jehovah in the crime ; and he had claimed equality with Jehovah. This last was the most specially aggra- vated offence. The words themselves, standing alone, hardly seem to justify this interpretation. The Jewish rulers must have heard something else from him before this, which gave this par- ticular complexion to this short statement. But their belief that h? did mean this, he himself proceeded to justify by the remark- able discourse which John has preserved, and which we give e? ttire : " Verily, I say to you, The Son can do nothing from himself, but what he sejth the Father doing: for what things He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that He Himself doeth : and He will show him greater works than these, that ye may marvel. For as the Father raiseth the dead, and giveth life, even so the Son giveth life to whom he will. For the Father judgeth no one, but hath com- mitted all judgment to the Son : that all should know the Son, even as they know the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father who hath sent him. Verily, verily, I say to you, He that heareth my word, and belie veth on Him that sent me, hath perpetual life, and doth not come into condemnation (or judgment), but hath passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say to you, An hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God : and they who hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in Himself, so also hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this, for an hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth ; they who have done good, unto the resurrection of life ; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment. " I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear I judge ; and my judgment is just ; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of Him who sent me. If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. There is another that beareth witness of me ; and ye know that the testimony which he testineth of me is true. Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth. But I receive not testimony from man : but these things I say that ye may be saved. THE SABBATH QUESTION. 207 He was the burning and shining lamp : ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light. " But I have a greater witness than that of John : for the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me. And the Father Himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen his shape. And ye have not His word abiding in you : for whom He hath sent, him ye believe not. " Ye search the Scriptures ; for in them ye think to have eternal life : and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me that ye ma} have life. I receive not glory from men. But I know you, that ye have not the glory of God among yourselves. I have come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not : if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. How can ye believe, receiving glory one of another, and seek not the glory that cometh from the only God ? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father : there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye have hoped. For had ye believed Moses ye would have believed me : for he wrote concern- ing me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words ?" It would seem that no one can read this speech without being impressed with the thorough sincerity of the speaker. He be- lieved all he said.* He made assertions of himself, which, if true, are not only profound, and touching all the awful mysteries of life and eternity, but separate him from all other known human beings. He first assumes the fatherhood of the Deity. God is father. It is of His essence. He does not become a father by creating, but creates because He is a father. The human The Fatherhood of relationship between the begetter and the begotten God and the sonhood furnishes us with the idea, but it has always sub- sisted in God. Unbeginning fatherhood implies unbeginning sonhood. In point of fact, is there such a son ? Jesus not only declares that there now is, and consequently always has eternally been, but that he himself is that very son, not a son, as any other man may claim to be, but the Son of God. If the unbegun son, the always-existent son, then he does make himself equal with the * It must be remarked here, as else- where in the speeches of Jesus, that our comments are not made in order to form a system of theology. This is intended to be purely a history — a history of the deeds and speeches and consciousness of Jesus. We are concerned merely to dis- cover what he meant to say, and, having found that meaning, not to defend or to condemn, but to show the effect of the holding and the propagating of such thoughts upon the life of the man Je- sus, and perhaps upon the subsequent history of the world. 208 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. Father, as there cannot be two Gods. The long-inculcated mono- theism of the Hebrews made it impossible for them to conceive two persons in one God, and it is probably a metaphysical im- practicability for any mind in which the idea of God is that of an infinite or even of a supreme Existence, to conceive two Gods. If, then, Jesus claims to be the Only Begotten, being one with the Father, the Father and the Son not having had precedent and subsequent existence, then he stands before all the laws of human thought the equal of God, the very God. Right or wrong, such eternity of sonship and such divine equality Jesus believed he held, and he acted and spoke always as we should a jpriori expect a person with such a belief to speak and act. He confirms the impression upon the minds of his enemies by statements made with the formula he always employed when he designed to make his asseverations specially solemn, " Yerily, verily ; " " Amen, amen." If they regarded him, the man Jesus, visible to them, as the sole and egoistic performer of such mira- cles as that which had been wrought at the House of Mercy, they were mistaken. He does them as the Son of God, and does what the Father shows him. He asserts that the subsistence of the existence of Father and Son is love. They are one in their love. Nothing is done by the Father which is not known to the Son. These things they had seen are but a small part of a stupendous whole. God is perpetually vivifying and revivifying, wherefore the Son must also be constantly discharging the quickening f unc tion of the life-power that is in him as the Son of God. Not only does all life proceed from him, but he is the judge of the living and the dead ; so that no honor is to go to God which does not come to Jesus as the Son. He asserts, furthermore, that those who hear his teachings, and thus believe in God by believing in him, have already everlast- ing life, — do not wait for death to introduce them Perpetual life. ° . . . thereinto, indeed have no judgment to pass, lhe hearing of the voice of the Son of God gives passage into a life that is perpetual, and that is wholly unaffected by the mere inci- dent of physical dissolution. But as touching the judgment of men, he asserts that that is placed in his hands, because he is the Son of Man. Man judges man. He that has had the trials, weaknesses, human emergencies, fearful despondencies, appetites and passions of a man, and therefore hath all human sympathy, is THE SABBATH QUESTION. 209 to pass judgment on the character and acts of men. He is God's equal in divine purity and man's equal in humaneness. The proof of the truth of what he says he rests upon several grounds. In the first place, he was not bearing egotistical testi- mony to himself. All that he said and did l-i-i i /-i i i -n i Jesus no egotist. brought glory to the great God, the Everlasting Father, and in this he was to be distinguished from the pseuds Messiahs. In the next place, they had sent to John, who was a resplendent light, and had from him received testimony to the Messiahship of Jesus, who, nevertheless, makes little of all human testimony to himself, even of John's ; and says that he was willing for them to hear John, that they might have all helps to their faith they could find, because he desired that they might be saved. But the really reliable external proof is the works he did, and the really reliable internal proof each man should have would be the voice of God, bearing witness in his soul that this Jesus had come out from God. But the Jews had silenced that voice. Without this subjective evidence men will not believe on him, no matter what quality and quantity of evidence may be adduced. For instance, they had the Scriptures of the Old m . -, . . , , , . , , Subjective evidence. I est anient m their midst, and studied them. They believed that the way to life lay mapped out therein. But those Scriptures, Jesus held, pointed clearly to him. He fulfilled them. And yet he does not glorify himself therefor, but he does glorify the Father. And yet they will not believe him. Let another come* glorifying himself, and although he fulfil no scripture, he will be received by these hard-minded men who desire to kill Jesus — not so much for blasphemy, nor for the vio- lation of the real Sabbath law, as for disregarding a legal Sab- bath. It is a deformity of the will. They had put a gloss on the Scripture. They had narrowed it to their national hopes. They looked for national deliverance and splendor, and for a Messiah who should bring grandeur to Judaism, and thus glory to God ; and they could not understand how God could be glorified and the Jewish nation not aggrandized. The very ground on which they reject him is the very ground of his proof that he had come out from God. * This assertion was verified by the I who were manifest impostors. Corn- crowds that subsequently followed those | pare Acts v. 36, 37. 14 210 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. And now he retorts upon them. They accuse him of viol at* ing one law of Moses. He accuses them of rejecting the writings of Moses bodily. He asserts that Moses wrote of Jesus. They did not understand and did not believe Moses. So Jesus may hardly expect them to believe him. If they extinguish their light they cannot see. If they truly believed in Moses it would be impossible to avoid believing in Jesus, if, as he asserts, the writings of Moses are full of Jesus. So, then, the greatest human authority to the Jews, — that under which their leaders are arraigning and endeavoring to try and convict Jesus that they may destroy him, — that very authority is against them. Moses, not Jesus, will rise up in the judgment and condemn them, for " if they believed not the writings of Moses, how should they believe the words of Jesus % " Whether they were a " Board of Jewish Magistracy," or merely leading Jewish magistrates contriving a conspiracy to crush him, disarmed by this powerful and impressive discourse, his persecu- tors were compelled to let him go. They could not gainsay the words he had uttered. But the battle had been begun. The assault was on the strong- hold of Pharisaism, namely, such rigorous observance of the Sab bath as should make it a burden to the people and an instrument of torture in the hands of the priesthood. Jesus had attacked that, and they determined to destroy him. He never sought and never declined a conflict for principle, but went steadily on his way, avoiding giving any ground of justification to the charge that he recklessly rushed against even men's foolish and hurtful prejudices, but never avoiding doing what was right because the popular prejudice was against it. CHAPTER II THE SABBATH QUESTION AGAIN. He departed for Galilee. It seems to have been the Sabbath after that on which he had healed the man at the Bethesda Pool, when, passing through a field of ripe barley,* Matt ^ . Mark .. . accompanied by his disciples, they began to pluck Lukevi. The sabbath the ears of grain and eat them to satisfy their hunger. The Sanhedrim at Jerusalem had entered upon a rigor- ous persecution of Jesus. He was to have no more peace. De- tectives dogged his footsteps everywhere. Some of them lurked about this field, and when they saw the disciples eating they came upon Jesus with the allegation that he and his company were violating the Sabbath. They could not accuse them of stealing, for the law, as stated in Deuteronomy (xxiii. 25), allowed a hun- gry man when passing through his neighbor's field to pluck what grain would appease his craving, while it forbade putting the sickle in. They did not care to make issue on such a charge : the Traditional Sabbath was the chosen ground of conflict. Ac- cording to its enactments a man might be stoned for plucking grain if he did it to desecrate the Sabbath, and not to remove hunger, as such plucking was a species of threshing. Jesus defended his disciples. They had done no wrong. He retorts upon their accusers, charging them with ignorance or wil- ful neglect of the Scriptures. He referred them to that model of piety, David, what he did in an emergency, how he took the shewbread, which stood in the Tem- ple as the sign of Jehovah's communion with the priests, which bread was given him by a distinguished priest and was shared by David with his followers. Here was not a question of tradition, but a distinct violation of a divinely ordered ceremonial, between The example of David. * We say barley, as wheat does not ripen in Galilee until a month later, this passage having occurred probably in April. 212 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. whose observance and the preservation of life such men as Abiathar the priest, and David, God's elect, did not long hesi- tate.* But his enemies might have replied, and probably did reply, that that had nothing to do with this case ; that Sabbath profana- ■ MA . t tion was the culmination of offences, the Sabbath Example of the priests. ' law being the greatest of the commandments. His reply to that is, that in the Temple the priests in carrying forward the ceremonials of worship do continually violate what all agreed was the distinct law of the Sabbath, as to outward observance, as, instead of resting, they were to do Temple-work, in preparing and presenting sacrifices. (Num. xxviii. 9.) But they were blameless. It was necessary for the maintenance of public worship. The Temple was greater than the Sabbath. He then made the re- markable assertion : " A greater thing than the Temple is here." It would seem to be a reference to himself, and the meaning to be that these disciples were in the discharge of religious duties in following him, and in a much higher sphere than the priests in the Temple, so that if these were not in fault, much more those were not to be blamed. Again he repeats to them the words of the prophet Hosea : f " I will have mercy and not sacrifice," teaching them that all God's laws are laid upon the basis of mercy and not pain-giving ; and that no amount of sacrifice in any shape, whether in offering victims upon the altar or in the afflicting of one's self, is at all acceptable to God unless the heart be full of love and mercy. And thus out of their law, and out of their most cherished his- tory, and out of their prophets, he confutes them. But he does not rest on that ; he lays down the memorable pro- position which is the key of the whole Sabbatic idea and arrange- Key to the Sabbath ment : " The Sabbath was made for man, and thought. no f man f or tfi e Sabbath" Whatever regulation for the observance of the Sabbath may be set up by human au- * Compare 1 Sam. xxi. ; also xxii. 20-23 ; 2 Sam. viii. 17 ; 1 Chron. xv. 11. In the first of these references Ahimelech is mentioned as the priest who gave the bread ; but in Mark ii. 26 the occurrence is stated as in the days of Abiathar. Both are historically true. Ahimelech was the father, Abiathar the son. The latter became distinguished in the reign of David, and seems, from the Old Testament narratives, to have been present when the shewbread was given by his father to David. f See Hosea vi. 6, with which com- pare the beautiful words in 1 Samuel xv. 22. THE SABBATH QUESTION AGAIN. 213 thority, winch fails to make it a delight, a profit, a culture in na PP3 r goodness, is wholly invalid and is to be rejected. Man is not to be the slave of the Sabbath ; the Sabbath is to be the ser- vant of man. Man is greater than the Sabbath. He rules it. And then Jesus added those other words, which he connects with the former by logical process : " Wherefore the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath-day" He who is the Consummate Man, who is Essential Manhood, who is to exist in the minds of the coming ages as the Representative Man, he, in virtue of this Manness, is the Ruler of the Sabbath-day, aud has a right to say what may be done and what may not be done on the Sabbath. It will be seen from this that he made no intimation of the abrogation of the Sabbath ; no man abrogates a kingdom by declaring himself king. He reaffirms it. He re-establishes it by removing it from the wretched circumstances of tradition and placing it where God originally intended it, on the rational basis of being the sup- ply for a demand widely created in man. Now, it commends itself to the reason of men. Now, we can take the ideas of Jesus and by their light survey the Sabbath as an institution of divine beneficence. If it be not that, it is a curse. The battle on the Sabbath question continued to be urged by the Pharisees and bravely fought by Jesus. He shrank from none of its issues. He was retiring into Galilee. __ „ .. __ . . o Matt. xn. ; Mark w. ; On the very next Sabbath after the scene in the Luke vi. The battle barley-field he entered into a synagogue. It is con mue * not certain in what town this particular synagogue was located. Some infer from Mark iii. 1 that it was Capernaum, but there is no authority for this, and the absence of the article in the original slightly favors the opinion that it was some other syn- agogue. As his custom was, he began to teach the people when occasion for exhortation was given. The intense hatred of the Pharisaic party, and their conspiracy to crush him, reappear in a. still more significant manner. It seems to have been arranged that there should be present a man who had an arm that had been withered by a wound or by disease, that they might see whether Jesus would heal on the Sabbath. That they might direct the attention of Jesus to this afflicted man, the Scribes and Pharisees asked him : " Is Question of healing it lawful to heal on the Sabbath-days ? " Accord- on the Sabbatb - ing to the strictest teaching of their school it was not. Sham- 214 SECOHD AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. mai, the preceptor of the Great Hillel,* and one of the earliest founders of their sect, had distinctly laid down the law : " Let no one console the sick nor visit the mourning on the Sabbath-day.'"* They might therefore accuse Jesus if he healed on the sacred day. Reading their intents, Jesus said to the man with the with- ered hand : " Rise and stand forth in the midst." And the man f arose and took a conspicuous position. It is to be noticed that when a man has a real malady, and there appears any prospect of relief, how indifferent he becomes to all the philosophical theories of the modes of treatment, and how absorbed in the practical matter of fact in which his personal comfort is most deeply con- cerned. This was a fine stroke upon the part of Jesus. It held up the sufferer to the gaze of the assembly. It appealed to the humanity of the persecutors, and invited the sympathy of the spectators. Jesus then turned upon his pur- suers with this movement. They had narrowed the question to the doing or the not doing on the Sabbath. By a counter-ques- tion he lifted the whole subject to a loftier light : " Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath-days, or to do evil f to save or destroy ? " The question was double-edged: on one side it cut the knot of their question ; on the other side it smote them. They were filled with hatred. They were pursuing him on the Sabbath-day, trying to kill him. He was about works of goodness, giving life, and more life, — making life joyful that had been almost intolerable. " Now, who will be to be blamed, you who are full of murderous intent, or I, if I heal this sufferer ? " They were silenced. But he pushed the question home to them : " Suppose one of you owned a single sheep, and on the Sabbath it should fall into a cistern ; would he not lay hold upon him and pull him out ? A counter-question. * Hillel was held in the very highest esteem as the most learned in the laws of the Jews. He was more liberal than his master Shammai, and the differ- ences of their teaching led their disci- ples to blows, which resulted in the death of several persons. Hillel is re- ported by some as the grandfather of that Gamaliel who was preceptor to Saul of Tarsus. f St. Jerome, who translated the "Gospel according to the Hebrews" (an apocryphal book, seemingly an adul- terated version of St. Matthew, and much in use among the Nazarenes and Ebionites), says that this man was a stone-mason, and told his occupation to Jesus, adding that he was compelled to obtain his food by the labor of his hands, and prayed Jesus to heal him, that he might no longer basely beg his bread. THE SABBATH QUESTION AGAIN. 215 A man is much better than a sheep. Wherefore to do good on the Sabbath is lawful." It appears from An ad iwmuvem this, that in the days of Jesus, this pulling of * See Matt. x. 3 ; Mark iii. 18 ; and Luke vi. 14 ; and p. 119, ante. \ St. Augustine denies that Nathanael was an Apostle; so does St. Gregory. Others have held that Nathanael and Bartholomew were different persons. THE TWELVE. 227 biographers. "We learn that he was the son of Alphgeus. He must have been a man of low estate and of gen- . , .. , Levi or Matthew. eral bad character, otherwise he would not have accepted the position of sub-collector of taxes, a post filled only by the meanest of the Jews. The real publican was one who farmed the taxes of a province, paying so much to the empire for the privilege. The sub-collectors (portitores) were those to whom the collection of the taxes was relet. The former were generally Roman knights ; the latter, mercenary inhabitants of the province, who made all they could by oppressing the people. In the case of a Jew, a jportitor was a special object of dislike, as he kept before the Hebrew mind perpetually the sign of the national degradation. Of course no Jew of any respectability would ac- cept such an odious office. Matthew (x. 3) frankly acknowledges that he had fallen that low, a circumstance which the other biog- raphers refrain from mentioning. Of this man, in whom Jesus saw something of a religious ele- ment, and whom he called to be one of the earliest and chief propagators of his religion, this is all we know, except that he contributed one of the four collections of Memorabilia of his great Master, upon which the world depends for its knowledge of Jesus. His reticence concerning himself is a remarkable display of modesty in a biographer who had every temptation and occasion to glorify himself as being so intimately associated with his hero. 8. The last of the second quaternion of Apostles was Thomas, who is coupled with Matthew in Matt. x. 3, Mark iii. 18, and Luke vi. 15. His name in Hebrew signifies "twin," and is so translated by John, who calls him Didy- mus, which is the Greek for " a twin." It is not known where he was born. A tradition, however, indicates Antioch as the place. There are three prominent incidents mentioned of his connection with the history of Jesus. When his Master determined to go to Bethany, upon learning that Lazarus was dead, Thomas appealed to his colleagues to accompany Jesus and share his peril on a jour- ney which Thomas believed would prove ruinous to the whole party. (John xi. 16.) At the Last Supper, when Jesus had been 6peaking in an exalted and poetic strain of his departure into the realms of the unseen world, Thomas showed his prosy, incredu- lous nature by saying, " Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way ? " (John xiv. 5.) After the Cru- 228 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. cifixion his brother Apostles reported to him that they had seen Jesus. (John xx. 25.) He broke into the vehement exclama- tion, " Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into Ins side, I will not believe." These incidents show that he was skeptical, slow to believe, demanding unusual proofs, — that he was not sanguine, but rather despondent, — and that he loved Jesus ardently. Although he re- garded the journey to Bethany as almost certain destruction, his love for Jesus prompted him to go and die with him. Although he could see nothing before him in the future, and his practical, matter-of-fact mind could not appreciate the spiritual, and dark- ness lay on the path into the unseen world, his love for Jesus made him long to know how to follow him in those paths which the Master dimly indicated. Although he would not believe that Jesus had risen from the dead, and although he demanded what at first sight seems to be a most gross and repulsive method of conviction, the very form in which he puts it shows how the person of Jesus, in the mangled condition in which he had last seen it, was the most affecting picture of all things retained by his memory. Beyond this we know nothing, but that he was with the Apostles after the Ascension. (Acts i. 13.) 9. In the lead of the last class of the Apostles is the other James, whom we distinguish as James II. He is also called James the Less. He was the son of Mary by Alphseus, who was brother of Joseph, whom John calls Clopas, and thus cousin to Jesus. I am satisfied that this James was not the one who is called " the brother of the Lord." None of the children born of Mary to Joseph after the birth of Jesus became believers in him until after the resurrection. They were not, therefore, among the Apostles. On one occasion they became indignant at him for what they considered his intemperate zeal and excessive labors in preaching, so much so that they were going to lay hold on him and compel him to suspend his work. (Mark iii. 20,21*31.) This James, the Apostle, was in- side the house while that James, the brother, stood outside with his mother. During the lifetime of Jesus James II. is no more seen, except at this organization of the Apostolatc, when he and his brother Jude are in the catalogue of the twelve. THE TWELVE. 229 After the Resurrection he continued with the Apostles, and is sa mentioned. Twenty-four years afterward we find him still at Jerusalem, and now holding a high position and discharging important ecclesiasti- cal functions. Saul of Tarsus had "been a convert to Jesus by the space of seventeen years, and then visited Jerusalem, where he was introduced to the Christian brethren by Barnabas, and found James sharing the management of the infant society with Peter. All allusions to him afterwards seem to set him forth as the Bishop at Jerusalem, that is, as chief pastor of the congregation and President of the Apostolic Council.* A large number of quota- tions might be made from the earliest Christian writers confirm- ing this view. So excellent was the character of this man that he obtained among his countrymen the title which Aristides won from the Greeks, "the Just." He is represented as being held in great reverence by the Jews, notwithstanding his connection with the Christian sect. He was a most strict and exemplary observer of all the Jewish rites and ceremonies, so much so that there is a tradition, hardly probable as to the fact, but showing his lofty reputation, that he was allowed to enter the holiest place. A stringent ritualist himself, he was so very liberal that he did not believe the yoke and burden of Leviticism should be laid on new converts to the Christian faith who came in from among the Gen- tiles. He had a practical mind, and was manifestly the man of common sense among the Apostles, as his admirable " Epistle " shows. That letter reminds us of his work in Jerusalem, looking after the Jewish converts, both resident and visitors. There is a tradition, handed down from Hegesippus, a Christian of Jewish origin, who lived in the second century, as to the man- ner of the life and the mode of the death of James the Just. He was a Kazarite, abstaining from animal food and strong drink, and oils and baths. He wore only linen clothing, and prayed so much that his knees grew as hard as a camel's. And thus he came to have great influence of the people because of his sanc- tity. "When the doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus began to * Compare the following passages: Acts xii. 17; Acts xv. 13, 19; Gal. ii. 9 ; Acts xxi. 18. In the passage in Gal. pre-eminence is assigned him over Peter and John, and with them he is called a "pillar in the church." On his first visit Paul seems to have met that other James, "the Lord's brother." — Gal. i. 19. 230 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. have great power of the people, some of the Scribes and Phari- sees placed James in one of the galleries of the Temple, that he might teach the people about Jesus, expecting, it would seem, that he should teach them what would correct their impression that Jesus had risen from the dead. When questioned he answered : " Why ask ye me about Jesus the Son of Man ? He sits in heaven, on the right hand of great power, and will come on the clouds of heaven." This convinced many, who, on the weighty authority of James, cried aloud, " Hosannah to the Son of David." This made the Scribes and Pharisees so angiy that they threw him from the gallery, and stoned him, while he prayed for his perse- cutors ; and a fellow took the club with which he was accustomed to beat out the clothes, and despatched the Just James by striking him a blow on the head. The tradition further states that they buried him on the spot where he was killed, and erected a monu- ment to him. While there are several points of difficulty in this tradition, it comes from so early an age, and is so vivid a picture of a good man, and, as to his general character, so confirmatory of what we know of him from other sources, that we furnish it to our readers, * Josephus (Ant., xx. 9) gives a different account of the death of James. He says that, in the interval between the recall of Festus and the entry of Albinus upon the procuratorship, the younger Ananus, the high-priest, called together the Sanhedrim and pro- cured the condemnation of James the Just, whom he delivered over to be stoned ; that the people complained to Albinus, who was angered by the proceeding, and that Agrippa was moved tc deprive Ananus of the office of high-priest. Whether this be strictly accurate or not, we have in it another confirmation of the tradition of the high respect in which James was held by the people. 10. The next in the Apostolic Catalogue is the name of Judas, "not Iscariot." Matthew (x. 3) calls him "Lebbeus, whose surname is Thaddeus;" Mark (iii. 18), simply " Thaddeus ; " Luke (vi. 16) and the writer of the Acts of the Apostles (i. 13), "Judas of James." That these three names attached to one person I think must be conceded ; but that Judas was " the brother " of James is not so clear. * See Eusebius ii. 23, and Routh's Rdiqua Sacrce, Ox. ed. p. 208. THE TWELVE. 231 Indeed, it is contrary to the usage of language. " The son of James " is probably the proper filling of the ellipsis. But of what James we have now no means of knowing. He is not to be con- founded with the Judas who wrote the General Epistle, who was not of the number of the Apostles. (Jude, ver. 17.) Of the Apos- tle Judas we have no record except in John's Gospel (xiv. 22), where mere mention is made of his taking part in the last con- versation which the disciples had with Jesus, and asking him how it was that he would manifest himself to them and not to the world, showing the material views his disciples had of Jesus up to the last moment of his mission, and how little they sympathized with his lofty spiritual ideas. 11. Simon II. we so call to distinguish him from Simon Peter. Matthew * and Mark f call him " Simon the Canaanite ; " Luke % speaks of him as " Simon called Zelotes," and in the Acts § of the Apostles he is mentioned as " Simon Zelotes." All we know of this man we gather from the names " Canaanite" and " Zelotes," both words signifying the same thing, and given to distinguish him. The writers of the New-Testament memorabilia fail to record anything he may ever have said or done. The descriptive addendum to his name does not imply that he was a descendant of Canaan, nor that he was a native or inhabitant of Cana. The Greek word in each case would have been different. It comes from the Syro-Chaldee word Kanean (or Kanaun) which has its Greek equivalent in " Zelotes," and signifies " zealous." Simon most probably had belonged to a sect who exhibited great zeal against all who proposed any innovation on the Mosaic ritual. At a later period it degenerated into a fierce political sect, whose outrages are chronicled by Josephus. || Simon probably brought to the work of the Christian ministry the warmth of character which had formerly led him to attach himself to the Zealots, moderated, it is to be supposed, by the better teachings of Jesus. 12. Judas the Second is, in all the lists of the Apostles, named last, and distinguished by the epithet " Iscariot " in Matthew, T Mark,*- and Luke,!"]- each of whom also adds a mention of the * Matthew x. 4. f Mark iii. 18. % Luke vi. 16. § Acts i. 13. | Wars of the Jews, iv. 3, § 9. 1 Matt. x. 4. ** Mark iii. 19. ft Luke vi. 16. 232 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. betrayal. John says that he was the son of Simon, a commoL name among the Jews of that day. The name Judas II. T . . Iscariot is supposed to be a Greek form for the Hebrew Jsh-Kerioth, the man of Kerioth, a town in the limits. of the tribe of Judah, of which place he is supposed to have been a native. Other derivations are suggested, but none seem so pro- bable as this. He was the only Apostle who was not a Galilsean. The part which Judas came to play in the tragedy which closed the life of Jesus has always excited a horror which has been so intensified by oratory, poetry, and painting, that it requires some effort to examine his case with perfect freedom from all preju- dice, which, however, it is necessary to do, not only for strict his- torical fidelity, but in order to comprehend' the relations which Jesus voluntarily, as well as those which he involuntarily sus- tained toward Judas. We have no reason to suppose that his childhood and youth were marked with any more prognostications of a bad manhood than those of Peter and John. Indeed, he was not so much exposed to the danger of contracting vicious habits as those youngsters in a small fishing town. His subsequent defection flings its shadow back ; but it is to be remembered that crimes have been committed in his maturer years by many a man who, if he had died young, would have been canonized because his youth had been so saintly. The foolish stories of the Apocryphal New Testament are mere fantasies. The first inti- mation of him in the Gospel histories is that he had Messianic hopes, was looking for the deliverance of Israel, with probable secular aspirations, but not more worldly than those which ani- mated the sons of Jonas and of Zebedee, and thousands of other ardent young Hebrews. It is possible that he was among the disciples of John, and had been led by his indication to follow Jesus as the leader of the great national hopes. There is this much certain, that nothing had appeared in his conduct to arouse any suspicion in the minds of his brother Apos- tles. There was no prejudice against him. On the contrary, he Rras a trusted man among them, and was made the treasurer of the exchequer which contained their own slender means, and whatever was contributed from time to time to be disbursed by their charity to the poor. This post of trust and honor he held to the very last, and no one seems to have suspected any baseness. And Jesus chose to add him to the number of those who should THE TWELVE. 233 lay the foundation of his kingdom in the hearts of men. And yet he betrayed his great and good Friend. The selection of Judas as one of his Apostles is, to historians, perhaps the most puzzling of all the movements of Jesus, the act which is specially pressed by unfriendly critics. But perhaps it is not wholly inexplicable even upon critical grounds. Judas Avas a powerful man. He had prodigious passions and he had enor- mous self-control. When Jesus, as a warning to the other dis- ciples, dissected the character of Judas, running the scalpel around his heart, this wonderful man had such iron nerve, and muscle, and blood, that by neither twitch nor pallor did he allow his colleagues to see that Jesus was dissecting Mm. He had great financial skill, and men of thought have always had a kind of awe for the man who can make money. Merchant princes are greater wonders and objects of homage to the scholar than the profound and scholarly philosophers are to the wealthy tradesman. The disciples admired this in Judas, and probably expected that when the " kingdom " should be set up their friend Judas would be made " Chancellor of the Exchequer." Judas had undoubtedly professed great attachment to Jesus, and must have felt upon his rugged nature the sweet influences of such a character. He was also among the expectants of the Mes- siah. The other disciples kept him in their circle, and as Jesus winnowed and winnowed, and the chaff flew away, — such as loved father or mother more than Jesus, such as must bury their dead before they could follow Jesus, such as must be as secure of a bed, at least, as the foxes and the birds, — as those who could not endure the tests of the new discipleship dropped back, strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless the historical fact, that, for some motive, Judas clung to Jesus. The motive may have been very base, — we all now agree in believing that at least some baseness was in the motive, — but the disciples did not deteet what may have been very apparent to their sagacious Master. When he came to say which twelve of all the disciples had exhibited the greatest devotion to his cause and his person, it was manifest to the whole crowd that, after the other eleven had been named, no one else stood in the company who had any claims upon Jesus and upon his nearest friends which could compete with those of Juda? Iscariot. Now, if Judas had not been selected, who should have been the 234 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. twelfth? The disciples trusted him. He had the purse of the company. He was as well-behaved as any, probably much more polished than the rude Gralilsean fishermen about him. He had followed Jesus as closely, he had been as useful as the others. Why should he not be chosen ? Some reason would have been demanded by the eleven, at least. He could mar, we know : such men, it is usually believed, can make. He had probably painted the glories of the coming Messianic reign very brilliantly to the imagination of his co-disciples. Why should he not continue of them ? They had selected him as their treasurer. These twelve had been coming into closer communion every day for many months. Why should Jesus reject one of the friends ? Jesus knew what was in man, what was in Judas. If he re- jected Judas, that man of powerful passions might have thwarted the designs, disordered the discipleship, and precipitated the des- tiny of Jesus. If added to the number of the Apostles, Judas could be kept under the eye and under the magnetism of the presence of Jesus, so that if he had " a devil," as Jesus declared, and if he should betray his Master, as Jesus predicted, that evil might be postponed until the " seed of the kingdom " should be so planted as no longer to need the personal presence of Jesus, but be vigorous and well-grown enough to need only his spiritual fostering for its growth to maturity. On this account it were well to retain Judas. And, then, it is not to be forgotten that no historical personage displays so much lovingness as Jesus of Nazareth. His power over the world to-day lies not so much in his position in history, not in his superior brain, not in any special thing he has done, nor in the remarkable thoughts he has uttered, as in the transcendent lovingness which intensifies and transfigures and glorifies all his deeds and all his words. Devilish as might have been the char- acter of Judas, why might it not have been right to afford him all the sweet influences which reside in the tender communings of a noble brotherhood, whose spiritual father was such a soul as Jesus % He could but betray Jesus at the last. Let Jesus do nothing to hasten catastrophes. His life is to be too grand, and his influence over the ages too powerful to make him afraid lest some critic of subsequent times should suggest that in one case at least he com- mitted a blunder. It was no blunder ; it was a sublime adven- ture of love. THE TWELVE. 235 1 The Twelve.'' As in the case of the other Apostles, we shall trace the history and examine the motives of Judas Iscariot more minutely in con- nection with that of his Master. For the present we are merely taking a view of the general characteristics of those whom Jesua first admitted to his intimacy and subsequently appointed his lieutenants. That this was a special setting apart to a special work seems quite apparent from the very face of the history. Up to this date these men had mingled with the crowd of disci- ples, and bore no signs of separation from their brethren, except as they closed up in more solid friendship for each other and for Jesus. The language of the historians shows that they were now regarded as charged with a mission peculiar and responsible. The Avhole body received a name. Never before^ but almost always after this election they are called The Twelve, ol $a)$€fca, to distinguish them from the other disciples. Never before, but by Jesus at their election, and by their brethren after- wards, they were called "Apostles." (Luke vi. 13.) It is noticed that not before, but after this event the name "Peter" is con- stantly applied to Simon the son of Jonas, as his Master had con- ferred this name upon him at his selection,* according to a well- known Oriental custom. f The number of the Apostles deserves some consideration. Although many very foolish and fanciful things have been writ- ten in regard to the symbolism of numbers, no - , ° , ,. , . , - ., Why this number? careful student or the ancient records can rail to see that some meaning was among all nations, and not the least among the Hebrews, assigned to special numbers. Thus 1 sym- bolizes unity; 2, antithesis; 3, synthesis and the divinity; 4, hu- manity, or the world, as we are reminded of the four corners of the earth and the four elements, as anciently supposed, of the four seasons and the four points of the compass ; 7, the sum of 3 and * See Mark iii. 16 and Luke vi. 14. There seems to be an exception in Luke v. 8, but there the name ' ' Peter ' ' is merely added to that of Simon, and this addition is supposed to be a mar- ginal note which has crept into the text. Again: Matthew introduces the name Peter with that of Simon before the ordination, but he couples both names (as in ch. iv. 18), and after the ordina- tion uses only the name Peter. See G-reswell, Diss. xxvi. f This custom still prevails in the East. Chrysostom notices that masters, upon purchasing slaves, frequently changed their names, as a sign of the right acquired over them. 23G SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. 4, the relation of God to the world ; 10, completeness ;* 12, the product of 3 and 4, God's indwelling in the world, and we call to mind the twelve patriarchs and twelve tribes, and the twelve foun- dations and twelve gates of the heavenly Jerusalem. That Jesus had the twelve tribes in his mind in fixing the number of the Apostles is evident. When Peter asked him what should be the reward of those who forsook all and followed him, Jesus said that they should " sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." f Their original mission, we shall see, was to the twelve tribes. Their mode of appointment must have had in it something that solemnly designated them, whether a mere call to step for- ward from the crowd, or, in addition thereto, the Their order. . . . -, . , , imposition ox hands — something that put them apart from the promiscuous crowd of disciples. And there must have been some order in which they were called. In the enumeration above 1 have followed the catalogue as recited by Matthew, except that I have put his name before that of Thomas, as Mark and Luke do. His modesty seems to have led him to make this transposition, thus yielding to Thomas what the other historian? do not give, a precedence over himself. His modesty is further seen in adding to his own name the reproachful designation " a publican," which Mark and Luke considerately omit4 That the reader may have before his eye the slight variations in the roll of Apostles, he will find in a note the order as given by Mat- thew, Mark, and Luke, severally. § The precise order in which * Bahr (in his Symbolik, i p. 175) Bays : ' ' Ten, by virtue of the general laws of thought, shuts up the series of primary numbers and includes all in itself. The first decade, and of course also the number ten, is the representa- tive of the whole numeral system; so that 10 is the natural symbol of perfec- tion and completeness." This view is adopted by Dr. Fairbairn (Typol of Sciip., vo]. ii. p. 88), who connects it with the ten plagues of Egypt, the Ten Commandments, and the Tithes. f Matt. xix. 28. % This is the view taken of this cir- cumstance by Eusebius, Demons. Evan- § MATTHEW'S ORDER LUKE'S. MARK'S. 1. Simon I. (sur- named Peter) Simon I. Simon I. 2. Andrew. Andrew. James I. 8. James L James I. John. 4. John. John. Andrew. 5. Philip. Philip. Philip. 6. Nathanael Nathanael. Nathanael (surnamed Bartholo- mew). 7. Thomas. Matthew. Matthew. 8. Matthew. Thomas. Thomas. 9. James II. James II. James II, 0. Judas I. Simon II. Judas I. Lebbseus (or Thaddseus). THE TWELVE. 237 Types. they were called may not be a matter of vital importance, but as the selection shows something of the mind of Jesus, it is interest- ing to know whose name fell first from his lips, whose next, and next, to the very close of the calling. In these men some writers have seen fundamental types oi certain qualifications needed for the propagation of Christianity Thus, Peter represents Confession ; Andrew, the manly pioneer, Missionary Zeal / James I., the son of Thunder, Martyrdom ; John,. " the beloved disciple," * Mysticism and Depth and' Calmness / Philip, Communion (" Come and see ") ; Nathanael, Sincerity, Simplicity, Devout- ness / Matthew, Ecclesiastical Learning / Thomas, Inquiry and Sacred Criticism ; James II., Union and Ecclesiastical Govern- ment ; Judas I. (Lebbseus), Pastoral Faithfulness, Discipline ; Simon II., Pastoral Activity ; and Judas II. (Iscariot), Church Property. -\ But these seem to be rather fanciful. Gentlemen who have been missionary secretaries and treasurers, and heads of church publishing houses, would scarcely consent to recog- nize Judas Iscariot as their representative in the Apostolic col- lege. Calm and unprejudiced historians would say, that while on one side of their lives these characteristics were manifested, quite as conspicuously on the other side were other things exhibited ; and so Peter might just as well represent Falsehood and Coward- ice ; James, Bigotry and Ill-Temper; John, Yanity and Ferocity ; Thomas, Blind Infidelity ; Matthew, Venality and Baseness ; Si- mon II., Intolerance and Ritualism ; Judas Iscariot, Corruption and Treachery ; and all the rest of the disciples, Want of Character. LUKE'S MARK'S. Judas I. Simon II. Judas II. Judas II. MATTHEW'S ORDER. 11. Simon II. 12. Judas II. (Is- cariot). It will be perceived that they all agree as to the relative places of five of the Apostles, making- Peter 1st, Philip 5th, Natbanael 6th, James II. 9th, and Judas Iscariot 12th. Matthew and Luke make Andrew 2d, James I. 3d, and John 4th. Luke and Mark make Matthew 7th, and Thomas 8th. Mat- thew and Mark make Judas I. as the 10th, and Simon II. as the 11th. It will be seen that Matthew and Luke ajpree throughout, except where modesty led Matthew into putting himself last in the second class, and in the relative po- sition of Judas I. and Simon. * John twice speaks of himself as the disciple "whom Jesus loved " (xiii. 23 ; xx. 2), a fact which the other historians did not think important enough to men- tion. But who could help adverting to the most beautiful fact of his own life, or make memorable a love so exalted and so distinguishing? It may have been vanity, but it was a sweet and lovely and loving vanity, which is not offensive to God, and ought to be par- donable to man. f See Lange on Matthew x. 238 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESU&. The fact is, that when they were called to be special messen- gers and ambassadors from Jesus to the nations, they were not The selection not po- such men as ordinary prudence would select. htlc " There was not one that would compare with Saul of Tarsus, who afterward took the whole moulding of their infant society. They were all from the middle ranks. They were not learned in the schools, and seemed wholly unfitted to cope with the scholarship and measure arms with the philosophy of the times. They had no money, nor rich connections, nor political associations or influence. They were, as compared with refined society, ill-bred, stupid, and incredulous. If the purpose had been a political revolution, there was not a man among them whc could compare with the Swiss Tell, or perhaps even the Neapolitan Masaniello. If they were to overthrow Jewish prejudice and silence the Rabbis, there was no one amongst them who could talk, except Peter, and he was always so uncertain that no reli- ance could be placed upon him. In advance, one could not tell whether he would brag, or lie, or run. There were probably only two who knew anything of the Greek tongue, namely, Peter and Philip. If the nations were to be speedily moved by Christianity, it must, as men would reason, be done through the Roman power or Greek civilization. But these men were all laymen, and had neither political influence nor intellectual culture ; they had no standing even among their own people, and certainly no influence with their conquerors and civil rulers. Peter and Andrew were brothers. So were James I. and John, the friends of Peter and Andrew. So were James II. and Judas I. Four of them had been disciples of the ascetic John the Baptist. All of them, except Judas Iscariot, were of the most uncouth part of the Jewish popula tion ; the} 7 were Galilseans, and several of them fishermen. They spoke their vernacular brokenly. It is as if a man should select a dozen negroes, of average character, from the plantations of the Southern States of America, and set them on the work of revolu tionizing the philosophy of all schools, and the elements of ali civilization, and the systems of all religion. It is to be noticed that they did not choose him : he chose them. This he tells them. (John xv. 16.) This is true of their They diii not choose public work. They had gathered about him and him - clung together through personal love of him, but they had not settled it in their minds precisely what he was, and THE TWELVE. 239 their regard for him was largely mingled with an expectation of future secular good and glory, if their general expectation should prove correct. " "Wliat shall we have, therefore ? " was the ques- tion of Peter, who, with all his faults, was certainly not the most selfish among the disciples. (Matt. xix. 27.) It is to be specially noticed that there is nothing of the modern Church idea in anything done by Jesus on this or any other occa- sion* These men were not inducted into any Nothing of the priestly office, or given any pre-eminence over "Church "idea, their brethren. They were distinguished, discriminated, set apart for a special work, but not clothed with corporate powers. There was no baptism or any other rite indicative of an entrance upon church membership. Jesus did not baptize. His disciples had done so, but they had taken the idea from John the Baptist, who baptized those who were already in the church, and whose bap. tism was to indicate the Messiah. If an outward formal sign did no good, it did no hurt, and Jesus had allowed it. But he had established no sacrament. These men had no creed. There was no creed. They loved Jesus. They hoped great things from Jesus. He loved them, and intended to instruct them, and leave with them " the gospel of the kingdom." What he seems to have seen in them, and what was the basis of their call, was the reli- giousness of their general character. Whatever culture they lacked, and whatever faults they had, they had devoutness, devo- tedness, the capability of giving themselves finally and fully up to an idea : they had some certain noticeable genius for religion. Them he selected to instruct ; but he gave them no esoteric cul- ture ; told them nothing about himself which he did not tell the multitude ; imparted nothing which should in any manner give them any title to rule others who believed on him. Luke (vi. 13) says that he " named them Apostles," and Mark (iii. 14, 15) says that " he ordained twelve, that they should he with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, and to have power to heal sick- ness and to cast out devils." To be wholly given to the work of teaching the truth, and doing good to the bodies and souls of men, was the work of these men sent of Jesus, and therefore called * The word translated " church " occurs only twice in the histories of Jesus, namely, in Matt. xvi. 18, and Matt, xviii. 17, in neither of which, it seems to me, can impartial criticism find anything like the modern " close corporation " idea. They will be exam* ined in their places. 240 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. Apostles. Some organization naturally took place, after the death of Jesus, keeping together those who loved him. But that they were to be considered a close corporation, keeping all of Christianity, all the beautiful and precious legacy of Jesus, tc themselves, with powers to transmit to future generations of suc- cessors by mesne descent, never seems to have entered the mind of Jesus, or any of The Twelve. ANCIENT LAMP-STAN©. CHAPTER IV. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. Having set apart his chosen ambassadors, it remained that Jesus should set forth the principles of his religion, give some snch evidence of his divine right to teach as Near Capernaum, should be able to move the generation around Matt - v -» **•' viL him, and impart his spirit to those who were to infuse it into the world. He proceeded at once to this work. The first movement was the delivery of a discourse, which has been known generally as the " Sermon on the Mount" reports of which are furnished us by Matthew and Luke. It would require a much larger volume than this to give the lit- erature which has grown around the questions of the time and place of delivery of this " sermon," and whether Matthew and Luke report the same or different discourses. And the literature of the sermon itself would make a library quite respectable in point of size. It is clear that much must be condensed. The place was a mountain. It could not have been very far from the lake. The earliest tradition of the spot is as late as the middle of the thirteenth century. That makes it _^ Place of delivery what is now called the " Horns of Hattin," be- tween Tiberias and Mt. Tabor, seven miles from Capernaum, in a south-westerly direction. Dr. Robinson (Researches, ii. p. 307) gives the following description of this spot : " The road passes down to Hattin on the west of the Tell ; as we approached, we turned off: from the path toward the right, in order to ascend the Eastern Horn. As seen on this side, the Tell, or mountain, is merely a low ridge, some thirty or forty feet in height, and not ten minutes in length from east to west. At its eastern end is an elevated point or horn, perhaps sixty feet above the plain ; and at the western end another, not so high ; these give to the ridge, at a distance, the appearance of a saddle, and are called Kurun Hattin, * Horns of Hattin.' But the singularity of the ridge is, 16 242 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LDTE OF JESUS. that, on reaching the top, yon find that it lies along the very bor- der of the great southern plain, where this latter sinks off at once, by a precipitous offset, to the lower plain of Hattin, from which the northern side of Tell rises very steeply not much less than four hundred feet. . . . The summit of the Eastern Horn is a little circular plain, and the top of the lower ridge between the two horns is also flattened to a plain. The whole mountain is of limestone." Dr. Stanley (Stanley's Sinai and Palestine, p. 360) gives the following : " The tradition [of the Latin Church, which selects this spot as the ' Mount of Beatitudes '] cannot lay cairn to any early date ; it- was in all probability suggested first to the Crusaders by its remarkable situation. But that situation so strikingly coincides with the intimations of Gospel narrative, as almost to force the inference that in this instance the eye of those who selected the spot was for once rightly guided. It is the only height seen in this direction from the shores of the Lake Genne- saret. The plain on which it stands is easily accessible from the lake, and from that plain to the summit is but a few minutes' walk. The platform at the top is evidently suitable for the collection of a multitude, and corresponds precisely to the ' level place ' ^tottov irehivov), (mistranslated 'plain' in Luke vi. 17) to which he ' would come down ' as from one of its higher horns to address the people. Its situation is central both to the peasants of the Galilsean hills and the fishermen of the Galilsean lake, between which it stands, and would, therefore, be a natural resort both to ' Jesus and his disciples ' (Matt. iv. 25, and v. 1), when they retired for solitude from the shores of the sea, and also to the crowds who assembled ' from Galilee, from Decapolis, from Jerusalem, from Judsea, and from beyond Jordan.' None of the other mountains in the neighborhood could answer equally well to this description, inasmuch as they are merged into the uniform barrier of hills round the lake ; whereas this stands separate, — ' the moun- tain,' which alone could lay claim to a distinct name, with the ex- ception of the one height of Tabor, which is too, distant to an- swer the requirements." The question as to whether the discourse beginning in the fifth chapter of Matthew and that in the sixth of Luke be different or Keports by Matthew identical is quite perplexing, as there seem to be and Luke. grave objections to both suppositions. That they are identical is believed by most readers upon a superficial in THE SEKMON ON THE MOUNT. 243 spection, and is maintained generally by most German commen- tators. And then efforts must be made to explain the differences winch occur in the two. In Luke we have only about one-third the matter given by Matthew, four of the beatitudes being " bal- anced by four woes," as Dean Alford notices ; and some intro ductory sayings are recorded which do not appear in Matthew. That they are two different discourses is held by a number of writers, and among them Greswell {Dissert, xxvi.). Against this it is urged as improbable that he should have delivered two distinct discourses so nearly alike, and both so near the begin- ning of his public ministry. The beginnings and the conclu- sions in both discourses agree. They seem to be the same, and different. Matthew tells us that the sermon was delivered on a mount ; Luke, that it was on a plain. If both histories be read carefully and without prejudice, I think the following will occur to the reader as the probable state of the case : What we find reported by both Matthew and Luke must have been delivered during the same journey through Galilee, and at the close of that journey. What Luke reports, if it be not the same, must have been delivered immediately after the discourse Matthew gives ; but his report is so connected as to compel the abandonment of the theory that it is a number of the apoph- thegms, delivered at different times, recollected by Matthew and strung together. The people had gathered in great crowds about Jesus. He went up into the mountain. His disciples came to him. Others must have accompanied his disciples. He deliv- ered the discourse which is begun in Matt. v. 3. When that was completed he commenced to descend the mountain. On the plateau below he found greater multitudes. He repeated some things he had just spoken, and added others, making together the speech which begins in Luke vi. 20. It is not right to speak of the former as esoteric and the latter as exoteric. There was nothing of that style in Jesus. All is outspoken truth — such truth as individual men in every stage of culture need. But it is to be admitted, to his more select and friendly audience he should have spoken more freely of the Scribes and Pharisees than to a promiscuous assemblage. This statement of the case is, at least, a natural one, as all whc have preached to crowds in rural districts must know, and consists with all the major and minor incidents related by both historians. 244: SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. It agrees, too, with the physical conditions of the Mount of Beatitudes, if that selected by tradition be the mount, as the de- scriptions given above exhibit, especially the passage from Dr. Robinson which is italicized. It agrees with such incidents as this : Matthew says that he sat, Luke that he stood ; and the former he naturally would do on rising ground, the latter on a plain. Matthew represents his audience as coming to him after he had taken his seat, Luke as being about him when he began ; and this is just what would have taken place if the case be as is supposed above. It is to be noticed, also, that the case of the centurion in Capernaum follows close upon Matthew's account, and immedi- ately upon Luke's, thus drawing these two discourses together in the history. CIRCUMSTANCES. Before entering upon a consideration of the teachings of this extraordinary sermon, let us endeavor to place ourselves amid the circumstances of its delivery. The spot was one of the most beautiful in all Palestine. While on other occasions Jesus " preferred the unostentatious and obscure, he seems to have selected the most enchanting spot in nature as the temple in which to open his ministry. Travellers are wont to liken the mountain scenery of Galilee to the finest in their na- tive lands, — the Swede, Hasselquist, to East Gothland, and Clarke, the Englishman, to the»romantic dales of Kent and Surrey. The environs of the Galilsean Sea have been compared with the border of the lake of Geneva." * The blooming landscape lay before the speaker, the neighboring hills enriched with vineyards, while to the west stood wooded Carmel, and snowy Hermon to the north, and down before him, seeming almost at his feet, the bright Lake of Galilee, glittering and rippling in its frame of forest. The vault of that cathedral was the oriental sky, seen through an atmosphere so transparent that one who had spent a quarter of a century in the Holy Land says of it : " One seems to look quite to the bot- tom of heaven's profoundest azure, where the everlasting stars abide;" and, standing in Beirut, he says, "How sharply defined is every rock and ravine, and tree and house, on lofty Lebanon ! That virgin snow on its summit is thirty miles off, and yet you * Tholuck, Edinb. Bib. Cab., No. vi. p. 73. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 245 could almost read your own name there, if written with a bold hand on its calm cold brow." * It was in the spring or early summer, when Nature was in hei most luscious richness. It was in the early morning, when the fresh est sweetness of the day's smile fell on land and sea. The birds had not fallen from the height of their morning songs to the drowse of the heated hours. The crowds were collecting from every part, drawn by curiosity, wonder, love, or by the strange power with which all crowds of people have to swell themselves. The Messianic expectations had become more vehe- mently excited, and it was supposed that Jesus would soon declare himself, and let the people know what he intended to do, and what to teach. As it was the first, so it was the grandest specimen of field-preaching. The journeyings of Jesus, and his works and words, had drawn great multitudes from the thickly settled Galilee, from Decapolis, from Jerusalem, and the neighboring districts of Judaea ; from the east of the Jordan, and from as far west as the coasts of Tyre or Sidon. (Mat. iv. 25, and Luke vi. 17.) It was an occasion of transcendent religious interest and importance. The congregation was great, the expectation was great, the Teacher was great. No discourse ever delivered is so worthy of study and analysis as this. It is worth the while to endeavor to dis- cover what there is in it which has produced such an impression upon men and done so much for the moral elevation of the world. THE TEXT. If it may be permitted to suggest the text of this sermon as it lay in the mind of the great and influential Speaker, I should say that it is " Character" With the suddenness of lightning and with the sharpness of a surgeon's scalpel he penetrates to the core of all life in the very first sentence. He has no exordium, no pompously announced plan, no rhetorical rests and starts and other tricks. Without prefa- tory, introductory, or apologetic remarks, he plunges right into his subject. His first announcements tear away all the shams of Pharisaism, all the millinery of churchism, and all the pretensions of perfunctory and transmitted religion. To him succession is * Thomson, Land and Book, vol. i. p. 17. 246 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LD7E OF JESUS. nothing; nothing to be of Abraham's seed or Aaron's lineage, Each man stands out before him, the subject of his study, the object of his description ; and each man stands in the loneness of his individual responsibility, with no claim upon attention but his character, and no fountain of happiness but his character. Cir- cumstances count for nothing. Riches, rank, and honors do not make the supreme distinction among men. Being in the church or outside does not discriminate men as touching their chief dif- ference. By waters of baptism, by imposition of hands, by priestly garments, by bishop's mitre, by high-priest's breastplate, a man does not attain to the position for which he was designed and for which he longs. Nor do even outward acts, however consonant with prevailing ideas of morality, however conservative of the commonwealth, however consistent with all the best men's views of what should be a good man's life. All these things may be- long to a man, and yet he may not be what he should be — Happy. The great distinction among men lies in this : the being happy and blessed, or otherwise. Not in being free from care, bereave- ment, the saddening facts of human history which fall into every man's life at some time, but in having such a character that the outward shall neither weaken nor contaminate the inner, so that the man shall not depend upon fountains outside, but be secure in the possession of springs inside. A man is like a walled city. If the supply of its water be from lakes or rivers outside, that are brought down by aqueducts into reservoirs, from which, by leading-pipes, it is distributed through the city, then when the enemy destroys the aqueducts the city must capitulate or the inhabitants perish. So with a man's soul. If he is compelled to bring in joys his condi- tion is most precarious, and he is not happy ; it is most undignified, and he is not blessed. But if he sends out joys his condition is in his own hands, and he is happy; he is imparting to others and he is blessed. It must be recollected that the company whom Jesus was addressing was surrounded on the ecclesiastical side, by churchism, by teachers who insisted upon everything consisting in being Abraham's children ; and on the secular side by the oppression of an empire that had no sympathy with their religion, and no care for their temporal prosperity, beyond the point at which they could be plundered to enrich their heathen conquerors. They were longing for a Messiah, a messenger from Jehovah, who should be their Deliverer. But he would not hasten his coming, and THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 24:7 their souls were faint with expectation. Naturally these people needed rest and happiness. This great Teacher taught them the lessons men need in all ages, a religion which makes the man the master of circumstances by breaking the tyranny of his surround- ings and setting up an inward kingdom, making the Inner the ruler of the Outward. It was a reversal of all their Rabbis had taught them, and all their conquerors had impressed upon them. The former had given them a religion which consisted wholly in forms and cere- monies and rituals ; the latter had flaunted their riches and paraded their power in the presence of those who had been the world's aris- tocracy, but who were then impoverished, degraded, and disheart- ened. David's glory and Solomon's splendor had paled before the magnificence of a heathen imperialism. Yery far away seemed all the grand history of the march of their ancestors through the desert, when Jehovah cared for their commissariat and went before them in the solemn pillar of fire and cloud. In ghostly thinness walked before their fancies the forms of their Judges, who in olden time were men of such might of brain and brawn. The Urim and Thummim were oracular no longer, and the voices of their prophets were as the songs of childhood's hope- fulness repeated to the ears of paralyzed and depressed and despairing old age. And they were looking for a temporal Deliverer, one who should break the Roman yoke. If that could be done, if Caesar's power could be thrown off, if a king should sit on David's throne with whom. Csesar would be compelled to treat as with a superior, if all nations should acknowledge the Hebrew supremacy, then the land should flow with milk and honey, and all the trees of the field should clap their hands, and under every vine and every fig- tree should be seated a contented and happy Jew, and the days of the right hand of the Most High should visit and rejoice his chosen. Alas ! poor people, they could not rid themselves of the common hallucination that a man is made happy by his surround- ings. They could not see that the Roman, who had might and glory, was not a happy man. Jesus saw this great increasing multitude of people hungry for something. He knew the sad mistake of their souls. He had shown himself in all his life a person of exquisite and profound sympathy. On this occasion he seemed full of an interest which 248 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. was growing in him, and when the time came and they were look ing that he should declare himself, that he should define his posi- tion, that he should give some intimation of his designs, and per- haps of his plans, that he should at once openly unfurl the ban ner of the Messianic campaign, and make a distinct demonstra* tion against the Koman Empire, then " he opened his mouth and taught them." That was all. But it was teaching that had truth and authority of manner to make it impressive, and has been mak- ing greatness and goodness for man from that day to this. THE BEATITUDES. Elements of Lofty Character, His first utterance sounds like the closing rather than the open- ing of a discourse. It sounds as if much had gone before — very many questions and no little discussion — and now spirit, for theirs is the the conclusion of the whole matter was to be kingdom of the heav- stated. He struck far away from all they were looking at in the very first words he spoke. He gazed upon them and cried out, " Happy the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens ! " And this decision of his intellect, coming as an outburst of his heart, he follows up by a series of descriptive characteristics which mark the man who is the happy or blessed man. And these we must carefully exam- ine that we may find the philosophy of this Teacher, and learn if possible the method of this discourse. It will be seen that they all describe character ', and that there is no place for rank or wealth or any of the outward distinctions of human life. " The poor in spirit " is the first characteristic. As this is a kind of key-note, it is not to be wondered that there has been much diversity of opinion as to the meaning of Jesus. When we come to see how spiritual is the whole tone of this discourse, we are forced to feel that mere poverty, lack of material wealth, which is the most literal bare sense of the word " poor," cannot have been meant. It has been suggested * that the words are to be collocated so as to read, " Happy in spirit are the poor." But there is no authority for this arrangement of the words, and the oldest MS.*) 1 * By such writers as Olearius, Wet- | f The Sinaitio Codex. stein, Michaelis, and Paulus. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 249 extant gives the order Mcucapioi 01 irTwyoi tw Trvevfiari,, and if the arrangement were as suggested above, it would break the symme- try of the beatitudes, and, finally, it would be notoriously false. The people that listened to Jesus were poor enough and unhappy enough. It would have been to them neither instruction nor com- fort to tell them in rhetorical flourish that the poor are happy. When the Emperor Julian, in the fourth century, said that his only object in confiscating the property of Christians was that their poverty might confer on them a title to the kingdom of heaven, instead of a bitter scoff it would have been a benevolent thing in the Apostate, if Jesus meant mere literal poverty. And then it should follow that if one would benefit one's fellow, the very best method is to take his property, burn his houses, strip him, and turn him naked and empty on the world. There can be no interpretation put upon the words of a man of common sense which shocks common sense. Moreover, Jesus was a man who was extraordinarily spiritual, and as far as possible from being gross in his modes of thought. He was surpassingly sagacious, and as far as possible from being stupid, and therefore could have had no meaning contradicted by the whole history of the race. The phrase has been translated to signify voluntary poverty, poverty from a spirit of being poor, " qui propter Spiritum Sanc- tum voluntate sunt pauperes," as Jerome says. But that agrees neither with the genius of the language nor with the analogy of the discourse. Precisely the same grammatical construction re- curs in verse 8, and the reader will see how violent a similar ren- dering would be in that passage. There are two interpretations which may be accepted as being more natural under the circumstances, and more in accordance with the whole drift of the discourse. One is by Clement of Alexandria, who thinks that when Jesus pronounced the poor blessed, he meant all those who, whether as to worldly goods rich or poor, do inwardly sit loose from their property, and conse- quently in that way are poor, — a view similar to that of Paul in i. Cor. vii. 29 : " they that have as though they have not." That may be a truth included in what Jesus taught on this occasion, but is that the teaching ? Let us see if we cannot find a still more natural interpretation. Let us recollect the state of mind of those whom he was ad- dressing. What specially made them unhappy was their sense oi 250 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. their worldly poverty as individuals and as a nation. In any age of the world, to any people, that is most galling. The embarrass- ments and degradation of such a condition go far towards break- ing the spirit of a man. In striving to reach the meaning of Jesus, all a critical historian can do, and perhaps all that any one ought to do, is first to know, if practicable, what were the precise words employed, and then to ascertain how those identi- cal words would be understood generally by the average minds of those who composed the very audiences he addressed. If the speaker be not a fool or a charlatan he will strive to find for his ideas just those words which when uttered to the ears of another will put in the mind of the hearer the idea that is in the mind of the speaker. Jesus had lived with the people he addressed. Their vernacular was his mother-tongue. He knew their hopes and fears, their opinions and prejudices, their modes of thought and methods of speech. He was of the people. He was not a dema- gogue, in the sense of one who vilely leads the people astray by playing upon their weaknesses for his own advantage. He was a Demagogus in the lofty sense of one who exerts his superior abil- ity to lead the thoughtless and passionate multitude into sound thinking and right acting. He will speak words that shall be comprehensible by them in their first intent and present mean- ing, even if he include therein a profound meaning which shall develop itself with the developing ages. When, therefore, we come, as now we must come, to consider the meaning of Jesus', we must endeavor to ascertain what his words would mean to the average mind in all that Galilsean and Judsean and Idumsean crowd that stood about him ; men and women who were living before the early Christian fathers, and the decisions of councils, and opinions of those commentators who run the golden words of the Teacher into the moulds of their own theories ; men and wo- men who lived ages before Augustine, and Arminius, and Luther, and Calvin, and Wesley, and Paulas, and Tholuck, and Strauss. To such a crowd these words most probably meant that they were unhappy who suffered themselves to be afflicted by a sense of their want of material prosperity, but they were happy who felt the want in their spirits, their spiritual neediness and poverty ; who would be unhappy if sitting on Csesar's throne with empty souls, but happy amid starvation if spiritually rich. In general it was a statement of the superiority of the spiritual to the corpo- TEE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 251 real. His hearers were in wretched restlessness because the Mes- siah did not hasten to come and break the Roman yoke. They felt their poverty as to the flesh, but not their poverty as to the spirit j and they were unhappy. The first words of Jesus in this discourse were such as shocked their hopes of secular deliverance. It is as if he had said : My countrymen, you desire me to lead a revolt against the Roman Empire. You have confidence in my ability to achieve success. Your feeling of poverty intensifies your desire for the enterprise. You think that then the kingdoms of this world would be open to you. But I come to show you another way, a way that leads out to a larger and wealthier place. Happy are they who feel their spiritual necessities, for the king- dom of the universe* is open to them. Now this is a proposition, a consciousness of the truth of which may be achieved in any man's experience, in some measure, in any age of the world. The man who feels physical want will find his sources of happiness in the physical world; the man who feels his intellectual wants will find his sources of happiness in the intellectual world; while the man who feels his spiritual wants finds his sources of happiness in all the dominion of all the heavens, that is, in the whole universe ; and he is a happy man. He reigns where Caesar's sceptre cannot reach ; and when all the Caesars shall have passed away, and the present scheme of things be dis- solved, he has the heavens still, the constant enduring universe. Alas ! how little a portion of the wants of the human heart can the empires of Alexander, of the Caesars, of Charlemagne, and of Napoleon fill ! But " the heavens," — which phrase means the sphere of the soul as distinguished from " the earth," which is the sphere of the body, — the heavens come in to fill the spirit that is empty, if a man but feel the horror of that emptiness and seek the kingdom of the heavens. And then he expands this idea by pronouncing those happy who mourn, and those who are meek. The-e are paradoxes levelled at the secular and worldly longings of the H thev who people. These men who listened to him had mourn, for they shaii seen the heathen in great power and apparent happiness. They had seen the magnificent towns and villas which * Luke, in vi. 20, calls it " the king- dom of God." The most natural trans- lation of the phrase in Matthew is ' ' the kingdom of the universe ; " but both mean finally the same thing, aa God reigns throughout the universe. 252 SECOND AND THIRD PASS0VEK IN THE LTFE OF JESTJ8. had been erected along the shores of their lake by their political lords, and had witnessed all the pleasures which they seemed to enjoy in their mansions, with goodly furniture and manifold ap- pliances of luxury. Those happy Romans did not mourn. They had not seen trailing in the dust the standards which their an- cestors had made glorious. They did not feel royal blood tingling in them as they bowed their necks to a foreign yoke. To the conquered Jew they were at once objects of hate and of envy. And now to those Jews Jesus says that they who mourn are hap- py ! But we must read his words in the light afforded by the text as well as with the aids furnished by the circumstances. He is teaching that everything depends upon character, the inner man. He is drawing them away from externals as a basis of happiness. The man who bewails not his temporal and physical wants, but his spiritual needs, is not a man to be so much compas- sionated. He shall be comforted. He who whines and wails over his worldly condition ma}' go on whining and wailing. He has no assurance that he shall have his condition improved. But the man, rich or poor, king or peasant, who feels that to be poverty- stricken in his soul is the greatest misfortune, and one by all means to be remedied, — who, when he detects himself lacking truth, courage, self-control, mourns over that more than over the absence of meats and wines and couches, and whatever money buys, — such a man is a blessed man ; for he shall be com- forted. The Jews had lost Judaea. A conquered people who remain in the land are greater sufferers than those who are banished or go nappy the meek, for voluntarily into exile. The Jews remained on they shaii inherit the sufferance. They were put under the yoke, sub- jugated, saw others rule what once had belonged to them, and had been under their control in fee. Having been masters, they were now slaves. They were far from being " meek." They were very far from submitting to the inevitable, but " kicked against the pricks," and rubbed against the yoke, and aggravated their sufferings by their hatred of the conqueror, and by foolish, vain, unfounded hopes. Once more Jesus turned them from the outside to the inner man, and pointed to the happiness of those who were gentle in spirit, who soothed themselves and those about them by the quiet self-possession of their own souls. Again he disappointed their political hopes by giving a spiritual interpreta- THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 253 tion to a phrase with which they were familiar.* Their land was holy land, because promised land, given by Jehovah to Abraham and his seed to possess it. It was to them the type and the per- petual prophecy of that better land beyond death. There never has existed a people who had a more desperate and fanatical at- tachment to the soil upon which they were born than the Jews. Their patriotism was their religion, and their religion their pa- triotism. The land of Abraham was heaven on earth. To be in Abraham's bosom was to consummate the hopes of earth by what- ever bliss might be in heaven. The Romans held the land of Abraham. The Jews, who were plotting revolts and stirring up insurrections, were losing every- thing. They were missing all domestic enjoyment ; they were failing to improve their lands and their houses, and to promote the growth of true religion among their children ; so that while they " dwelt in the land " it was as prisoners. All they loved was going to decay before their eyes. They were afflicted with a mania which has not died out from among men, but every now and then in modern times breaks forth, a feverish feeling that everything depends upon the political condition of a people. Proud, violent men inflame the people with this idea. Proud, violent men believe that happiness is in high position and fame, in being in a condition to lord it over their fellows. It is all a mistake. A man who has a quiet good soul can be just as good and great, can live as happily and die as nobly in Pussia as in France, in France as in England, in England as in America. Emperor, king, president, it makes so little difference that it is not worth one human life to change it. An ambitious, selfish, ill-tempered, weak man will be unhappy anywhere. A meek man is not a weak man, but one who has the strength to hold himself in, as one by a strong bridle holds a strong and fiery horse. He will be happy anywhere. He will inherit the earth. He will be in the enjoyable possession of the earth, for that is the meaning of the words. This is a general truth. Conquerors overr run a land, but they do not enjoy it. The king is often overbur- * Compare Deut. xix. 14 ; Psalm xxv. 13 ; xxxvii. 9, for variations of this phrase. " The land " is spoken of re- peatedly through Deuteronomy as be- longing to the Jewish people. All are familiar with the words in the Fifth Commandment. Jesus in this passage uses the precise phrase which occurs in Ps. xxxv ii. 11. 254 SECOND AND THD3D PASSOVER IN THE UFE OF JESUS. dened with the load of stateship, and rides in magnificent -weari ness over immense domains from which he can draw no increase of delight; while down those valleys and on those hill-slopes, in a thousand cottages, are multitudes of men and women and little children who really " inherit," by enjoying all the earth can yield of physical delight, and in those cloisters are many students who " inherit " by enjoying all the intellectual delights which a study of the earth can give. If these people whom Jesus addressed were expecting that in the reign of the Messiah they should have material riches, worldly pleasures, and the indulgence of the pride of power, and if they supposed Jesus to be the Messiah, they were to be disappointed. He was no revolutionist. He was no political preacher. He had a deeper, loftier mission. He had not come to "fire the Jewish heart," but to purify the spiritual life of the world. So through- out this discourse he describes all excellence as consisting in character, and all real happiness as having its fountains in the soul. There is not a single beatitude which has its basis in exter- nal things. Jesus thus plainly instructs them in the beginning that they are not to regard him as being about to add himself to the number of those conquerors who divide the acquired territory among their followers. They may have been expecting that he should subdue the world and give it to the Jewish people. He had no such intent. Those that looked for such things need not be followers of Jesus. There was no happiness in all this worldly, exorbitant, insatiable heat. The kingdom he should set up would be in the hearts of men. And so, whenever occasion served, Jesus restored to their spiri- tual meaning phrases and passages of the Holy Scriptures which the Jews had lowered to a most secular significa- ger and thirst after tion. And then he intensified and still more ^1?^' f ° r they m 'g nl y spiritualized those passages. Almost every phrase he uses must have recalled some well- known expression in the Prophets, the Psalms, or the Law. Thus he describes the happy man as one who " hungers and thirsts after righteousness." In the East thirst implied the most intense desire, and was the most vivid representation of longing to a people who dwelt in lands where there was a scarcity of water. This unspeakable desire to be upright, right towards God xnd man, right inwardly, whether the life should be able to be THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 255 brought to the high standard or not, this marks a true man. Hunger seeks to eat, and thirst to drink. It must be an inward satisfaction. The man may be up to his lips in water and in food, and all things outward fail to satisfy him. The words of Jesue must have reminded his hearers of David's simile of the hart panting after the water-brooks (Ps. xlii. 1), and the outcry of in- vitation in Isaiah (lv. 1) : " Ho ! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." Perhaps it recalled also that remarkable passage in the Psalms, " I shall appear in righteousness before thy face I shall be satisfied when thy glory appears." * It is to be observed that the promise made is of the inward and not of the outward, Longings for righteousness are to be satisfied by righteousness. The reward of loving is the increased power to love. The reward of longing to be righteous is the increased power of being right- eous. All such people shall be filled. Having given these blows to secular hopes by stating three of the characteristics of those who are really happy and blessed, such as he should desire to have for his subjects if he is to be king of men in any sense, he immediately states three other characteristics ; and it is to be noticed that the first three are such as a man will be conscious of in his own soul while they may be wholly unknown to others, while at least two of the next three open into the visible life. The hidden growth of grace now begins to bring forth fruit. The man who has felt and mourned his poverty of spirit, who has become self -continent and meek, whose heart has Happy the mercifu] ^ been athirst for righteousness, is not selfish, but for they shaii obtain goes out in love and pity to his fellow-men. The mercy ' subjects of a spiritual kingdom, which is to consist in the para- mount influence of love, are to be merciful. Conquering warriors were not ordinarily merciful, but had what the heathen thought to be the sweets of hating. The conquered were not merciful, but had the sweets of revenge. And neither were happy. The happy man is he who seeks to make others happy, whether they be good and grateful or bad and thankless. The next characteristic of the happy is that they are pure in heart, heartily pure, loving purity, and seeking to have it inwardly. * This translation I give from the I Ps. xvi 15. In our common English Septuagint version, where it occurs in I version it is xvii. 15. 256 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LD7E OF JESUS. The logical connection between this " beatitude " and that which Happy the pure in immediately precedes and follows is not quite so Heart, for they shau see apparent. Indeed it is to be doubted whether in the mind of Jesus there was anything of that strict scholastic arrangement of ideas which so many commentators endeavor to construct for this discourse. Nevertheless there must have been in the mind of this great teacher some thread of dis- course, some nexus of thought or feeling which prompted the succession of ideas. Perhaps it is found in the meaning assigned by Jesus, which may not have been the modern sense of purity. Perhaps he did not mean those who are free from violation of the seventh commandment, but rather those who from the heart observe the ninth ; not so much those who are not carnal as those who are not cunning. Happy the sharp, cunning man, is the general verdict. Such men are supposed to be able to secure the riches, the honors, the glories of the world. They are the grand speculators, the successful diplomatists. But Jesus declares that the innocent, the innocuous, those whose souls are honest, whose intents are guileless, whose spirits are surrounded by a mora] atmosphere of perfect transparency, — that these are the blessed, happy men. And he assigns this remarkable reason for such blessedness — " they shall see God." Now, as all the happiness must in some sort correspond with the condition of character stated, we can be assisted by an understanding of one to the comprehension of the other. What is this vision of God, and when shall it take place 1 Some have held that visio beatifica was real bodily sight, others that it was purely mental, others that it was both physical and spiritual ; some that it is now, others that it will be in the state of existence which the soul shall maintain beyond the grave, others that it is both here and hereafter. That Jesus simply used these words in a spiritual sense I have no doubt, nor do I doubt that they signify a blessedness which is not confined to either life, but is as true of the here as of the here- after. It is familiar to the students of the Bible that these writ- ers use "see" and "know" almost interchangeably. The Great Teacher probably intended to convey the idea that in order to know God, to understand His nature and His ways, simple-heart- edness, clearness of the atmosphere about the mind and heart, is necessary ; that the sharpness which wins in the games of life, n 1 1 HteSiif , part: I> Will XtMFtimL*i m w*5 «rfi &* «***« ******* 3seh, the twelfth king of Judah. And yet of no one is so little known. The historians avoid as much as may be all mention of his reign. If the tradi- tions of his people are to be relied on, he caused Isaiah to be sawn asunder. No words of the king are remembered. No actions of his are regarded as memorial and exemplary. But Isaiah's words have inspired the preachers and prophets of all succeeding times, and to-day are preserved among the most precious treasures of all human literature. And so it has been, is, and will be, until right and wrong shall cease to oppose each other. Great is their reward m all the heavens who suffer, being in the right. VALUE OF A LOFTY CHARACTER. What Jesus says of the position of his disciples, those who are distinguished by the characteristics he has mentioned, is so plain as to need little exposition. He braces them against the storm which is to beat upon them, by reminding them of the transcen- dent importance and dignity of the functions which they are to discharge towards the world. They are the world's conservators and illuminators, its salt and its light. "Without them the world would rot in utter darkness. That is to be true in all ages. Take 262 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVEE IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. soned ? F.~ r nothing is it useral any longer, except to be cast out and trodden down men of the world. A city- light a lamp and put under a corn-measure, but upon a lamp-stand : and it gives light to all in the house. Thus let your light shine before men, that they may instantly out of the world all the men described in the opening of the Sermon on the Mount, and the evil that is in it would run the world rapidly to a state of total putrefaction. Ye aie the salt of the x J x earth: but if the salt Take them away and all hope would be gone — become insipid, with all brightness, bloom, and beauty. what shall it be sea- ° 7 ' J More than among the moderns, salt was held in very high admiration among the ancients. Their by poets gave it the most noble and beautiful epi- w^rw^l 11 ^ ^ ne ^ s > an( ^ their philosophers bestowed great praise set on a hiii cannot be upon it. It was used in religious services, sym- wd. Neither do they boli(jal of h t . fi refining, very a lamp and put it •> ' *> o;7 J powerful, and very preservative.* The words of Jesus, in which he likens his disciples at once to salt and light, are remarkably reproduced by Pliny {Hist. Nat., xxxi. 9) in his words, " Nil sole your good works, and et sale utilius," Nothing is more useful than the ous S thoughte°of g you^ sun an ^ sa ^- And because of their value to the Father who is in the world, Jesus urges them to be careful to preserve the saltness, and avoid what would cover the light ; in other words, preserve in their characters those very elements which give them these powers. Much useless labor has been spent on the salt and city ques- tions. Whether real salt can lose its saltness, is not a pertinent question. The question of Jesus is hypothetical: if the saline quality be lost out of salt, how can it be restored ? By chemical action we know that salt can " lose its savor." But because the example should have suggested something that was familiar, and it is not a familiar fact that salt does utterly lose its saltness, many have perplexed themselves with striving to find what the to okas is, if it be not salt. A Dutch writer, Yon der Hardt, suggested that it was asphaltus from the Dead Sea ! And then " the trodden down of men " has given the commentators great perplexity. A German author brings forward authorities from the Rabbins to prove that salt, which by exposure had so far lost its chlorine that it could not preserve, was sometimes scattered upon * Homer calls salt deiov, divine, and Plato OeocpiAes aujua, a substance dear to the gods. There was a Latin proverb, Purior salillo, purer than salt. Both Greeks and Latins used it as a trope for wit, on account of its pungency. Hence we hear of Attic salt. In incense and in religious sacrifices salt was used. See Ovid, Fasti, i. 337. TKE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 263 slippery places to prevent falling, as by the priests in the Temple when sacrificing animals. But his citations feebly sustain his po- sition, and if they did they would not disprove the words of Jesus who says that it is worthless, and this being " trodden down of men " expresses only the utter contempt men have for its woithlessness. So of the city. There is no reason to suppose that some special city was referred to. Any city on a hill-top must be conspicuous, especially when lighted at night. He was simply charging his disci- ples not to hide their light nor to lose the vigor of a good character. " Let your light shine." If you have light it will do its own shining, and give light to others, if you do not cover it. Only let it shine. You need not go flaunting it about as a wild boy does a flambeau at night ; but let it be like the sun's light, naturally il- luminating ; but do not obscure it. There are just two important things to care for, namely, that a man have in him the illumi- nating property, and then that he see to it that that light be not obscured. The Law : and Jesus the Completer thereof. Whenever any man has the fortune to see truth in a new light, and the commission to make it known to the world, there are those who adroitly endeavor to break his power Th ink not that i by giving out that he is a revolutionist ; that he is came t0 relax the law , i -, n . -.. -, • i t or the prophets: I unstable ; that he is discontented with the estab- came not to relax, but lished order of things. Such a rumor does two tocom P lete - Forv ™- ° ly I say unto you, Un- wrongs. It drives from him those who hold to tn the heaven and the the truth that has been already gained, and sends ^^ about the new teacher those who really hope that nor the smallest stroke the allegation is true and that old things are to t^T^ZTl be abrogated. Their approach to the teacher be accomplished, who- r» ,n .-,..-, ■, soever, therefore, shall confirms the prejudicial rumor, and so soon as relax one of the leasc they discover their mistake they fall away, and of these commands, , -I . n -. n r , , and shall teach men so, this liux and reflux of apparent popularity weak- he Bhall be caUed least ens the hold of the teacher on the public confi- in the kingdom of the , T re n • i • i heavens (the dominion dence. Jesus suirered m that way, as in modern of t he universe); but times have Luther and Wesley, who sustained whosoever shau do ani _ tat i i teach, he shall be called towards the lioman and Anglican churches, res- great in the kingdom pectively, a position similar to that of Jesus to- of the heavens - wards the Jewish church. In this discourse of his doctrine, Jesus is at pains to define 264 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. his relation to the system of morals taught in the sacred books of the Jews. If, as he taught, his followers were to endure 2 great persecution " for righteousness' sake," and " on account of Jesus," it was natural to infer that it would be on account of the kind of righteousness which they should learn from him ; and if that were such as to raise persecution, it must be because it was opposed to the righteousness taught in their law and in their pro- phets. Jesus takes occasion to correct this by showing that he held to the law ; that it was the Pharisees who had a new right- eousness, and that it was this fact (that he should teach a right- eousness which, wmile it opposed that of the Pharisees, accorded with that of the law, and really accomplished and fulfilled it by giving it a spirit, and by vitalizing it) that should bring him trouble from a generation that had gone far astray from Moses and the Prophets. " The Law " and " the Prophets " constituted the great basis of Jewish morals and religious institutions. The law, as Tholuck says, kept alive in the people a sense of their need of salvation ; the prophets perpetually sustained them by the hope that want would one day be satisfied. Jesus must have meant something more than merely presenting in the facts of his history the coun- terpart of what the prophets set forth, or in the morality of his life an example of perfect observance of the moral law. He meant to say that all those who looked upon the work of the Mes- siah as that of mere abolition, mere loosing, mere doing away, had made a total misapprehension. His work was not negative but positive. So far from doing away the law, he came to show the world that even the moral law, written on Sinai stone or liv- ing human hearts, is imperfect, in the sense of incomplete. He came to supplement, to fill up. The Law was one thing, the Pro- phets another ; and with them both, without something else, hu- manity was poor indeed. He was that something else, that ple- roma, that Fulness ; so that hereafter, for all purposes of living and dying, the world might have all it needed : the Zaw, the Prophets, the JESUS. Without the law the world is a moral chaos. With the Law, and without the Prophets, the world is a company of condemned malefactors. With the Law and Pro- phets the condemned world is hoping with a hope deferred that makes the heart sick. With the Law, the Prophets, and Jesus, mankind have their hopes fulfilled, and such an element of power THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 265 from love, and such an element of love newly developed in the Law, that life becomes the sublime occupation of preparing the soul, by obedience, for still greater obedience to a morale rule which keeps the universe in rhythm. " I am come," said he, "not a Eelaxer but a Completer." This great Jesus must have been conscious of vast spiritual resources, a fulness of soul that was to stream out into the nations and down through the ages. He felt that he had enough soul for himself and a whole race of men. It is not necessary to go into the minute details of the theological anatomists. They have said nothing finer than Augus- tine, " Because he came to give love, and love is the f uliilling of the law, he lias rightly said that he had not come to dissolve, but to complete." * The moral law is to stand while earth and heaven endure, a proverbial form of expression, like, as Strong says, our less ele- gant one of " While grass grows or water runs." While there is any universe of moral beings there will be moral law. Not a particle is superfluous. Not a particle, therefore, shall ever be swept away ; not a ^ (yode), the smallest of the Hebrew letters ; not a Kepata, the smallest stroke of the pen used to distinguish letters.f But a grace that is in neither letters nor laws shall be given the world, and mankind shall see how beautiful and unsel- fish and free a thing a life of obedience may be ; of obedience to God's laws, — not man's moral police enactments, perhaps, but God's laws. He that regards reverently the slightest indication of what the will and purpose of God is, shall be recognized great in the dominion of the universe, the kingdom and rule which is so wide as to embrace not merely this present scheme of our world, but all the changes of all worlds, and all the sweep of the universe, — not merely the ages which mark the history of man, but the cycles on which eternity rests. Thus Jesus taught that he did not come, as some feared and * "Quia venit dare charitatem, et charitas preficit legem, merito dixit, non venisse solvere, sed iinplere." Au- gustine, Serm. 126, on John v. f That this may be understood, let the reader who does not know Hebrew compare with his eye the Hebrew let- ters "i, raish, and -j, dauleth. He will see in print that the only difference is a slight prolongation to the right of the upper part of the letter. In writing them for the printer I have made a raish in both instances, and in the lat- ter merely added a little stroke in the right place, a stroke much smaller than the Hebrew letter yode of the same type. 266 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. others hoped, an adversary to the God-ordained moral govern- ment of the world. He came to explain, exemplify, fulfil. His life, his deeds, his words, all were part of the icoo-pos, the orderly universe. He wished no one to become his follower under the false idea that he can thereby indulge a dissolute life with im- punity. He has no higher law than the law of God, but he sets that in the highest possible light. REFUTATION OF PHARISAIC ERRORS. Because Jesus had not kept the law according to their methods of interpretation, the Pharisees persecuted him as a dissolver of For i say unto you, the law. He turns upon them. He denounces That if your righteous- as sma n an d i ow the righteousness in which thev nesa do not greatly ex- ° . . / ceedthatof the scribes so much exulted, and declared to his disciples, in «md the Pharisees ye wor d s which he introduces with the utmost so- shall not enter into the kingdom of the heav- lemnity, that to have the freedom of the domin- ion of the universe they must have a wider and higher righteousness, a righteousness founded not on a micro- scopic view of ritualism, but on a comprehension of the spirit of the laws which spread wide as all worlds and endure long as eternity. The Pharisees taught that their righteousness could, and in many cases did, exceed the requirements of God's moral law ; but Jesus taught that that law was so wonderfully deep, and broad, and high, that it is not in the compass of human capacities to ex- ceed its requirements. Of Murder. Jesus does not leave so important a matter to the impression which a general statement might make upon a promiscuous assem- bly. He intends to make his feud with Pharisaism deadly. He will now cut it up in detail. The plain people shall know what he means. He tells them that the law which was given anciently to their ancestors has been read in Temple and syna- gogue by the Pharisees, who held the position of official ex- pounders, and who so wove their glosses into the original text that the common people had lost all discrimination, so that the general belief was that Pharisaism and Mosaicism was the same. He intends to tear away all the wretched sophisms and dangerous as well as foolish " various readings " of the Pharisees, and show them what the moral law means. He does not impugn the Mosaic THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 26^ law : he simply does two things, namely, 1. He clears away the rubbish that has been piled on the law ; and, 2. When it is seen as it is, he explains what its real meaning is, a Ye have heard that it meaning not to be eonfined to the ancients, bnt ™^*~ such as shall be good for any part of the domain whosoever shaii km r ,, . shall be liable to the Of the Universe. ^ judgment. But I say The errors into which the ancients fell, and unto you, Any one an- , . , i t i • ,i -r>i • gry with his brother* which were hugely exaggerated m the -Pharisees, Rha]1 be liable to the grew out of a literal interpretation, winch natu- judgment; and whoso ^ , . . A TV shall say to his brother, rally came to be erroneous and injurious. A lit- Eaka ^ shall be liable eralist, an advocate, or pettifogger, takes up a to the sanhedrim ; and i . . .., , z whoso shall say, Moreh, passage in a statute and says, What do these ghall be liable to the words mean ? " Of course he soon comes to con- gehenna of fire, if, therefore, thou bring sider what they may mean. A great jurist, thy g^ to the a itar, especially if he have -judicial responsibility, takes and there remembered i cc-xxn J* 17 7 that thy brother haa up the same passage and says, What did the teg- something against thee, islatnre mean when it enacted this statute and leave there t hy gift be- fore the altar, and first framed this special passage ? " The former needs go , become reconciled only to have the very words before him. The * ^ brotbe £ « d J *> then coming offer thy latter must know the character and general in- gift. Agree with thy fentions of the legislature, the occasion of the pas- % ^'^l'-S%. sage of the statute, the objections urged by the Mm on the road, lest minority and how answered by the majority, the ^ZZ^T^^IZ whole animus of the law-makers as touching this the judge to the sheriff, special matter. This is just what Jesus did. And ^^.^ediTi h^*? it is important now, for a fair understanding of thee, Thou shait not __ , . , . ,-, . -,, , come thence until thou all his own words, m this sermon and elsewhere, hast paid the last far „ that we bring to their elucidation and interpre- tes- tation the same spirit and method of criticism which he applied to- the decalogue. We must know what Jesus said, and find the mean- ing of any doubtful or perplexing phrase or sentence by what lie plainly teaches elsewhere, and by the whole temper of his intellect and soul. Whoever fails to do this becomes towards the teachings of Jesus just what the Pharisees became towards the moral law. We shall almost immediately have occasion to show the impor- tance of this principle. * In the common version the phrase " without a cause " occurs, but it is gen- erally conceded that this is an interpo- lation which has crept in from some marginal note written by some very con- servative reader or editor. It is not in the Sinaitic Codex, and is also omitted by other ancient MSS. 208 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN" THE LIFE OF JESUS. And now comes the first example. Moses said : " Kill not." The Pharisees said : " If a man commit actual homicide he shal be liable to go before the Court of the Seven." Jesus said : " Angei with one's brother is a violation of the moral law in this particu- lar." It will be seen how these differ, and a little fulness here may save space hereafter. The Pharisees taught such a morality that if a man who had had the most inhuman or the most deadly feelings towards his brother had so managed the circumstances of the homicide, or so suppressed or arranged evidence, as to be able to secure a verdict of acquittal from the Court of Seven, he felt himself altogether absolved. But Jesus showed that the law was not a mere police regulation. It was that, but vastly more. It touched the kingdom of the heavens. It rendered human life sacred, but it was also a development, out into the sphere of hu- manity, of that measurelessly profound law of love which per- vades the Dominion of the Universe, a law which was violated if one had hatred of his brother, or contempt, or scorn. Nay, one must not even so much as fail of loving. It is not sufficient not to hate. Jesus teaches positive regard for our fellow-men. He was the great Humanitarian on the broadest and deepest founda- tion of principle, not merely by the impulse of sentiment. Jesus taught in popular style, and presented his doctrine so concretely that his words would stick in the memory of his hear- ers. In illustration, he quotes words in common use. as expres- sions of a malign condition of the heart, not that they " have any damning power in themselves," as Alford says, " but to represent states of anger and hostility." If one should call his brother Rafca, he should be regarded by God as one is regarded by men when the Sanhedrim has condemned him. If one should call his brother Moreh, he should be in the sight of God as, in the sight of men, is he who having been stoned to death is cast into the Valley of Hinnom.* Raka is a Chaldee word expressive of the * There is a deep ravine to the south and west of Jerusalem, which took its name, as Stanley conjectures, from some ancient hero who had encamped there, u the son of Hinnom." In this ravine heathenish rites were observed in the worship of Moloch, and in its south-eastern corner, Tophet, infants were sacrificed to the fire -gods. King Josiah caused the place to be polluted by strewing it with human bones and other things, making it ceremonially unclean, so as to put an end to these abominations. See 2 Kings xxiii. 10, 13, 14 ; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 4, 5. There- after it was the common cesspool of the city, into which all filth was cast, and it is believed that the bodies of crim- THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 269 greatest contempt, " Worthless fellow ! " " Empty head ! " Moreh is a harsher expression, and signifies a hopeless fool, an impious wretch, a rebel, especially a rebel against God, and hence ac atheist, a word so bitter that for using it Moses and Aaron were not permitted to enter the promised land. (Numbers xx. 10.) Now, here are the gradations : First, concealed but cherished anger, then sudden ejaculation of wrath, and then foul and abusive language. And all these Jesus says are murder in several forms. He holds us to his text that character is everything. Men consider the outward act as the horrible thing in crime ; and they can do no better, because they cannot read the heart. But each man knows his own heart, and God knows all. His law covers the whole man, inside as well as outside ; Jesus gives its proper intensity to the "Thou" of the law, penetrating the inmost soul, and its proper extension covering the whole life. "Thou," as Luther well puts it, in his vehement and popular style, is not ad- dressed to a man's fist alone but to his whole person. Indeed, if ti le fist were addressed it would be an address to the whole per- & >n, for the hand could not deal the blow unless the whole person co-operated. The whole act comes of the character, and it is not so important to be striving to make our actions right as to keep our souls pure. The words and the deeds of a man are impor- tant as showing the character. We may not interpret Jesus literally in this and his other speeches. It is not the use of RaJca and Moreh that is con- demned, for they were sometimes used playfully, there being evidence that the latter, which is so harsh in its real meaning, was employed as a gentle nickname in the days of Jesus,* — but it is the murderous spirit which precedes their use. Jesus himself was angry ,f and used the very epithet Moreh,% which is here so condemned; but it is very obvious from the history that the emotions he had and the words he uttered, in the connection, give uo indication of a murderous spirit. Nor, strictly, could he have inals who had been stoned to death were flung into this place. In Joshua xviii. 16, the Septuagint has TaUwa. Afterwards it was rendered Teewa, Ge- henna. * Tholuck, vol. i.,p. 238. Edin. edit. f As Mark expressly asserts (iii. 5), and Matthew (xxiii. 13) and John (ii. 15) clearly imply. % In Matthew xxiii. 17, 19, it is the identical word, and in Luke xxiv. 25, it is the equivalent, in the original ; and consequently in both cases is properly translated " fools " in our version. 270 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. meant that the secular government wonld decide npon these cases, and inflict these punishments ; and most probably by alluding to the visible tribunals and penalties simply gave objectiveness to the spiritual fact of responsibility for character, so far as voluntarily formed, and taught gradations of punishment proportioned to the sinfulness. And now, that he may set the duty of loving and the sin of hating in the strongest possible light, he insists upon the necessity of reconciling differences, and this he does in language which must have been very impressive to his Jewish hearers. He taught that if a man had gone up to the Temple to offer sacrifice for his sins, had even brought the victim into that court where the priest was to receive it, and in the most solemn moment of approach to Jehovah the worshipper should recollect that his brother had aught against him, no matter how he felt toward that brother, he should leave his gift there in the Temple, and postpone homage to God until he had made love with man. Perhaps the worshipper would recollect that he had given offence to his brother by calling him ugly names, as Raka and Moreh, " Empty Head " and " Rebel." His brother may have had occasion to have something against him. In that case until the bad feeling, which was mother to the bad words, be utterly flung from his heart, his worship would be an abomination to God. Hecatombs of slaughtered beasts would not please the eye of the Holy One of Israel if he saw malignity in the heart of the offerer. If the bad feeling has been cast out, then he must go and tell his brother ; must let him know how changed his feelings are. But if he has never knowingly given offence, and finds that his brother is embittered against him, let him go and do all that love should prompt to have that bitterness removed, to effect a reconciliation. Let us always guard against literalism, and see what the spirit of the words is. That he should literally go from the Temple in Jerusalem, the journey of many weary days, to a distant part of Palestine, to make up a quarrel, cannot be meant, any more than the postponement of reconciliation until the moment when the sacrifice is about to be laid upon the altar.* But in his heart the * Instances of Pharisaic literalness occur to this day in the Christian church. Perhaps there are few pastors who have not known communicants begin to feel uneasy about their animosities as the time for the Lord's Supper approached, postponing reconciliation to the very latest moment before the sacrament, — THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 271 tv ork cf love must be done. A man must not do that which ex- poses him to the judgment of the local court, to the sentence of the Sanhedrim, to destruction ; nor must he allow his brother tc do it, if in his power to prevent. If that brother has anything against him, it may lead to sin on the brother's part. If he has been called " Empty-head," he may retort by calling his brother " Rebel." And if the sacrifice is for forgiveness of sin already committed, let there be no new sin committed. Jehovah will wait for the sacrifice if he know that the offerer has gone to do the holy work of love. Do it instantly : that is the lesson. Nothing is so important: not even worship. A man may die while offering his beasts in sacrifice, and woe to him if he die with hands on the altar and hate in his heart. That such a fate might overtake one, and should be avoided, are taught in the impressive words which immediately follow. If a man is haled to the judg- ment-seats of civil governments, it is prudent to do everything practicable to be reconciled to his adversary. For if once the adversary should lodge complaint, and the case go against the accused, he may be cast into prison ; and the inexorable judge, standing by his own decision, will not allow him to go free until he has paid the whole debt, or met the whole claim in dispute. What is so important as regards the management of worldly mat- ters is infinitely more important as regards character. The culti- vation of love, the prompt discharge of the duties of love, lest death come in and a man be cut off therefrom, and there be sur- vivors who shall be injured in their character, — these are the lessons. Having gone so fully into the spirit of this first example, it will not be necessary to be so elaborate upon the others. Of Adultery. The second example is the Law of Adultery. It must be observed that in his statements Jesus keeps constantly in view as if that were obedience to Jesus. He taught that the very moment you recol- lect that your brother has aught against you, even if that recollection should flash upon you at the Lord's Table, be reconciled, be sure that you are in a right mind about it, no matter how he feels. It does not suppose that one will come to the sacrament knowing that he hates his brother, or that, if his brother hate him, he has failed to strive to b$ reconciled. Some people's Christianity is so unlike that of Jesus. 272 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LD7E OF JESUS. that he is inculcating the culture of character, outward things bein^ important only as they spring from character. The mere indul- yc h that it & enco °£ a natural appetite is a small thing ; but the was Bald, Tftou shaft being so degraded, so lost to the claims of our fel- tl"r" t T'Z; low-men and of society, as to cherish the desire to put l Bay unto you, That J ' every one who looks invade the most sacred rights, that is horrible, liuZrThLrl!^ that is the thing to be dreaded. And it is further bis longing, has already to be observed that he sets the law in the right committed adultery -,. -. . i-»t • • n i with her m hi s heart, light. Pharisaism perpetually regards it as a An.i u thy right eye burdensome restriction, which must be as much muse thee to sin, tear , , ... ,^ x , , w out and fling it from evaded as possible. Jbut Jesus teaches that our thee; for it is better for own personal interest lies in keeping the law theo that one of thy * . ,,. ■ r> members perish, and sacredly. " It is better Jot thee, or " it is proiit- not thy whole body be ^^ f or t ] iee » j a a p l lrase showing that the indi- cast into Gehenna. ° \ •* 1 i • vidual who is to keep the law is to have the profit of the keeping. You must not avoid adultery because it is going to be injurious to your neighbor, but because even to intend any such wrong is so damaging to yourself. And this is the pure and fine strain of all the teaching of Jesus. What is done in the heart hurts. And so he enjoins such self-denial as shall lead to the renunciation of whatever is loveliest in our eyes and the nearest to us ; the most beautiful and the most useful friends we have, if, holding them near us, they lead us to commit such offence against ourselves. Of course the words of Jesus are not to be taken literally, for in that case the member of the body would be considered the sinner, and not the soul that is in the body. It is not the eye nor hand that sins, but the inner man. Moreover, if taken literally, the whole world would probably be speedily depopulated. This strong hyperbolic expression of Jesus seems to find its rational interpretation as we have given it. Of Divorce. And tills naturally brings up the third example, the Law of DivoTce, as held by the Pharisees. Here, again, the Pharisees had perverted the law. According to the law, so sacred was the tie of marriage that only infidelity upon the part of the wife could justify a man in putting the wife away. Moses had made this exception not to weaken but to strengthen the marriage bond, not to make divorce easy but diffi- cult. But the Pharisees had made it quite easy, the school THE SEKMON ON THE MOUNT. 273 of Hillel even going so far as to allow a man to put away his wife when he found any one whom he liked better. But Jesus insisted upon the sacredness of the relation. By .. ,. ,. , .-,. , It has been said, If his teachings any divorced man is disgraced, ^y man d i VO rce Ma Either he had committed some sin or his wife, wife, let him give her a at i writing of divorce. But who thus disgraces him. And a woman who is T say unt0 you, That divorced from her husband, except for his sin, is whoso &*&x*a ^ x i.Ti wife, except for the rw»- not at liberty to marry. If she marry while he son of uncieanness, lives she is an adulteress, and the man who mar- causes her to commit 7 m adultery; and whoso ries her is an adulterer ; and if her husband marry shaii marry a divorced he is an adulterer. This is quite as plain as Greek ™ commits adul - and English can make it, and no legislature on earth can make right by its enactments what is morally wrong. When a man and a woman have married, and neither has broken the bond by infidelity, neither can put himself or herself in the posi- tion of being parent of a child by another party while the other is living in purity. The offspring would be illegitimate. It was this laxity of divorce that had so corrupted the morals of Jewish society. Of Perjury. The fourth example of Pharisaic perversion is in the Law of Oaths, Their gloss was, that if the name of Jehovah was omitted the oath was not binding. And so they swore And ye have heard by their heads, by Jerusalem, by the Temple, by that it has been said to J -. -, i xi -i i the ancients > Thou heaven, and by earth. Jesus taught that both shait not swear faiseiy, perjury and blasphemy were to be avoided, and but shalt perform thine r J J r */ J oaths to the Lord : but that the latter could not be evaded by the em- i say unto you, swear ployment of petty oaths, and the former was not * ot at * n J n f her *> y i «/ sr j > heaven, for it is the avoided by making false statements under a form throne of God, nor by of oath from which the name of Jehovah was TTf^T^KT stool of his feet ; neither omitted. He plainly teaches his disciples to avoid by Jerusalem, for it is all forms of oaths in conversation, and simply to ^X? J^ ThTu make a distinct, decided affirmation, based upon swear by thy head, for t -it iTi i <• ,i .n thou canst not make knowledge or deliberate conclusions of the mind, one hair white or black . saying so simply, so intelligently, and so firmly, But let your word be "Yes," or "No," that it will satisfy the hearer No: » f 0r what is mow quite as much as any oath could. than these is from evii. He could not have intended to forbid the use of civil oaths, as he himself paid respect to them, at least in one instance (see 18 274 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER LN THE LDJE OF JESTJS. Matthew xxvi. 63), as we shall find ; but the tenor of his teaching certainly is adverse to the multiplication of civil oaths and the frequency of their employment. A man of truth may be trusted when he makes a deliberate assertion : a liar, not even when he takes a solemn oath. Precision and firmness and simplicity, first in thought and then in language, are commended by these teachings of Jesus. . Of Revenge. The fifth example of the Pharisaic misteaching is in regard to the Law of Retaliation. Again we are to remind ourselves that in interpreting the teachings of Jesus we are to Ye have heard that it i • i has been said, Eye for guard ourselves against that very vice of the eye and tooth /or tooth; pi iar i sees w hich he was endeavoring* to correct, but I say unto you, Not # m ° J to resist the evil man; namely, a slavishly literal interpretation which but whosoever shaii totally destroys the spirit and the meaning of the ■ 6mite thee on the right .0 cheek, turn to him also words, whether of the law or of the great Teacher. SST'-IT Z The law certainl y is * t0 ° th fir <* ^oth and and to take thine inner an eye for an eye^ as we find in Exodus xxi. e^Ihmetuterlb^ 24 ", in Leviticus xxiv. 20, and in Deuteronomy and whosoever shaii x ix. 21. And Jesus specifically asserts that he mue^go with him two! did n0 ^ come to destroy that law. It stands. to him that asketh of Whatever he teaches must be expository of the thee, give: and from , ., . . P , . n , ,. . him wishing to borrow law or an exhibition 01 the animus ox the divine of thee, turn thou not i aw£ M ver j n this statute. The essential principle away. of the law pervades the universe, so far as we can discern, and appears under multiform phases. With what meas- ure a man metes, it is meted to him again. The instruments of sin are made instruments of retribution. In the administration of government under Moses, the law is quite distinctly stated, and was obviously meant to be acted upon, whatever men may say of the cruelty of the procedure or of the difficulty of apply- i ng it in practice. It was the law. In the hands of those admin- istering justice it was one thing : in the hands of private vengeance it was another. This latter was the gloss of Pharisaism. Their sin lay in quoting words, which the people believed to be of di- vine origin, in order to defend vindictiveness of spirit. To what terrible social results such teaching would lead among a con- quered people, chafing under their political subjugation, we can readily see. The law was intended to prevent private vengeance. THE SEEM0N ON THE MOTTNT. 275 It was a merciful law. It advised the offender, in advance, of what he might expect : it would thus deter him. It kept the offended party from taking vengeance into his own hands, by assuring him that up to the exact line of retaliation the punish- ment of the offender would be carried. Against the wicked gloss of the Pharisees Jesus places his interpretation of the spirit of the law. He opposes their teaching, not the law. And he does so adhering to his text, namely, char- acter is everything. Now, that he may set forth graphically what he means, he paints three pictures of wrongs done to one — a personal, a legal, and a political wrong — and shows the difference between the spirit of his teaching and that of the Pharisees. In the first place there is the instance of a personal assault in a form exceedingly aggravating, a rap upon the right cheek. A Pharisee standing by says to the person struck, " Hit him on his right cheek." " No," says Jesus, " do not hit him at all, and rather than indulge a vindictive spirit, let him strike you upon the other cheek. Leave correction to the law, and vengeance to Jehovah." This is what Jesus meant, and, so far as I can see, nothing more was meant. To take his dramatic language for the terms of a statute is absurd as criticism, and is utterly impracticable in ordinary life, and if 'attempted to be practised literally would break up society as effectually as the private vengeance sought by the Pharisees. It would invite outrage and embolden cow- ardly villainy. Jesus never did so in practice, and it were unjust to all the fine sense of right which elsewhere appears in his teach- ings to suppose that he uttered in theory what he abandoned in practice. In John (xviii. 22, 23) we see just how Jesus behaved under precisely the circumstances stated here, and that behavior must be the best comment on this text. When an officer struck him he neither took vengeance nor literally turned about inviting a repetition of the indignity ; but solemnly expostulated with him in the presence of the High-Priest. This teaches us how to interpret the next case. Is a man by his behavior to solicit the repetition of a legal wrong as well as of a personal attack ? Certainly not ; but rather than have a wicked, revengeful spirit, if a man sue for your shirt, give him your coat In the mention of these garments comes out again, as it so fre- quently does, that characteristic in the style of Jesus which made 276 SECOND AND THIED PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. him a popular while he was a profound teacher, namely, calling things by their plain names, and taking all his illustrations from things so open and familiar. The audience listening to him knew that, according to the Mosaic law (Exodus xxii. 26), even when the legal process gave the plaintiff the outer garment, he was com pelled to restore it to the defendant at nightfall. But Jesus sets himself so strongly against the Pharisaic teaching of private ven- geance, and against the modern jpoint oVhonneur, the code of honor, the duel, and all kinds of vindictiveness, as to say that a man who stands and takes the second blow, or when one takes his inner lets his outer garment go, is a better, a wiser, a happier man than he who follows up an insult or injury by retaliation. There remains little difficulty with the third case supposed, which is that of political oppression. The verb in the original Greek, ayyapevcrei* comes from a Persian word, angaros, sig- nifying a mounted courier, such as were kept ready at regular stages throughout Persia, according to a postal arrangement insti- tuted by Cyrus or Xerxes.f They were authorized to impress into the king's service, for the transmission of intelligence, not only the horses but the persons of the king's subjects. They could compel them to go. Of course the Jews felt the utmost reluc- tance to yield such a service to the Roman government, which they hated 4 And we can see what opportunities a vicious official would enjoy of spitefully oppressing the people. Jesus taught, by this specific example, the general lesson that no man must take vengeance on his political oppressor; that when he felt his anger rising, rather than take vengeance, rather than even resist so as to increase the existing animosity, he should so promptly show a willingness to go twice the required distance that the spite of the exactor and the oppressor should be disarmed. Thus Jesus taught the wisdom and blessedness of goodness, the rule of conquering by surrendering. He did not mean to describe acts, * In the Cod. Sin. the word is ivyapelirr). f Greek historians assign the origin of the postal system to both these kings. For descriptions of the system see Herod., viii. 98, andXen., Cyrop., viii. 6, 17. % The Jews particularly objected to furnishing posts to the Eoman govern- ment : and Demetrius, when he wished to conciliate them, published a long list of grievances from which he freed them, in which it is stated that he gave orders that the beasts of burden belonging to the Jews should not be pressed into his service, using the very word employed in the text of Matthew which we are now considering. See Josephus, Ant. % xxiii. c. 2, § 3. THE SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 277 but to represent character. What kind of character ? A mean, unimpressible, negative character, that stands and takes kicks like a bale of cotton % By no means ; but a character so filled with all goodness and active love that it would pass over and do more even than the law of man demanded, doing so much for even the evil and unthankful that they could exact no more. It is not the doing of these particular acts which he enjoins, but the having the spirit and disposition to do them. And we must be quite careful not to frame a statute for ourselves, for our neigh- bors, or for the community out of these descriptive phrases, hold- ing that he is no Christian who does not perform these very acts, but rather understand that for ourselves we are to learn what is the type of human character which appeared greatest and loveli- est in the eyes of Jesus. This principle applies to the last case described, the annoyance of beggars and borrowers. To interpret the precept literally were to break up all society : it would bestow alms upon impostors, put dagger and poison in the hands of the insane, yield instruments of destruction to children who had no discretion, and furnish weapons to the murderer for the accomplishment of his dire de- signs — and all this simply because we were asked! A literal observance of the words might bring things to such a pass in a day that we shall not be able to serve any others for a year. He neither meant that we should wait until asked to bestow benefac- tions, nor give in the very form of the request ; but that we should be always ready to do good in every possible way to our fellow- men. This teaching of Jesus is as strictly observed by him who makes a discreet refusal of what it were injurious to bestow, as by him who yields a prompt concession to a request that is proper. It is the disposition to do all good promptly and cheerfully to all men, without being moved thereto by the good qualities in them, and not being deterred therefrom by what is repulsive. And this comes out in the general precept immediately following. Of Love and Hatred. The sixth and last example which he cites of the perversions by the Pharisees is that which regards the Law of Love and Hatred. It gives him occasion to state his own philosophy on this subject. The law is laid down in Leviticus xix. 18 : " Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, Ye it hath 278 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS* but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself : I am the Lord." The intent of this law was to bind the Jewish people compactly together have heard that for the g reat > humane purposes of Almighty God been said, to wards all people. It was not, as was not anything Love your neighbor .,-, .-,-, . , , n , i ,i t • l ana hate your enemy. m the ceremonial law, intended to make the J ewish But i say to you, Love people, by an act of Almighty partiality, the special your enemies and pray . . r j • • *• /> ,7 • 7 for them that persecute recipients or divine favors jot tke%r own sake* you, that ye may be the a l one ^ but that they might be eminently fitted to sons of your Father in ' . ° . the heavens; for He subserve not only their own interests but the high- makes his sun to rise est interests of all the people of all the world and on the bad and good, . x x and rains on the just ox all time. It was their stupendous mistake to and the unjust. For if r d themselves as the end of all divine legisla- ye love your lovers, # ° ~ what reward have ye? tion, and they lost their power of universal be- Even the tax-gatherers neficence in & large measure by this narrOW view do that same. And if & «/ ye salute your brethren of the case. The Pharisees had carried the Jew- :";",,* ish bi g 0tl 7 to »s last lengths when they added the even the Gentiles that corollary, " Thou shalt hate thine enemy." The law are^to^e perfect Is na( ^ m ^eed enjoined on the Jew love for the " chil- your Father in the heav- dren of his people," but that was an educational ens is perfect. P , , . ,, , . , preparation for loving and serving all mankind. Jesus set forth the wide charity of his philosophy in the distinct precept, " Love your enemies." He has been protesting against all vindictiveness ; he now blooms out into richest precepts of uni- versal fraternity and affection. He is determined not to be mis- understood. He embraces public as well as private, national as well as personal enemies, the Samaritan and the Roman, the ecclesiastical and the political foe. Not simply is a man to regard without animosity the foreigner and the alien, he is even to have charity for the enemy who stands over him and curses him ; for hatred he is to return good, for contempt and persecution he is to return benedictions. If the Jews had only understood and acted upon this, they might have carried their rule of love to the end of the world. The Messiah is to carry his rule to the end of the world. Jesus makes good his claim by insisting upon leading his people forth to this conquest of love ; and thus, and not as the secular Jew expected, became in a high sense the Saviour of the world. This broad law of benevolence is enforced by an appeal to the loftiest example in the universe. G-od is our Father. His chil- dren should resemble Him. He causes his sun to rise on men THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 279 without moral distinctions, and so he sends his rain.* If we would be his children, onr love must have that same characteris- tic of impartiality. Perhaps by this splendid appeal to God's dealings in nature, the Great Teacher meant to imply that the same principles prevailed in the moral government, and that as sunlight and rain fell on the fields of all, so the grace of God was not confined to the Jew but sent equally to the Gentile. It cer- tainly does help one to come to a rational view of this lofty teaching, when it is recollected that this impartiality in nature is not the loss on the part of God of the distinctions of right and wrong, nor insensibility to charms of character. It is the law of active benevolence which is set forth, the desire to do good to another whether he deserve it or not. The love I bear a mean and wicked man, who is calumniating and persecuting me, is not to be the love I bear my beautiful, true, and good friend, on whom my soul safely rests ; for the love God shows men who rebel against His holy law is not the same which He feels towards the devoted child whose life is spent in learning and doing His will. Attracting his hearers by the great example of the heavenly Father, he endeavors to break them from their narrowness and illiberality by the example of those whom they specially hated and despised. The Jew who allowed himself to be a tax-gather- er was an unprincipled and mercenary fellow. The Roman gov- ernment of the Jewish people was not particularly harsh. It was the galling of their pride more than anything else that was offen- sive, and that came out specially in the presence of the Roman soldiery, and more especially in the oppressive taxation. " Publi- can" thence came to designate the most disagreeable kind of a " sinner." But, Jesus urges, even publicans love their kith and kin, their " nearest," if it be insisted that that is the meaning of "neighbor." The Gentiles, whom you hate, will salute their brethren. Are the Jews the elect of the Father God % And do they in moral character rise no higher than the plane of those nations who are not favored by God and are hated by Jews ? If the Jews have surpassingly helping privileges, should they not have surpassingly elevated characters % * Meyer quotes the following- sen- tence from Seneca, which is remarkably like these words of Jesus : "Si deos imitaris, da et ingratis beneficia : nam et sceleratis sol oritur, et piratis patent maria." "If thou wilt imitate the gods, bestow benefits on even the un- grateful : for on even criminals the sun rises, to even pirates the seas lie open." 280 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LDTE OF JESUS. Thus having exhibited the wrong that is in the Pharisaic nar rowness and selfishness, showing that in practice it was a mere copy of the example of the worst men, while in theory it was an injurious perversion of the law, he turned to his disciples and said, " You are not to be so. You are to have perfect principles. The principles which govern your Father who is in the heavens, are those which are to govern you." Reaching this transition point in the Discourse, I think it may be well to notice that the simple, plain intellects of his congre- gation, understanding the words of Jesus in their simplest, plain- est meaning, did not see in them the difficulties which all the glosses and comments have made for us moderns. It is really some task to our intellects to throw out the influence of the per- verting interpretations to which we have been accustomed in order to place ourselves where the audience of Jesus stood. How far I am doing so as I write, I know not ; but I am striving ear- nestly to find just what Jesus meant his hearers to understand. And an examination so conducted shows that he was not laying down maxims of conditct but tests of character. The great- trouble many good people, and even many scholarly men, have found in the Sermon on the Mount has come from not observing this distinction. For example, take the last precept above, " Ye are to be perfect, even as your Father in the heavens is perfect." The physical and mental limitations of humanity make that ut- terly impracticable as a rule of action, but quite practicable as an attainment of principle. It is by considering his statements, without their limitations, as a directory of conduct, and seeing how utterly men fail to reach that standard, that the teachings of Jesus come to be regarded as merely a refining ideal, not to be realized totally in this life. DIRECTIONS FOR THE DISCHARGE OF DUTY. We have now reached another division of this discourse, in which Jesus shows the corrupting influence of Pharisaism upon even the practice of the virtues, and teaches his disciples to purge the very spring of their actions. Here is the key to this part of the discourse. A man's right- eousness works itself out into his public life, and he must often do good in the presence of his fellow-men, and there are some duties which cannot be discharged in total privacy. " Righteous- THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 2S1 ness " is exemplified in this discourse by alms-giving, by prayer, and by fasting, or more generally by our duties to our brethren, to our heavenly Father, and to ourselves. These B ut take heed not to duties are to be discharged with reference to God, work y° ur ri s hte(ras - ° . ness* before men, to and not man. when our righteousness is wrought be seen of them ; a in the presence of our fellow-beings, we are to otherwise > y° u have x ° ' no reward from your be very careful that it is not for the purpose of Father who is in the being seen by them, to elicit their applause. heavens - The verb in the original is very striking, Seadrjvcu, from which comes our word " theatre." We are not to theatricize, play a part, think the thing well done if they applaud, and ill if they give signs of dissatisfaction. It is, moreover, to be observed that Jesus does not inculcate duties : he merely tells his disciples how they are to be performed. He does not say that they shall give alms, and pray, and fast. Lib- erality towards our fellows, piety towards our God, and self-con- trol, are among the well-known duties of religion everywhere, in every form. But the methods of doing these right things mav be injuriously wrong, and, among the Pharisees, obviously were ; so Jesus sets himself to showing his disciples how they ought to do what they already felt it their duty to do. The First Example is Alms-giving. The word hypocrite is in analogy with the theatricizing just spoken of in general terms. A hypocrite strictly Therefore when thou is one who maintains a part in a dramatic perf or- makest alms > trumpet L n . not before thee, as the mance, speaking his words usually from behind a hypocrites do in the mask, and hence readily transferred to one who is w ^°^ a an * to the ^ streets, that they may The blowing Of the have glory of men. Verily, verily, I say nnto you, They exhaust their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine alms may be in secret, and not really what he seems. trumpet may be derived from what is affirmed to have been the custom of ostentatious alms-givers, who summoned the poor by a trumpet, and thus made known their gifts. But it is better to take it figuratively, as signifying unnecessary display. A man's goodness to a fellow-man may be known thy Father Wo seeth in -i i • 1 • • -i , i • . t •, r secret shall reward thee. and bring him praise, but he is never to do it for the purpose of having that praise. If he do, he will not fail, he * Not " alms," as in the common ver- I The Vatican and BezaMSS., and, what gion. The authentic text is undoubted- ly diKaioa-wTjVj righteousness, and not ikeri/.ioavi'Tiv, alms, the latter being a frell-intentioned but mistaken gloss. is still more important, the Codex Sinai- ticus give the former. This restored reading aids the symmetry of the dis- course. 282 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OP JESUS. will be praised. He will have his reward, and his whole reward, in that praise. He will thus exhaust his reward. But when he gives alms because it is right, and for the good the alms may do another, and does it so secretly that, to use a proverbial phrase, his left hand does not know what his right hand does, such a man has reward from the Father, who does His greatest works in secret. Let the deed be done as to Him and not to man. The Second Example is Prayer. Let it be remembered that it is hypocrisy which Jesus attacks, not any special outward modes or acts. He does not condemn using And when tuou pray- synagogues and streets as prayer places ; he does not est, be not as the hypo- condemn standing as a posture.* A man may pray Sr standi !n V6 the anywhere, and should pray everywhere. But no synagogues and in the matter where he prays, nor how, nor when, — if his corners of the broad- ■» -i • i . ,, , ,t . . .. ways, that theymay be prayers be made m order to attract the attention ^en of men. verily, i and elicit the applause of men, he is a hypocrite. hlur tG tnX' Reward" He pretends to be speaking to God, when, in real- But thou, when thou ity, he is speaking to men. A modern clergyman, prayest, enter into thy , , . . ,. , , , , re i , . closet, and having lock- kneeling m the church, may be playing off rhetori- ed thy door, pray to cal fireworks f or the entertainment of his audience.f thy Father who is in , , _ .. . .,. ,. secret; and thy Father rather than be assisting them m their supplica- whoseeth in secret wm t j 01]s f or t h e mer cy of the Almighty Father. He reward thee. But when . -,.... -i r> -r ye pray use not sense- is warned by this incisive speech oi J esus. less repetitions, as do Jesus does not prohibit much praying, but much the heathen ; for they r , . r / &? are of opinion that talking ; J not repetitions, but vam y empty repe- they shaii be heard for t i t i ons# j esus passed whole nights in prayer, and their much speaking. x o x •/ ? do not, then, resemble in the agony of Gethsemane he made repetition them; for God your of Uq crieg to fa Q heaven i y Father. It was the Father knows what J things ye need before heathenish custom,§ which had also crept in among the Jews, of sometimes unthinkingly re- * Indeed, where the general custom is to stand, as it was among the Jews, it would be ostentatious to kneel ; and if Jesus had intended to make a special hit at the posture, he would have said kneeling. No posture must be taken which so attracts attention as to nourish one's vanity. f As would seem to have been the case with that clergyman of whom a modern newspaper said, ' ' He delivered the finest prayer ever addressed to a Boston audience." % This distinction is made by Augus- tine : " Absit ab oratione multa locutio ; sed non desit multa precatio, si fervent perseverat intentio." Ep. 130, 10. § A specimen of heathenish vain re petitions is given in the Old Testament, in 1 Kings xviii. 26. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 283 peating sound, good words, and at other times filling up the sea- son of prayer with the unmeaning repetition of irrelevant and senseless things. When a clergyman in church, or a layman in a meeting for prayer, sets before Almighty God a tabular statement of statistics, or a running commentary on the shortcomings of the neighborhood, or a resums of the political movements of the times, telling the Great Ruler how wickedly such a senator is going to vote if God do not kill him, he is acting heathenishly, and Jesus rebukes him in these precepts. Again, we guard ourselves against the temptation to the Phari- saic vice of literalism in interpreting Jesus. He did not proscribe public worship in Iris precepts, and he was strictly observant of it in his conduct. But he does teach that culture of character is much more important than that of the outward behavior. While all display should be avoided in public service', there is a still surer mode of spiritual culture, namely, communion with God the Father in the profoundest secret, in that place which no one but God knows to be used as an oratory, at that time when no one but God knows that the suppliant is praying. Such praying recognizes the individual personal responsibility of the suppliant, for therein he must use the singular personal pronoun when refer- ring to himself. He is away from the crowd. He cannot mingle his deeds and life with theirs, and thus divide, even in idea, the responsibility of his actions. He is alone with God. He acknow- ledges the spirituality of true religion. There is no ceremonial, even the very simplest, to help him. It is the spirit of the man peeking strength from the spirit of the God. He acknowledges the spirituality and omnipresence of God. ~No distance separates and no darkness hides from the Almighty. While one is praying here in this closet, another is in that closet, thousands of miles away ; and both are heard. It seems to me difficult to overestimate the importance of this urgent teaching by Jesus of the intemcdism of true religion as antagonizing all the extemalism of cultivated Paganism and ecclesiasticized Judaism. It is what a man is, not what lie does, that distinguishes him in God's eyes. Being right will produce doing right. Internal piety will certainly produce proper external worship, but proper external worship does very little towards pro- ducing true internal piety. The external is easily assumed. The internal is produced with difficulty. Therefore a ceremonial reli- 284 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. gion is easily popularized. Men are attracted by the showiness, and gratified by the pomp. It requires no painstaking of soul culture. But it does not endure. It cannot be carried beyond the moment of death. What is not inwrought falls off. Charac- ter is everything. It is surprising that the modern church has gone so far from the teaching of Jesus as to lay almost the whole stress upon forms and ceremonies; that a "denomination" maybe erected on a mere form, and a whole church be convulsed with a controversy about mere ceremonials ; that one branch of the church, as is the case with the Lutherans in Germany, should have worship disturbed, and discord and separations occasioned, on the question whether the Lord's Prayer, as it is called, which we shall next consider, should be begun Voter unser or Unser Vater, " Our Father " or " Father, Ours ! " * If externalism could be banished from all religion, nine-tenths of all prejudices, animosities, and persecu- tions would cease. And then Jesus furnished a form of prayer, which should be a model, and show what the spirit and general method of praying mi , „_ ' should be. To a critical student of the mind and Thus therefore pray ye : Our Father, the soul of Jesus there can be no passages in his life ?Z ' m ,t l Z? e T ns ' more important than those which set forth his hallowed be Thy Name, A Thy kingdom come, prayers. A man's prayers are the main and most Thy win be done, asm liable indices of his real character. The posture heaven so on earth. -^ Bread necessary for he deliberately assumes before his God is the our sustenance give us it, j i i a. _ci • i i j_ i • to-day. And forgive noblest and the most graceful possible to him. our debts, like as we His uttered pra}^ers reveal him more than his also have forgiven our -. . , , . -it mi t , r ,i debtors. And lead us didactic deliverances, lne prayers he sets forth not into trial, but res- to be used by others are his own highest represen- tation of himself. They show what he believes God to be, what he believes man to be, and what he believes to be * This is stated by my learned friend Dr. Schaff in a note to Lange. In Greek it is Uarep rifiwu, Pater haymone ; and in the Latin, Pater noster. The German Lntherans follow that form in Vater unser, but the German Reformed insist upon Unser Voter. People who write quarrelsome books and articles on that distinction have no need for either form. It does not much matter at all how they pray. It would not seem that they should care anything for the teaching of Jesus who are so utterly unlike him in spirit. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 285 the relation between them. The theological system of Jesus must therefore be found chiefly in his prayers. The theology he wished to popularize must be what he embodied in the prayer which he set forth for all his followers, in all ages of the world. The " ye " is emphatic, as the form in the Greek shows and implies that between the praying of the heathen, the " ethnic battology," as he calls it, and the praying of those who belonged to his spiritual family, there was to be a marked difference. Brief as this prayer is, it is so pregnant that one scarcely sees how in a few paragraphs to set forth its wonderful teachings. First of all, in every sense, is the presentation of God the Almighty, not as the Creator of the World nor the King of the Universe, but as standing to human suppliants in the relation of Father. We are not to ask God for anything because he made us, or because he rules us, but because we are his children and he is our Father. So many myriads of tongues have addressed him in this way since the days of Jesus, that we fail to realize what a revelation this was. God is never addressed as " Father " in the Old Testament.* The relation is alluded to as the ground of re- proach for the bad behavior of the people, as in the first chapter of Isaiah and the first chapter of Malachi, where God is repre- sented, in the first passage, as saying that He had nourished children who were rebels, and in the other demanding the service due from child to father ; or, as Alford says, " as the last resource of an orphan and desolate creature," as in the passage in the sixty-third chapter of Isaiah, where, nevertheless, no address is made or peti- tion presented on the ground of the fatherhood of God. But now Jesus lays it at the foundation of all religion, because the basis of all prayer. It is the starting-point of both his theology and his philanthropy. The appeal is to be made to the father-heart in God. And this shows what all praying really must be. It is not the appeal of a slave at the feet of his master, nor a subject at the feet of his king. It is not to be an attempt to wring from reluctant power a favor which he who prays earnestly desires. It is to be such communion with God as sons do have with fathers. This abolishes at once that fearful element of most forms of reli- gion, in which it is assumed that the interests of God are one thing, and those of the suppliant another, and the struggle * The learned Bengel well remarks | adduced are either dissimilar or mod- that the examples which Lightfoot has I ern. %86 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESTJ8. between man and his Maker is as to the obtaining and the with- holding. Every child's interest is identical with that of the father, as the father's is with that of the son. So now, when a man who receives the teaching of Jesus goes to his prayers, he begins by feeling that he ought to desire simply what God wills, and that God wills exactly the thing which is best for his child. That makes the communion at once tender and confidential. The brief doxological addition to the sublimely simple title, " Our Father," is " The One in the heavens." The employment of this phrase does two things : it prevents undue familiarity with even the Father, who is represented as infinite and glorious, resi- dent in all the heavens that are, being wherever anything heavenly is, and perhaps intimating that his presence makes what is heav- enly ; and it declares his personality, thus separating Jesus from all the teachers of pantheism. Prayer is not to be a vague address to any indefinite phantasy, but to a " him," to a " one," to a person having place and personality, the infinite Progenitor of a countless number of sons and daughters, each of whom so derives his or her personality from the Great Father, that if he were not a Personal Being neither could they be. There is another thought suggested by this form of address to God. It is to be a perpetual assertion and reassertion of the brotherhood of man. It is " our," not " my." I am to acknowl- edge that He is as much the Father of every other human being who utters this prayer as He is my Father. I am to offer a prayer for every other human being when I pray for myself, and if I em- ploy this prayer which Jesus sets before me I shall do that very thing. Selfishness in prayer is proscribed forever. A man may not ask after blessings on his body and on his soul for his own per- sonal comfort and own personal salvation alone. When he com munes with the Father it must be for the good of the whole fam- ily. It lifts the lowly and humbles the proud. An unspotted queen on her throne feels that while her royal lips say " Our Father," the hunger-parched mouth of the frail and abandoned woman, who crouches beside the doorsteps in the dark night, is saying the same words to the same Being, with the same truth and meaning in them ; and the two women, if they are really praying, are praying each for the other. This is the basis and method of philanthropy set forth by Jesus. After the address the prayer has six petitions, which, it is to be THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 287 observed, are not doxologies, but real prayers, and as such are to signify what are the things which above all others we feel that we need, and having which we shall be satisfied that other things may come and go as they will. It should interest any student of human history to know what are the six things which such a per- son as Jesus believed ought to be paramount in the desires of all mankind. It will be noticed that three of them relate to God ai d three to man. The prayers in the first part are, that the Name of the heav- enly Father should be hallowed, that his kingdom should come, and that his will should be done. There is this phrase added to the last of these petitions, "as in heaven so on earth." The hear- ers of Jesus must have understood by the word " heaven " the special abode of Jehovah, of all holy intelligent spirits that have not fallen, and of all the human spirits that have been purified and saved. From his making this a model of prayer they must have gathered that the state of affairs in that world is the normal, and the state of affairs in this world is the abnormal condition of the universe, and that to have this world brought to the condi- tion of that world should be the highest desire and the most irre- pressible longing of every true heart. It is the first outburst of the soul. The phrase "as in heaven so on earth" is not therefore to be confined to the last of these three petitions, but is to cover them all.* "As in heaven so on earth be thy name hallowed ; " " as in heaven so in earth thy kingdom come ; " " as in heaven so on earth thy will be done." The foundation of all true religion in the heart of ma a must be found in its pure ideas of God. Men cannot add to His holi- ness, but their own conceptions of His character may become very exalted. Errors in religion arise from false ideas of God, in re- garding Him as vengeful, or weakly lenient, or indifferent, or in some way other than what He really is. In heaven the souls of the holy have only holy, that is, true thoughts and conceptions of Him. Each soul is like a perfect mirror. The souls of men are * This is the view of the Council of 'Trent, as set forth in the Catechism. I am aware that the Codices which omit the petition, " Thy will be done," in the corresponding passage in Luke xi. 2, omit also these words, " as in heaven so in earth;" nevertheless the spirit of the prayer, and its peculiar construction, by which so much condensation is obtained, seem to me to justify the interpretation given in the Roman Catholic Catechism. 288 SECOND AND THERD PASSOVER ES" THE LIFE OF JESUS. full of flaws. God's name means God's character, that by which He should he called or described. As in heaven the purest, truest thoughts of God are held, so ought it to be desired that upon earth all men shall " sanctify the Lord their God in their hearts." And the acknowledgment of his kingdom by all men, and their total submission to his beneficent reign, so that there should be no rebellion against the benign sovereignty of the Father-King, is to be the aspiration and desire of all who pray. There is a sense in which that kingdom does always as much prevail on earth as in heaven, namely, in the actual rule of God over all things ; but in heaven all intelligences comprehend this, accept it, and rejoice in it ; on earth men do not submit, do not willingly and gladly ac- cept it, but are striving to reach their happiness in their own ways, and not by being willing subjects of their Father, who is their Lord. Each man that prays should desire that that kingdom be set up wholly in his own soul, and that he should always be free from all other paramount rulers.* The third petition prays that on earth the will of God may be done as it is in heaven. It is to be observed how the personality of God is preserved throughout, and humanity as distinct from God. So that prayer is not the mere human addressing itself or voiding its deepest feelings on the unfeeling universe. Man is as autocratic in his sphere as God is in his. God may do the will of man, or man may do the will of God, or their wills may be made to clash. If the last do not take place one of the former must. Which does the good governance of the universe in gen- eral, and the good of both parties in particular, demand ? Shall the Infinite be obedient to the finite, the power of the Omnipo- tent Immaculate be made subservient to the caprices of the will of sinful Feebleness ? If the latter were the case, then, for a moment, we might have peace. But the submission of Omnipo- tence to a mind that may at any moment make a mistake, and to passions that every moment are rushing on blindly, would be a ruinous anomaly. There is no way in which peace and progress and happiness can be secured but by the direct bending of all the energies of man to the will of God. And thus is man to be ennobled. He loses no freedom of his will, he is not absorbed in God, he is not doing compulsory work, but he is freely choosing * So Augustine says: "TJt in nobis | optamus." Serm. 56. Teniat, optamus ; ut in illo inveniamur, THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 289 to direct all his great energies to the accomplishment of the good designs of the tenderest and lovingest Father in all the universe. In the case of man it would be many fitful wills attempting to rule ; in the case of God, it is One will, the will of the infinitely wise and good Father. And thus, by a natural and logical transition, from petitions touching the estate of God the suppliant is taught to pass to peti- tions touching his own estate. The first prayer is for subsistence : " bread proper for our suste- nance give us to-day." The epithet which precedes "bread" occurs in the New Testament only in this passage and in Luke xi. 3. It is one of the most disputed words in all these writings. In Greek it is liriovalav. In the common English version it is trans- lated " daily." The Vulgate has " panem nostrum superstantia- lem," which is followed by the Rhenish version, " our superstan- tial bread." In the Arabic and Ethiopian versions it is "to- morrow's bread," * which does not accord with the desire that it may be given to-day. I have endeavored in the translation given above to render what seemed to me to embrace all the possible and practicable meanings of the word as used by Jesus. f The prayer is for the preservation of the whole man. What is need- ful for his body is bread, and therefore aprov is used. And that symbolizes what is necessary for his intellect and for his soul. What is now necessary to sustain us as men is to be prayed for, and nothing more. No anxious care for the morrow is allowed, for if our prayer be answered to-day the same prayer will be an- swered to-morrow. No luxuries are to be craved. Life, in which to do the Father's will, this is all the child is to seek. What I may use now for physical, mental, and spiritual sustenance and strength, I may ask of God. But bread, real bread for the body, ]*3 the thing set forth in this petition explicitly, and all other needed things implicitly. The second thing to be asked is forgiveness. Sin is represented under the figure of debt. To be in debt oppresses a sensitive mind as with a load of guilt. There can be no security, no peace, no happy action of the powers while a man lives in the * And in the ' ' Gospel according- to the Hebrews," Jerome says that he found for iirtovffiav the word "into? that is, "to- morrow's. " 19 f Those who desire to see all the mean- ings assigned may consult Alf ord's Greek Testament, Lange's Comment., and Ben- gel's Gnomon, in loco. 290 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. consciousness of having committed sins which are not forgiven him. Every true man longs for that. Whatever pleasure he may have found in sinning, the moment the heat of lust or passion subsides the sense of the offence against his heavenly Father overpowers him. He can do no more, he can enjoy no more, until the sin be forgiven. It has become the extreme necessity of his life. The pain of guilt is the one intolerable agony. And here the communion element of the Prayer is made to ap- pear again distinctly. The petitioner prays that all sins, his owr and those of others, may be forgiven. And that there may be a general amnesty, he first forgives all who have sinned against him, all who have gotten in debt to him by their failure to do for him what they were bound as human brothers to do. Then he goes to the heavenly Father and prays that the same may be done for him. " Forgive us our debts like as we also have forgiven our debtors." It does not place the plea of forgiveness on the ground that we have forgiven our debtors, those who have sinned against us ; nor does it make the forgiveness we grant to others the meas- ure of the Father's forgiveness of us : " Forgive us as much as we have forgiven others ; " but rather means that what we have done towards them He should do towards us, referring to the nature of the act of forgiveness rather than to the degrees of its exercise. The last prayer is for redemption. Trials of faith, tests of character, discipline that strengthens, these are what no man has need of dreading. But that the providences of the heavenly Father may not lead us into such positions as shall make the solicitation to evil on the part of others specially influential over our lives and conduct, we may request. Being forgiven, we have a horror of the same circumstances as those in which we fell. This petition seeks to put the suppliant under the special provi- dence of the Father in all coming life. And then, as a climax, it exhibits the consummation of the Christian life. " Rescue us from evil ! " When that prayer is answered, there is nothing more to pray for : it is the completeness of redemption from all physical, intellectual, and spiritual evil, — from disease, from error, and from sin. It indulges the vision of perfection, and ardently longs that in the suppliant it may have complete realiza- tion. And what he asks for himself he solicits for all others who pray. It is a prayer for the destruction of all evil. Every fresh analysis of this Prayer lets us more and more into THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 291 the mird of Jesus. It is to be noticed that each petitioner is in- structed by his very prayer to regard the glory of God as the first thing, and the supply of his own wants as quite secondary. A man who rushes to his heavenly Father with requests for his own deliverance and enlargement, not feeling more concern ed that God may be adored than that he may be helped, is a selfish and undevout worshipper. The rule is : Worship first and help after- ward. Again, there seems to be this connection implied, that the petitioner desires sustenance, forgiveness, and deliverance from evil, that he may be able to contribute towards rendering the name of the Father holy in the hearts of all men, and bringing all men to submit to his kingship and devote themselves to carry- ing out his will. Nor must the practical effect of the sincere offering of this prayer upon the character of the petitioner escape our attention. A man should pray only for what he really, truly, and earnestly desires. If he do not desire what he asks, he adds to deceit a dreadful mockery of the omnipotent and loving Father. This prayer indicates whal he should desire, the proper adoration of God, the complete acknowledgment as well as continuance of his rule in the universe, and the beautiful harmony and beneficent progress which shall follow the adjust- ment of man's moral energies to the decisions of the will of God : and in order that these things may be accomplished, for himself the petitioner desires only sustenance, forgiveness, and safety. What then must life be ? Simply the devotion of man's powers to gain these things. A life so ordered would necessarily become not only satisfactory but sublime. The petitioner would no longer be seeking the things that were degrading or even unnecessary. He would never idle. He would strive to obtain proper food for his body, proper culture of his intellect, proper growth of his soul, that he might be able to do more to carry forward God's great design of making the universe the domain of a rule which should develop it into a boundless estate of inconceivable glory. Petty cares would lose their hold upon such a man ; but nothing would be neglected. In the most trivial matters he would be just and faithful. For every possible emergency he would be ready. The poets have not dreamed of a man surpassing him who should labor to have this prayer fulfilled in all equipoise of passions and intellect, in all completeness of self-government and energy of action. He would come into a grandeur and a beauty 292 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVEK IN THE UFE OF JESUS. which would justify humanity in its claim of being offspring ol Deity. Can the parallel of this Prayer be found elsewhere in literature ? FORGIVENESS. The Teacher steps back a moment to enforce the duty of for- giveness as a necessary precedent of prayer. The word is changed For if ye forgive men f rom that which signifies a debt to that which their blunders, your signifies a slip, a fall, a defeat, a blunder. In the heavenly Father will & . T also forgive you ; but if translation I have chosen the last, as perhaps com- ye forgive not men, paging j n some sen se all the others. The lesson neither will your Fa- - 1 - ° ther forgive your biun- plainly is, that whatever other preparation a man may have for prayer, if he have not forgiven others his petitions will be inefficient. It is utterly useless to go to God for forgiveness if I have not forgiven all others, considering their sins against me as defeats in a conflict which I must charita- bly suppose they waged with the temptations to do wrong ; for that is the view which God charitably takes of my wrong actions. I owe him service. It is a debt. I fail to pay. Praying for for- giveness shows that I acknowledge the debt and have tried to pay, but failed, and was defeated. This blundering life He forgives, but not until I have forgiven those who thus stand related to me. The English version of Matthew has a doxology at the close of the petitions, a very simple and very noble doxology. But as in a history of Jesus we can consider only his well-ascertained words, this addition must be rejected. Its absence from the Sinaitic, the Vatican, and the Beza Codices ought to settle the question that, however excellent it may be, it was not a part of the prayer which Jesus delivered to his disciples for their use, and to be the model of all prayer used by his followers in all times. To the absence 1 from the oldest Greek manuscript versions must be added the fact that the earliest Christian authors failed to comment on it. If we found in dissertations upon what is called Oratio Dominica, " The Lord's Prayer," the doxology expounded as part of the prayer, that fact would create a violent assumption that it existed in manuscripts older than any which have survived, older than the Codex Sinaiticus, which dates back to the fourth century. Or, if we had relied upon the Codex Vaticahus, which up to the discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus was our oldest, and then upon the discovery of this latter had found that it contained the doxology, THE SEEMON ON THE MOUNT. 293 it would have strengthened the conviction that it existed in the very first records made of the words of Jesus. But when none of these versions have it, and all the Latin Fathers fail to make mention of it, when expressly explaining the prayer, sound criti- cism compels ns to reject it. The question naturally occurs to a thoughtful reader, How, then, did it appear in the text of Matthew 1 It is manifestly liturgical. When liturgies sprang up in the Church it was added,* and then, when copies of the Gospels were made, it was easily transferred from the liturgy by the memory and habit of the copyist into the margin or directly into the text. Ambrose,! who was born in the middle of the fourth century, implies that the doxology was re- cited by the priest alone, after the people had recited " The Lord's Prayer." It is quite easy to see how this Epiphonema, as Ambrose calls it, should have come into the text. But the proof thus far is all against its being part of the original prayer. The Third Example is And when ye fast, be- come not as the hyp- ocrites, gloomy-faced ; for they darken their faces that they may be seen of men to be fast- ing. For verily I say FASTING. The teaching here is quite plain. Hypocrites — men playing a part for the purpose of securing the applause of men — make all of the part they can, look sad and worn, that men may praise their saintliness. And men do. They have their reward, and they exhaust it. They have none of that inner culture which comes of real self-denial, of abstinence from the usual en- joyments of life because the soul is afflicted with unto you, They exhaust -, j, ., n . n ^ , X /. their reward. But a pam by reason or. its departures trom (rod. lr a thou, fasting, anoint man choose such a culture and its great reward, he thy head and wash th y . • . i face, that thou be not must not put on the appearance or samtlmess. seen by men to be fast- Let him fast, if he find spiritual profit therein, ^ g , but to thy Father but let him last inwardly, making his usual toilet, thy Father who is in permitting no negligence to creep into his dress, 8ecret wiU reward thee " giving no sign to the world of that inward spiritual discipline which he is enduring. The modern Christian who makes all about him aware that it is Friday by his glumness or sanctimony is a Pharisee. The cultivation of character, not the flaunting of * It appears in its first form in Const. Apos., vii. 24, &ri . " For thine is the king- dom through the aeons. Amen." f De Sacrament. , vi. 5. 294 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LDTE OF JESUS. the insignia of religious ceremonial, is the great work Jesus set before his disciples. WARNINGS AGAINST COVETOTJSNE8S. Whenever the connection in this discourse seems to be broken, the clue is easily found by recollecting that the text is Character. The Teacher is insisting upon a man's being right Treasure not up for . yourselves treasures up- and strong and beautiful in his soul : that a man's on earth where moth g reatness a oes not consist in his circumstances and rust disfigure, and ° where thieves break but in his internal character : that a man may *:"?" h *ve only one imperishable and inalienable eeives treasure in hea- treasure, namely, himself — his character. Other rthl^dlsfi^ things go. This stays. Other things are earthly ; and where thieves do this is heavenly. not break through and -» r .. • j i • j i , t steal. For where is thy Moreover, a connection appears m this, that Je- treasure there is also S11S was setting a transparent character in con- trast with hypocrisy. The Pharisees were worldly- minded to the core, while all their external appearance was reli- gious. They were blowing trumpets before their alms, in the graphic description of Jesus, were making long prayers in market- places while devouring the substance of widows, and fasting osten- tatiously while heaping up treasures on earth. Having set forth the manner in which the prominent duties of religion ought to be discharged, the Teacher inculcates the entire consecration of the life, in the heart and soul of a man. It is to be marked how he adheres to one theme. It is not because all earthly possessions are liable to destruction from the wear and tear of time, or the force or fraud of men, nor for the safety of the possessions, that Jesus insists that all things shall be contrived into an investment in spiritual and eternal things, but for the effect upon the charac- ter, for the heart's sake ; for " where is thy treasure there is also thy heart ; " and for everlasting dignity and happiness the imper ishable affections must be fixed on imperishable things. AGAINST DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS. That his disciples might learn the importance of preserving clear-sightedness in spiritual things, he brings an illustration from ft bodily member, and this he does not scientifically, but, as always in such cases, popularly, as the people understood it. Sight is simple. A healthy eye is needed. An eye that sees THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 29a double is an evil eye, and utterly confusing. So, when the soul's eye begins to nicker, becoming uncontrollable, seeing double, commingling and confusing objects, it is a bad The lamp of the body time for the man who depends upon it. His light is the eye : M thine eye ° be clear, thy whole is darkness — the greatest darkness — worse than body shaii be bright: total blindness, to which a man may adapt him- but a thine eye be bad ' } m . . thy whole body shall be self. It is uncertain, unreliable, yet inducing the dark, if then the man to rely upon it because it seems to be right. bgbt tbat *! in tbee f «/ . JT o be darkness, how great If the light be darkness, how great the darkness ! the darkness 1 Jesus continues to dissuade his disciples from the double-mind- edness of the Pharisees by a second illustration, taken from social life. The word employed in Greek can be trans- ,,,,„,,, , , -, No man can be slave iated only by " slave, one who belongs to an- to two masters; for other. A hired servant may in some sense serve eitber he wiU bate ona v ■ t and love the other, or two men equally well, but a slave is a member of he win ciing to the a family. As a son cannot be son of two parents *™* an * rtespis ° J r the latter. Ye cannot at once, so a servant that belongs to a master is be slaves to God and devoted to his master utterly. His only comfort Mammon - is in undivided affection and service. So as to the claims of God and Mammon. You cannot serve both at the same time. The Pharisees have tried it and failed. They are kept from the full enjoyment of their gains by their religious pretences ; they lose the pleasure of undivided religious service by their base worldli- ness. A man must be single-hearted to be good, and great, and happy. Mammon seems merely to be a Chaldee word for " riches." There is no evidence that the Syrians, as has been as- serted, ever worshipped a god of that name. AGAINST EXCESSIVE ANXIETY. In this passage the Teacher enlarges the idea of single-mind- edness in a direction which excludes distracting care. He has been speaking of clear-sightedness : he now speaks of directness of A man's full powers are needed for each day's living. * In the common version it stands, *' either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other," the latter clause being merely a repetition of the former. But this certainly is not the meaning. Meyer expresses it : " He will either hate A and love B, or cling to A and de- spise B," which is certainly the sense, and such I have given it by using "former" and "latter" so that in both members of the sense the 6 eu shall refer to one person, and 6 irepos shall refer to another. Dean Alford sanctions this translation. 296 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. He cannot afford to have his forces scattered. Double-minded' ness does this. Loving God and hating Mammon, hating God on this account i say and loving Mammon, in perpetual alternation, is Unto vou, Be not exces- . -■ • r i L c\ i -i eiveiy anxious for your tne rum oi character, bo he proceeds very ear- inner man,* what ye nestly and eloquently to strip his disciples of the are to eat, nor for your .. _cn i i . it outer man, what ye are encumbrance o± all worldly cares, that they may to wear, is not the g[ xe themselves to the loftiest self -culture. soul more than food -pv -, , . T and the body than remaps almost no teaching 01 Jesus has been clothing? Look upon so variously understood and so wretchedly misin- the birds of the air, i • terpreted as this particular passage. It is quite necessary that we do it the justice to apply a lit- tle common sense to its interpretation. It certainly does not teach idleness, sloth, list- difference lessness, neglect of ordinary affairs, or any volun- tary impoverishment. It does not teach starvation and nakedness. It does not encourage the fanati- cism of sitting down and " letting the Lord take cubit ? t And about care of " a man. It teaches precisely the opposite ttrTrSiousf consid! of a11 tnese things. It teaches that a man is to er the lilies of the field how they grow : they neither toil nor spin: for they sow not, nor reap, nor gather into storehouses, and your heavenly Father feed- eth them. Do you not differ from them, and is not the much in your favor ? t But who of you by be- ing excessively anxious has the power to add to his life one single employ all his faculties and time in doing what his place in the kingdom of God plainly demands and i say unto you That f }^ m an( j satisfying whatever righteous claim not even Solomon in all ' , . ° . . , his giory was arrayed any one has upon him. On principle, and as the like one of these. pr i nc i pa i tiling-, the kingdom of God is to be Wherefore, if God thus r r ° ' & . clothe the grass of the sought, the rule of the law of God m the life, * The word may be translated ' ' life " or "soul." The soul's continuance in the body does depend upon food, and yet it seems somewhat harsh to translate the word by k ' soul " in this case, and bring it so abruptly close to food. As the outer man is in the connection named ,ua, so the inner man is named f This is a circumlocution, and yet I have not learned how to convey the sense of the original in closer English. The Greek is oi>x v/xeis uaWov Siacpepere avruu. The common version, ' ' Are ye not much better than they ? " conveys only part of the meaning. In the ver- sion above I think I have given the whole meaning. \ A cubit is two spans. In the com- mon version the translation is ' ' stat- ure." The word signifies either " age " or " height." The objection to the lat- ter is that Jesus is showing that they cannot do the least thing, and therefore it is useless to be anxious about the greatest ; but to add eighteen inches to any man's height were a very great thing, hence it is inappropriate here. Moreover, Jesus is talking of the life, and hence " age " is appropriate. Th< objection to this rendering is that span is a measure of space and not of time. In reply, life is often represented as a journey, and we have the common phrase, u length of life." SeeEs. xxxix. 5. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 297 the knowledge of that law, and perfect and ioyful field ' which ^-^ * . m , , •!• and to-nioiTOw is cast submission to it. I hat surely and necessarily m- into the oven, win he eludes the discharge of all duties towards God, not much more you < ^ & t 'of little faith ? towards our fellows, and towards ourselves. No Therefore do not be grander life than that has yet been conceived. over - an ™ s i ^y^ j? J m What shall we eat ? at But the drawback of most men is that they are whatshaiiwe drink? double, that they use their vision wanderingly, o^vhatshaiiwewear? » «/ o J ? For all these things looking upon spiritual things and temporal things the Pagans seek, foi as different and conflicting, and both desirable, ™*?££ZZ seeing much good in God and much good in of aii these things. Mammon ; and so remaining undecided, or mat- ™ s aom and^righ* ing slight efforts. Jesus teaches a concentration eousness, and an these /. 77 .7 ,7 . , /» ,7 . things shall be added oj aii trie powers on trie pursuits oj trie most ^ you# Tnere fore, precious thing, leaving the results to the heavenly do not be anxious about Father, and pledging the effectual co-operation row ^ n h ' ave its owu " of the heavenly Father to secure success. anxiety, sufficient for mi , . r. T . , , , the day is its own trou- lne teaching oi Jesus was intended to enable ble . men to attend better to their rightful business by relieving them of all carking and weakening cares. He con- trasts the man with his circumstances, his soul and body with his food and clothing. Did God make men and women merely that they might eat and dress ? If so, then you cannot be too careful for these things, and they should be chiefly sought. The body and soul were made for the garments and meats, in such a case. But if the food and raiment are merely to keep the body and soul together for the purpose of having a character wrought out, then, while that important process is being faithfully carried forward, the Almighty Father knows what his child needs and will not fail to furnish the supplies. The force and beauty of the two illustrations are worth some study. In them is contained an argument a fortiori : if God will do all this for birds and flowers, what may He not rationally be expected to do for His rational, sensitive children % Look first at the birds. They are merely birds ; they have no residence, they are " of the air," apparently thriftless but cheerful little vaga- bonds, holding no real estate, engaging in no agricultural or com- mercial pursuits, simply following their instincts, doing what God put them into the world to do. Inconsiderable as they seem, if God chose to create them He feels Himself charged to maintain them, and He does feed them. He is not their Father, He if 298 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. merely their Creator. But He is " your Father." Are you not more worth preserving than they ? Does not your Father discrim inate between His creatures and His children ? But what good comes of over-care? Has it ever increased your sagacity or your ability ? Has it ever added to your life so much as two spans ? Did any profit ever come to any man from excessive anxiety ? And as for clothing, its want of loftiest value is seen in the fact that God bestows it not on men, not on women, not on :ings and queens, but on the unconscious flowers. They have no intelligence and no address, and so God gives them dress as a special attractiveness; but withholds it from men and women, who have eyes and mouths for luminous and vocal expression, and so having this great capability of address they do not need that which is such pomp and glory to the flowers. If they desire it they cannot have it. Solomon, when gold and silver and precious stones, and ivory and all wealth poured in upon him, and when he exerted his ingenuity and employed his extensive commercial connections to render his person and his throne glorious, would in his summer walks, see himself out-splendored by the " crown- imperial " that grew upon his*|)athway, or all his magnificence eclipsed by the golden liliaceous flowers with which the " amaryl- lis " enriched the autumnal fields about his royal city ; * and he knew that he could never sit under canopy made by art which should equal the velvety softness of that gorgeous " lily of the valleys " which, with the rose of Sharon, he has immortalized in his " Song of Songs." \ Man's is a nobler glory than the glory of garments. He differs from birds and lilies, while he gathers lessons from them. He need not take these as exemplars: he is not only something different but something much better. And will not his heavenly Father care for him % The birds are of the air, the lilies are of the field, not cared for by man, are common property. Man is of the heavens. Field and air, lily and bird, will all pass away. Man and heaven will remain. Pagans find their greatest delight and glory in caring for their bodies. The followers of Jesus are to make their greatest work the culture of their souls. And then, so far from being sure to starve, and finding * The "crown-imperial" (fritillaria imperialis) grows wild in Palestine, and the amaryllis lutea, according to Sir J. E. Smith, covers the fields in the Levant. f See Song ii. 1, 2, 16. This was undoubtedly the H&leh lily, which Mr. Thomson so enthusiastically praises in The Land and the Booh, vol. i p. 394. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. the service of the king a failure and an impoverishment, Jesus pledges the heavenly Father to supply everything needful. A man may seek " all these things " and fail to find them ; but he that seeks, on principle, as the principal thing, the establishment of God's king- dom and the reign of the right, shall always have shelter and nour- ishment. These are the shell in which the kernel of character is to grow. AGAINST HARSH JUDGMENTS. By a natural transition of discourse, Jesus passed from the judgments we should pronounce upon ourselves to those we pro- nounce upon others. These words certainly cannot be reasonably taken to mean that we are to suspend the exercise of that admirable faculty with which God has endowed us, by which we com- Do not judge harsh . pare conduct and character with his own great iy, that you be not standard of morality. There are few more im- j£^ h i n ^J£ proving exercises than this, for the quickening of y e i ud ^ y e sna11 be n ., .*-,«. t,i • t c judged, and with what our own moral sensibility and the guidance of measure ye measure, ye our own lives. The Great Teacher condemns the sha11 be measured. And ,, ..,.,,.-, . .. why dost thou observe unlovely spirit with which many are wont to criti- the sp imter that is in cise the conduct of their fellows, to make the th ? brother,s eye, and _ 1 . . „ in . . dost not perceive the most unfavorable judgments 01 all their actions, beam that is in thine and to assign to bad motives actions that may iust own eye? 0r how ° J J dost thou say to thy as well be supposed to have sprung from motives brother, "Brother, let that are pure and noble. To "-judge" here me pnl1 the splinter 1 . from thine eye,' 1 and means neither the passing of just or of unjust behold a beam is in judgment, but the spirit with which this is done. ^^^rLfThe Men ought to be careful not to form judgments beam from thine own unnecessarily, nor carelessly, nor hastily. When ^Sl* to^^e duty and observance of the requirements of jus- splinter from thy broth- tice demand, then we may pass judgment. But even then not hastily and not harshly. The reason assigned is that we shall be judged with the judgment which we apply to others. God is judge. To judge one's fellow-men is to assume his prerogative. Our judgments will be reviewed by the Searcher of all hearts. The Great Teacher does not mean that if we are lenient to the faults of others God will therefore be lenient to ns — that if we lose the distinction of right and wrong towards our fellow-men, God will therefore obliterate that grand distinction in His own mind. But he does mean that our judgments of 300 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. others are to be the materials upon which man may, and God will, make up judgment in our own cases ; not that the only test of our characters will be the judgment we have of the character of others, but that it will be one of the surest of such tests. Our decisions are not final. They do not touch our fellow -men as that from which there is no appeal; but if they have been unjust and unne- cessarily severe they come back in condemnation on our own souls. And still there is this other reason : Severity of judgment has a tendency to make such judges hypocrites. A man will pretend to have kind motives, whereas no man who utters an unnecessarily severe judgment of his fellow-man can feel kindly towards him. The most ruinous things are said in society in the softest tones and surrounded by phrases of great com- passion. But it is all a pretence. " Poor fellow ! " "I am sorry it is so ! " But you do not pity him, and do not know that it is so. J bsiis presents a satirical picture of such a man. He describes h .m as going to a brother who has a splinter in his eye, and say- ii g tenderly, " Let me : I'll pull out the mote out of thine eye." B ut he is a hypocrite. There is a rafter in his own eye. He is f tolish. How can he with a log of wood in his own eye see how to perforin the surgical operation of extracting the splinter from his brother's eye ? And this shows the uselessness of all such judgments. If charity begins at home, so should judgment. Wash your own hands before you point out the soiled hands of your fellows. The Teacher guards against the opposite extreme of laxity. While we are to be careful not to pronounce any harsh judgment upon any man, we are to discriminate among men, Do not give the holy ^ J ' . . f . ' thing to dogs, nor cast or else we snail always be blundering m dealing your pearls before w ^ tnem# There are distinctions iii character. swine, lest they tram- ple them in their feet, Some men are like dogs for ferocious oppugnance andtorningmighttear ^ ^ ^^ ^^ ^ gwine f Qr fa^ i mpur j ty> To give them sacred and precious things were a sad mistake. In the East, the dog and the hog are the most despised of animals. Jesus, by this strong language, taught that absolute abandonment of moral distinction is a mental vice which stands over against uncharitable judgments. * Dickinson's translation is, " Give not that which is consecrated to the dogs, lest they turn and tear you ; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet," which probably is the sense, but the transla- tion given above follows the order of th« original text. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 301 AGAINST DOUBTING GOD. The connection seems to be this : He had urged freedom from excessive carefulness as necessary to dignity and strength of char- acter. That men may be free from earking care he directs them to go to their heavenly Father in Ask ' and ifc s * aU ** o «/ given you ; seek, and prayer, and gives the assurance that every truly ye shaii find; knock. persevering soul shall have success. He lays ^.Tol^ down as a universal proposition, that every true who asks receives, and t -v-m . who seeks finds, and to prayer is answered. When any man comes to him that knockB it God and sincerely prays that his sins may be 6haU be opened, or r . , t i , -i , • i what man is there ol forgiven, he may go away absolutely certain and yoUi whom his son ask . sure that his prayer has been answered, and that ed for b re ad? he wni ... „ at i i not give him a stone I his sins are forgiven. And so whatever the pe- or eV en asks for a fish t titioner needs God gives in answer to his prayer. he wiu not give him a s-, t, . P t i • j i . . serpent! If you, being God s gifts are good, and suited to the recipient. ev ii, know to give good ff a human father adapts his gifts to his child, giftsto your children - iiii! i by n ow much mora not ottering a stone when he should present bread, 8 haii your Father in the much more the good Father in the heavens, lifted heavens give good ° . . things to them that above all human infirmities, will give to all His ask him i ah things, children, if not what they ask, certainly what they th « efore > that y° a 7 J 7 J J wish men to do to you, need. His gifts would not be good if not adapted the same also do ye to to his children. J hem - /° r this J * he law and the prophets. There seems also this connection with what im- mediately precedes. You know what you would have your heav- enly Father do to your fellow-men. Do so to them, not judging harshly, not giving inappropriately. What you would have God do to you, that do to your neighbor ; for manifestly that is what you desire your neighbor to do to you. Our petitions to God are the expressions of our highest and best self-love. Thus this Teacher has shown that he taught nothing which was to invalidate the law and the prophets, but much that was to ful- fil them, and that the demands of the moral law are not met by a rigorous observance of the outward letter, but by the building up of a character in accordance with the spirit of the law. AGAINST THE BROAD WAY. As compared with an earnest culture of the character, the mere Pharisaic observance of outward Pharisaic rites is quite an easy thing. It is the broad road. The other is the narrow. It is not 302 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. you in sheep's clothing, , but from within they *or base purposes. of itself so difficult a thing that men may abandon the attempt to enter it. The fewness of those who do enter is not due so much Enter through the to its difficulty, wliich is admitted, as to the fact r~™ that so man J are dra ™ away into the broader roa "^ads away? one to destruction and the leads away into life, other to life, intimating that both roads are very and few are they who i t . -, i -, . , find it . l011 g? and carry the travellers thereon into scenes far removed from this present state of affairs, and therefore the choice of roads should be made with great care. The difficulties of cultivating character are enhanced by teach- ers of falsehood, who assume such manners of sanctity that they Beware of false pro- ma J deceive. " From within " such men are ra- phets, who come to pacious, and use even the office of teaching morals Jesus shows how constantly he keeps his great theme in view by his very them, do mode of describing false teachers, not by saying persons gather grapes what th fo ^ ut j^y describing what they are. from thorns, or figs *> J » ■ «/ from thistles? Thus Their actions spring from an inmost nature which is wolfish and selfish. And the same thing is set forth in his illustration drawn from trees and their fruit. The man who is not really good is like a tree which may be laden with artificial fruit, while it is absolutely unproductive or is ca- shouid produce beauti- p ame f producing only evil fruits. A man need fid fruits. Every tree - -i • i n to* r i • i • *»' i that does not produce have little Care for the fruitage 01 his hie, but beautiful fruit is hewn mugt ^q mQgt care f u l f or the Sap of lllS SOlll. The down and cast into the to i • t fire, so then, from sap being right the fruit will be right. Jesus their fruits ye shaii teaches that the laws of the intellectual and spi- know them. x ritual world are as settled and as regularly oper- ative as those of the physical world. Where there is a really good and beautiful life there must be a really good and beauti- ful soul ; and where a man's character is really bad, no repressive carefulness can keep back the bitter fruits of bad acts. In either case, for a season, intervening circumstances may prevent the ob- are ravening wolves From their fruits ye shall know every good tree pro- duces beautiful fruits, and every rotten tree produces evil fruits. It is not possible that a good tree should pro- duce evil fruits, nor that a rotten tree * The original is not fairly met by our English word " narrow," the Greek word being a passive participle, strictly meaning " squeezed," as Dr. J. A. Alex ander notices. i THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 303 server from seeing the connection, but it will somehow finally assert itself. Hence the necessity of being more careful to culti vate the character than to protect the reputation. AGAINST HYPOCRISY. And now he turns to those who were gathering about him, and instructs them that mere profession of attachment to his person, that even zeal for the great work which he had „ .. * o Not * every one who undertaken, that even the possession of power to says to me, "Lord, r ii j-i <_ • l •-it ,i Lord," shall enter into perform deeds that are miraculous, will not be tnekingdomofthe hea- sunicient to insure them a place in the kingdom vens ; but he that does which fills all the heavens, — the great moral and Fathering LavenY spiritual kingdom which he is now preaching, — but Man y shaU Fav to me ,...,, 1 ,. , in that day, "Lord, that it is absolutely necessary to establish a pro- Lordi have we not in found and lofty moral character, and that this can thv name poached, . . and in thy name ex- be done only by an inward conformity to the will pe iied many demons, of his heavenly Father. and hl th y* ame P er - d t formed many works of Tliat not only are professions comparatively power?" And then valueless, but that even the possession of singular gifts, such as excite the admiration of the world, will avail nothing in the absence of a true and high character, he teaches in a brief dramatic passage of almost fearful power. It is as if he had said : All time is not now. Days are coming after this day. To all hypo- crites and self -deceivers some day of exposure will come. They may plead against it. They may appeal to the eloquent sermons they have delivered in explanation or defence or enforcement of my doctrines ; they may appeal to the force that lay in them, which was sufficient to cast out the demons who had taken possession of men ; they may appeal to apparent miracles which they have per- formed in my name, and these appeals may be founded on facts which I will not deny. But this I will do, I will make such ex- posure of them as shall be the same as if in speech. I will tell them that I had never known them as being of my people and subjects will I profess t to them, "I never knew you." Separate yourselves from me, ye who aie working lawlessness. * The Greek ov Tra? 8 \eya>v . . . etae- XiVTtrai does not signify that every one who calls Jesus ' ' Lord ' ' shall be excluded from the kingdom which he was preach- ing ; but that calling him so does not of itself secure such admission. f The word in the Greek is striking. It means, as Alford points out, a state- ment of the simple truth of facts as op posed to the false coloring and self-de- ceit of the hypocrites. 304 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. of the heavenly kingdom ; that I always knew that they were not doing my Father's wilL Then, after that startling announcement, which was all the more terrible because the day was not designated, Jesus turned upon the crowd about him, and in substance said : " Seeing that this is the case, I charge every man whose life is a series of works done lawlessly, without regard to the law of the right, which is the will of my heavenly Father, to separate himself from me and my community. Whatever power to perform miracles he may seem to possess, I acknowledge no gifts and no professions. Char- acter is everything. Law is eternal. God is the law-maker. Those who obey Him follow me ; let others separate themselves." It must not be unnoticed that Jesus asserts that it is possible for one who does not conform to God's moral law to cast out demons and perform works of power and wonder, that is to say, miracles, or seem to do so. The performance of miracles, therefore, accord- ing to this teaching of Jesus, is no proof that the teacher who does them is true, or that his teachings are in accordance with truth. It follows that he did not lay his claim to the attention of the world upon the miracles which he performed. He claimed, as we shall see, through all his course, to be something higher than a miracle-worker, namely, to be a teacher of truth, and to be king over all other teachers and over all other men in that he taught the truth authoritatively. He claimed to have the right to say what the truth is, and declare it, not as a discovery made by his intellect, not as an inspiration from some spiritual force outside of himself, but as originally knowing it and authoritatively declar- ing it. He certainly conformed his subsequent teachings to these announcements in the Mount Sermon, in which we learn that a truth is greater than a miracle, and to obey God is better than to do marvellous works. conclusion: the safe foundation of character. This wonderful discourse terminates with a striking parable. A-s Jesus had begun with an enumeration of characteristics, he closes with a description of the trials of character, in which he contrasts the stability of one with the downfall of another. All goodness and safety lie in placing the life upon the truth and remaining there. Knowledge of truth is in no way helpful to a man if he do not obey the truth ; it rather makes his destruction PHE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 305 more appalling. The same kind of trial comes to those who are mere hearers oi truth and to those whose lives are conformed to it. To all outward appearance the characters x x Every one, then, who of the two men were the same, except as to foun- hears these words o/ dation. Both built. Both built residences, not ^^be^^atT^ mere sheds. The houses were the same. If both wise man, w\.o bum i, is house upon the rock : had been built upon the rock, both would have and down came th, * stood. It was not the materials or the architec- can^and th e e wmdl ture that was at fault. It was the foundation. If blew > and feU on that house, and it fell not ; the winds, the rains, and the freshets could have for it had been founded swept away the foundation of the first, his house ^^^hea^a^ would have fallen and its downfall have been words of mine, and does ■ . them not, shall be liken- great. If the sandy foundation or the second man e d to a foohsh man, had been able to resist the winds, the rains, and wh0 buUt his hou8e J ' upon the sand : and the freshets, his house was good and strong enough down came the shower, to have stood. But the stronger the timbers, and an * ^ flood f «""*' ° ' and the winds blew. the more thoroughly knitted and nailed together, and smote that house, the more prodigious the wreck and ruin when the ^^ and its far foundation subsided and the lofty and strong edifice collapsed. Men who pay no attention to the upbuilding of their characters may fall and attract little attention. Men who are most careful to build up their characters, and yet secure no foundation, have no security, whatever be the materials or the painstaking. This is the important and generally neglected thought to which Jesus calls attention. It is the collapse of character which is the most appalling catastrophe possible in the universe. This Discourse has been dwelt upon at length, because as Jesus came a Teacher of Truth his words are most important, and this is the longest report of his speeches made in any ° ± . x J The manner of Jesus. biographical memoir extant. It must be supposed to embrace the essence and spirit of the gospel he came to pro- mulgate. We have the recorded statements, the propositions ver- bally rendered, but there was something in the manner of Jesus that was extraordinary. There was a tone which made his hear eis feel that this was a man altogether superior to any other * The articles as used in the original show that all those things were familiar to the hearer ; that from personal obser- vations they knew the rock, the sand, the shower, the sudden swelling of riv- 2C ers into freshets, and the fierce winds. The word translated floods means rivers, but in this case it obviously means riven swollen into floods. 306 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVEB IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. " greatest man," because the latter was compelled to enforce his teaching either by an argument or by authority, by showing that what he said was true or by invoking the authority of the ancients. Jesus did no such thing. He announced the truth as a monarch announces an imperial edict : " I say unto you." The people were struck with astonishment. They had heard learned men. They had heard enthusiasts. They had heard the Scribes and John the Baptist. In the case of Jesus it was not learning. It was not eloquence. It was authority. He made them feel his royal pre- rogative. No other man had ever done so before. No man in modern times is known to have made anything like a respectable imitation of this marvellous -impression. We can see how dicta- torially the discourse is constructed. We must fancy the manner of him who spoke under the conviction that he had the right to declare what the truth is, and that of the finality of his announce- ments there was to be no discussion, and from his supreme deci- sions there could be no appeal. CHAPTER Y. IN CAPKKNATJM AND NAIN. Upon his return to Capernaum an incident occurred in the history of Jesus of very great importance. A Koman company of soldiery held the post in the town. The cen- , , , , n Matt. viii. 5-13 ; turion in command was a person remarkable tor Luke ^ 1-m Jesua his faith, his humility, and his large charity. heals the centurion's Having had Roman and perhaps Greek culture, he had so much respect for the Jewish religion that he had actu- ally erected a synagogue for the use of the Jewish residents. Such considerate liberality had won the regard of even the Jew- ish elders, who became interested in whatever concerned this centurion. His case presented a violent contrast with the relation usually existing between the hating, subjugated Jew and the scornful, ruling Roman. This officer had a slave between whom and himself existed a strong attachment, as is not unusual in countries where slavery has existed ; * a sentiment of tenderness which is wholly incomprehensible to those whose servants have always been hirelings. He loved his servant, and his servant was ill of some paralytic disease which gave him excruciating torture. The centurion had probably studied the character of Jesus, and the history of the great works he had already performed, and had the utmost confidence in his healing power. The Jewish elders, whatever may have been their prejudices against Jesus, entertained so high a regard for the centurion that they waited on Jesus and * In the original Greek the word is wcus, boy. The ancient Hebrew had, and the modern French has, the same idiom. In the Southern States of North America, before the abolition of slavery, the servant was often called "boy," although an adult and perhaps advanced in years. It was a euphemism, a soft- ening term. If the slave were a mar- ried man, he was usually called "un- cle." Domestic servants were generally tenderly treated, and the whole family thrown into mourning when they died. Even under the rougher form of Roman slavery, Cicero expresses the great grief he suffered on the occasion of a death of a favorite servant. 308 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LD7E OF JESUS. urged the exercise of his marvellous therapeutic faculty in behalf of the Homan slave. Jesus readily consented to accompany them. When the cen- turion learned that he was approaching the official residence, he sent his friends to Jesus with a message most The centurion's hu- -r-> , .-i.. -, . i j* n r mmty Koman, most military, and yet most full or. a beautiful humility and faith, containing the lof- tiest and the widest view of the character and power of Jesus which had as yet ever been uttered. He sent an expression of wor- shipful regard, and most humbly told Jesus that he did not feel himself worthy to have so illustrious a personage come under his roof, even as he had not felt himself worthy to approach the great Teacher, and had therefore accepted the kind mediation of the Jewish ecclesiastics. Moreover, he had such full faith in the transcendent power of Jesus that there could be no need that the great Healer should touch or even see his servant : he had but to speak the word. And he illustrated his idea by a military fact : he was a subaltern, under authority, with tribunes over him, and yet he was not compelled to be present at every place in person. And while he, as a soldier, was bound to obey his superior in office, he nevertheless commanded his slave, and that slave obeyed him as if he were the autocrat of the world. Now Jesus, in the spiritual realm, in command over the forces at work in the world, was more than centurion or tribune : he was Caesar, emperor, supreme commander. He had but to speak, and the hosts would obey him. The tender beauty and extraordinary grandeur of this faith aroused in Jesus sentiments of admiration. A Roman had so far overcome the power of prejudice as to believe Jesus admires him. x r -, that from the bosom of a broken and enslaved community might arise the great power of God. A soldier, an officer, representing imperialism, had, at the head of his command, come to believe in the superiority of spiritual power over mere brute force. Jesus turned to the crowd about him, and said, " Yerily I say to you, I have not found so much faith in Israel. And 1 say to you, That many shall come from the east and the west, and shall recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of the heavens, but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast into the darkness outside. There shall be wailing and grat ing of teeth " Here was the prediction of a great revolution IN CAPERNAUM AND NAIN. 309 presented in a picture. It is the picture of a happy family. The elders are seated or stretched on couches, the children reclin- ing in their presence, enjoying their society. But strangers from a great distance, never expected, come in to this delightful domes- tic banquet. That is wonderful. But there is something more: the children are cast violently into the darkness outside, where they give vent to their rage in wailing and in grating their teeth. This seems to be as much as if he had said, The spiritual blessings of God's kingdom, which is as wide as all the heavens, are uot to be confined to a close corporation on earth. From any distance any man may come, and if he have such faith as numbered Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob among the servants of the great King, he shall take his place : whereas those who rely upon a mere traditional right to the kingdom and its privileges shall be thrown outdoors into the night. It was a declaration of the spirituality and width of the kingdom of God, and was a great blow at sacer- dotalism and all churchism, a thing Jesus hated as a snare to human souls. He then justified the faith of the centurion by telling the mes- sengers to return and they should find it as their superior desired. Upon their return, they found that the servant 1 ii m The servant healed. had recovered in that same hour. This wonder- ful cure is something. It stopped pain. It gratified and rewarded the centurion. But it was a small thing as compared with the saying of Jesus in the utterance of a grand truth which is to help the struggling hearts of truly religious men through all the ages. A truth is greater than a miracle. What Jesus said in the Mount Sermon is much more valuable to the world than what Jesus did among the diseased, when he had descended from his lofty pulpit. But the latter have a historical connection and unity with the former. It was because of what was in him that Jesus spake and did his wonderful words and acts. Not far from Capernaum, a few miles to the south of Mount Tabor, on the north-west declivity of Little Hermon, commanding a wide view of the plain of Esdraelon and the northern hills, stands a village now called Nein, Nain e in the time of Jesus bearing the name of Nain. On the day after the healing of the centurion's servant, Jesua visited this place with his company of disciples, and a great crowd attracted by his recent miracle. As he entered the town he s*w 310 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN 1HE LIFE OF JESUS. a funeral procession. It was the Jewish custom that all who met such a procession should join it and add their lamentations to the tears of the mourners. This was a particularly touching case. The corpse was that of a man stricken down in his youth, being the only child of his mother, who was a widow. He was being carried in an open coffin. When Jesus saw the mother's sorrow, his heart was moved, lie stopped the bearers, and turning to the young man, he said, "I say unto thee, Arise." , And the dead sat up and began to speak. And Jesus "delivered him to his mother." Here was an open meeting between death and the forces of life which Jesus contained and directed. There was a crowd of spectators. There was no incantation. There Jesus raises the dead. x _^ . . ^^4.1,^ was no prayer. There was no invocation or the help of another. Out of himself, and by virtue of his own power and authority, Jesus said to a dead man, "/say, Arise." There was no gradual recovery. The dead was alive, sat up, and began to talk. It was the collision of life-force with the inertness of m CAPERNAUM AND NAIN. 311 death, and the former prevailed. All such collisions are awful, but here was the additional element of extraordinariness. Usually death conquered. Here life was the victor. Great fear fell upon the people. Jesus had at first been a teacher, then a physician ; now he is a great prophet. Never since the days of Elisha had such a miracle been performed. For nine centuries the power of resurrection had been in abeyance. Now it had come back among men. In tones of awe they said one to another, " God has visifcd His people," and the fame of Jesus spread through all the regions round about.* While Jesus was thus increasing in popular attractiveness, and enlarging his field of operations, his friend John lay pining in the castle of MachsernSjf into which he had been thrown by Herod Antipas, because of his bold ^ j^ n e £ *° s * n . denunciation of that tetrarch's crimes and public Luke ™- 18 - 35 ? Matt scandals. John had hailed Jesus as the " Coming One," the Anointed, the Deliverer. Sixteen months had passed since the inauguration of Jesus, and as yet John had not heard that he had begun to perforin such Messianic acts as the Jews looked for in the Deliverer. From a national blaze of reputation John had suddenly gone down into the gloom of a dungeon. The lion had been caged. This grand spirit that had walked the wilderness and the shores of Jordan, and had drawn vast crowds to hear his roaring eloquence, lay cankering in the silent solitude of a prison. Day and night, through months of winter and of spring he lay. Now and then notices of the doings of Jesus had * But the contrast between the pray- erful efforts of the prophets and the sublime authoritative call of Jesus must always be noticed. It is set forth in a passage in Massillon's sermon, Sur la Divinite de Jesus- Christ, which is worth quotation for its great eloquence, finer in the original than I can give in a trans- lation : l " Elias raised the dead, it is true, but he was obliged to throw him- self often on the corpse of the child he would resuscitate : he breathed hard, he drew himself together, he threw h imself about ; it is plain that he is in- voking a power outside himself (un puissance etrangere), that he is recall- ing from the empire of death a soul that is not submissive to his voice, and that he is not himself the master of death and of life. Jesus Christ raises the dead as he does the most common actions ; he speaks as a master to those who are slumbering in the eternal sleep ; it is quite apparent that he is the God of the dead as well as of the living, but always the most serene when he is per- forming the grandest deeds. " f Next to Jerusalem, the best forti fled place in the Holy Land. It was near the summer residence of Herod in Per®. 312 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LD7E OF JESUS. reached him. All that these seemed to show was the free and easy manner in which the new Teacher mingled with peoples of all kinds, rising apparently above all ecclesiastical and national prejudices, and setting himself and his disciples free from the eremitical restrictions which characterized the lives of John and his disciples. John's sonl was growing weak with waiting. He was beginning to doubt. Had he made a mistake ? If Jesns were the Deliverer, why did he delay the deliverance ? It was probably at this juncture that John heard of some of the mighty works of Jesus. This increased rather than diminished John hears of works his perplexity. It seemed unaccountable to John of Jesus. that more than a year before he should have pro- phetically seen signs of Messiahship in Jesus which appeared most unquestionable, and that now Jesus had begun to perform miracles that surpassed the deeds of even Elijah, and that still he declined to assert his Messiahship. He determined to seek a solution of the ♦ lifrlculty. Accordingly he sent two of his chosen disciples to Jesus. They found him surrounded by the populace. They ad- dressed to him publicly, in John's name, the question, "Art thou the Coming One, or do we look for another % " ~No more unfortunate question, as coming from John, could have been propounded to Jesus at this moment, and under these cir- john's message to cumstances. It said to the people that the man jesus, and his reply. wnom they had regarded as one of the greatest of the prophets, who had introduced Jesus to public life in a season of great excitement, now that he had time for cool reflection, had begun to doubt the mission of Jesus. It was a blow on the heart of Jesus from the hand of his best friend. It showed him what a melancholy effect was being produced upon the mind of John by his long and cruel imprisonment. The acts and words of Jesus on this occasion passed up into the sphere of the sublime. John must be saved. That was the first thing. In the presence of the embassy from John, Jesus relieved many of the infirmities of the people, opened the eyes of the blind, and cured demoniacs. Turning to the messengers he said in sub- stance, " Go to John, and tell him what you yourselves have seen and have heard from reliable witnesses. The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the men of humble souls have a jubilee, for they are hearing glad tidings. And happy is he who is not offended in me." IN CAPERNAUM AND NAIN. 313 That was the whole message to John. It implied more than it Said. Jesus did not wish to wound the imprisoned prophet as that friend had wounded him. He was grander than even the grand John. Instead of saying, " Woe to him who is offended in me," he puts it in the softer way, " Blessed he who is not offended." John knew what the prophets had indicated as true Messianic signs. He remembered the words of Isaiah in lxi. 1, 2, and xxxv 5, 6, and other prophetic utterances. If these met in Jesus, then Jesus was the Messiah, and, for any who believed that, it was a happy thing to wait his motions and not be striving to precipitate his announcements. . But there were the people hearing all these things. The repu- tation of his incarcerated friend was dear to Jesus. He saw at once that the people might begin to turn against Defence of John by John, and charge him with weakness in thus so Jesus - strangely modifying his own endorsement of Jesus. As soon therefore as John's disciples had departed — for he would not even seem to flatter his great friend — he recalled to the minds of his hearers the picture of John in the glory of his strength, in the height of his popularity, when he was crowding the Jordan with auditors and disciples. If they suspected John of being a vacil- lating weakling, it was doing him great injustice. He was no reed shaken in a wind. He was himself rather a storm that shook others. Nor was he a courter of public applause, a flatterer, or a sycophant. If he had been such he would have been found among the sumptuously dressed attendants on the court of Herod Antipas, instead of a prisoner wasting away in a dungeon because of his bold out-spokenness against the wrong. He was neither a reed shaken in the wind nor a delicate self-seeker. He was acknow- ledged as a prophet by those who heard his tremendous harangues at the Jordan. And Jesus asserted that John was more than an ordinary prophet, that he was as great as the greatest prophet, and that no greater man had ever been raised up by Providence for any work so great as that of John. With this generous eulogy he at once defended the reputation of his afflicted friend, and made his hearers to remember that the greatest men have their hours of weakness and distrust. But having so done justice to the character of John, he pro- ceeded to say, " Notwithstanding, he that is less in the kingdom of the heavens is greater than John." Here manifestly the speakej 314 SECOND AND THTKD PASSOVER IN THE LD7E OF JESUS. draws a distinction between the world which closed with John and the world which opened with himself. John had not become Relative estimate of a citizen of the kingdom of the heavens. Jesus John - is proclaiming that kingdom. John had not been set free. He was still held by formalisms, and still made much of baptisms and mortifications. He had not yet risen to regard the kingdom of God as a kingdom of the heavens, covering all parts of the universe and running through all the ages, of which our planet and the time of our generation make a very, very small part. Jesus came speaking the breadth of God's love and God's law. He came to preach those principles which rituals, and canons, and human forms of creeds and hierarchies cannot bind ; principles which survive all human institutions, all consecutive literatures and civilizations, and which vitalize them all. He that is less in position, or office, or native endowments than John, less in relation to this kingdom than John to the old theocracy, is, nevertheless, greater than John. He has gone into the temple on whose porch died all these greatest men who knew things only in their outwards. It is to be carefully noted that Jesus does not say that the crowds who waited upon his ministry are so superior ; that those who after him were to pervert the name of Christian and preach Church ism were so superior. Very far from that. That was pre- cisely the defect in the Jews generally, and in John specially. A modern churchman, of any sect, is precisely in the condition of the Israelite who depended upon his having Abraham to his father. He is a citizen of perhaps a snug little kingdom of the earth, but he is not a citizen of the broad kingdom of the heavens. He is depending upon what must perish if the world shall pass away, and not upon what will survive the measureless cycles of eternity. He that builds on churchism, builds on the sand : he that builds on the words of Jesus erects his edifice upon the rock. He that even measurably recognizes the kingdom of the heavens, and strives to live according to its wide, deep, ceaseless laws, is a greater man than the man who is greatest in a kingdom of cir- cumcisions, baptisms, and general decent ritualisms. That seems to be what Jesus taught. The law and the prophets, he proceeded to teach, did their work up to John's completion of his public ministry. Now, although that last and greatest of the prophets had retired from his actual IN CAPERNAUM AND NAIN. 315 labors, the spirit of his work lived. He had been a hei aid. He had aroused the people. He had announced a coming King and a coming kingdom. There was power in the announcement and in the rushing influences which had begun to break down ecclesi- astical barriers, and bring the world under the influence of this kingdom. John could not retract. He had excited a furore which should increase. From his days the kingdom of the heav- ens suffers violence ; people violently press into it; multitudes are eager to break the shell and reach the kernel ; multitudes are zeal- ously striving to rise into the higher life. John had come in the spirit and power of Elias to prepare the way of the Lord of the kingdom. All this explanation and defence was made to a fickle genera- tion. Jesus knew their* waywardness. He reflected upon the treatment received by John and by himself. To Both Johnand Jesas John's baptism the common people and the pub- re i ected - licans had come ; but the Pharisees and Doctors of the Sacred Law had rejected him, and the same leaders had rejected Jesus : and the two rejections were for opposite reasons. He seemed for a moment at a loss how to describe this capriciousness, and then selected an illustration from the petulance of whimsical chil- dren so often exhibited in their sports. He described a party of boys at play in a town square. One party endeavors to draw the others into their amusements. First there is a mock wedding, and a portion would not join in that ; then the leaders get up a mock funeral, but the same companions refuse to take part in that ; whereupon the leaders break forth into vociferous reproaches : " What kind of fellows are you ? We have tried to amuse you every way. We have fluted, and you would not dance : we have played funeral, and you would not beat your breasts. What will please you?" So John came, an ascetic, withdrawing himself from the ordinary conventionalities of life. He was most abste- mious, confining himself to a diet of locusts and wild honey. The Pharisees and the Doctors denounced him as one possessed of a demon. He mourned ; they did not lament. Jesus came, — the' Son of Man, as he calls himself in this passage, thus claiming the Messiahship,* — came eating and drinking as other men did, * The reader is again referred to Dan. vii. 13, where the phrase the "Son of Man " is used confessedly as a designa- tion of the Messiah. By applying it to himself Jesus obviously intended to>' claim Messianic functions and honors. 316 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER TN THE LIFE OF JESUS. having nothing singular in his habits. The Pharisees and the Doctors denounced him as a glutton and a wine-bibber, an associ- ate of tax-gatherers and vagabonds. He made music for them; they did not dance. Jesus closed this vivid invective by the irony of the saying, "And such is the justice which Wisdom receives at the hands of her professedly devoted children ! " Recalling the treatment which he had received from several towns in his beneficent mission, he breaks forth in words which show the depth of his grief and anger. " Woe to thee, Chorazin ! woe to thee, Bethsaida ! For if in Tyre and Sidon had been done the things of might which have been done in you, in old times, sitting down in bag-cloth and in ashes, they would have changed their minds and repented. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of separation than for you. And thou, Capernaum, why hast thou been exalted to heaven ? Thou shalt descend even l •) Hades ! " Denunciations. None of the three places thus denounced had any distinction beyond what they derived from the presence and works of Jesus, and they have all so passed away that the site of them is no longer definitely known. The Tyre and Sidon must he sup- posed to refer to the old Phoenician cities against which the prophets had hurled their predictions, and on the ruins of which IN CAPERNAUM AND NAIN. 317 stood modern towns of the same name. Capernaum had been selected as his residence when Jesus had been driven from Naza- reth. The lesson seems to be that the neglect of superior privi leges brings the greater destruction. Jesus employed phrases from the pagan mythology to convey this idea, " heaven " as contrasted with " hades " signifying a contrast between great height of privi- lege and great depth of doom. A few days afterwards a Pharisee invited Jesus to an enter- tainment at his house, probably in Capernaum,* thus paying with a small civility the healing of some small ailmentf by the kindness and power of Jesus. The recep- Dine U s vrtthTpharisee, tion of the great Teacher does not seem to have and te anointed by a been eminently cordial. Simon felt compelled to invite him, and was probably glad to have the interview short. He showed few civilities to his distinguished guest. Nevertheless Jesus found sufficient reason for accepting the invitation. While reclining, with his unsandalled feet stretched from the rear of the couch, after the manner of the ancients, a woman of the city, who was a notorious sinner, came behind him with a vase of perfumed ointment, weeping, and unostentatiously wetting his feet with her tears, and with most exquisite reverence wiping them with her beautiful hair. Her adoring tenderness made her feel that when that delicious ointment had touched the holy feet of Jesus it was sweeter than ever before, and she instinctively caught it back into her tresses. The Pharisee at length noticed this, and reasoned thus : " This man has a certain strange power with him ; but if he were a true prophet he would know what kind of woman Jesilsreads ^^ this is who pollutes him by touching him, would tnou s Qts - know that she is a prostitute." Jesus read his thoughts. This Teacher seems to have been the first of pure men who had for- giveness and pity for that sin which, in a woman, no one, forgives. Turning to his host, he said : " Simon, I have something to say to you." And Simon replied, " Teacher, say it." "A money-lender had two debtors. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. And when neither could pay he freely forgave them * Robinson and Meyer believe that it was Capernaum. f If Jesus had not conferred some favor upon him there had been no point in his comparison of those who love much, as the woman did, and those who love little, as the Pharisee did. 313 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN" THE LD7E OF JESUS. both. 'Now, which of them will love him most % " Simon, not seeing as yet the bearing of the question, replied, " I suppose he to whom he forgave most." " Quite right," said Jesus ; and turn- ing upon his elbow as he reclined, so that he could seethe woman, he said, *' Simon, look at her : I entered your house a bidden guest, yet you failed of the ordinary courtesy of furnishing water for my 'feet,* while this woman has washed my feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave me no warm salutation : she has caressed my feet with kisses. You poured not even ordinary oil upon my head : she has expended her precious ointment on my feet." This was most delicately pungent. The woman had entered the apartment in the crowd accompanying the Teacher. Simon did not take offence at this, because he knew that Jesus had all kinds of characters in his train. But when he saw what he considered the polluting touch, he won- dered and was scandalized. Jesus most delicately gave him to understand that this unbidden guest was now in a better moral condition than the giver of the entertainment. Her great sins had been forgiven her, or else she never would have been so grateful. Jesus had done more for her, whatever it was, than he had done for Simon, and therefore she loved much more. It was no longer a prostitute who bent over his feet, but a penitent. She lingered. She had been a great sinner. It required distinct as- surance to confirm her faith. Jesus said to her : " Your sins are forgiven you." Then those who were reclining at the dinner- table began to whisper among themselves in protest against his assumption of power to forgive sins. It was greater to forgive a sin than perform a miracle. But Jesus repeated it, " Your faith has saved you ; go in peace." Who this woman was is not known. There is not the slightest intimation. By a most unhappy mistake Mary of Magdala, called This womanaiot Mary in our common version Mary Magdalene, has been of Magdaia. confounded with this woman, f This mistake has been perpetuated in painting and in sculpture, and is counte- nanced by the caption to the chapter of St. Luke in the English * Which was necessary in a country where men walked over dusty roads without shoes. f The anointing took place in Nain or Capernaum, of one of which cities this penitent sinner probably was a na- tive or an inhabitant ; but Mary was oi Magdala. IN CAPERNAUM AND NAIN. 319 version. But there is nothing whatever on record in the history to give the slightest coloring to this supposition. It is doing as much injustice to the truth of history as to suppose that the Vir- gin Mary was this sinner. The name of this penitent sinner is strictly withheld. There is nothing in the history of Mary of Magdala to justify this aspersion of her fair fame ; on the con- trary, we shall see how she came into greatest intimacy with the purest followers of Jesus, devoted herself to him, and came to be controlled by a powerful yet pure passion for Jesus, — the Yirgin Mary and the Magdalan Mary being his most devoted friends, and this latter Mary loving him quite as warmly as the Blessed Yirgin, but with an ardor which certainly was not mother-love. KCTNS AT TELL HUM. CAPEBNAOTf, CHAPTEE VI. THE SECOND TOUR OF GALILEE AND RETURN TO CAPERNAUM. Immediately after this, Jesus began another circuit of preach- ing and miracle-working, going from village to village and from Luke via. 1-3. Ac- city to city, preaching the happy news of God's companied by women, kingdom. On this tour he was accompanied by his twelve chosen Apostles, and by many women whom he had cured of evil spirits and other infirmities. This companionship with Jesus was not out of the usual order of things, since it was customary for women of means, especially for widows, to con- tribute of their substance to the support of rabbis whom they reverenced.* Three are mentioned as being in this company, namely, Mary called Magdalene, and Joanna, and Susanna. The first of these so devoted herself to Jesus that she became his chief friend among women, and it may be worth while to make a sum- mary of what we can learn concerning her. In the first place, it should be repeated that there does not ap- pear the slightest reason for believing that she had been an extra- ordinary bad woman, particularly that she was a prostitute, but quite the contrary. Here is one of those unhappy cases in his- tory in which some misapprehension has occurred which has suc- ceeded in branding a name with an undeserved infamy and perpetuating it through generations. Let us see what is said about her. El-Mejdel is the name of a "miserable little Muslim village," as Robinson calls it, which is most probably the representative of the town on the western shore of the lake of Gennesaret, known as Magadan in the days of Jusus, and so called in the chief MSS., although in the author- ized English version, and in the usually received Greek text of Matthew (xv. 39) it is written Magdala.f It was one of the many * See Jerome on 1 Cor. ix. 5. I embrace every point worth notice. f Prof. Stanley's description seems to | u Of all the numerous towns and vil- THE SECOND TOTJE OF GALILEE. 321 Mary Magdalene. Migdofa (^watch-towers) which existed in Palestine. The unfortu- nate identification of the saintly and loving friend of Jesus with the sinner who bathed the feet of Jesus with her tears, has made Magdala, this Mary's birthplace, familiar to all modern languages. She comes before us first in this passage in St. Luke, associated with women of great respectability. These ladies were Joaima and Susanna. The former was the wife of Chuza, the steward of Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee. It is not to be supposed that this lady of the court would associate herself with a " woman of the city," a street- walker, a prostitute, or probably eveu with one who had had that reputation. Moreover, the fact that Mary was engaged Avith these ladies in ministering to the personal wants of Jesus, shows that she, as well as each of the others, had means at her own disposal. She was not a woman of the lower ranks, in point either of prop erty or of reputation. In this passage, and in Mark xvi. 9, the fact is stated that out of her Jesus had cast seven devils. Modern thought has been accustomed to associate demoniac possession with . „ . Her "seven devils. w the idea 01 bad moral character in the pos- sessed, which, however, is a very great error. Children, women of good repute, people in any class of society, had been liable to this terrible disease. It is a very proper remark, therefore, that we must think of her " as having had, in their most aggravated forms, some of the phenomena of mental and spiritual disease which we meet with in other demoniacs, the wretchedness of de- spair, the divided consciousness, the preternatural phrensy, the long-continued fits of silence." Her case had been so marked and painful that the contrast it afforded with the serenity of her condition after the great Healer had restored her, made such an impression upon those who were familiar with the circle of Jesus, lages in what must have been the most thickly peopled district of Palestine, one only remains. A. collection of a few hovels stands at the south-east cor- ner of the plain of G-ennesaret, its name hardly altered from the ancient Magdala or Migdol, so called probably from a watch-tower, of which ruins ap- pear to remain, that guarded the en- 21 trance to the plain. A large solitary thorn-tree stands beside it. The situa- tion, otherwise unmarked, is dignified by the high limestone rock which over- hangs it on the south-west, perforated with caves, recalling, by a curious though doubtless unintentional coinci- dence, the scene of Correggio's cele- brated picture." ^22 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. and who afterwards chronicled their movements, that repeated mention is made of the fact. It seems probable from the whole history that other women came and went, and did for Jesus all their love prompted and their means allowed, but Mary Magdalene never Her devotion to Jesus. _ ^ forsook him. Joanna and Susanna were not with him in his last moments. Mary Magdalene was. She was then accompanied by the wife of Alphseus and the wife of Zebedee. She remained even after Mary, the mother of Jesus, had left the sight of horror.* Her love never faltered. The other women stood afar off. She stood close to the cross, where she heard all his last words and groans. She endured the sight of the death of him whom her heart adored. She was present, perhaps ten- derly aiding, when the body was taken down and when it was wrapped in fine linen, and probably assisted in depositing it in the sepulchre, and then, with her friend Mary the mother of Joses, she sat down over against the sepulchre. All her attentions were such as the daintiest love gives to the most honorable and dearly beloved. She had regarded him as a man ; but as the holiest, most gifted, most charming of all the sons of men. She saw him buried, and had no hope, nor even thought, of his re- surrection. She wrapped her heart up with her lord in the linen cloth they wound about the precious limbs. The next day was a sorrowful Sabbath, and on the morning following she went to the sepulchre and found it empty. She saw angels there : but one Jesus was to her worth more than a thousand angels. She flew with anguish to Peter and John, and ran back with them to the sepulchre, crying, " They have taken away my lord, and I know not where they have laid him." And then she sank down almost to the verge of that horrible pit of mental disease from which she had * From reading all the accounts in the four historians, it would seem that there was a crowd of women sorrow- fully present at the execution, but all "standing- afar off." Some sign from Jesus, or the promptings of nature, sent his mother Mary, and his aunt, and his friend Mary Magdalene, and his disciple John up near the cross. When Jesus had committed his mother to this disci- ple, the latter drew her away to the city. The aunt seems to have accom- panied the mother," so that only Mary Magdalene was present. Mary the mother of Jesus joined her, probably coming up from the crowd which stood at a distance, and sat down with her be- side the sepulchre. But the whole story puts Mary Magdalene forward. This much of the history we have been com- pelled to anticipate to make clear the case of Mary of Magdala, the sweet and suffering saint. THE SECOND TOUR OF GALILEE. 323 been lifted. When Jesus came she did not perceive that it was he. He spoke. He said " Mary." Probably it was the one tone in which he had always spoken to her. It thrilled her back to widest consciousness, and she rushed forward to clasp his feet. Can there be anything more beautiful than this ? Every great man — great in purity as well as power — has some special, honored friend among women, which friend is not his kins- The relation of Jesus woman. Such Jesus had, and that nearest and tolier - dearest friend was Mary called Magdalene. It was not fitting that he should marry. His mission was too awful. He was to stand in sublime solitariness. He had no earthly father ; he was never to have bodily descendant. But he had a human heart, and must have had craving for human love. He was the incarnation of goodness, and had no fierce words of denunciation for fallen women, whom he raised as well as forgave ; but his whole record is so spotless that it shocks us to think that such a being could have found his best beloved friend in a former prostitute, and that she who had been so morally degraded could have had more than any other woman the fineness of soul to have been able to appre- ciate Jesus and to attach herself to such a man with such adherent love. She was a beautiful character. She had been a great suf- ferer. Jesus had healed her. She was all the finer for what she had endured. She was the watchful attendant of his footsteps. Hers were probably the last human eyes into which the dying eyes of Jesus looked, and hers the first human eyes he is repre- sented to have shown himself unto when he came back from the o^rave. This is all that is told. It is most exquisite. The utmost delicacy is here. It is the sweetness, not the words of the narrative, which betrays the holy love. And after that last interview in which Jesus The most beautiful showed her how her mortal affection must be lifted of loves - into religious worship, there is nothing more said of Mary. And then history takes this beautifullest love of all the world and mars it, and blotches her name, and associates her with all the fallen of her sex. It is to us one of the most awful problems of human biography. Hers was a bitterly beautiful lot. She had suffered. She had recovered. She loved her healer. She never could be asked to cross a certain line. But there she was met, more than any other woman, by the confidence and affection of the most ex- ceptional of all marvellously fine characters. He died looking at 324 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. her. He rose and showed himself first to her. If she lived to be a century old, she had such a memory as never has been vouch- safed to any other woman. In her real life she was lifted to a heaven of love ; in history she has been cast down to a hell of infamy. Let her be restored. The truth does restore her. Th6 Friend of Jesus was a blessed saint. When Jesus and his party returned to Capernaum, so great was his farue that crowds assembled about the dwelling and pressed Capernaum Mark tflem so m uch that they could not even eat bread. m. 19-35 ; Matt. xii. His mother and brothers, learning how he was ex- 22-50 ; Luke xi. 14-54. -• i • • in -, -, ,-, -. ertmg nimseli, and how the crowds were pressing him, said, " He is beside himself," and went to restrain him from such excessive labors. Although they did not believe in his doc- trines, they loved his person and had tender care of him. But the multitude blocked the entrance. Meanwhile there had been brought him one possessed of a demon,* and at once blind and dumb. It was certainly the most The blind and dumb exactiug demand upon power to heal this com- demoniac. plication of mental and physical disease. If the objective theory of demoniacal possession be held, then some evil spirit had found in this human soul an organ it could use, and in malignity had deprived the victim of sight and speech. On the subjective theory, the psychical ailment had struck out and had bedumbed and blinded the patient. In either view Lange has graphically described the case, in his Leben Jesu, when he says : " Shut up in this most shocking manner did this being come before Jesus, like a dark riddle of hellish restraint and human despair." The simple statement of the historian is, "And he healed him, insomuch that the blind and the dumb both spake and saw." This was a culminating marvel. It was a manifold miracle. It showed the power of Jesus over nature and super- nature. It threw the populace into an ecstasy. They hailed Jesus with Messianic salutations. They cried out, " Is not this the Son of David?" At this time there had come down from Jerusalem to Caper- naum delegations from the Scribes and Pharisees, engaged in the * It cannot be necessary to go into the question of demoniacal possession every time an incident of this species of ail- ment appears. The reader is referred to the ample discussion given this sub« ject on p. 172. THE SECOND TOTJK OF GALILEE. 325 work of laying snares for Jesus that they might with impunity put him out of the way. Affairs had now reached a climax. He had raised the son of the widow of Nam ; he Pharisaic conspirators. had made a circuit through Galilee, increasing his train and his fame ; and he had returned to find the people re- garding him with greater reverence and wonder than before ; and he had cured the " possessed " man, opening his eyes and ears and restoring him to mental sanity. He had thus aroused the popu- lar enthusiasm to a degree that they were ready to crown him king and accept him as the Messiah. As he would not rank himself with the ruling class, but had set his influence directly against their authority, the hour had come when something must be said. The unfortunate expression which the other sons of Mary had used in kindly meaning toward Jesus, namely, " He is beside him- self," was probably suggested, if not it was seized, They charge that by the hierarchic party and employed against him. Jesns has a va, for an age, during the seon, but in the common version, "while the world standeth," which seems to me a good translation ; but a better rendering would be, " as long as I live," as Paul simply meant to make a strong assertion in regard to his total abstinence from meat, not in eternity but in his lifetime. We find in Eph. hi. 9, and in Col. i. 26, the phrase, a-nh r&v al&pwv, and in Romans xvi. 25, xP nl/0 ^ olcxjitois. The common version renders the first passage "from the beginning of the world ;" the second, "from ages ;" and the third, ' ' since the world began ; " but the phrase in the first two instances is the same in the original, and strictly translated means, " from the ages," and the third signifies "through age-long times." These ci- tations are made that the reader may see that the signification of the word is limited by its connections. The Hebrew word which the Septuagint translates by these Greek words, is one applied to many things which have passed away, such as the Jewish priesthood, the time for which a person whose ears had been THE SECOND TOUR OF GALILEE. 329 striking characteristics of the teaching of Jesns is the absence of all metaphysical terms. Thus he has no word for eternity, or eternal, nor apparently any phrase to convey the idea of never- beginningness and never-endingness. Whatever he speaks of is mentioned as if its duration were connected with an seon, or the seons, an age, or the ages. So here, " in this seon, or age," may mean the age before the establishment of the Messianic king- dom, and the " seon, or age to come" may mean the Messianic age ; or the former may mean the duration of the human race, or any part of them, on the earth, and the latter the duration of the human race, or any part of them, elsewhere and hereafter. Or the whole phrase may be taken hyperbolically, to give the utmost strength to the expression ; or it may be taken literally. If liter- ally, whatever may be the interpretation given to the special phrases, the statement must have meant, to any intelligent and attentive hearer, that it was possible to commit a sin, from the direful and spiritually ruinous results of which there could never be any escape. But if taken literally, and " the age to come " be understood to mean the state of human existence beyond the grave, then the words also imply that there are sins and blasphe- mies that may be forgiven after death ; nay, that every kind may be forgiven except blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. No less a person than Augustine * does actually mafee that inference, and the Roman Catholic Church teaches it for a dogma. " Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree rotten and its fruit rotten : for the tree is known by its fruits." This was the proposition with which iii i -i • • t • i "^kc tree and its fruits. Jesus closed the reply to his enemies, it is the announcement of a well-known fact in nature, that the outer is a representative of the inner. Good fruits come only from good bored might be held in slavery, the doors of the temple, landmarks, waste places, etc. The Aramaic word which Jesus used in his discourses was doubt- less the best possible representative of the Hebrew and Greek words employed in the Hebrew Bible, and in the Greek translation of the Evangelists, and there- fore subject to the same interpretations as those words. * He says, in a passage of which the following is a literal translation, "As in the resurrection of the dead there will be some who, after the punishment which the spirits of the dead suffer, will receive mercy, so that they will not be cast into everlasting fire. For it could not with truth be said of some that their sins would not be forgiven in this world, or in that which is to come, un- less there were others who would be forgiven in the world to come, though not in this world." I think the phrase is not to be taken literally. 330 SECOND AND THERD PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. trees, and bad fruits from bad trees. He probably designed this statement to tell both ways. As if he had said, So far as I am concerned, take all my life that men can see. Does that look as though it were the product of a bad soul ? So far as you are con- cerned, the fact that you speak such vile things should alarm you as to your real character. And then he broke upon them with language of great severity. " Offspring of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things % For the mouth utters the overflowings of the Severe words. , ° heart. A good man throws good things out of the good treasure, and an evil man throws evil things out of the evil treasury. But I say unto you, That every idle word men speak they shall render an account thereof in the day of separation. For from thy words thou shalt be declared right, and from (thy) words thou shalt be condemned." This is a broad and deep say- ing for one whose whole teaching seems to dwell upon character and its proper cultivation. Commentators have generally endeav- ored to explain it away. But the truth lies open on the plain surface of the statement, if it be only considered that a man's words invariably show his real character ; not a word here and there, detached speeches, but the whole body of all his utterances, all his words spoken through all his life. Speech is the overflow of the heart. A man's heart is full of that kind of thing which drops from his tongue and pen. It is utterly impracticable for any man to misrepresent himself in the whole body of his speech. It is the forgetf ulness of this which allowed one of the most sagacious of commentators * to say that such a criterion " would be absurd, and put it in the power of any man to settle his own destiny by sheer talking or profession." Not at all. Suppose a bad man, intending thus to settle his destiny, should utter, from day to day even, words which in themselves are good, but with the intent to deceive his fellow-men as to his real character. Those words are then bad. Men might be deceived ; but the Judge knows his heart, and knowing that he uttered hypocritical words, from those very words he shall be condemned as a hypo- crite. Even idle words, words that carry no meaning and go on no mission, come out of a meaningless and empty soul and con- demn the man as worthless. Or, if the word be one of wanton thoughtless calumny the utterer shall not escape condemnation. * Dr. Joseph Addison Alexander. THE SECOND TOUR OF GALILEE. 331 Jesus had commenced to act so vigorously on the offensive that the hierarchic clique felt compelled to make some movement which should divert the force of his vigorous # A sign demanded. blows. The crowd was increasing and growing excited. It was known that the wonder-loving multitude looked for displays of miracles on the part of the Messiah when he should come. So their leader said, " Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you." That is, a sign showing yourself the Messiah. He replied, " A wicked and idolatrous* generation seeks a sign! No sign shall be given it but the sign of Jonah the prophet : for as Jonah was three days and three nights f in the belly of the great fish,J thus shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights." He charged them that they had gone into heathenism ; that they were Avorshippers of signs and wonders. This „,. .. , , , , -, , ,. The sign of Jonah evil disposition should not be nurtured by anything he should do. The Messianic signs should come in their seasons, * The word here used signifies " adul- terous" when applied as usual, but when employed to signify things spirit- ual it means ' ' idolatrous. ' ' There would have been no point in the application of the former epithet to the Jews. But they were familiar with the idea of the Lord God being the husband of His people, and with the application of the words " adultery " and " whoredom " to idolatry, which was represented as com- ing from an unclean love. This proper translation of the word has the advan- tage of affording a key to the connec- tion of this discourse. Jesus charged them with being idolaters, heathen, because they worshipped visible things, such as signs. This suggested his two illustrations drawn from heathen na- tions, Ninevites and Arabians (or per- haps Abyssinians). f That is, by the Jewish reckoning. In the Talm. Hieros. it is written : " Day and night make together a space of time, and apart of it is as the wlwW That "space of time" is called in He- brew fijiy, which literally means an evening -morning . The Septuagint trans- lation gives yvxdri,u.epov as the equivalent. See Daniel viii. 14, and the same word used by Paul in 2 Cor. xi. 25, and trans- lated in the common version " a night and a day." From Monday afternoon to Wednesday morning would be repre- sented as three of these spaces of time, three wx^^P -, three evening-mornings, three nights and days. Olshausen makes the following fine remark: li The accu- racy of Scripture never degenerates into minute and anxious precision. Like nature, it combines regularity with free- dom ; and hence it affords scope to lib- erty, and states and fulfils all prophecies in such a manner that they may either be believed or contradicted. The Holy Scriptures would altogether miss their aim if, by mathematical precision and strictness, they should compel belief." | In the Mediterranean Sea there is found to this day a shark, the squalus carcharias, called also lamia, sometimes as long as sixty feet. Lange says that Hubner relates the instance of a sailoi who was swallowed by a shark and yet preserved. 332 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. but sh )uld not be advanced to gratify a mere curiosity. Jonah was a type of the Messiah. His wonderful adventure shall be paralleled in the history of the Son of Man. What he meant must have been wholly unintelligible to all his hearers, learned and illiterate. Not one of his disciples understood it to intimate a resurrection from the dead. It was a perplexing answer. The mention of their idolatrous tendency, and of Nineveh, led him to say that Mnevite men, heathens, who were despised by The Nmevites and the supercilious Jews, should rise in judgment theQueenoftheSouth. ( or separation) against the men of the generation of Jesus, and condemn them ; that whenever any moral discrim- inations should be made, the men among the heathen who repented when such a man as Jonah warned them shall be considered bet- ter than the Jewish churchmen who heard Jesus, a greater than Jonah, and rejected him. He added another illustration. A Queen came from the South* to hear the wisdom of Solomon. She was " from the ends of the earth," from the people who were most removed from the true religion. Without invitation, against frightful risks, a woman was so moved with a desire to be in- structed in religion t that she made the long, painful, and peril- ous journey from barbaric regions to Jerusalem. Whenever a discrimination or judgment is made on moral grounds, she shall be declared better than the people of the Jewish church, who, pro- fessing to desire to know the truth, reject a teacher who had per- formed greater deeds and spoken greater words than Solomon ever did, and whom following generations would pronounce a man superior to great David's splendid son. He closed his address with a description of the condition of the Jewish nation, contained in a parable founded upon their notions in regard to demoniacal possession. This peroration cannot probably be rendered better than in the paraphrase by Professor Strong: "According to your The peroration. * From the southern portion of the Arabian peninsula, or from the Cushite kingdom of Seba in Ethiopia. Jose- phus {Ant., viii. 5, 5) says the latter. The Ethiopian (or Abyssian) church has a tradition to the same effect. It is not at all material to the argument of Jesus. He was contrasting the conduct of heathens with that of toe churchmen of his day, to the disparagement of the latw ter. f It is merely fair to attribute this motive to her, since the history which records her visit says, " When the Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, concerning the name of Jehovah, she came," etc. 1 Kings x. 1. THE SECOND TOUR OF GALILEE. 333 owr belief, a foul fiend, upon his expulsion from the possessed, rauges disconsolate through some barren region, in ipiest of relief from the anguish of guilt that torments him, by a shelter in some human tenement ; and to save your credit, upon the relapse of a demoniac whom you profess to have rendered sane, you say of the exorcised demon in such a case that, being unsuccessful in the search, he resolves to return to his late victim, and take up his quarters there. Be that as it may, such a fiend, if at his return he find that former abode untenanted by any better occupant, but swept clean and put in order as if for his reception ; he will then assuredly go forth to the general rendezvous of his comrades, and associate with him perhaps seven other demons, worse, it may be, than himself, for the secure possession of such an inviting resi- dence, and these all repairing thither will enter and permanently occupy that mansion. In the state of him whose mind is the theatre of such an occupancy, ' the latter evil is greater than the former.' Precisely such will become the condition of the aban- doned race who now hear me ; the incipient conviction forced upon them by my previous preaching and miracles, by being re- sisted, will but increase their guilty obduracy, which not even the required miracle would remove." As he spoke these words a woman in the crowd, an enthusias- tic admirer of the young Rabbi, broke out into the exclamation, " Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the breasts which thou hast sucked ! " He answered men t. WOman8 C ° mP this womanly but commonplace compliment by correcting her low ideas. " Rather are they blessed who hear and keep the word of God." As if he had said, " Even Mary's blessedness does not lie in the historic fact that I became son of her flesh, but that she was so humble and faithful a keeper of the word of God as to be selected to be my mother." Biographical circumstances are so little when compared with real loftiness of character ! All this while the mother and brothers of Jesus were outside the door, and could not reach him for the press, but sent word in to him. They had heard, and perhaps partly be- J 7 l r i «/ Mary and tier sons. lieved, the slanders of the Pharisees. Even Mary's moment of weakness was upon her. She feared. She did not know into what the effect of his excessive labors may have be- trayed him. But he was her son. When the message came to 334 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER TN THE LDJE OF JESUS. him through the crowd, he said : " Who is my mother ? Who are my brethren \ " And then, looking upon the multitude about him, and more particularly upon the disciples who were clinging more and more closely to him, and striving more and more to comprehend him, he said : " Behold my mother and my brothers ! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother ! " The first sentence seems a sharp rebuke to the weakness of Mary and the infidelity of her other sons in regard to this her greatest son and their glorious brother. The second takes them back into loving arms, if they will also have spiritual relationship with him. The whole sets forth a great advance in the teaching of Jesus. It is to be noticed that he claims more and more. He is looking widely through human- ity and into the future. He is caring less for fleshly ties. His love is founded on a principle. Whoever lovingly obeys God is a Mary that hath borne Jesus in the heart. Whoever lovingly obeys God is his brother: the same spirit animates both. If his mother do not obey God, Jesus is ready to disown the relationship. If the poorest woman in the world — such as the poor barbarian woman in Africa who gave water to Mungo Park, and sang lulla- bies to him in his sickness and solitude — shall only lovingly obey God, Jesus is ready to recognize her as sister or mother. It is a sublimely wide and deep saying ! While Jesus was making these speeches, one of the Pharisaic party, seeing the defeat they were suffering, invited Jesus to a Eats with a Pharisee, luncheon at his house, apparently that he might and denounces Phari- break up this public discussion and take from Jesus the support of the popular presence and approval, and surround him in private by his deadly enemies. Jesus accepted the invitation. Doubtless the Pharisee thought that this was done in rustic simplicity by an unsophisticated man. But Jesus saw the whole manoeuvre. He went into the house and sat down at the table, omitting the ceremonial washing of hands. He was surrounded by Pharisees, who were Separatists, Purists, Puritans, as their name implies. These well-washed gentlemen, with nicely pared finger-nails, in all things fastidiously neat, exchanged glances of wonder that he did not wash his hands. He saw it. He knew what it meant. He had been invited into a net. He was going to break its meshes. Just then a servant may have wiped the plates and cups with a clean napkin, to remove any THE SECOND TOTJB OF GALILEE. 335 little dust that may have settled on the dishes. Jesus took the occasion to reply in words to the accusations they were making by glances. " You Pharisees are now as faultless in your out- ward behavior as these dishes are clean of every kind of dirt ; but your hearts are full of extortion and wickedness. Thought- less men, he that makes clean that which is without, does not necessarily clean that which is within also ? But you give alms, and then say, All things are clean ! * But woe to you, Pharisees ! you are so careful in your tithes that you give a tenth of even your mint and rue and every herb,f and omit righteousness and the love of God : these are absolutely necessary, while your scru- pulousness in other things should not be omitted. Woe to you, Pharisees ! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and the greetings in the markets. "Woe to you ! for ye are as hidden graves which men do not see, and so walk over them and are ceremonially denied." Amongst those present was a " lawyer." When that name is mentioned we are not to suppose that the person occupied the same position in society as our modern lawyers. The lawyer in this case was rather a professor or doctor of divinity. He was an authority in sacred law. This person, perhaps feeling pinched by the statement about the punc- tilious tithing of the smallest products of the garden, a question the decision of which came before the lawyers, pertly addressed Jesus with the remark, u Teacher, saying these things thou insuhV est us also." Then Jesus broke upoik him: "And to you, professors of the moral law, woe ! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be A "lawyer.* * This seems to me to be the mean- ing of Jesus, an interpretation held by Erasmus, Lightfoot, Kuinoel, Schleier- macher, the devout Stier, and others ; but opposed by Dean Alford, who has five reasons against the correctness of this rendering, one of which is a strong reason for the interpretation here given, three are grammatical, one of which is not pertinent when we regard this as a dramatic sketch, and another begs the question. This fifth reason is, that this makes Jesus cast a slur upon almsgiving, which is a mistake ; perhaps he slurs such almsgiving as the Pharisees made, but he is not speaking of the giving oil alms, but of substituting outward and ceremonial for inward and moral clean- liness. The interpretation given in the text has this advantage, it makes sense; which the usual reading does not, unless it be the sense that he that gives alms is therefore inwardly pure — the very doctrine of the Pharisees which Jesus was vehemently denouncing. f Perhaps, by a rigid rendering of the passage of the law in Levit. xxvii. 30, the Pharisees made this precept. 336 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. borne, and yon yourselves touch not the burdens with one of youi little fingers. Woe to you ! for ye build the tombs of the prophets, . and your fathers killed them. Truly ye are wit- Lawyers denounced. " «/ «/ nesses that you approve the deeds of your fathers : for they killed the prophets, and over them you erect monuments of your own heavy ordinances. On this account the wisdom of God has said : ' I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will slay and persecute, that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zacharias,* who perished between the altar and the temple : ' veri- ly, I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation. Woe to you, professors of the moral law ! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge ; ye entered not in yourselves, and those that were entering in ye hindered." This broke up the meal. His enemies and he rose to their feet. The Pharisees were furious. They might have despatched him there, but between the pauses of his awful speech they heard the surging of the great crowd which blocked the street outside, among whom were hundreds who had been wrought into an enthusiasm for the Teacher, and were anxious to have him make his appearance. He passed out from the circle of his deadly foes into the midst of the multitude. The meal broken op. * This is not so much a quotation of Scripture as an amplification of a say- ing of Scripture. The allusion seems to be to the account of the slaughter of Zacharias, the son of Jehoiada (as re- corded in 2 Chron. xxiv. 18-22), who was stoned in the court of the house of the Lord, because he had faith- fully borne witness against the sins of the people. As he was dying he said, \' The Lord look upon it, and require it." Jesus amplifies this expression, and makes the assertion that God will "re- quire " of the Jews of his generation the blood of all the holy martyrs who had died for confessing the truth, from Abel the first prophet-martyr to Zacharias the last martyr-prophet. He predicts that such obstinate and wicked rejec- tion of the truth by his people should bring upon them a destruction which should justify all the assertions of good men in regard -to the ruinous nature of sin, and as complete as if they had real- ly heard and rejected each confessor of the truth in every age. Matthew calls this Zacharias " the son of Baraehias," thus creating a difficulty to which two solutions have been offered : (1), That of Olshausen, who says, ' ' There is nothing offensive in the supposition that Mat- thew might have confused the name of the murdered man's father with the father of the Zacharias whose book we have in the canon of Scripture ; " or (2), Perhaps still better, that of Ebrard, who suggests that Zacharias might have been the grandson of Jehoiada, and that Barachias stood between. THE SECOND TOUR OF GALILEE. 337 He commenced to warn them against hypocrisy, against accept- ing hypocritical invitations to feasts, but was interrupted by a voice from the crowd inopportunely saying, warning against ny- " Teacher, speak to my brother, that he divide p 001 ^- the inheritance with me." This man was not a disciple, nor apparently about to become one, but seeing the great and grow- ing influence of this rabbi, he supposed that he had come to set all things right, and so put in his selfish appeal. Jesus turned upon him with the speech : " Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you % " He remitted him to the laws of the land. But it gave him occasion to deliver another warning against covet- ousness. " See and guard yourselves against covetousness. Not because a man has abundance does this life consist in his goods." The life comes from God. It may be sustained by a portion of worldly goods, but all that is over and above what a man can use is really useless to him. It adds nothing valuable to his life. This admonition is enforced by the parable of the Rich Fool, told very dramatically : " The large field of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought within himself, parable of the Kiob i What shall I do % Because I have not where to FoGl - store my fruits.' And he said, ' This will I do : I will pull down my barns and build larger : and there will I gather all my pro- duce. And I will say to my life, ' Life, thou hast many good things laid up for many years: take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry ! ' But God said : ' Thoughtless man ! this night they * require of thee thy life, and to whom will belong the things which thou hast prepared V So is he who layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." It would be exceedingly difficult to find another passage in the discourses of Jesus fuller of lessons in as few words. A man had become rich. He owned a great field. He was growing richer every day. At last he reached a point of perplexity. His business had grown into a very large Exposition. * It was a common belief among the Jews that the angels had to do with dying men, a belief alluded to again by Jesus in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, Luke xvi. 22. Evil men had their souls required of them, dragged out of them ; but the souls of the righteous were drawn from their 22 mouths gently with a kiss by the angel Gabriel. To something of this kind Trench thinks allusion is made in the formula by which the early church so frequently described the departure of a good man. " In osculo Domini obdormi- vit," he hath gone to sleep in the kiss of the Lord. 338 SECOND AND THIED PASSOVEE IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. affair. He had reached a point when some plan for life, which should arrange for the disposal of all these riches, must be adopted. The Teacher shows us the inmost mind of the man, and puts his thoughts into words, and then renders the verdict of God upon his character and conduct. God pronounced him " a fool/' It is proper to learn who, in the judgment of God, is a fool. It is quite apparent that the man was not engaged in an ille- gitimate business, not even in one that was at all questionable. _- . . . . He was not a thief nor gambler, nor was he a Business legitimate. m ° ' speculative operator in stocks. He was neither banker nor merchant. If money has pollution in its touch, he avoided it. He was not exposed to the trials which beset those men whose business compels them to buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market. He lived in the rural districts, away from the metropolis ; and he was an agriculturist. If any man can lead a spotless life, surely a farmer can. But spotless lives are not more frequently led in agriculture than in other pursuits. Farmers are as good as others, and no better. There are farmers who have grumbled at the extortion of merchants, but who eagerly snatched at the advantage given them by a drought or a blockade to lock up their corn and wait for still greater advance in the prices. But the employment of farming is one in which a man is subjected to the fewest temptations. If he do wrong, it is because it is in him. This man was a farmer, and — a fool. But he was not intellectually or spiritually a fool, because he was rich. It is not true that " any fool can make money." It niches no proof of requires brains, and thought, and energy, and foiiy or sin. perseverance, — all these in such amount and pro- portion as would make the man great in any department. Nor does it follow that he was a sinner because he was rich. Ordinarily, if a man be very rich, it is because he or some ances- tor has done some wrong. But it is not so always. Some men are so wise and good that with increasing liberality they grow rich. Job was that perfect man who won even the admiration of God, and he was the richest man of his region, if not of his age. Abraham was the " friend of God," and he was a millionaire. In every age some of the saintliest have been among the most prosperous. Men ought not to despise or hate the rich, but pity them ; for with great difficulty, as Jesus says, do they enter the THE SECOND TOUB OF GALILEE. 339 kingdom of heaven. And he that sets the poor against the rich, inciting the many against the few, appealing to the passions of those who have not against those who have, turning servants against masters, employes against employers, labor against capi- tal, wresting men's houses and lands and servants from them by preaching the crusades of agrarianism is, to speak after the man- ner of God, a " fool." This man in the parable was a farmer, was shrewd enough to become rich, — but he was a fool. This severe verdict was pronounced on his character because, Firstly, He could not comprehend the state of affairs which he himself had created. He had labored for an in- ± He did not com- crease, and when the increase came he was not P rehend ^ affairs - prepared to invest it permanently for perpetual use. When a man reaches a point that he begins to destroy what he has made, it is clear that he is not long-sighted. This man had invited Success to be his guest. Success came, and he did not know how to entertain. Secondly, Because he misunderstood his relation to the exter- nal world. He speaks like a proprietor. " /have no room where tO bestOW my goods." "/will pull down my 2 . Nor his relation to bams, and build greater, and there will I bestow the external world. all my goods and my fruits." Jesus represents him as a man who did not know how to adapt himself to the facts of God and the laws of the universe. A wise man acknowledges God as the proprietor, and himself as the agent whose business it is to im- prove and beautify God's world. He sees that in order to have his world beautified God has made this law, that the very moment a man begins to draw the world into himself he begins to be crushed out of sight. The very moment he begins to pour him- self out upon the world he begins to grow, and the world to brighten. This " fool " did not know the meaning of the words he was employing. Nothing is " fruit " that is not enjoyable. Nothing that brings troubles and perplexities should be called " goods." And this man had burdened himself with what he could not enjoy. Thirdly, He did not know the difference between his body and his soul. " The life (or soul) is more than meat." He thought he could feed his soul on corn ! And so he put all he had of capital and brain into the production of corn. " All my goods," 34:0 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. he says. When a man has invested his " all " in perishable ob- 3. Did no know the J ectS « and tne 7 are SWe Pt awa J> ne » totally difference between soul poverty-stricken. This man acknowledged that he had taken such a fearful risk. Fourthly, He had postponed his enjoyments. There is a sense in which the old Epicurean precept, " Carpe diem," holds good. 4. postponed his en- If there be any real happiness to be had now, joyments. one g^Q^^ no f; \ e i fa s ]ip \yy postponing it to the uncertainties of the future. "What pleasure we have ever had we still have, in the knowledge and memory of it. What we have not we may never have. The past and the future lie equally be- yond our control Narrow as is the Now, it is the field for our action and the season for our enjoyment. It must be packed full and close, — pressed down with hearty effort and hearty delight. Many a man is like this fool in the parable. Many a man says, "When I have accumulated a fortune, and built a house, and established my family, I will settle down and have a good time." Why not have a good time now, while one is accumulating one's fortune and building one's house ? Why wait ? Fifthly, He relied upon a known uncertainty. All that he pro- jected required time, and was environed with insecurity. As the 5. Keiied on a known timbers of the old barns were coming down, or uncertainty. those of the new were going up, they might fall on him or strike him, and thus kill him or leave him a mangled cripple, wretched for all life, quite beyond the anodynes that wealth can bring to pain. "Much goods — laid up — for many years." Here is a triple uncertainty. And yet on this uncertainty he was going to settle down at his ease, and eat and drink and be merry, forgetting that in eating and in drinking men sometimes choke or go into manifold diseases that dampen all merriment. • Sixthly, He omitted preparations for a future certainty. He could not tell when he should die, but he certainly knew that . whatever wealth men may accumulate they must 6. Made no provi- *> ^ eion for a known cer- die. He had made no arrangement for his fortune tainty * when he should be dead. To whom should belong the things which he had prepared ? In this day it is sometimes announced that a man has died and " left a fortune of many mil- lions of dollars." He " left " it, did he % Why not stay with it 1 What a palace, what parks, what equipages, what delicious food, what sumptuous furniture of books and statues and pictures and THE SECOND TOUR OF GALILEE. 341 articles of virtu would not those millions buy ! Alas ! he conld not stay with it. The gate of the grave is so narrow that slender ghosts do barely struggle through, and houses and lands, and cof- fins and shrouds and bodies are all torn off, and the soul stands naked on the other side. And a man cannot tell to whom he shall leave his riches. Take what precaution he may, his will may be broken, after much of the estate is squandered in litigation. If it go to the designated heir, he may squander it on swindlers and harlots, or the heir may die and leave it to his father's dead- liest foe. It is folly to be all one's lifetime laboring to acquire a fortune one must leave to one knows not whom. " So is he that layeth np treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." This is transcendent folly. The man has so buried himself in the perishable that when that goes he -,-,-, , .. -if. t . i Not rich toward God. is gone. He has lost nimseli in the material. Abstracted his inmost, highmost nature, and emptied it, as one should spill upon the sands of the desert his only bottle of water, when he knows that thence it can never be gathered up again, and that there is not another drop within reach. He passes into eter- nity with nothing, as if one should go into a foreign land, a land of strangers, with none of their current money, and with nothing that could be converted into currency. On this side rich, on that poor. Here the papers are full of accounts of his immense estate, where it lies, and how it goes, while he stands a pale aud shivering spirit on the inside of the gate of death, with nothing. He is not rich toward God, nor rich in God. He hath not used the means at his control to please the owner thereof, and now he comes to the judgment a defaulter. He had not learned the blessed alche- my by which Love and Faith do change the baser metals of this world to gold which endures forever.* Such seem to be the lessons of this striking parable. Jesus fol- lowed it with a repetition and enlargement of much that he had spoken against covetousness and excessive carefulness in the Ser- mon on the Mount. In the crowd of hearers were some who took occasion to speak to him of certain Galilseans whom Pilate had one of piiate's ont- slain while they were engaged in worship, min- rages - gling their blood with their sacrifices. We cannot now ascertain * In this exposition I have drawn | " A Prophylactic of CovetouanessS largely on my published sermon entitled 342 SECOND AND THD3D PASSOVER EN THE LIFE OF JESUS. what was the particular atrocity to which they alluded. The Gali lgeans, according to Josephus,* were prone to insurrection. They were ignorant, rude, and tumultuous, and made frequent disturb- ances in Jerusalem on the occasions of the feasts. And Pilate not infrequently was grossly violent in the government of his peo- ple, f Why these informants should have brought this subject to the attention of Jesus at this particular time it is difficult to decide. Perhaps it was a challenge to him, as he was putting forth claims to the Messiahship, to stretch forth his arm against the Roman governor who had violated the Temple by the introduction of soldiers and by mingling human blood with the blood of sacri- fices. Perhaps it was a slur on Jesus as a Galilsean. Perhaps it intimated that he was creating trouble for the people, as these Galilseans had met their death as his partisans. They may have done so. Going up to Jerusalem to present their sacrifices, they may have found a test presented to them, involving the rejection of Jesus, or may have heard him violently denounced by the priests ; and although they themselves were not good, they had an enthusiasm for the young Pabbi, and resented the insults of the priests, who may have called in the aid of the governor and the unscrupulous Poman soldiery; or, most probably, to divert the searching address of Jesus from themselves, they spoke of this great catastrophe in reprehension of the Galilseans who had been slain. Jesus takes occasion to rebuke the spirit which was rife among the Jews, and which can be found in this day, leading men to adjudge the unfortunate as wicked, and to regard singular catastrophes as proofs of singular crim- inality. " Suppose you that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilseans, because they have suffered such things ? I tell you, No ; but except you repent, you shall all perish in like man- ner.;): Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower of Siloam§ fell A false judgment. * Vit., 17, and Antiq., 17, 9, 3 ; 10, 2. j See Josephus, Antiq. , 18, 3, 1 ; Be Bell. Jud. , 2, 9, 2 ; also Winer, the arti- cle Pilate. % " Likewise " does not translate the word. It means that their punishment should be of the same kind as that of those who had been spoken of. § History has preserved no record of the incident here mentioned. Winer refers to Josephus, Bell. Jud., 6, 7, 2, from which passage it would seem that the lower town extended as far as this district of Siloam, which Josephus* distinguishes from a well of the same name, and that the district was enclosed by the city walls. THE SECOND TOUR OF GALILEE. 343 and killed them, think ye that they were sinners above all men who dwelt in Jerusalem % I tell yon, No ; bnt except you repent, you shall all (Galilseans and Judseans) perish in like manner." He taught that these unfortunates who fell by Pilate's hand were not therefore to be accounted worse than their countrymen ; nor the Galilseans in geneial to be disparaged on this account, for in Judsea, nay, in Jerusalem itself, a tower had fallen upon eighteen people who were not Galilseans, and they perished ; but they were not therefore to be accounted worse than other Judseans. He then gave his discourse a turn which his hearers little ex- pected. He led them from thinking of others to think of them- selves. Repentance and not judgment was the Eepentance, not proper occupation of their lives. Unless the J ud sm ent - whole people of the Jews repented, the nation should be slain and crushed out. God's hand flings down Siloam-towers and un- sheathes Pilate-swords, and these are but types of what He will do to the whole nation, if they do not repent. This was a predic- tion which was literally fulfilled at the destruction of Jerusalem, when multitudes of the inhabitants were crushed beneath the ruins of the Temple and the city, and multitudes, while engaged in offering their sacrifices, were slain by the Poman army. The forbearance and the justice of God towards the Jewish nation are then set forth in a warning parable. "A certain one had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, and did not find it. Then he said to his vine-dresser, ' See, three years * I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and I do not find. Cut it down : why does it also \ * It may be instructive to the reader to see a statement of the fantastic deal- ings with the words of Jesus by com- mentators. Take the ''three years" which are named in this passage. Au- gustine understands them to mean the law of nature and the written law and the law of grace ! Theophylact in- terprets them to signify Moses and the prophets and Christ ; and also, when ap- plied to the individual under moral cul- ture, childhood and manhood and old age. Olshausen, the three years of the ministry of Jesus. Whereas the plain meaning is simply the space required for the bearing of fruit. His hearers could not possibly have understood anything else, nor could others, except as they set themselves to exercise their inge- nuity and to make "heads" for a ser- mon. f The whole force of the most impor- tant word in the sentence is lost in the common version. ' ' In addition to occu- pying space, it exhausts the ground." Why should it ? That is the real mean- ing of the text, which, in our transla- tion above, is sought to be brought out suggestively by the world " also." 344 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LD7E OF JESUS. injure the ground ? ' But the vine-dresser replied, ' Master, let il alone this year also, until I shall dig and cast manure about it ; and then, if it produce fruit, — but if not, then thou shalt cut it down." * It was a plain and pungent lesson. The fig-tree was the Jew- ish people, who had received all kinds of protection and culture from God, who had been expected to bear fruit for the good of the world, who had had time granted for that purpose, but who had not only been barren, but had kept the world back in the growth of improvement. It was like a tree drawing from the ground the nourishment which, if other trees had, they would produce fruit. It must be cut down. But a merciful space is left. If it begin to be productive, it shall be spared ; if not, it shall be cut out from among all the trees of the nations which God has planted in the field of the world. His hearers certainly must have understood this to be a prediction of the destruction of their hierarchy and nationality. The construction of the par- able, and the connection in which it is uttered, showed them that this was the meaning of Jesus. And he meant nothing else. * The following" receipt for curing- a fig-tree of barrenness is quoted from Rosenmiiller (Alte und Neue Morgen- land, v. 5, p. 187) : " Thou must take a hatchet and go to the tree with a friend, unto whom thou sayest, I will cut down this tree, for it is unfruitful. He answers, Do not so, this year it will certainly bear fruit. But the other says, It must needs be, it must be hewn down, and gives the stem of the tree three blows with the back of the hatchet. But the other restrains him, crying, Nay, do it not ; thou wilt certainly have fruit from it this year ; only have patience with it, and be not over-hasty in cutting it down ; if it still refuses to bear fruit, then cut it down. Then will the tree that year be certainly fruitful and bear abundantly." CHAPTER VII A CHAPTER OF PARABLES. In the course of the afternoon of the same day Jesns left hi 3 residence in Capernaum and went to the shore of the lake of Gennesaret. His appearance in public would Lake Gennesaret, now immediately summon a congregation. To °^ Capernaum. Matu J & o jnu. j Mark iv. ; Luke the multitudes that had assembled from all the vm. neighboring towns and cities, he presented his doctrines in the form of parables, delivered while he sat in a boat near the shore. It is to be noticed that Jesus was more liberal of this kind of teaching at this period of his ministry than ever before. In the next chapter we shall have occasion to consider the motive. We are following the order of the original historians as far as practicable. The first in order and in importance is the Parable of the Sower. Jesus considered it the fundamental parable. When his disciples questioned him privately as to its signifi- 1 . 1 .. „„ r . / ,,.«■%* Parable of the Sower. cance, he said, " Know ye not this parable s How then will ye know all parables ? " (Mark iv. 13.) And this is that parable : " Behold the sower went forth to sow ; and in his sowing some seeds fell by the wayside, and were trodden down, and the birds came and devoured them. And others fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth, and immediately sprang up, because they had no depth of earth ; but the sun having risen * they were scorched, and because they had no root they with- ered away. And others fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them, and they yielded no fruit. And others fell on good ground, and gave fruit, some an hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold. He who hath ears let him hear." * " There is a peculiar beauty in the Greek here, which cannot be retained in a translation, arising from the use of the same verb (but in a less emphatic form) to signify the rising of the plant and of the sun, as both are said in Eng- lish to be up, when one is above the surface of the earth and the other above the horizon." — Jos. Addison Alexander 346 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. Of the Tares. The next parable is that of the Tares. He said to them, " The kingdom of the heavens was likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while men slept* his enemy came and oversowed tares f in the midst of the wheat, and went away. And when the blade sprang up and made fruit, then appeared also the tares. And the slaves of the master of the house coming said to him : 6 Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field ? Whence then has it tares ? ' He said to them, 6 An enemy man has done this.' And the slaves said to him, i Wilt thou then that we go and gather them % ' But he said, ' No : lest gathering together the tares ye root up the wheat with them. Permit both to grow together until the harvest ; and in time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather first the tares, and bind them in bundles for to burn them : but the wheat gather into my barn.' " And he said, " So is the kingdom of God, like as if a man should cast the seed into the ground, and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. The earth bring- ing forth fruit of herself ; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear : but when the fruit is ripe, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest has come." Then he set before them the Parable of the Mustard-seed. " The kingdom of the heavens is like a grain of mustard,;): which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds, but when grown it is the greatest of the herbs, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of heaven come and roost in its branches and under the shadow thereof." Then another parable. " The kingdom of the heavens is like Of the Patient Farmer. Of the Mustard-seed. * Simply signifying " at night," — the time when men usually sleep, — and not at all intimating any blame of the ser- vants, as Chrysostom and Augustine have taught. f The botanical question is a matter of no importance whatever in the inter- pretation of a parable. The tares here are probably the Lolium temulentum, darnel, which resembles wheat when it first comes, but the seed is black and has an intoxicating effect. It is exceed- ingly difficult to extirpate it when it has once begun to grow in a field, and it is almost impossible to discriminate be- tween tares and wheat. See a very full description (with pictorial illustration) in Thompson's Land and Book, vol. ii. pp. 111-114. % Another botanical question, not very important in a parable. Of all the seed corn used in Jewish husbandry the mus- tard-seed was probably the very small est. A CHAPTER OF PARABLES. U] yeast, * which a woman having taken hid in three measures f of meal, until the whole was leavened." Of Leaven. When he left the lake and retired to his house his disciples sought him, and asked the reason for the great change which was now coming over his manner of dis- course. They could not have failed to notice ^f Je ^ s spoke ta «/ parables. that thitherto he had spoken with great direct- ness, in a didactic style, when he wished to teach doctrine or incul- cate duty, and that when his enemies sought to entrap him he had dealt with them in questions which greatly entangled them. Now he was filling his speech with parables. There must be some reason for this great change. So they put the question to him directly: "Why speakest thou unto them in parables?" His answer was this : " Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of the heavens, but to them it has not been given. For whosoever has, to him shall be given, and he shall have abundance : but whosoever has not, from him shall be taken even what he hath. On this account I speak to them in parables : because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor understand. And to them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not un- derstand : and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive : for the heart of this people is become gross, and they heard with their ears heavily, and their eyes they closed ; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their * In the Greek ^tj, leaven or yeast, the sour dough used in all countries to produce fermentation, and thus make the bread light and puffy. f This measure, called 'Sarov, saton, in the Greek, was, according to Josephus, equal to one and a half Soman meas- ures, each of which was equal to about a peck, so that all this meal was perhaps (for there is no absolute certainty as to these ancient measures) about an Eng- lish bushel. But it makes little differ- ence whether the Roman modius was nearer our peck than our bushel, no definite quantity being intended. So the number three can be of no import- ance in a parable, and yet the student may be amused to hear the fantasies it has suggested to worthy and learned men. Theodore of Mopsuestia, in the fifth century, referred it to the Jews, the Samaritans, and the Greeks. Au- gustine in the fourth century, and Stier of the present day, refer it to Shem, Ham, and Japheth ! Olshausen favors a reference of this particular number to the effect of the gospel on the three departments of human nature— body, soul, and spirit. This special number was used probably because it was com- mon to mix about that much dough fot a baking. See Gen. xviii. G ; Judges vi 19 ; 1 Samuel i. 24. In the last two passages the Septuagint has -fia iktoh. 348 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LD7E OF JESTJS. heart, and might turn, and I should heal them. But blessed arc your eyes, for they see : and your ears, for they hear. Verily I say to you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see what ye see, and have not seen ; and to hear what ye hear, and have not heard." All this seems simply to mean that whenever any man uses his faculties aright and cultivates his moral character, he shall have constant growth and spiritual help, and that who- Meaning of his reply. ° 1 i • ■ i f soever chooses to shut himself up against the truth shall constantly shrink. God gives to those who desire to have, whatever may have been their personal faults, and withholds from all others. These humble disciples lay with their souls to the sun, and consequently had its warming and brightening in- fluence. The " mysteries of the kingdom," what appeared mys- terious to others, began to become comprehensible to them. The Jewish people could not understand the present revelation, because they had closed their ears to former revelations. Jesus felt the truth that was in him, and set it forth in such a style that, if their souls would, they could receive the truth ; but if they preferred darkness the parable would be unintelligible. The parable covers and discovers, conceals and reveals. It is the temper and previ- ous culture of the hearer which determine the effect of the speech, whether he listen to Jesus or any other teacher. The power of closing the ears while one seems to hear is well known. If this be practised toward the truth, a man may come into such a state that when he desires to know and understand he cannot. In that case the fault is not in the truth nor in the teacher : a law of human nature has been violated. There are special seasons of great advantage to the hearer, as when a peculiarly gifted teacher comes into the world or into a community. It is a blessed thing for any man to be in a recep- tive condition at such a time. Many an ancient prophet, saint, and prince had longed to know what those who listened to Jesus could learn. Blessed were the men who were ready to hear when Jesus began to speak. In saying so, Jesus assumed to be able to make revelation of great truths ; to be, indeed, such a teacher as these prophets and kings had longed to hear, surpassing, in a word, all former teachers of mankind. He then began to unfold the parables in a style which should be a guide to all succeeding commentators, presenting the essence A CHAPTER OF PARABLES 349 of doctrine contained in the parable, and intended to be taught by it, without those conceits where, with a lively fancy, one may embroider a solid thought. * In the Parable of the Sower, the seed represents the word of God, and the places where it fell the condition of the several por- tions of the human race, and the several kinds of human character upon which this seed falls, for Pa ^^!f the &L^* humanity is God's wide field of husbandry. The word or truth of God is like seed in that it grows when planted, and that it is of its nature to grow when put into the human heart, if that heart be kindly turned toward the truth. Moreover, it produces the bread of the soul, and is self-propagative. It has been observed in this parable that the seed represents at one time the word of God, and at another the heart of man. But no one has ever been perplexed by this free motion of thought and speech. The illustrations are as clear as if every rule of the most artificial rhetoric had been observed, while Jesus used " that dis- cretionary license which distinguishes original and independent thinkers from the mere grammarians and rhetoricians." And perhaps this matchless Teacher had a meaning in the very change from seed to soil. The loss of the seed is the loss of the soil, as the good seed on good soil becomes incorporated therewith. A man who loses the truth loses himself ; he who receives the truth enriches his own personality. The difference in the reception by different classes of hearers is thus explained : — (1.) The wayside hearers are those who hear the word of the kingdom so far as outward reception of the mere word is con- cerned, the mere listening to the statement of propositions, with- out an active apprehension and personal application. The word lies on their souls as seed does on a paved and much- trodden road. It is there : but it has not entered. It has not been received. The hungry mouth of the ploughed furrow is not * Of which a specimen is Lange's in- terpretation of the parable of the sower, when he says that the stony ground is exhibited in "corrupted Judaism; the ground where the good seed is choked by thorns of worldly lust is the Moham- medan world ; the good ground is Chris- tendom!" {Life of Jesus, vol ii., p. 194. ) Really the common justice which allows an intelligent man to know what he meant to say, ought to be accorded to Jesus. After he has given his own interpretation of one of his own para- bles, surely it is most unfair to repre- sent him as meaning something else thereby. 350 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LD7E OF JESUS. there to take it in, nor is the harrow ready to put it under. It is obvious to the eyes of the birds, who see it and take it off. The Evil One does that for the way- side hearers of the truths of " the kingdom " which Jesus was preaching. The grammatical con- struction of the sentence shows that this loss of the word occurs " almost during the act of hearing." (2.) " But what was sown among the stones, this is he who heareth the word, and immediately with joy receiveth it ; yet hath he no root in himself, but is for a time, temporary ; and when tribula- lation or pursuit ariseth because of the word, immediately he is caused to stumble." Here is a different class of hearers. They not only listen to the word, and receive it into their ears, but they have joyful emotions. They receive it enthusiastically. But so soon as a severe trial of their faith comes, they fall away from the gospel. They have not root. They have not taken it into their souls and made it part of their lives. They love the truth only so long as the truth is to them an occasion of pleasurable emotions. In other words, they love pleasure more than they love truth, and when pressure or pursuit, tribulation or persecu- tion, presents to them for immediate decision the choice between pleasure and truth, their decision shows how little root the truth had been able to strike in their souls. (3.) " And what was sown among the thorns, this is he who heareth the word, and the anxious care of the world and the de- ceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becometh unfruit- ful." Here is another mixture of the sign and the thing signified, making " the word " mean in the same breath both seed and soil ; but the sense is very open. While in the second case the rootless- ness of the man, or the rootlessness of the word in the man, is demonstrated by what comes to him, here the same thing is de- monstrated by what the man himself pursues. In the former case, if no tribulation or persecution had come, the man would have gone on quite happy, but here his course of daily life shows how little the truth has dominion over his soul. Anxious care, an elevation of the present over the future, a preference for tem- porary visible things rather than for permanent, eternal, invisible things, and then the deceitfulness of wealth, luring men to its pursuit by promises of enjoyments it never affords — these spring up about the word, and the truth fails to have the happy effect upon the character of the hearer which it would otherwise have. A CHAPTER OF PARABLES. 351 (4.) " But what was sown on the good ground, this is he who heareth and understandeth the word, who indeed beareth fruit, some a hundred, some sixty, some thirty." That which " was sown on good ground," so says the original. The way-side, the stony places, the thorny places, are all bad for the seed. " Ground,' 1 with nothing else, is " good." A soul without prepossessions and anxious cares, lying ready for the truth, is the soil in which this seed will grow. That is the reason why childlikeness and sim- plicity of spirit, with desire for the truth, are so much commended by Jesus, and have in all ages been favorable to the cultivation of the character and the acquisition of true wisdom. In such a man plant the truth, and it will certainly be fruitful. But as in evil hearers there are three classes, so the Teacher instructs us that there will be varieties of good bearers, but that this variety will be rather in degree than in kind. Some will be more fruit- ful than others, but all will bear fruit, not perhaps in exact arith- metically expressed ratios, but certainly in a proportional diversity. Then followed his own exposition of the Parable of the Tares. " He who soweth the good seed is the Sou of Man. The field is the world. The good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom. The tares are the sons of the Evil Ta ^ pUcatiou ° f ** One. The enemy that sowed them is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the age. The reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are assorted and burned in the fire, so shall it be at the end of this age ; the Son of Man shall send angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all who are snares,* and those who make lawlessness, and shall cast them into a fur- nace of fire : there shall be wailing and grinding of teeth. Then the righteous shall shine out as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He that has ears to hear, let him hear ! " It would seem impossible to make anything clearer than this, and yet it is a remarkable fact in the history of human thought that there is only one other speech of Jesus which has caused so much perplexity to the church as this.f A volume as large as * The word translated " all things that offend," means that portion of a trap where the bait is suspended, which, being touched, causes the snare to spring and tighten on the unfortunate animal. As the word in the original, although neuter, manifestly refers to persons, the translation I have given above seems to be not only literal, but exactly expres- sive of the idea intended. f I refer to his words at the Supper : " This is my body j " " this is my blood," 352 SECOND AND THTRD PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. this might be filled with a history of controversies fought around this parable and its explanation by Jesus. The most perverse and foolish and ruinous interpretations have been given, mainly grow- ing out of the interpretation of the phrase " the world," which men insist to this day in making to mean " the church." They will not let Jesus know what he meant when he spake. Will the reader be good enough to refer to the parable, and immediately after reading it read the exposition of Jesus, and then follow with the next paragraph ? In that we shall present what seems to us would be the understanding of an intelligent man who had com- pared the sayings of Jesus with one another, without any prepos- session of interpretation. Jesus says : " The seed is the word of God." (Luke viii. 11.) He represents himself as being the Sower, by which he would seem to mean that in some way, excelling all others, he should apply the word of God to the minds and hearts of mankind. He describes himself by his favorite name, " Son of Man." " The field is the world" not the church. The field is the whole commu- nity of human beings occupying this planet, in successive genera- tions, with their various pursuits and developments. " The king- dom of the heavens is like unto a man who sowed good seed in his field." " The field is the world" " The good seed are the sons of the kingdom " of the heavens. " The tares are the chil- dren of the Devil," whose personality and activity Jesus taught not in parable, but in most strictly didactic and expository dis- courses to his disciples in private, and in explication of a parable. The " Devil," the accuser, the slanderer, is the enemy of the Son of Man. He has sown evil in the world, not specially in the church. Because the church must be part of the world, it will have the characteristics of the world in the particular of a mixed population. " The harvest is the end of the age." In our common version of Matthew xiii. we have in the thirty- eighth verse, " The field is the world" and in the thirty-ninth verse, " The harvest is the end of the world" The words in the original are totally different. In the former passage it means this orderly universe of God, and the human race occupying this planet. In the latter it means won, age, sera. The whole phrase* means the *■ The phrase here is ffvrjTeKeta rov auovos. In Hebrews ix. 26, Paul uses the phrase, cwreXeia rwv atdviav, the juncture of the ages, the moment of passage from one sera to another. Trench thinks " the phrase equivalent A CHAPTER OF PARABLES. 353 coming together of seras, the joining of their ends, the conclud- ing end of one and the opening end of the other. In this phrase there is nothing whatever which implies or in- sinuates the destruction or end of either this planet or its inhab- itants. There is very plainly indicated a great transition epoch, when one cycle ends and another begins, and this juncture of the seras is marked by an epoch of vast changes in the constitu- tion of tilings. It will be the harvest-home of the kingdom of the heavens. Until that time no man, and no set of men, must undertake the weeding process to cast the evil out. It cannot be done. " Lest gathering together the tares ye root out the wheat with them." Obviously Jesus believed that the world was not so much hurt by the existence of evil men as it was benefited by the existence of the good. It is better to permit an evil man to reside in a community, a church, a society, a town, than by mis- take to destroy a good man. The faith of Jesus in the goodness of goodness is both beautiful and sublime. It rested upon an- other thought. The evil is to be destroyed at the end of this aeon and the beginning of the next, whenever that shall be. The destiny of the evil is to be destroyed. The destiny of the good is to be preserved. At the conjunction of the ages the Son of Man will send his reapers forth officially, and he will direct them what to do. Here Jesus assumes to himself the final supervision, and accomplish- ment by the agency of angels, of the destiny of the evil and the good. He will direct what shall be done with them. The evil are to be dealt with first. Wherever in any part of his kingdom, — " the kingdom of the heavens," — there are any who are baits to others, enticing them to evil, or any who make lawlessness, teach or practise disregard of the laws of the king- dom of the heavens, they are to be separated from all the good. That is the first process. Then these evils and these evil people will be assorted. All shall not be destroyed alike. Every man is to be judged and punished " according to his works." There are " few stripes " and " many stripes." There is discrimina- tion and assortment. " Bind them in bundles for their burning." Augustine sees this, and teaches that sinners shall be punished together. " Hoc est, rapaces cum rapacibus, adulteros cum adul- to the T6\rj tuv aiuvwv of 1 Cor. x. 11, the I the one and the commencement of the other." 23 354 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVEK m THE LDJE OF JESUS. teris, homicidses cum homocidis, fures cum furibus, derisorea cum derisoribus, similes cum similibus ; " that is, robbers with robbers, adulterers with adulterers, murderers with murderers, thieves with thieves, scorners with scorners, like with like.** Then these bundles are to be thrown into a furnace of fire. The weak shall burst into wailing, and the fierce wicked ones shall gnash their teeth in rage ; but they shall be destroyed. This intimates the most fearful anguish in the process of destruction. Then, when whatsoever and whosoever offends, or causes to offend, shall have been destroyed, — shall have been rolled away like a dark cloud, — the righteous shall blaze forth gloriously in the kingdom of their Father. Until which time let no man undertake the work of excision and destruction. It is the prerogative of the Son of Man, and shall be accomplished at the juncture of the seras, when " this age " shall end and " the age to come " begin. And yet, with such plain teaching set before the world by Jesus, and in face of the corroboration, by the history of the whole world, of the utter impracticability of infallible judgment as to the character of men, some called Christians have insisted upon persecution for opinion's sake, making a man an offender for a word, until at some period of the church's history ecclesiastics have become morbid heresy-hunters. For instance, Aquinas, who in the thirteenth century won the name of the Angelic Doctor, taught that the prohibition is binding only when there is danger of plucking up the wheat while extirpating the tares, as if Jesus had not expressly taught that that danger is always and will be, while this sera lasts. John Maldonatus, a Spanish Jesuit of the sixteenth century, taught that the householder was to determine whether such danger existed, and he added, that as the Pope is the representative of that householder, he must be asked whether or not the tares shall be removed. Upon which he addresses to all Catholic princes an exhortation to imitate these slaves of the householder, so that instead of having to be urged to the work of footing out heresies and heretics, they will rather need to have * Dante, "the dark Italian hiero- phant," represents that among other spectacles in hell he saw one moving flame, divided at the top, and was told that it contained Diomed and Ulysses, ** who speed together now to their own misery, as formerly they used to do to that of others." The Old Testament Scriptures give this intimation repeat- edly. " That man perished not alone in his iniquity." ' ' The deceiver and the deceived are His." Job xii. 16. A CHAPTER OF PARABLES. 355 their s,eal restrained ! So totally has what is called " The Church" misrepresented the teaching of Jesus. Having now the invaluable help of the Great Teacher's method of explaining his own parables, let us apply it to all that follows. The next is the Parable of the Seed growing in secret. In that the commentators have found great difficulties. They say that if the man who sows the seed is Jesus, then the par- Explication of the able seems to disparage him, — " something is at- Patient Husbandman. tributed to him which seems unworthy of him, less than to him rightly appertains, — while if, on the other hand, we take him to mean those that in subordination to himself are bearers of his word, then something more, a higher prerogative, as it would seem, is attributed than can be admitted to belong rightly to any save only to him." * Another f says that this parable " is another and imperfect version of that of the tares, only with the circum- stance of the tares left out ! " As to the first, the question is set- tled. Jesus says that he is the Sower. If that distinct declara- tion of his cannot be made to consort with Iris pictorial represen- tations of truth, it cannot be helped by even an archbishop. He was not careful to preserve the unities, and a German doctor must bear it. He spoke with the freedom of a soul too large for mere rhetorical rules. Why should commentators be so careful for the reputation of Jesus ? As to the second, the slightest ex- amination would have shown the learned author that this is an- other version of the parable of the tares, as Othello is another version of Hamlet, when, of course, " the circumstance " of Ham- let is " left out." That of the tares teaches one thing, this an- other. This parable sets forth that the seed of the kingdom, the word of God, the germ of truth, is under the great system of law per- vading the universe. The truth grows of itself. All a man can do is to plant it. He need have no worry, no excessive anxiety. It will grow. The Son of Man, Jesus, has cast seed into the ground, and whatever he may know of all the secret processes of nature beyond what men know, the seed he plants can grow no otherwise than, and will certainly grow just as, the seed of the most unlearned farmer grows. That is to say, it is part of the universal plan, and obeys the universal law. Jesus does not pro- * Trench, in his treatise on the Para- I f Strauss, Leben J'esu, voL L, jw bles. I 664. 356 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. fess to give his words an unnatural element. He will wait. The seed of God will surely grow day and night. Every part of its development is beautiful in its season, the blade, the ear, and the full corn at last. It is an impressive lesson of faith and patience. Then we have the Parable of the Mustard-seed. We need no fanciful interpretation of this parable. It plainly means the ex- Expikation of the tensive growth of the principles of the kingdom Mustard-seed. £ ^ e neavens f r0 m the small beginnings of the obscure life of Jesus. He professed to plant that little seed in the field of the world. The planting took place in one of the most obscure corners of the field. It consisted of some spoken, not written, words, uttered to a few ordinary people, and coming out of a life of moderate length, only one-eleventh of which was spent in public. He had such faith in the power of his own words that he predicted the time when they should be so exten- sive in their influence that the utterances of no other man should be as potential. And that prediction is this day fulfilled. The parable and its fulfilment shows what prodigious results God ac- complishes with what apparently slender resources. From setting forth the extensive growth of the kingdom of the heavens by the propagation of truth, Jesus proceeds to conclude this series of parables by teaching the intensive Lea^ iCati ° n ° f ^ g^wth of truth. This kingdom is like hidden leaven. It is a small body when compared with the three measures of meal, but it is more than a match for the mass of inert substance in which it is hidden. The meal has no effect on the leaven. The leaven instantly attacks the meal. It is a vivid, restless, transforming agency. It seizes the particles of meal next to it and changes them to leaven. It converts the use- less into an ally. There is now more leaven and less unleavened meal. This process goes forward until the whole mass is leavened. It is a noiseless process. No one sees it, no one hears it ; but just as certainly as if the work were performed in the sight of all men, and with blare of trumpets, the great change goes steadily forward. Placed in contact with humanity, the truths of the kingdom will go forward changing that humanity by a potency peculiar to itself. It will cover humanity and take the whole world, not by over- powering, or conquering, or subjugation, but by transforming the world, and converting the mass of inert humanity into a vigorous agency. A CHAPTER OF PARABLES. 357 Thus did Jesus set forth his ideas of the nature of the kingdom of the heavens when addressing multitudes, and thus did he ex plain his teaching: to his disciples in private when \ , & ,. f i ♦ i t • Similitudes. they sought an explication 01 his dark sayings. And teaching his immediate followers he adds these other para- bles, or " similitudes," as Origen says they should be called. (1) " The kingdom of the heavens is like to a treasure hidden in the field, which a man having found he hid, and from the joy of it goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth that field." (2) " Again the kingdom of the heavens is like to a merchant seeking Oct o good pearls, and having found one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it." (3) "Again the king- dom of the heavens is like to a drag-net, cast into the sea, and gathering of every kind, which when it was full they drew upon the shore, and having sat down, they gathered the good into ves- sels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be in the end of the age : the angels shall come forth and separate the bad from the midst of the righteous, and shall cast them into the furnance of fire. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." After the method of Jesus in explaining his parables, it would seem that these similitudes should contain no difficulties. And they do not, to simple minds. There is not a particle of difficulty except to such as have the old barren idea of churchism, to which all things must bend. Jesus is talking about something much higher and deeper than church ; he is talking about the kingdom of all ages and all heavens. He presents it again in three ways. 1. In the Parable of the Treasure, it is as if a man walking over the field, which may seem to him barren and worthless, all at once comes unexpectedly upon a treasure, which so enhances the value of the field that everything FI ^ TreMnie to th8 else in comparison with it seems worthless. " The field is the world." The kingdom of the heavens is the treasure. It is this which makes the world so valuable. It is in the world. Men do not see it. They are like unlettered rustics who walk over a field and perceive nothing. The chemist, the botanist, the geologist, the mining engineer, come into the same field, and they see a thousand beautiful and valuable things ; and the geologist and engineer perceive traces of coal or copper, or silver or gold, exhibitions or pr/ ^mises of riches such as Australia and California never presented. How rapidly the field appreciates ! Just so is 358 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. it often with men who, not expecting it, have such a sudden re> - elation of the glory of the reign of God in the world. Then the world becomes vastly precious to them. The basis of this parable was a fact common to society in the East, not only in the days of Jesus, but in this day. Curious ex- plorers of oriental ruins have obstructions in their work created by the belief of the natives that they come to carry away vast treasures from the country, the existence of which had somehow become known to these travellers. In ancient times, when there were rapid changes of dynasties, men adopted methods of invest- ment unknown to modern times. It is said that they divided their estates into three parts, one of which was put into commerce for current use ; another converted into costly articles, which were easily portable and salable in all countries, so that, if obliged to fly, these would be their means of support ; and the third they buried, so that if they returned to their own land they might find their riches again. As in the changes of this mortal life many a man did not return, there were frequent occasions when treasure would be found. Idling peasants often sighed for the discovery of great riches, and so many romantic incidents would r^cessarily be connected with the burying and the finding of these Measures, that they occupy no inconsiderable space in oriental literature. Jesus meant to teach, (1) That the reign of changeless principles occupying God's universe and pervading God's eternity is incom- parably valuable. (2) That its existence is what gives va'ue to the world, which would otherwise be worthless. (3) That men sometimes have these great truths revealed to them as by an inspiration, and all true men are excited with gladness thereat. 2. But there are men who are seeking the valuable, the most precious, and they find it in this kingdom. This truth is set f o* th in the Parable of the Pearl-buyer. It is necessary The Pearl-buyer. . ^ . ' . ' ' • to recollect the great esteem m which the ancients held the pearl, and the great sums often given for a single perfect pearl. The two pearls which Cleopatra proposed to dissolve in acid, in honor of Mark Anthony, were valued at 10,000,000 ses- terces, or about $390,000 in gold. But the value depended upon several things, such as size, form, color, and purity of lustre. It was rare to find a pearl that united all the good qualities, and when found it was of great price, of so great price as to stimulate elaborate counterfeiting. It was worth while sometimes to invest A CHAPTER OF PARABLES. 359 all one possessed in a single pearl. There was less fluctuation in its value than in that of other commodities in the world's markets. So Jesus likens the earnest truth-seeker to the pearl-merchant. He finds the most costly truth in the kingdom which Jesus was preaching. As men come to see and know the value of these truths, all other things will become comparatively valueless. They will seek this. They will give up everything else for this. The possession of this truth is the gaining of an everlasting fortune. 3. Again, this kingdom is likened unto a drag-net. Such a net is loaded with lead at the bottom, to sink it into the sea, and fur- nished with cork at the top, which floats it, and- , ' • i r i -i^ -i • i The Drag-net. then carried rar out, as on the Jinglish coast some- times half a mile, and brought round with a sweep that takes all in and pulls all to the shore. Such a drag-net is the kingdom of the heavens, not the church. It sweeps the sea of life. It gathers in all the good fish and all the bad. It *might be likened to the sea itself, but that Jesus desired to convey again a very deep, important lesson of this kingdom, namely, that at the end of the current age, at the period when this cycle shall come to its conclusion, at the moment when another cycle shall be at its be- ginning, then there is a discrimination, judgment, separation crisis, and that this separation shall be followed by the destruction of the wicked. Fishermen sit on the shore and throw away upon the sand all fish that cannot be sold in the market. And the fish die, rot, disappear. Now it is to be remarked that Jesus teaches the doctrine of the final destruction of the wicked at the end of this aeon, but connects with it the idea of suffering, teaching us that the wicked shall not rot away out of the universe painlessly, but shall be as if a man were cast into a furnace, when there should be pain in the process of destruction, pain which should vent its expres- sion, according to the character of the sufferer, in weak wailing or in terrific grinding of teeth. When Jesus had said these things he asked his disciples if they understood them, and when they said "yes," he added, "On this account every scribe disciplined for the kingdom of the heavens, is like to a man, a housemaster, who throws forth from his treasury new things and old." That is to say, that all who are to be ex- pounders of the truth must be themselves trained to it, and then must be, like householders, bringing forth whatever those who are the taught need, old tilings and new things. The truths of the 360 SECOND AND TEJBD PASSOVEE IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. kingdom will perpetually expand to the soul's vision as they are studied. The truth is no worse for being old ; but if a man sup- poses that there will never be new revelations of truth he is sadly mistaken. It has always been a part of the injury which the race has suffered from churchism, that it has been taught that the limit of the knowledge of truth can be definitely fixed by one set of men for all men, and by one generation for all succeeding generations, so that a church may say in a council that such and such a thing is semper et ubique, always and everywhere the truth, and whosoever does not see it and acknowledge it to be truth, " let him be accursed." Every man disciplined for the kingdom pours out, to those whom he is in turn disciplining, all things new and old ; old truths in new developments of science and human experience ; and thus the truth, to the teacher's mind, is as old as the hills and as fresh as the flowers that grow thereon. And thus the word "ortho- doxy " comes to be the contempt of the wise and the horror of the good, for it no longer means " right thought," but the edict of an overbearing; and dogmatic and narrow self-conceit. The ortho- doxy of to-day may be the heterodoxy of to-morrow. Thinking which is right on the plane of the discoveries of to-day may be most wrong on the plane of the discoveries of to-morrow. A wise man holds on to all valuable truth bequeathed him by the ages, and seeks to gather something new to add thereto for the benefit of those who shall succeed him. Research ^ into the laws of the whole expanse of the kingdom of the heavens is as much taught as research into that small section we call the animal kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, or the mineral kingdom. New things are useful ; and so are old things. CHAPTEE YI1L A CHAPTER OF MIRACLES. About this time occurred one of those seasons of excitement in which the populace showed a disposition to make Jesus king, and hasten his revelation of his Messianic powers. >r „...,«,,,. -t Matt, vm. ; Mark iv. : These popular paroxysms were always so man- Luke viii., ix. Jesus aged by Jesus that they should create no outbreak, had no pohtlc8 - mid thus connect his name and mission with the ephemeral poli- tics of his nation. ~No man can be a great moral teacher and a politician. Politics are for a day; morality for eternity. It seems utterly impracticable to make any satisfactory conjecture as to the political opinions of Jesus, whether he was Herodian or anti-Ilerodian. He would have absolutely nothing to do with these questions. So, when another burst of excitement came, he directed his disciples to accompany him to the other side of the lake.* A certain scribe, an official expounder of the moral law, came to him and said, " Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." He may have amplified this short speech into a . . „, . . A political follower. statement or his views of the position and pros- pects of Jesus, or there may have been something in his mannei which showed that he had ulterior designs, or else Jesus read his character at a glance. The reply shows that the Teacher under- stood precisely the spirit in which the statement was made by this new disciple. " The foxes have lairs, and the birds of the heaven have places of shelter; but the Son of Man hath not where lie may lay lus head." It is supposed that Jesus adopted the name The Son of Man with reference to the prophetic vision of Daniel (vii. 13), and because all other titles of the Messiah had been perverted to fos- * Into Perea. The eastern side of the lake of Gennesaret and of the river Jordan was called "beyond." Hence its Greek name means "beyond." 362 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. ter the worldly expectations of the Jewish people, and because it comported at once with the humility of his position and the dig- nity of his character. The scribe was willing to endure for a few days, or even a few months, the roving life which Jesus had adopted, expecting that the great Leader would soon ascend the throne of David, and then those who had shared his poverty would share his glorious fortunes. He was as cunning as a fox, and doubtless felicitated himself on his sharpness of calculation and superior skill in reading the signs of the times. The reply of Jesus is graphic and touching, and perhaps by its figures had reference to the cunning and the " fugitive character " of the scribe's enthusiasm. He did not mean to Jesus discourages him. , _ _ say strictly that the Son 01 Man had no sleeping- place, for he had at this very time some friends who devoted themselves to looking after his personal comfort, and, so far as we know, he was never without a night's lodging, except when he voluntarily set apart a night to devotional vigils. He simply meant that he had no fixed place of residence, a comfort enjoyed by even the lower order of animals. It was a solemn warning to the scribe, that if he joined his fortunes to those of Jesus he would become a homeless wanderer, as the Son of Man had given himself to a life of perpetual voluntary poverty. Whether the scribe became a " disciple," in the stricter sense, we have no means of knowing. Lange suggests that this was Judas Iscariot. But it is a mere hypothesis, suggested by the characteristics of Judas displayed by this scribe. Another of the followers of Jesus, called quite generally " dis- ciples," said to him, " Sir, permit me first to go and bury my father." Jesus replied, " Follow me, and leave A hard saying. x the dead to bury their own dead : but go thou and preach the kingdom of God." It is not said who this person was. A church tradition, which can be traced to Clement of Alexan- dria, in the third century, says it was Philip, which cannot be cor- rect, as he had already been called. Lange suggests Thomas, but this is only conjectural. It is not important. But the lesson of Jesus is. What did he mean ? The request of the follower seems natural, and even dutiful. The Jews buried their dead.* Great 6tress was laid on this. The interment was conducted with mi- * The Greeks burned the corpses of I Pliny (vii. 55) say that burial was the their friends. Cicero (Legg.. ii. 22) and I ancient mode of disposing of the dead. A CHAPTER OF MIRACLES. 363 nuteness of ceremonial. It was considered one of the most sacred duties of a son to bury his parents when they deceased.* The disciple in this case seemed to desire to follow Jesus. He did not make an excuse that he might go seeking his own pleasure or his own gain. It was to perform what all his nation regarded as a son' s imperative d uty. Celsus, early in the third century, brought the reply of Jesus as objection to him, because he demanded what was opposed to duty to parents. This saying of Jesus does present grave difficulties. We must interpret the word " dead " in both places in the sentence as mean- ing the same or different things. If the same, ° . » . Its difficulty. then what is it? The plain sense is usually ac- cepted, namely, naturally dead. But this seems unintelligible, because corpses cannot inter corpses. If different, then we may attach to the former the sense of spiritually dead — those described by Paul as dead in trespasses and in sins — and to the latter the natural meaning ; and then the passage would signify, " Let the work of interment be committed to sinners." But that is a most harsh interpretation, and not consistent with the temper of Jesus and the general spirit of his teachings. If the whole expression be taken as hyperbolical and paradoxi- cal, it will give us this sense : Jesus thus teaches in the most strik- ing and impressive manner the lesson that the interests of the kingdom of the heavens, which he was preaching, are paramount, so that if there seem to be even a natural duty, the performance of which will draw a disciple of the Messiah from obeying some express command of his, then that apparent duty, even if it be that of burying a parent, is in reality not a duty. Let the dead go unburied rather than Jesus be dis- obeyed. It certainly is a claim on the part of Jesus to supremacy over the hearts and lives of his disciples. It is a claim to be more than teacher. It is a peremptory demand for the total surrender of the whole man to Jesus and the interests of his kingdom. It is the voice of a spiritual autocrat. Jesus must have felt that he had a right to all this, or he must have been conscious that he was putting forward a claim which he had no right to make. His consciousness at the moment this speech was made was either that of the Supreme Spiritual Ruler of the world or that of the most * Honorable mention is made of those I Gen. xxv. 9 ; xxxv. 29, etc. ; Tobit iv. who discharged this filial duty. See I 3. 364 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. daring impostor. But he speaks unwaveringly, and died with this claim upon his lips, having never for a moment abated a jot there- of. There never was a teacher or leader, before the time of Jesus or after, who went so far as this. He stands alone in this claim. In immediate connection with this circumstance there occurred a similar occasion for a similar lesson. Another of his mere fol- lowers said, u Lord, I will follow thee, but let me Another lesson. i • -i r> -n • -r» go to bid farewell to those m my house. But Jesus said to him, " JSTo man putting his hand to the plough, and looking at the things behind, is rightly disposed for the kingdom of God." Here again is brought out the paramount importance of the kingdom of the heavens. The mind must have no inde- cision. A man who wavers so is as unfit for the great work of teaching the doctrine of the universal kingdom as one is unfit for agriculture who holds the handle of a plough and gazes back at the furrow. Upon dismissing the multitude who had waited upon his min- istry, Jesus went down to the shore of the lake and entered into a ship with his disciples. Accompanied by other Storm on the lake. r L L J and smaller vessels, they started tor the other side. Worn with the fatigue of teaching, Jesus fell asleep on a pillow in the hinder part of the ship. It was probably evening. There fell upon the lake one of those storms to which the pecu- liar position of the Sea of Galilee exposes it. Thompson (ii. 32) was for several days in one of those storms, which he thus de- scribes : — " To understand the causes of these sudden and violent tempests, we must remember that the lake lies low, six hundred feet lower than the ocean ; that the vast and naked plateaus of the Jordan rise to a great height, spreading backward to the wilds of the Hauran and upward to snowy Hermon ; that the water-courses have cut out profound ravines and wild gorges, converging to the head of the lake, and that these act like gigantic funnels to draw down the cold winds from the mountains. And, moreover, these winds are not only violent, but they come down suddenly, and often when the sky is perfectly clear. I once went in to swim near the hot-baths, and before I was aware a wind came rushing over the cliffs with such force that it was with great diffi- culty I could regain the shore." Of another storm, when on the eastern side, he says : — " The sun had scarcely set when the wind began to rush down toward the lake, and it continued all night long with constantly increasing violence, sc A CHAPTER OF MIRACLES. 365 that when we reached the shore next morning the face of the lake was like a huge boiling caldron." ..." We had to double-pin all the tent-ropes, and frequently were obliged to hang with our whole weight upon them to keep the quivering tabernacle from being carried off bodily in the air." It was such a storm as this that was rocking the ship which held Jesus and the Apostles. The Teacher was in the quiet of slumber. The disciples perceived their great , . . Jesus stills the storm. jeopardy. They ran to him m terror, some cry- ing, "Master, Master, we are perishing!" while others cried, " Master, carest thou not that we perish ? " Their solicitude did not seem to be wholly selfish. Undoubtedly some of them in- cluded Jesus in that " we," as the most precious of all existences. It must have agitated them greatly to see a person who had ex- hibited such power and wisdom now lying in utmost carelessness asleep amid such imminent peril. Jesus arose and spoke unto the wild whirl and storm-fury, and said to the winds and the raging of the sea, " Peace ! be still ! " and the wind ceased at once and there was a great calm. The stars shone in the quiet sky above the quiet lake. And he quietly said to the men in the ship, " Why are ye so fearful ? Where is your faith ? " The simple exercise of such prodigious power over the forces of nature when in stormy motion, produced in their minds a sudden sentiment of awe. They were surprised and amazed, and filled with exceeding fear, and said to one another, " Who is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him ? " It was morning when Jesus and his disciples reached the south- eastern margin of the lake, in a region into which it was the intent of Jesus to carry his beneficent ministry, south-eastern shore This landing was signalized by a very remarkable of the lake Gennesa - -, , , .-, r -i • -i i • . . **» near C adara - miracle, the details ot which make it interesting Matt, m, ix. ; Mark to fix the locality, if possible. A difficulty meets v ' ; Lukeviii - us in the names employed by the historians. Matthew calls it the country of the Gazarenes, Mark of the Gerasenes, and Luke of the Gergesenes* Three places are mentioned in the ancient writers, Gadara, Gerasa, and Gergesa. The first was ten miles inland, and the approach to it was by a toilsome way, which would require several hours to make it on foot. It is represented by Josephus as the capital of Perea, and by Polybius as a very * The reading of Codex Sinaiticus is followed, and not the common English version. 366 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVEK IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. strongly fortified city. The ruins to this day give evidence of great former magnificence. This can hardly be accepted as the place where the miracle was performed, as we find among its cir- cumstances the fact that a herd of swine ran down a steep place into the sea. In order to do so from Gadara, they must have run down a mountain in the neighborhood of the town, have forded a stream quite as formidable as the Jordan, and then crossed a plain of several miles before reaching the sea. For similar rea- sons we must reject Gerasa, a city also mentioned by Josephus as .situated among the mountains of Gilead, twenty miles east of the Jordan. The highest probability is in favor of a spot suggested by Dr. Thomson.* On the eastern shore of the lake he lias found a pile of ruins still called by the natives Gersa, very nearly pro nounced Gergesa, the name in Luke, and that which Origen gives as the supposed site of the miracle. Thomson represents that an " immense mountain " stands above these ruins ; so high and so declivitous that a herd of swine rushing frantically down would be carried by the momentum of the descent over the narrow ledge of beach into the sea. Mr. Tristam (in his Zand of Israel) in- * Land and Book, vol. ii. 35. A CHAPTER OF MIRACLES. 367 The demoniac. dorses this view of the question. It is to be noticed that the his- torians do not mention any particular town, but call the site of the miracle " the country of the " Gadarenes or Gergesenes, so that whatever town be selected, the miracle must have occurred near the sea, and somewhere near the site of the ancient city of the Gii'gashites. All that region abounds in rock excavated for purposes of sepulture, and to this day a whole community in that region make their dwellings in the tombs. The testimony of Origen, the ancient traditions, and the opinion of so well-informed a traveller as Thomson, concur to fix the place at the site of the ancient Gergesa. It was at this spot, then, that Jesus landed early in the morning winch followed the night in which he had calmed the storm on the lake. Here a sight met him more appalling than a tempest on a lake — the fury of a man lashed by the tortures of insanity. Mark and Luke speak of one demoniac, while Matthew mentions two. It is probable that there were two, but one was so much fiercer than the other, and his cure so much more striking, and his after-life so much better known to these historians, that they speak of him alone in a special man- ner.* He exhibited all the most shocking phases of that terrible physical, intellectual, and spiritual insanity which manifested itself so frightfully in the days of Jesus. He was so ungovern- ably frantic that he had abandoned the abodes of men and made his dwelling among the dead. He tore his clothes from his per- son. He was a terror to travellers, so that men might not pass by that way. He had acquired that wonderful strength which some- times seems to come to maniacs. Men could not keep him bound. Often they had chained him, but he burst the bonds asunder. Night and day this unhappy man, with fierce cries that made the rocks and seashore ring with the expression of his agony, roved through the wilderness or rushed along the beach of the lake. On this eventful morning he saw Jesus from afar. Whatever * Robinson, in his Harmony, proposes the following illustration : "In the year 1824 Lafayette visited the United States and was everywhere welcomed with honors and pageants. Historians will describe these as a noble incident in his life. Other writers will relate the same visit as made, and the same honors as en- joyed by two persons, namely, Lafayette and his son. Will there be any contra- diction between these two classes of writers ? Will not both record the truth ?" See^Hor., 195. 368 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LDTE OF JESUS, may have been the cause, there was something in the appearance of Jesus that arrested him. He paused. He gazed. He ap- proached. He fell at the feet of Jesus. He cried, His appeal to Jesus. L " What to thee and me, Jesus, Son of God most high ? " Here is an exhibition of that flux and reflux of passion frequently noticed in maniacs. He was alternately attracted and repelled by the spiritual magnetism of the pure Jesus. Jesus commanded the unclean spirit to leave the unhappy man, who then cried out, " Comest thou here to torment us before the time ? " As if to steady the man's mind for a moment, and re- call him to a sense of his personality and identity, Jesus asked him his name. Still believing himself to be in possession of the departed spirits of wicked men, and recollecting how his whole intellectual and moral constitution had been laid waste, as when troops dismantle a town, and probably recalling the appearance of a battalion of Roman soldiers, the wretched sufferer said, with the confusion of ideas so natural to his condition, " My name is Legion, for we are many." And he besought Jesus that he would not send them away into " the abyss," whatever that might mean. On the adjoining mountain was a herd of about two thousand hogs feeding. The demons besought Jesus to allow them to enter the swine. If it were really the fact that evil spirits, whether such as had inhabited human bodies or not, had the power to seize and em- ploy the faculties of living human beings, the narrative shows that the powers of evil are full of a hateful malignity which is bent upon the work of destruction. If they could not occupy the bodily organs of men they were willing to use those of beasts, Jesus granted their request : forthwith they left the man and entered the swine ; and the swine ran frantically down a steep place and fell into the lake and were drowned.* The feeders of the swine went quickly to their employers in the city and related these marvellous incidents, The swine. * It requires some patience to give the least notice to such an objection as this : that it was a lawless act in Jesus to destroy the property of the owners of the hogs, and was cruelty to the swine themselves. Jesus did this work or he did not. If he did not, there is no ground for criticism in detail. If he did, he had all authority over hogs, devils, and men. As to the cruelty, the same objection would lie against every case of the prevalence of murrain in cat- tle, or of the disease known as the hog cholera, which has visited parts of America in late years. The only ques- tion is, Did such an incident as this oe- A CHAPTER OF MIKACLES. 369 The people from the city and the surrounding country nocked to the scene. When they beheld the placid face of the man who had been an untamable maniac, and saw him sitting clothed and in his right mind, and heard the narrative of the panic that had swept the swine away, and probably saw them floating in the lake beneath, the Gergesenes were seized with fear, and began to pray Jesus to leave their coasts. The recovery of their fellow-citizen was not to them such a matter of congratulation that they could afford to pay for it by the loss of their hogs. Jesus left them, and went down towards the ship. The healed and grateful patient accompanied his benefactor to the lake side, and solicited permission to follow him, which Jesus declined to give, saying to him, " Go to your home -. r • -i -i -i-i i i -i -r -i The grateful patient; and to your friends, and tell them what the Lord hath done for you, and hath pitied you." If the Gergesenes de- clined the personal ministry of Jesus, they should not be without a missionary. The restored demoniac, not only in his own town but throughout a district of ten cities, known as Decapolis, awoke the wonder of men by describing, as only such a man could, the horrible abyss out of which Jesus had so graciously lifted him. When Jesus recrossed the lake he found a crowd animated by sentiments the very opposite of those that had caused the Gerge- senes to urge him to depart from their coasts. The inhabitants of Capernaum and that region had been longing for his return. A day's absence was intolerable to people so enthusiastic in their admiration. The storm of the previous night had deepened their anxiety, so that they watched with interest the approach of the boat which held the great Teacher. They received him gladly and escorted him to his home in Capernaum. cur in the history of Jesus ? The his- torians, who were present, say it did. If these theories be rejected this r^iuch is left : A man was found exhibiting the phenomena described. Jesus spoke the words which are quoted as his. The change as described came upon the man. He was, or thought he was, held in the power of the souls of departed wicked men. They asked to be per- mitted to go into the swine, or, in his disordered fancy, he asked it for them. Jesus gave assent. At that instant an 24 immense herd of swine on the mountain, seized by a sudden and unaccountable panic, rushed over the ledge and fell into the sea. The man resumed his clothes and his reason. The owners of the swine were incensed, the spectators filled with awe, and Jesus was requested to leave their coasts. Apart from the settlement of the precise nature of de- moniac possession, which must always probably be perplexing, here is a history of extraordinary spiritual power. 370 SECOND A1H) THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. Jairus. As nearly as we can fix the date, we must here introduce several narratives of transactions which are given with great simplicity, capemaum. Matt. but are # vei 7 affecting. They present pleading ix. ; Mark v.; Luke sorrow in aspects most touching, and set forth the charm which the lovingness of Jesus, combined with his extraordinary power, was exerting upon people of all ranks. There was a man of distinction, the president of a synagogue,* whose name was Jairus. He had an only daughter, twelve years of age, and the girl was about to die. In his des- peration of grief the father bethought him of Je- sus, and, knowing where he was, ran to him and fell at his feet, and besought him to come and save the child. So bewildering was his grief that he gave a hurried and somewhat contradictory report of the state of affairs at home. He says she is dead. He says she is dying, f The facts seem to have been these : when he left the house she was apparently in extremis, she could live but a short time ; he had been absent about long enough for the end to have come ; " she would be dead," he said ; but he had not re- ceived distinct information of the event, and therefore was not prepared to affirm it ; and so in his agitation and hurry the father says: "My daughter is dead — she is dying — come! Lay thy hands on her, and she shall be saved and live ! " He forgot the formalities and dignities of his office in his natural love for his child. His faith seemed to increase in his extremity. It touched the heart of Jesus, who arose and went with him, and all the throng about him followed the party to see what the end of this might be, as the very going of Jesus seemed to promise that he would do something. seems to me, fail to see in these touches proofs that the affair occurred as all these historians tell it ; that Matthew, and Mark, and Luke are right, each and all, and that they could not have colluded here, and that this little scene could not have been painted by any master of fiction not superior to Shake- speare. To my mind there are few stronger internal marks of the genuine- ness and truthfulness of these narra- tives than this particular passage. * Every synagogue had its president, who superintended and directed the services, and was at the same time president of its college of elders. f It seems heartless to cite these self- contradictions of the poor man as proofs of the contradictions of the historians and the unreliability of the narrative. It ia more than heartless; it is sense- less. Careful observers of the workings of human passions, and close students of the poets, those quick reporters of the soul of the humanity, cannot, it A CHAPTER OF MIRACLES. 371 On the way there was an interruption and a wonder, shewing again what faith in Jesus was growing in the hearts of the peo- ple. There was a woman, whose name is pru- The woman with the hemorrhage. dently withheld, who had had an internal hem orrhage for twelve years. This troublesome disease had been an annoying and exhausting plague through all that time. It had probably prevented her marrying. She had expended her estate on physicians and nostrums.* She had not been helped, but in- jured. ISTow she was reduced from competence to poverty, and was afflicted with what seemed an incurable disease. But she had not lost her w r omanly delicacy. Hearing of the wonderful things which Jesus was doing, she had formed an incorrect idea of his character and power. She fancied that there was some- thing magical in his person. She said to herself, " If I touch f but the hem of his garment I shall be saved." As this hem, or blue fringe, was put on the garment by divine command, J perhaps she also fancied that special virtue would come through that part of the garments of the Great Healer. While the crowd thronged him she quietly mingled with them, and at a moment when she thought she was not perceived, she came up from behind him and touched the hem of his garment, and instantly felt a thrill and knew that she was healed of her plague. The loftiness of the character of Jesus now exhibits itself sub- limely. He knew§ what had been done. He knew the woman's mistake and the woman's faith. He intended to i s healed in touching correct the one and confirm the other. He would Jesus - not for a moment consent to have himself confounded with jug- glers, magicians, and miracle-mongers, even in the simple mind of a woman weakened by disease. He turned upon the crowd * For an extraordinary list of cures prescribed for this disorder, consult Lightfoot's Hot. Heb. on Mark v. 26. f The beauty is lost in our transla- tion, " may but touch," which may im- ply permission, while the idea with her was that if she could but accomplish of herself mere contact with his garment, it would be enough. X See Numbers xv. 37-40 ; Deut. xxii. 12. Because it was a badge to the Jews of being God's peculiar people, those who desired to be considered emi- nently pious were accustomed to " en- large the borders of their garments," a custom which the simple Jesus con- demned. See Matt, xxiii. 5. § Not "perceived," as Luke viii. 46 is rendered in our common version, which seems to favor the idea that it was involuntary upon the part of Jesus, while his whole conduct is quite the re» verse of this. 372 SECOND AND TREED PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. and said : " Who touched my clothes ? " They all denied. Peter, always impetuous, and sometimes impatient even with his Master, said : " You see the throng, and you say, ' Who touched me % ' " But he assured them that some one had touched him with a pur- pose, and that he knew that that purpose had been accomplished. He evidently did not ask the question for his own information, but to draw the woman into an open confession. He would not let her go mistaken, although healed. He desired to put himself right before her mind, and to leave with her an intellectual and spiritual blessing which should even surpass the extraordinary physical favor he had conferred upon her. All the multitude- had come in contact with him, probably each one having touched more of his garment than this woman. She only had received any benefit. He determined to make her know that it was not mere animal magnetism, nor any unconscious magical influence, but that it was a voluntary response on his part to the pleadings of faith on hers. When the woman saw that she could not be hid, she came for- ward with confusion and trembling, and fell down before him and told before all the people all the truth — for Her faith confirmed. tit i-i-i« what cause she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. This was all that Jesus desired. He had tenderly abstained from extracting this confession until the poor woman was healed. She might not have been able to make it in advance. Now, although a trial, she was able to endure it. Jesus said: "Daughter, your faith hath saved you. Go in peace, and be well of your plague." He caused her and those who were about him to know that no miracle of good would ever be wrought for men who did not trust his beneficence ; and that in every case there must be desire and faith on the part of the subject, and volition upon the part of Jesus, to make the happy operation complete. This single incident lifts Jesus forever out of the mass of tricksters and magicians. While he was engaged in this work of mercy, messengers ar- ri ved from the house of Jairus informing him that his daughter Death of jairus's was certainly dead. He had accompanied Jesus daughter. uncomplainingly, but doubtlessly extremely rest- lessly, and now it appeared that the delay had blasted his hopes. He seems scarcely to have trusted that Jesus could raise her from the dead, while he believed that there was such power in him A CHAPTER OF MIRACLES. 373 that he could pluck her back from death even when she was almost m the last gasp. The messenger who announced the fatal news added : " Why troublest thou the Teacher further? " as though Jesus could now be of no avail. But his quick ear caught the word, and before Jairus could sink away into doubts Jesus said to him : " Be not afraid ; only believe ; and she shall be saved." Jesus by this word seemed to pledge himself to save her, even if she were really dead. And so he proceeded towards the house of Jairus. And when he arrived he found that they had already brought in the profes- sional mourners, who, after the vicious fashion j eS us brings her back of the Jews, were making loud lamentations, tolife - howling dirges amid the din of musical instruments, and beating themselves in token of grief. Jesus said to them : u Give place ; why make ye this ado % The child is not dead, but is sleeping." They took these words in their literal sense, and laughed Jesus to scorn. They knew that she was dead. She was, undoubtedly.* But Jesus taught the resurrection of the dead. On another occa- sion he called himself " The Resurrection." Since he has taught the world, those who believe his teachings do not sorrow for the dead as those who have no hope. Death is not destruction, nor annihilation — it is sleep. Sleep implies waking. So to the thought of Jesus, and of all who believe in his teaching, sleep is the most appropriate possible representation of death. "When men die we see them fall asleep. We do not see them awake. But Jesus, this wise Teacher, assures us that they do, and here he exerted his power to give men a visible and tangible example of * The attempt to put away all mira- cle out of this transaction, by taking- the words of Jesus literally, " She is not dead, but sleeping," cannot succeed. For suppose we grant that this was a mere case of syncope, and that the girl was still alive, there will yet remain these miraculous facts : 1. That before Jesus reached the house or saw the girl, he knew that she was not totally dead, although he had not seen her, and her father had represented her as dying, if not dead, and messengers direct from the house had proclaimed her dead; and, 2. When, having not hurried, but stopped to cure the woman with the hemorrhage, he reached the house, the mourners and assembled friends still saying she was dead, and laughing to scorn his literal or figurative saying, " She is not dead, but sleeping," he pro- ceeded to her chamber, accompanied by her parents and three other persons, and by two words and a single touch he brought her instantly to her feet, and to perfect health, after all the efforts which the skill of the physicians could devise had utterly failed. We must put the whole of Jesus out of history oi accept the miraculous. 374 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. this great awakening. He entered the chamber of the dead, ac- companied by the father and mother, and by the three disciples, Peter, and James, and John, whom now for the first time we see elected from among the elect friends of Jesus, that they might be special witnesses of his greatest and most sacred doings. He approached the bed, took the girl by the hand, and said to her in the Aramaic tongue, " Talitha-cumi," which is simply, " Maiden, arise." It was no magical formula, no incantation, but a simple authoritative command. Her spirit came to her, and she arose straightway. In the confusion of the rapid and great transitions through which she had been passing, the girl walked about the room. The astonishment of the parents was so great that they forgot the necessities of the child ; but the ever calm Jesus simply told them to give her something to eat. She was necessarily weak. She was no ghost, although if a ghost had come it could scarcely have produced a different effect upon the spectators. So self -sus- tained was Jesus that these wonderful displays of his power seemed to him as the ordinary work of his hands. What man ever did such things and made no ado, exhibited no sense of his importance, took no pains to give the transaction all possible eclat f Jesus told them not to spread it. But they did. The fame of this miracle went abroad into all that land. As Jesus went from the house of Jairus, occasion presented itself for the performance of other strikingly wonderful works. On the road two blind men followed him, and Matt. ix. ,..-,, • o i • -i -i • solicited the exercise or his great healing power In the history of Jesus he is often confronted with blindness. We shall not wonder at this when we recollect how common that disease is in the East. In Cairo alone it has been estimated that there are four thousand blind persons, and one traveller supposes that one in every five is partially or totally blind. This arises from the brightness of the sun, the intense reflection of the light, the dust so impalpable or so constantly abroad in the air, and the custom of sleeping in the open air at night, exposing the eyes to noxious dews which produce inflammations that are usually neg- lected until they end in incurable blindness. Two such patients, perhaps by the way-side begging, learning that Jesus was passing, followed him, led by the crowd, it may be, and cried after him, " O Son of David, have pity on us." " Son A CHAPTER OF MIRACLES. 375 of David : " this was the recognized title of the Messiah. To accept it was to claim Messiahship. The blind men continued to repeat it. Jesus apparently paid no attention two blind men re to it or to them, but passed on and entered his stored - lodgings. The blind men somehow found their way to his pres- ence. Jesus said to them, " Do you believe that I am able to do this for you ? " They answered, " Yes, Lord." Then he touched their eyes and said, "According to your faith be it unto you." Their sight was instantly restored. Then Jesus, who made this response to their faith, charged them sternly — he really seems to have threatened them — that they should not make proclamation of their belief in his Messiahship. He could not have charged them to conceal their restoration to sight. There could be no reason why this should not be known. But there was a good and sufficient reason for restraining the public announcement of his claim to the Messiahship. The people were already begin- ning to believe it. They were in a state of intense excitement, and being always ready for a revolt against the Roman government, and their enthusiasm for Jesus growing at each display of his power and wisdom and goodness, a single word of incitement would have been, like a spark to a keg of gunpowder, the occasion of a terrific explosion. With extraordinary wisdom Jesus saw that his time had not yet arrived. Nevertheless, the blind men, in the exuberance of their grati- tude, proclaimed that the Messiah had healed them. The prac- tical effect of this disobedience, which can only be charitably excused on the ground of their uncontrollable delight at their recovery, had no good effect on the minds of the enemies of Jesus. These men had scarcely left the house when the people brought to Jesus another of those bewildering cases of fearful disease, a demoniac. The patient in this case was one j eS us cures a dumb whose psychical disorder had the physical exhi- demoniac - bition of dumbness. His diseased soul locked up his tongue His insanity took on the form of speechlessness, through pro- foundest melancholy or most obdurate stubbornness. As soon as the evil of his soul was cured his speech returned. The multi- tude marvelled still more, and said, " It was never so seen in Israel," or, as it may be translated, " He has never been so seen in Israel." Either rendering makes the speech of the populace an ascription to Jesus of glory greater than that of any of the 376 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. prophets. It lifted him above Moses and Elijah. It declared him to be, in their opinion, the most splendid display of God's glorious goodness and power ever made to Jehovah's chosen peo- ple. It was the most magnificent compliment which people living under a theocracy could pay to any man. Of course the tendency of this was to inflame the Pharisaic party against him. They made the old objection, " He casteth charged with being oufc demons by the ruler of the demons." It is a confederate of the now no longer a whisper, slyly circulated, but an open accusation, made to break his influence over the popular mind. Infernal passions manifestly swayed these Pharisees, so that naturally it was not difficult for them to believe that any one so strong as Jesus had his strength from bad spirits. There has always been in human nature an unfortunate pro- pensity to imagine the chief evil spirit of the universe to be mightier than he is. Men are prone to deify the devil. Even many Christians have to pause and think before they disabuse their minds of the prejudice that Satan is just less than Almighty God. Creative power is often assigned him, and the power of inspiring great thoughts and stimulating human genius. "When printing was invented, the honor was assigned to " the devil and Dr. Faustus." It is a popular opinion in parts of Germany to this day, that the famous cathedral of Cologne owes its magnifi- cence to the co-operation of the devil : it is too splendid a struc- ture to have been erected without his aid ! On the road over the St. Gothard Pass, in Switzerland, is a wonderful bridge across the river Peuss, joining the wild scenery of two mountains by a span of seventy-five feet. Of course it is the " Devil's Bridge ! " The Pharisees would have gladly obtained power from the ruler of the demons if they had only known how : it was quite easy, then, for them to fancy that Jesus had discovered the secret. That the Father of Men should confer so beneficent a power upon any of his sons was an idea too broad for the narrow minds of the Pharisees. And so they persecuted Jesus, not because of the sin of being in league with the devil, but out of sheer envy that he had made better terms with Satan than they and their children had been able to do. In Matthew xii. 27, does not Jesus intimate as much ? Jesus now withdrew himself and went with his disciples to his own country. This avoidance of the spite of his enemies seems to A CHAPTER OF MIRACLES. 377 evince only a prudential regard to the success of his work, and in no way to indicate cowardice, as he was always ready to meet them in argument ; and when he shifted the range of his operations, he never for a day ceased to jj^jf ** Matt ' xau : urge forward his work. He was not yet ready to give himself up. His disciples were not yet ready to be left. Jesus was no wild fanatic, no furious enthusiast rushing on fate. He had the great faculty of being able to wait : but he was a ceaseless worker. He foresaw his time coming. He would not hurry it. It was coming fast enough. Once more he entered Nazareth, a town to be made immortal by being attached to his name. On the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and began to teach. He taught astonishingly. His knowledge, his goodness, his power, and, perhaps above all, his authority came out in his speech. The Nazarenes could not com- prehend it. It seemed to them only a few months, and it had not been long since he had lived in their midst among their humblest fellow-citizens. They knew the dwelling of Mary. They knew her other children. None of Mary's other children made any pre- tension to either special sanctity or special authority. Nay, they did not believe in the pretensions of their brother Jesus. He had failed to inspire them with confidence. He came to them with a crowd at his back, and bringing home a reputation as a prophet the like of which had not been known in their day. He had per- formed miracles, had even raised the dead, not far from Nazareth. But it seemed like yesterday since they had seen him in his shop with the implements of the mechanic, making or mending plain furniture, or had seen him carrying his tools to neighboring houses to do repairs. There was nothing specially attractive in his ap- pearance. When he sat in the synagogue no halo hung over his brow. But now this plain man came back and assumed great authority, and really did teach in a style surpassing anything they had ever heard before. And so they talked among themselves and said, " Whence hath this one this wisdom and mighty powers ? Is he not a carpenter ? Is he not a carpenter's son ? Is not his mother the woman called Mary? Is he not the brother A sain rejected by hi. «/ own people. of James and Joses, and Judas and Simon ? Are not his sisters all here with us ? Whence hath this man all these things?" They showed him no violent opposition, but merely 378 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. regarded him with contempt. His return for this treatment wan the simple annonncement of a well-known fact in human nature : " A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, and among his own kin, and ii] his own house." He did nothing note- worthy in Nazareth, except that he laid his healing hands on a few sick people. He left Nazareth, marvelling at the unbelief of ita inhabitants. MAP OF CENTRAL AND SOUTH GALILEE. CHAPTER IX From Nazareth Jesus entered upon his third circuit in Galilee; the extent of which tour cannot be defined. Matthew says that he " went about all the cities and villages." Mark, that "he went round about the villages." All ^f^^^l concur that he was teaching and preaching his Lukeix., x. peculiar doctrines, and displaying his great power of healing. The multitudes continued to throng him. They had had the formal instruction of the Established Church, but the mass of the people were destitute of moral and religious culture. They appeared to the eye of Jesus as sheep that had no shepherd, torn to pieces by hierarchic wolves. And yet the people seemed desirous of spiritual training. At sight of this Jesus said to his disciples, " The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few ; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest." It was the suggestion of the mission ary idea and the kindling of the missionary spirit. It was a hint as to what his intentions were for immediate missionary opera- tion. In pursuance of this design he called his twelve chosen disci- ples together, and commissioned and instructed them for this new institution of propagandism. He intended to disseminate his doctrines more rapidly and m ^ t mlB8ten,U7 mov ^ more widely. These men had been with him long enough to be weaned from other pursuits, to be attached to his person and his plans, and to have acquired such facility in co- operation that they could work together. Jesus instituted seven itinerant centres of influence. Not stopping in his own work, he Bent the twelve in pairs. Their work may be better gathered from their commission in the words of Jesus than from any para- phrase. He addressed them thus : — 380 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. " Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and enter not into a city of the Samaritans. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And going, preach, saying, The kingdom of the heavens is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lep- ers, cast out demons : freely ye have received, freely give. Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor copper in your girdles, nor a wallet for your journey, noi two coats, nor shoes, nor a staff. And into whatever city or village ye may enter, inquire who in it is worthy, and there abide till ye depart : go not from house to house : and into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you ; for the laborer is worthy of his food. But as ye enter into the house, salute it, saying, 'Peace be to this house.' And if indeed the house be worthy, your peace shall come upon it : but if it be not worthy, your peace shall return to you. And whoever will not receive you, nor hear your words, on going out of that house, or city, or village, shake off the dust from your feet for a testimony against them : notwithstanding, be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto them. Verily I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and the land of Gomorrah, in the day of judgment, than for that city. "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Begin ye therefore to become wise as the serpent, and simple as the doves. But beware of men : for they will deliver you up to councils, and will scourge you in the synagogues : and ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. And when they deliver you up, be not over-anxious how or what ye shall speak : for it shall be given to you ir that hour what ye shall speak. For ye are not the speakers, but the Spirit of your Father speaking in you. And a brother shall deliver up a brother to death, and a father a child ; and children shall rise up against parents, and shall put them to death. And ye shall be hated by all on account of my name ; but the one having endured to the end shall be saved. But when they persecute you in this city, flee into another : for verily I say to you, Ye shall not finish the cities of Israel until the Sen of Man come. " A disciple is not above his teacher, nor the servant above his lord. Suffi- cient for the disciple that he be as his teacher, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more those of the household ? Fear them not, therefore, for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, and hidden that shall not be known. What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light : and what ye hear in the ear, preach upon the housetops. And fear not those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul : but rather fear the one able to destroy both soul and body in Gehen- na. Are not two sparrows sold for an assarion ? * and not one of them shall * This indicates a coin of small value, perhaps more than an American cent and less than an English penny. Here is a picture of a bronze specimen of this coin. On one side is an anchor, and the Greek mite of hekod. letters for Herod Bad (Herod King), and ob the obverse two cornucopiae and a pomegranate. THE THIRD TOUR OF GALILEE. 381 fall on the ground without your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not then ; ye are of more value than many sparrows. Every one, therefore, who will confess me before men, I also will confess him before my Father in heaven. • 11 Think not that I came to cast peace on the earth : I came not to cast peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And the enemies of a man are those of his own household. He who loveth father or mother above me, is not worthy of me: and he who loveth son or daughter above me, is not worthy of me. And he who taketh not Ms cross, and fol- loweth after me, is not worthy of me. He who tindeth his life shall lose it : and he who loseth his life for my sake shall find it. He who receiveth you receivcth me, and he who receiveth me receiveth him who sent me. He who receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall receive the reward of a prophet; and he who receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man, shall receive the reward of a righteous man. And whoever may give to drink to one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, verily I say to you, he shall not lose his reward." Jesus gives directions to his disciples as to the route they were to take, as well as a commission for the work they were to per- form. They were not to 2:0 among; the Roman J . . Their route. settlements nor bevond the boundaries of Samaria. " "Rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," explains the direction as one not founded on bigotry or Jewish intolerance, but as a temporary economic arrangement. All men were afterward to have his gospel, but this was a " trial trip," a missionary exer- cise for the Apostles among their own people, almost under his own eyes. He imparted to them, of his peculiar power, ability to heal the sick, to cleanse lepers, to eject demons, and to raise the dead. Whether they found on this excursion any occa- . 1 . . . . n Their powers. sion to exercise this great power m the raising of the dead, we are not informed. But all these things were merely subservient to the "preaching of the kingdom." That was to be their great work, the chief absorbing labor of their lives. The next direction is that they are to make no provision for their personal comfort, in the way of money and clothes. They were to preach the gospel without pay. They ,, . , - , , . • * Tneir Provision. had received ireely, they were to give freely. The gospel was not to be sold. They were to go forth free of care and do their great work. Their Lord assured them that they should not fail of support. The people would receive them 382 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER BS THE LDJE OF JESUS. They were not to be encumbered with baggage. Their wants were to be simple, and those wants were to be supplied. It was a general principle he seems to have laid down for the governance of all future missionary operations. A man going forth with the truth will find those who are ready to minister to his wants. And then he sets forth the method in which he desired his gos- pel propagated. It was not by founding churches, not by erect- ing great and powerful ecclesiastical apparatus. The home-altar. & fe r . rr He seems never to have intended to found a church like this, like anything indeed now represented by our modern " denominations." His " church " was to be of all those who trusted in him, believed him, followed him, loved him. Its work was the dissemination of certain principles. It is observa- ble that he chose the hearth-stone as the altar of the temple of the new faith. His apostles were to enter houses, not cry aloud in the streets, nor harangue the crowds. They were to carry the seeds of the newly quickened religion to the homes and the hearts of men. They were to sit down among the parents and children and servants, and tell them what Jesus was teaching, explain to them what the " kingdom " was, and was to be, and how it was to interpenetrate all life from bottom to top. They were to cure and cleanse men spiritually, and in confirmation of their mission cure and cleanse them physically. The religion of Jesus is not a tem- ple religion. It does not consist in periodical visits to the altar- spot, ceremonial offering of specified sacrifices, nor anything else churchly and ritual. It was to be the religion for the home. It was to draw all men near to the Father of all men. It was to make the earthly home a type of the heavenly, a terrestrial school of preparation for the celestial " life to come." It was to be a religion of principle. Some families would receive them, others would reject. They are told how to conduct themselves in either event. But he warns them that it is not to be always easy work. They were not always to be immediate and radiant victors. The oppo- sition they should meet would be powerful and for- A warning. , midable. The Jews would oppose them. Some- times, instead of carrying captive the congregation in the syna- gogue, the poor Apostle would be enduring a scourging. The Gentile governors and kings would set them at naught. What seemed so true to them would seem so false to others ; what seemed THE THIRD TOUE OF GALILEE. 383 so beautiful to them would be so ugly and hateful to others. They should be called to answer suddenly at the highest pagan tribunals. But they were not to be anxious. The right word would come at the right hour. They are to keep themselves in the love of the truth and be not specially careful for their oratory. He particularly tears away all self-conceit from them by saying " Ye are not the speakers, but the Spirit of your Father." This lifts them above all selfish anxiety. It is not their work, but another's. If they be persecuted in one city they must flee to another. They have no further work in the one, and they have something to do in another. Providence sometimes leads and sometimes drives. But he gives them this consolation — that they shall not have finished visiting the cities of Israel " until the Son of Man come." It is not quite easy to determine satisfactorily , , . , v ° A. consolation. what this phrase means. It may mean that he should join them in person before long, and thus be present to aid and direct them. To this it is to be objected that the portion of this solemn charge which begins with " Behold, I send you forth as sheep," really seems not to have had application to them in their temporary missionary excursions, but to their much longer apostolic career after the death of Jesus. Certainly the events which he foretold did not take place until then. The interpreta- tion suggested by Stier is that it applies to the apostolic labors in Judaea, which were to be closed by the coming of the Son of Man in the destruction of Jerusalem, and, by extension, that it applies to the operations of his messengers in the towns of the spiritual Israel. But all this seems mystical. These men were going on a practical mission, which Jesus tells them was so full of peril that their lives should be in constant jeopardy. It was no time to talk romantic theology to them. Jesus meant something practical which they could understand. Just what it was I do not know, but its general significance seems to be that, no matter how industriously they worked, and however rapid their move- ments, they could not visit all the towns before their mission should be accomplished. And this was probably the sense, whether their temporary tour be considered or their travels and labors after the death of their Teacher. He still further confirms and strengthens them by reminding them of his own case. They readily acknowledged him as theii 384 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. Master and Lord ; but he had all kinds of opprobrium heaped upon him. He had not had a serene and brilliant public life His was not the work of gradually winning men Hia own case. o J o V/ - Ltt to the truth ; it was a terrific battle with error and evil. The disciple is not above his master, the servant is no1 above his lord. They were to push the battle forward. He had spoken to them privately; they were to declare his doctrines openly. What they had heard in the closet they must proclaim upon the house-top. But there was to be no timidity and pusil- lanimity. A special providence would be vouchsafed them. To sparrows, one of which is worth scarcely a penny, God's guar- dianship extends, so that one of them does not fall without his notice. The arrow of the archer cannot reach him unless God so wills. That same heavenly Father counts every hair of every head. How much more precious is the head than the hair, the man than the sparrow ! And a man set to the promulgation of great truths, how precious is he ! He shall not be destroyed care- lessly. On the other hand, he warns them by their fear of God as well as by their confidence in his love. The persecutor lives his day ; the martyr has eternity. Men may destroy the body. They reach their limit there. God can destroy both soul and body in eternity. He seems to teach that the final punishment of the incorrigibly wicked shall be the final destruction of both soul and body. He gives his Apostles to understand that the propagation of his gospel would be a process of discrimination, and an occasion, not The gospel to be a a cause, of wide-spread and bitter antagonisms. discrimination. jj e announces his intention of claiming and striv- ing to win the best love of every man. Every earthly affection in the disciple is to become subordinate to his devotion to his Master. Father, mother, son, daughter, — every other relationship and love must sit down at his feet. He intends to make himself king by obtaining monarchic sway over the hearts of men. Life itself is to be laid on the altar of this love. If a man shrink from the service of Jesus in order to preserve his life, he will surely lose it. He who yields himself, in the wise abandonment of a reasonable devotion, to Jesus, shall find all the good and sweet there is in life. Jesus will know, remember, and reward every least act of help to his kingdom or to those who are engaged in upbuilding it — even to the giving of a cup of cold water to a THE THIRD TOUR OF GALILEE. 385 disciple. He intends to invest all his followers with a portion of his own dignity. Whosoever receives a minister of the gospel is to be regarded as one who has received Jesus into his house, as Jesus is to be king of hearts ! It must have been appalling to the Apostles when Jesus spoke of " taking up the cross" and following him. Pie had not been crucified ; there was no prospect that he would ' . n A frightful figure. be : he had given them no intimation of any suspicion on his part that his career would have so disastrous a termination. But the cross as an instrument of ignominious tor- ture was well known to them ; and they most probably interpreted this phrase figuratively, as it was intended, to mean great pain and shame to be brought upon them by becoming preachers of the gospel. The whole address is a great step forward. It commissions Apostles to open the way before him. His hour was coming. He was advancing his claims. He was prudently but , . . , . P , it r i • A great step forward. unhesitatingly going forward on the line or his mission. He might have retreated hitherto ; now he must go for- ward to any fate that might lie in the path he had chosen. The disciples went on their way. Jesus continued to work. They were all engaged in preaching repentance as preparatory to the receiving of the Messiah. We are not now able to learn how large was the missionary circuit of the Apostles, but it is very ap- parent that it excited a great popular interest in the person and work of Jesus. At the instigation of Herodias, Herod had, as we have seen, seized and imprisoned John the Baptist, because the bold preacher had rebuked him for living in adultery with II e- -,. -. ,.. ., . . n „ -r-,, , , . John the Baptist ex- rodias, who was his sister-in-law, the wire or Jrhilip. eC uted. Matt. xiv. 1- He mav also have feared lest the growing in- 13 ? Mark "• 21_29; ° o o Luke ix. 7-9. lluence of John upon the populace might become &: great as to give him political power, if he chose to exert it. For entire safety he had confined the Baptist in the castle of MachsBrus. Herodias never forgave John his denunciation of this adulterous connection, but continued to plot against his life, and at last succeeded Herod's birthday arrived. He made a Bupper for his lords, high captains, and chief-estates. At a warm stage of the revel the daughter of Herodias entered and danced before the assembly, danced so seductively that Herod, iu 25 386 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IS THE LDJE OF JESUS. his hot admiration, promised to give her whatever she should ask, to the half of his kingdom. To convince her, he backed up this foolish promise by an oath. She conferred with her vindictive mother, who instructed her to demand the head of John the Bap- tist. To this demand Herod was extremely reluctant to comply Nevertheless, as the historian says, "for his oath's sake, and for their sakes who sat at meat, he would not reject her." An execu- tioner went forthwith and brought the horrible gift in a charger, which the hardened daughter carried to her callous mother. John's disciples heard that he had been executed, and went and buried his headless corpse. It was at this juncture that the fame of Jesus reached the court of Herod. That potentate was superstitious as well as lustful . , ,_ and cruel. When he heard the marvellous things Herod hears of Jesus. # m ■ ° which Jesus was doing he was perplexed, and said to his friends that it was John risen from the dead. They endeavored to allay his terror by saying that it was Elias, or the spirit of some other of the older prophets reappearing in Jesus. But Herod's alarms were not so easily dissipated. He retained and affirmed the conviction that his victim had risen from the dead. He determined, if possible, to see Jesus, who was mani- festly becoming as important, in a political point of view, as Herod had supposed John to be. When Jesus heard that Herod had begun to manifest an interest in his movements, and saw that the people were reaching a pitch of excitement which might easily transport them into violence, he judged it best to withdraw himself from a position in which he was liable to have his great work interrupted by the arousing of a tyrant's terrors by popular demonstration in his behalf. In the mean time the disciples had returned and reported the results of their missionary tour. Perhaps the news of the death of John hastened their return.* Mark mentions Return of the twelve. another reason: the Apostles had returned from their tour, by the labors and circumstances of which they were excited, and they needed refreshment for coming conflicts. Jesus * It does not appear how long they were absent on this preaching tour. Wieseler and Teschendorf make it only a flay ; Ellicott, two days ; Greswell, that hey left in February and returned in March, one or two months ; and Krafft extends it to several months. We can hardly suppose that it was less than several weeks. THE THIRD TOUR OF GALILEE. 387 withdrew them from their public ministry, and went with them into a desert place. If he had not done so, now that he was becoming so popular, and the people so much excited by his min- istry, and the slaughter of John having undoubtedly produced a very profound impression, it is probable that a sedition w r ould have occurred, and Herod would have charged it to his ministry. And this sedition was all the more probable as the people did not recognize him as a divine person, but only as a very great prophet. There was every prudential reason for retiring. He took a boat with his disciples and went over to a portion of uninhabited shore, probably near the town of Bethsaida, in Perea. He was not flying from Herod so much as from the people. But he could not be hid. The excited populace, seeing the movement and conjectur- ing the destination, ran around the head of the lake and reached the spot before the landing of Jesus, who, when he came out, saw that privacy was impracticable. He looked on that great multi- tude, anxious and panting from the exertion they had made to gain the spot.* He had compassion upon them. Their spiritual pastors had abandoned them. They were as sheep without a shep- herd. The tender-hearted Jesus could not forbear. So, going to an elevation, he sat down, and for hours gave them instruction in the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And when the day was far spent his disciples reminded him that it was a desert place and that the people, had long been with- out food, and urged him to send them away to find food and * The distance was from six to eight miles, and could be passed over as quickly by those who hastened on foot as by those who crossed the lake in a boat. Bethsaida probably lay on both sides the Jordan, just where it entered into the lake. On the east is the level plain of Buthiah, in the shape of a tri- angle, made by the eastern mountains, the lake shore, and the river side. Dr. Thomson concludes, and I think shows, that the site of the feeding of the five thousand was in the south-eastern angle of this plain, where the hills come close to the shore. He says (vol. ii. p. 29), " From the four narratives of this stu- pendous miracle, we gather, 1st, That, the place belonged to Bethsaida; 2d That it was a desert place ; 3d, That it was near the shore of the lake, for they came to it by boats ; 4th, That there was a mountain close at hand ; oth, That it was a smooth grassy spot, capable of seating many thousand people. Now all these requisites are found in this exact locality, and nowhere else, so far as I can discover. This Butaiha be- longed to Bethsaida. At this extreme south-east corner of it the mountain shuts down upon the lake, bleak and bar- ren. It was, doubtless, desert then as now, for it is not capable of cultivation. In this little cove the ships (boats) were anchored. On this beautiful sward, at the base of the rocky hill, the people were seated." 388 SECOND Aim THIED PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. lodging in the surrounding country. To this he replied, " They need not depart ; give ye them to eat." Previous to this, probably Miraculous feeding of early in the afternoon, Jesus had questioned Philip five thousand. as t ^ ow i^qj should manage to feed so great a congregation of people. There may have been two reasons for putting this question to Philip, namely, that he was a man very slow of spiritual apprehension, and was a citizen of the neighbor- ing town of Bethsaida. John says that Jesus thus questioned Philip to prove him. Philip's reply shows his spiritual obtuse- ness. Jesus was putting forth his claim to Messiahship more and more distinctly. But Philip could not discover it. He replied, " Two hundred denarii worth of loaves is not sufficient for them, that every one should receive a little." This intimation of the impossibility of making so heavy a purchase shows the scantiness of the exchequer of the circle of Jesus. " Thirty dollars would not feed them ! and where have we that sum ? " Jesus seems to have left the perplexing question with Philip until late in the afternoon, when his disciples suggested the difficulty to him, to which he replied as above, and added, " How many loaves have you ? " Andrew answered that they had found in the multitude a lad who had five barley loaves and two small fishes. He ordered them to be brought to him, and then commanded the multitude to be seated on the green grass, in plots or squares, so that there were alleys between, and the whole slope looked like a garden whose parterres were filled with human beings. He then looked up to heaven and blessed and brake the loaves, and handed them to the disciples to set before the multitude. There were about -five thou- sand men, beside women and children. The orderly arrangement secured ample opportunity to each to eat as much as he would, as long as the food lasted. They did all eat and were filled. When they could eat no more Jesus directed the fragments to be gath- ered, that nothing be lost, and the disciples gathered twelve bas kets * full of the fragments and of the fishes that remained over after all had eaten. * This is the translation in the com- mon version, and is correct, that being the ordinary meaning- of the word. But does it not mean that the twelve Apos- tles filled each his wallet with the frag- ments ? Whence did they have so many empty baskets? But the very word which is here translated "baskets" does mean "wallet," and was applied to the travelling-bag which every Jew carried. To this Juvenal alludes, using the very word employed in this passage, " Judeeis, quorum cophinus faenumqu« supellex." (iii. 14.) THE THIRD TOTTC OF GALILEE. 389 How this was performed we have no means of knowing. The historians recite the facts and offer no theory. There was no supply called forth from the multitude, and the J- J- ^ ' No theory. disciples had none in reserve. The astonishment and enthusiasm of all parties show this. It could have been no feat of legerdemain. It has had no parallel, and no attempt has been made, so far as is known to us, to imitate it. It was no has- tening of the process of nature, for it was baked bread that was multiplied. If a handful of uninjured wheat had been made to grow in an hour into the bulk of a harvest, the process would have been measurably intelligible, and might have been described as an astoundingly rapid pushing forward of natural processes. But here were five baked loaves, and two small fishes already cooked. More than five thousand persons, after a long fast, ate of these and nothing else, ate to repletion, and then the fragments were hugely more than the original bulk. It was an astounding fact, a stu- pendous act, and was so regarded by those who were of that large party. Whether the food grew in the hands of Jesus, or in the hands of the disciples, or in the hands or in the mouths of the eaters, there seems no possibility of knowing. The historians, who were eye-witnesses, do not adventure an opinion. Nor can we. It is a fact in the history of Jesus, and as such we must simply record it and honestly study it. How this wonderful performance was regarded by the multi- tude is manifest from the fact that their false Messianic views were so highly excited thereby that they were Matt, xiv.; Mark vi.; ready to rise in rebellion against the Eoman J^vi. power, and crown Jesus as their king, and insist that he should lead them forth to a victorious revolt. Perceiving that they would make him king by force, and thus push him into a false position, Jesus showed wonderful force of character and sagacity by first sending away his disciples, that they might not catch this political fever and complicate the difficulties of the situation by joining the people in their mad attempt. In the absence of his immedi- diate friends and followers it would be more easy to manage the mob, for such the multitude seems to have become. And he did succeed in dispersing them. At this point occurs a difference in the directions given by Jesus to the disciples as recorded by two of the historians. John saya the disciples went over the sea toward Capernaum, and Mark 390 second and third passoveb m the ldje of jesus. says that Jesus constrained them to get into the ship and to gc to the other side before him unto Bethsaida. Dr. Thomson, a difficulty explained. whose intimate personal knowledge of the Holy Land makes him the very highest authority, says " Looking back from this point at the south-eastern extremity of the Bu- taiha, I see no difficulty in these statements. As the evening was coming on, Jesus commanded the disciples to return home to Capernaum, while he sent the people away. They were reluctant to go and leave him alone in that des- ert place ; probably remonstrated against his exposing himself to the coming storm and the cold night air, and reminded him that he would have many miles to walk round the head of the lake, and must cross the Jordan at Beth- saida before he could reach home. To quiet their minds, he may have told them to go on before toward Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd, prom- ising to join them in the night, which he intended to do, and actually did, though in a manner very different from what they expected. Still, they were reluctant to leave him, and had to be constrained to set sail. In this state of anxiety they endeavored to keep near the shore between this and Bethsaida, hoping, no doubt, to take in their beloved Master at some point along the coast. But a violent wind beat off the boat, so that they were not able to make Bethsaida, nor even Capernaum, but were driven past both." When the disciples had started, and the multitude had been dis- persed, Jesus went into a mountain apart to pray, and so remained until the fourth watch of the ni^ht : that is, be- Storm on the lake. . i • t tween three and six o clock m the morning. In the mean time there came upon the lake one of those furious storms which sometimes sweep down through the valleys and plough the lake furiously. Dr. Thomson's description (ii. 32) is a vivid help to our imaginations in endeavoring to realize the scene : " My experience in this region enables me to sympathize with the disciples in their long night's contest with the wind. I spent a night in that Wady Shukaiyif, some three miles up it, to the left of us. The sun had scarcely set when the wind began to rush down toward the lake, and it continued all night long with constantly increasing violence, so that when we reached the shore next morning the face of the lake was a huge boiling caldron. The wind howled down every wady from the north-east and east with such fury that no efforts of rowers could have brought a boat to shore at any point along that coast. In a wind like that, the disciples must have been diiven quite across to Gennesaret, as we know they were. To understand the causes of these sudden and violent tempests, we must remember that the lake lies low — six hundred feet lower than the ocean; that the vast and naked plateaus of the Jaulan rise to a great height, spreading backward to the wilds of the Hauran, and upward to snowy Hermon ; and the water-courses have cut out profound ravines and wild gorges, converging to the head of this lake, and that these act like THE THIRD TOUR OF GALILEE. 391 gigantic funnels to draw down the cold winds from the mountains. On the occasion referred to we subsequently pitched our tents at the shore, and re- mained for three days and nights exposed to this tremendous wind. We had to double-pin all our tent-ropes, and frequently were obliged to hang with oul whole weights upon them to keep the quivering tabernacle from being carried up bodily into the air. No wonder the disciples toiled and rowed hard all that night ; and how natural their amazement and terror at the sight of Jesus walking on the waves ! The whole lake, as we had it, was lashed into fury ; the waves repeatedly rolled up to our tent-door, tumbling over the ropes with such violence as to carry away the tent-pins." In such a storm as this the disciples toiled about eight hours, making a little over three miles, and therefore only about half their voyage. It was still dark, and the heavy jesuswaiMngonthe tempest lay on them. Suddenly they saw what water - they supposed was a ghost — the appearance of a man walking the waves as though he would pass them — and they cried out with fear. Jesus spoke to them and said, " Cheer up, it is I ; be not afraid ! " It vms he. He had come down from the mountain and gone over the sea, and was walking near their vessel. When the excitable Peter heard his voice he said, " Lord, if it be thou, command me to come to thee upon the waters." Jesus did not command, but he permitted the attempt. Peter tried it. Going toward Jesus, the prodigious storm so unnerved him and shook his faith that Peter began to sink, and cried for help to Jesus, who stretched out his hand and seized him, and lifted him up with the kind rebuke, "O thou of little faith; wherefore didst thou doubt?" In their act of entering the ship the wind suddenly ceased and straightway the vessel was at the landing. Then the disciples, the crew, and the passengers fell at his feet and worshipped him, and said, " Of a truth thou art the Son of God." Here is a plain statement of a miracle. In a howling storm Jesus walked the waters of a lake that had been lashed by the scourges of a powerful hurricane through the i -i • -i t i e -i . Theories. whole night. It was not a phantasm of him. There was no optical delusion. Peter touched his hand. He went on board the vessel. He remained with a number of men, who had ample opportunity to examine his person. How he did it is not the part of a historian to say. There are latent forces in our humanity which now and then flash forth. There are ordi- nary phenomena which lie in the line of this narrative, one of which, namely, that a man is lighter when awake than wheo 392 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. asleep, was noticed as early as the times of Pliny. Trench's theory for this is that the human consciousness as an inner centre works an opposing force to the centripetal force of gravity, how- ever unable now to overbear it. But here is something stupen- dous. In a great storm a man walks about on the waters, for the original word indicates something of a quiet promenade. Another man attempts to walk towards him, and succeeds so long as he trusts him, but sinks as soon as his faith begins to fail. Jesus teaches that, so far as Peter was concerned, the walking was due to his faith alone ; that there was in him a capability to achieve this dominion over nature, but that he had failed because his faith had failed. So far as Jesus was concerned, there was no force exerted on him from without, nor was there any suspension of the physical law of gravity : it was manifestly the power of his own will dominating what seem to us to be natural laws. If there had been any very philosophic man among his fol- lowers he must have seen, even at the disadvantage of too great prosressiveness of nearness, what seems sufficiently plain to even Jesus - superficial study of Jesus at this remove from his presence, namely, that there was a progressiveness in his whole inner and outer history — a growth of the inner man — to which there was a corresponding development of the outer life. Through thirty years his spiritual force seems to have been accumulating in private. We can hardly imagine that he was totally devoid of all consciousness of this progress of his soul ; nay, the whole his- tory shows that he knew himself, and that one of the very greatest difficulties of his position was to make others comprehend his psychical condition. At the ripening moment he entered upon his public career, through all of which there were repeated out- ilashings of the growing inner glory. These three years show how he became more and more luminous. At this point of his history he opposes the forces of his inner man to famine, to a mob, to a storm at sea. He stretches the assertion of his kingly rule further and further into the world of matter and the world of mind. The development of his spiritual history is rhythmic. These phenomena are described by men who did not perceive, and could not comprehend, the profound logical and poetical noume- non which produced them. If these things did not occur, then we have a more troublesome perplexity to deal with, namely, the miracle of the existence of a narrative so superhumanly true to THE TEJKD TOUR OF GALILEE. 393 philosophy and the highest poetry — superhumanly, that is to say, if the historians were not relating facts. It would be easier for any man to walk the Atlantic through a raging storm, from New York to Liverpool, than to produce a book which should set forth a character and a history so wonderful as this of Jesus, so symmetrical, so accordant with our intuitions of truth, and yet not modelled after this of Jesus, whose historians produced it without type, suggestion, or original, if just such a man did not live and perforin just the things which they represent. There is no wonder, then, that the mariners and passengers, as well as the disciples, now, if never before, acknowledged him as the Son of God; that is, granted what he had claimed, the posi- tion of Messiah, although they held their own gross views of what the Messiah's functions were. They now believed that he was the One Anointed to deliver them from the bondage of the Romans. It would seem as if there now came upon them the conviction which had been forced upon the multitude by the feeding of thousands with a few loaves. The party landed on the plain of Gennesaret. As soon as the inhabitants found that he had arrived they sent messengers through the whole country and had the sick brought in lit- . \. Till -!• Intense excitement. ters to him. As he passed around the lake to his home in Capernaum there was an intense excitement everywhere. In all the towns and villages they brought their sick and laid them before him on his passage through their streets, and invalids begged the privilege of touching if only the hem of his garment. All were healed. It was a wonderful procession of beneficence. In the mean time some of the most fanatical of the people who had been fed on the previous day seemed to have lingered in the hope of seeing him again. They knew nothing of the extraor- dinary night-scene on the lake. They supposed that he may have retired for private devotion, but would make his appearance during the day. But not finding him, and knowing that there had been but one vessel on the lake yesterday, and that in the fearful storm the disciples could not have returned and taken him, they fell back on the only natural conjecture, namely, that he had walked around the edge of the lake by Bethsaida to Capernaum. When, therefore, vessels from Tiberias passed near, they hailed them and took shipping for Capernaum, seeking Jesus and more bread. 394 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LIFE OF JESUS. That these people were not the best of the multitude who had been fed in the wilderness, appears from their persecuting Jesua T ,_ - . with their presence when he would fain have been Capernaum. John xvi. . x rid of them, because they did not follow him for religious instruction, but for material considerations. They hoped that he was to be their Bread-king, the Messiah, to reign and feed his people. Their hearts and consciences had all gone to stomach. They lived in a dream, in which many a lazy soul to this day laps itself, that there is "a good time coming" when men shall have plenty to eat and nothing to do. They were the Millerites or Adventists of old. We must remember this, to make the address of Jesus at all comprehensible. He speaks what they could not understand, while he utters profound truths which all receptive spirits will find instructive. The company of bread-seekers pushed into the synagogue where Jesus was teaching, and sought to relieve their curiosity by the abrupt inquiry, "Rabbi, when did you come The bread-seekers. . r \ J 7 . 7 , . . hither? Jesus deigned no reply to this imperti- nence. He regarded himself as the embodiment of Truth, and Truth never reveals itself to crude curiosity and pruriency. He answers reprovingly, and then makes an utterance very deep, but not wholly incomprehensible even to them. " Verily, verily, I say to you, Ye seek me not because ye saw signs, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled. Exert yourselves, not for food which perishes, but for that which remains to the enduring life which the Son of Man gives to you, for him has God the Father sealed." They seemed to understand something of this, so far at least as that he meant to say that if they got material bread from him it would be a very incidental thing ; that he was a moral teacher, and that they must seek him for what their souls would gain of spiri- tual sustenance, which he boldly announces that he is able to give them ; that he is the one whom God the Father has stamped as genuine, and that he could give them that which nourishes the life which endures. Therefore they said, "What shall we do that we may work the works of God ? " Jesus answered them, " This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom He hath sent." Their reply was, " What sign doest thou, that we may see and believe thee ? what dost thou work ? Our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, as it is written, ' He gave them bread from hea THE THIRD TOUR OF GAT.TT/FflS. 395 ven to eat.' " These gross people, having been fed miraculously had forgotten the feeding and undervalued the miracle, it would seem, because it was a mere multiplication of ^ '. x _ They demand a sign. bread, whereas in the desert, during their wander- ings, their fathers had a daily shower of bread from heaven. This reply shows how material and sensuous were all their ideas. Jesus answered : " Moses did not give you the bread, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven and giveth life to the world." It was not Moses who gave the manna, but it was God. And that manna was but temporary, for if it remained over it decayed and was useless. But God sends Jesus, in whom the world is to have life. He evidently believed and manifestly taught that the life of the world was derived from himself, and wholly dependent on himself. It was the highest possible claim. There seemed to be some upspringing of faith in the hearts of his hearers. They said unto him, " Sir, evermore give us this bread." Jesus, knowing that the faith which . , -, t Some faith. depended upon miracles was a stream made by showers, and not flowing from a fountain, deepened his discourse and became more offensive to them. " I am the bread of life : he that comes to me shall never hunger, and he that believes on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you that ye have even seen and failed to believe. The whole that the Father gives me will come to me, and him that comes to me I will not cast out. For I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of Him who sent me, which is, that of the whole which He has given me I should not lose from, but should raise it up in the final day. For this is the will of the Father, that .every one who sees the Son and believes on him may have lasting life, and that I should raise him up in the final day." This profound speech seems to imply that as bread is the nutri- ment of. the outward and physical life, so Jesus is the nutriment of the spiritual life ; that as the body which does not receive food into itself, and assimilate that food with itself, will perish, so the soul which fails to receive and assimilate Jesus, which must mean the spirit and teachings of Jesus, will also perish ; that there is no lasting life for those who do not derive it from Jesus. The assertion that he came down from heaven, by which he claimed a relation to the spiritual world quite distinct from and 396 SECOND AND THEED PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. superior to that of other men, was an offence to the Pharisaic leaders, who started the murmur among the people : " Is not this Jesus again offends Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father also we the Pharisees. have known ? How then says he, ' I came down from heaven ? ' " They had been familiar with Joseph and with Jesus as plain mechanics working in a humble shop, or going about doing the usual work of carpenters. That such a man should claim knowledge of a previous existence in heaven, and a voluntary coming from heaven to earth, all which Jesus certainly did claim, was to them a stumbling-block. The reply of Jesus was, " Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me except the Father who has sent me draw him : and I will raise him up in the last day. It His reply to them. . . . \ * is written m the prophets, ' And they shall all be taught of God.' * Every one who has heard and has learned of the Father comes unto me. Not that any one hath seen the Father, except he who is from the Father: he has seen God. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believes has lasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat the manna in the wilderness and have died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, that any one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven ; if any one eat of my bread he shall live forever. The bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh." Here Jesus explicitly teaches that God co-operates with him in his mission, so that every one who has any right thoughts and feelings from God has the moral preparation necessary to receive Jesus. Not that any one has seen God except Jesus himself, but he implicitly says that he has seen God. God gave perishable bread in the desert for the temporary sustentation of the temporary lives of their fathers, but now God gives living bread from heaven, even Jesus. This language is evidently highly symbolical of a deeply pro- found conviction of Jesus. He connected the welfare of man- kind with himself, and with himself after death. Flesh cannot be eaten until the animal is dead ; but then that flesh, having lost its life, is on the way to decay : but Jesus says his flesh is alive when eaten. The words in the original are so arranged as to ex- press this weightily. Then there can be no doubt as to his con- * In 3uch passages as the remarkable i pare Isa. liv. 13, and Jerem. one in Joel ii 26, 29, with which com- | 34. THE THIRD TOUR OF GALILEE. 397 viction that he should die ; that after death he should be alive again ; and that then faith in him should be the life of men, and that only by faith in him could men have lasting life, and that souls that did not receive him should perish, just as bodies perish that do not receive material food into themselves. Then the Jews strove among themselves and said, " How can this man give us his flesh to eat ? " Perhaps some had glimpses of a profound spiritual meaning. Jesus confirms *■ *- ° Their puzzle. their idea of "eating" by a positive averment. " Yerily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have not lasting life in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has lasting life, and I will raise him up at the final day. For my flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in 'me and I in him. As the living Father has sent me, and I live on account of the Father, so he who eats me, he also shall live on account of me. Such is the bread which came down from heaven : not as the fathers did eat, and have died : he who eats this bread shall live forever." This is very spiritual or very gross, and to each hearer it must have seemed, as now to each reader it does seem, either one or the other, according to his moral state of receptivity. To Jesus, from all we now know of his character, it could have been only an ex- pression in human language of his most delicate perceptions of most spiritual and sublime and important truths. No one could truthfully utter these words without believing that the existence of all souls depended upon himself, and that his life was depend- ent upon the continued existence of God and upon nothing else, so that he is virtually the God of humanity. The soul that does not somehow partake of him is as surely going to destruction as the body that does not somehow partake of food and drink is go- ing to destruction. He makes this statement so strong that while the Jews are discussing the possibility he cuts them short with an emphatic statement of the necessity. That which is eaten is taken into the absorbing and circulating organs of the body and assimi- lated. That seems to be the reigning idea throughout this speech, not the grossness of mastication, but the fineness of assimilation. All this discourse took place in the synagogue in Capernaum. It was not only offensive to the Jews, but also to many of the hangers-on of his disciples, those who followed him from genera. 398 SECOND AND THIRD PASSOVER IN THE LDJE OF JESUS. motives or for sinister purposes. They said, " This is a hard say- ing; who can listen to it?" Jesus knew how they felt, perhaps heard what they said. He replied, " Does this" offend you ? What if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before ? It is the spirit that gives life ; the flesh profits nothing : the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe." It seemed to them some- thing like impiety which he was uttering in saying that he came down from heaven. He startles them with the intimation that it is possible they may yet have ocular proof of his ascending. He declares again his pre-existence. In speaking to his disciples he gives a spiritual turn to the words he had uttered, and broad- ens the spiritual significance of that speech by declaring that his physical man, his body, could not be profitable, but that it is the spirit which gives life, the spirit animates the body, and spirit- ual recognitions alone are valuable. John declares that Jesus had insight into the spiritual con- dition of the men about him, and knew who did and who did not Jesus sifts Ms follow- believe his words, and who it was that should tm - betray him. He saw that he weaned from him the utter materialists and traditionalists and secularists. Many of his followers turned away from him forever. Jesus said to his twelve chosen friends, whom he had selected to propagate his principles, " Do you also wish to go away ? " Simon Peter, gen- erally spokesman, answered, " Sir, to whom shall we go ? Yon have the words of lasting life, and we believe and have found out that you are the Holy One of God." There was a great faith based on a great spiritual intelligence. He saw that words were more powerful than acts. Deeds die. Words live. The feeding of five thousand people was a small thing as compared with the utterance of a great truth on which the soul could feed and grow. Jesus said, " Have not I chosen you twelve ? and one of you is a traitor." John says, after the fact, that Jesus spoke of Judas Iscariot, son of Simon of Kerioth. Jesus may have told John that he did mean this Judas, or John may have simply afterward recollected when Jesus was betrayed that this speech had been made and must have referred to Judas. This is the closing passage in the history of the second year of the ministry of Jesus. He had aroused the Pharisees, had sifted his followers, and had given training to his tried Apostles. PART V. FROM THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE ENSUING FEAST OF TABERNACLES. FROM APRIL TO OCTOBER, A.D. 29— ABOUT SIX MONTHS. CHAPTER L UNSETTLED. It does not appear that Jesus went up to Jerusalem to the Pass- over of this year, but it is supposed that his disciples did. There must have been multitudes at the great national celebration who had seen or heard of the feeding; . ^ esus remams ° in Capernaum. of the five thousand, and who knew the intense desire of the people to make Jesus king. Such things would be much talked of and most eagerly listened to. The intense inter- est excited by these reports probably hastened the determination of the hierarchicparty to destroy Jesus. Jesus knew it, and ceased to travel in Judaea proper, confining himself to Galilee. Soon after the Passover a deputation from the Pharisees and Scribes, being charged to ascertain some ground of accusation against Jesus, were dogging his steps and watch- M .. m M , ing his movements; and spies of that character vii. The deputar never fail to find in the most spotless life some- tion from the thing to which they can take exception. Pharisees. In addition to the Scriptures, which contained the moral law in writing, the Pharisees endeavored to bind upon the consciences of the people certain unwritten traditions of the elders, oral precepts, which they attributed to the assistants of Moses. After the time of Jesus these were collected 400 THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. into a book, consisting of two parts : the Mishna, the text of the supposed original precepts of the elders, and the Gemara, the comments on the text by the chief rabbies — the whole being called The Talmud. Among the requirements of these traditions were many which obliged the Jews to wash often, and to wash many things, and to wash in peculiar ways. Mark has a note to that effect, inserted parenthetically in his history : " For the Pharisees and all Jews, except they wash their hands often, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders, and on coming from the market, if they sprinkle not, they eat not. And many other things there are which they have received to hold, as baptisms of cups and of pots and of vessels of brass." On coming from any public assembly it was in accordance with this ceremonial law that the whole body be washed, because it could not be known what defilement may have been contracted by contact with the common people. When this deputation of spies saw that Jesus and his disciples paid no regard to these requirements they catechized him, saying, " Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands ? " The plain intimation is, that the Master was held responsible for at least the known and unrebuked acts of his disciples. The stern reply of Jesus was, " Well has Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites when he said (representing Jehovah as speaking), 4 This people honor me with their lips, but their Jesus rebukes k ear t i s f ar from me ; in vain do they worship th.6 Pharisees. me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. 5 For you, leaving the commandment of God, hold the tra- dition of men. Well do you reject the commandment of God that ye may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, ' Honor thy father and thy mother, and he who resisteth father or mother let him end by death.' But you say that if a man shall say to his father or mother, i Corban (which means a gift), by whatever thou mightest be profited by me,' ye suffer him no longer to do anything for his father or his mother, making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered. And many such like things ye do." This was a severe rebuke, and struck at the sorest spot of Pha- risaism. The hold of the hierarchic clique upon the people lay in continuing in them a superstitious regard for the " traditions." UNSETTLED. 401 So long as the people were traditionists and ritualists, and the Pharisees held in their hands the interpretation of the tradition and the arrangement of the ritual, they could lord it over the con- sciences t of the populace. And we see in this rebuke of Jesus that churchism is the same in all ages of the world. The spies from Jerusalem indirectly rebuked Jesus, not because he did not regard personal cleanliness, but because he did not conform to the minute directions of the ceremonial laws which had been built up by the doctors of the law. In this they were hypocrites. They had made canons which were contrary to God's express command- ments. They had been described by Isaiah, and a telling passage was quoted against them. Jesus cites a case in which the terrible injury of churchism is seen. According to the law of God, a man was to honor his parents. But these " churchmen " taught that if a man said " Corban " over any property, it was thenceforth de- voted to "the church," and no matter how much the parents might be in need, this property was interdicted and alienated to " the church." Jesus regarded this as simply horrible. Nothing taken from a needy father or mother could be made acceptable to God by being devoted to what are called sacred purposes. Then calling to the crowd that was near, Jesus said, "Hear and understand: There is nothing from without the man which enter- ing into him can defile him ; but the things which come out of him, those are what defile the man." man The comparison of this address to the multitude with the speech to the Pharisees shows to us, that Jesus would not be understood as undervaluing purity in any sense, as not abol- ishing any law which God had given, but that purity was not to be attained and maintained by outward washings, and by observ- ance of what meats a man should eat, but rather by keeping the soul, the source of life, all clean. But this is expressed in a par- able. His disciples told him that he had offended the Pharisees by his speech to them. He answered, " Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind leaders. And if a blind man lead a blind man both shall fall into the ditch." Which reply seems to mean that whatever might come to him from so doing, he should not hesitate to root np such noxious weeds as these raise teachers, but seems also to implv that no special violence would be requisite. Do yon 26 402 THE THIRD PASSOVEE TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. see a blind man leading a blind man ? There is a pit in theii path. Why should one push them forward 1 They are going to destruction of themselves. So of these false teachers, and, alas! of their followers. But when they reached the house, Peter, who still had tradi- tionary ideas, and regarded the manner of eating as not an indif- ferent subject, asked his Master to explain to the Jesus expams ^i sc ip]_ es ^i s parable about the food. And he his saying. x x said, " Are you yet also without understanding % " They had been so near him, had so long heard his expressions of thought that they should have been able at once to know what he meant, and not compel him to go into a detailed explanation, which, however, he does not withhold. " Do you not understand that whatsoever enters the mouth goes into the stomach, and is evacuated into the draught? But the things coming out of the mouth come from the heart, and they profane the man. For out of the heart come forth evil purposes, murders, adulteries, forni- cations, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies: these are the things that profane a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not." This is consistent with all his teachings, that a man's purity must be that of the character interfused through the whole life. It was quite apparent now that the Jewish ecclesiastical au- thorities meditated extreme measures. The labors of Jesus and his Apostles had been exhaustive. There was a Matt. xv.; Mark fggjf^ ordeal in advance of them: Jesus mani- vu. In Phoenicia. _ _ . , , . iestly saw that, whether it was apparent to the others or not. His field of operations was daily more and more circumscribed by his enemies. He could not " walk " in Judaea nor in Galilee without being beset by his ecclesiastical foes. Capernaum could no longer be a retreat to him. It would seem that in view of these things Jesus meditated a season of retire- ment, and so withdrew his disciples up towards the confines of Phoenicia, designated in Matthew and Mark by the names of the two principal cities, Tyre and Sidon. It has been a question whether Jesus ever crossed the boundary of his native country during his public ministry. It is not neces- sarily implied in the words of Matthew and Mark, "into the coasts," "into the borders of Tyre and Sidon." The word may be as well translated "towards," or "unto," as "into." That he had declared his ministry to be confined to the Jewish people UNSETTLED. 403 does not touch the question, because he was seeking a place where he might for a season have recuperative repose, which he could better find in a heathen country in which he did not intend to preach. But now the question has been settled by the recently discovered Codex Sinaiticus, the text of which, in Mark vii. 31, is, " And again going from the coasts of Tyre he went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis." Of a woman of this country one of the most touching of all the stories in the New Testament history is narrated. Jesus sought retirement. He went into a house and took measures to prevent persons from seeking . . e yro " ce " nician woman, him. But he could not be hid. Some report of his power had crossed the frontier and reached the ears of a wo- man in those coasts. She now heard that Jesus, a descendant of that great Jewish king who was the wonderful Solomon's father, a worker of many cures, the most beneficent of prophets, was in the neighborhood. Her daughter was strangely and fearfully afflicted, and her countrymen, in common with the Jews, believed in demoniacal possession. She had nothing but this great afflic- tion to commend her to the attention of Jesus. Everything was against her. Her nationality was an offshoot of that base Canaan- itish stock that God had aforetime doomed to utter destruction, but which had been spared by the weakness of the ancestors of the people to whom Jesus belonged. She was a Syro-Phoenician. Then, in her creed, she was a pagan — a Greek. So she had in her veins the blood of three hated races — Greek, Syrian, and Phoenician : and her religion was against her in her appeal to the Jewish prophet. But her grief and love for her daughter transcended all such considerations. She sought Jesus and found him, and fell at his feet, and besought him, saying : " O sir, David's H Son, pity me ! for my daughter is grievously de- monized ! " For the first time in his career Jesus seemed un- touched by the plea of suffering. He paid no attention to the suppliant at his feet. He answered her not a word. But she followed him, prosecuting her pleadings. At length the disciples put in a word in her behalf. " Dismiss her : for she cries after us." That this word was in her favor is manifest from the reply of Jesus, but it seems to have come rather from a desire to 404 THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. be rid of her importunity than from any special regard for the poor petitioner. The reply was another discouragement to the agonized mother : " I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." This reminded them of the limit of their own commission, and perhaps recalled to them the fact that Jesus had made no cures of any heathen. It did not positively say that he would not grant their request and hearken to her prayer, but that if he did so it would transcend the limits of his mission and theirs. To the woman it must have sounded like a fresh repulse. She had, however, made her daughter's case her own, with such motherly sympathy that when she opened her petitions to Jesue it was in the pathetic appeal, " Pity me ! " as if she were the sufferer. Such love is unconquerable. She could not go back to her daughter with no relief. The picture of the paroxysms of the wretched patient goaded her maternal heart to utmost effort. Again she worshipped him. Again she cried : " O sir, help me ! " As if she had said: " I cannot go wholly unhelped : if my daughter cannot be utterly cured, do something for me ! I leave it to your wisdom and goodness to decide what." Jesus again re- pulsed her by a speech embodying a picture from domestic life. His first word to her was : " It is not a fair thing to take the bread of the children and throw it away (waste it) on the little dogs." All the history of Jesus shows the fineness of his organization. It is a remembrance of this which must help us here. "With what tone and look did Jesus utter this speech ? Jesus tries her To f anC y t ^ at k e mean t that this anxious mother at his feet was a dog, would be a wretched f orget- fulness of the whole spirit of Jesus thus far manifested in his words and works, especially in his treatment of women. He did not mean that. The woman knew, and the disciples knew, that the Jews were accustomed to apply the unhandsome epithet of " dog " to all heathens. He never could have called any woman a " whelp." None but the grossest of all gross men ever apply this word to any woman, and then they conceive her to be the basest of all base women. There is nothing here to justify this interpretation. He was simply reminding them of what the Pharisees and Scribes would say if he should help this woman, and also presenting to them in concrete words the abstract but vigorous prejudices of their own hearts against all peoples whe UNSETTLED. 405 were not of their nation, as if he had said : " You know that the Jews are Jehovah's peculiar children, and that this woman is a dog of a Canaanite ; would you have your Master outrage all decency and orthodoxy by helping her f " The coldest of most unpoetic historians might fancy that a faint smile of pity for their narrowness passed over his now benignant features as he uttered these gently satirical words. There was something in that look which stimulated the poor pleader's fainting hope. In the light of the smile which fell on her eyes, her heart — a woman's and a mother's — seemed to detect a warmth from the inmost soul of Jesus which escaped the eyes of the disciples, and which could not possibly be transferred to a written narrative. Quick-witted, persistent, faithful, she caught at the very word " little-dogs." In the original it is only one word. He did not employ the harshest name for those worth- less, vicious, vagabond canine prowlers through oriental villages. It is the only passage, so far as I can recollect, in the Bible his- tories, in which occurs any allusion to dogs which is not much against that animal. The word here is a diminutive, softening the meaning, not intensifying the contempt uousness. And it is a home scene. The little dogs are in the house ; they are men • tioned in close connnection with " the children." It was a hint to her faith. She caught it, and replied with admirable spirit and celerity. She did not deny what Jesus affirmed, but gave it a most sudden turn in her own favor. She did not degrade her- self. She did not allow herself to be worthless as a dog. It was the love for her daughter which gave her strength to hold herself up while her self-respect was thus apparently tortured by another and held down by herself. She loved another better than she loved herself. She said : " True, sir ; but even the dogs eat of the crumbs falling from the table of their masters." She assented to the truth of the general proposition of Jesus, but argued that so far from being a reason for her rejection it contained a reason for her acceptance. She does not make a demand for even the crumbs, but she pleads that she may not be driven from even them. Simon Peter must have resembled Martin Luther in many of his characteristics. When Luther read this passage he burst out so that you can almost hear the clapping of his hands in his written syllables: "Was not that a master-stroke? She snares ±06 THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. Jesus in his own words ! " With what delight the followers of Jesus must have regarded the swift beauty of this most finely delicate repartee. How could Peter contain him- Jesus ates holy wit. self ? How he must have glanced from the face of the Pagan at her prayer to the sad face of the wearied but good Jesus, who was gazing down into her eyes, to «^ee the effect of his speech. And when the reply came, the most spiritual hon mot on record, if the exuberant Peter did not flow over with gesticulations of delight, Jesus broke into applause at the wit of the speech and the humility and faith of the utterer. " O woman ! great your faith ! Be it unto you even as you de- sire ! " The prophet that at first refused to listen to her, and then repelled her, and then seemed to insult her, now that her faith has triumphed, gives her all. " Your utmost wish in its very form is granted." She rose, withdrew, and found on her return that her daughter had recovered while she lay pleading at the fead and holy Prophet's wearied and dusty feet. There was no more rest for Jesus. He could not be quiet in Judaea, nor in Galilee, nor in a heathen country. He was not disposed to hasten any crisis ; but if he must The Decapolis. WQrk - t mugt be j n j^g own countrv# He resolved rii viii'* to return. From Tyre he went northward " through Sidon," * probably going by a circuit through the mountainous country which lies between Tyre and Lebanon, where he might have opportunity for solemn retirement and deep dis- course with his disciples. But we have no itinerary of this jour- ney, lie may have crossed from the Phoenician boundaries di- rectly to Ilermon, and down by the east bank of the Jordan towards the lake, and thus have gone through the midst of Decapolis. Nor do we know exactly what part of Decapolis was thus visited. This name, which means " Ten Cities," and describes a region, was east of the Jordan, except a little territory near the western bank, at the southern end of the lake, and called Scythopolis. Upon the conquest of Syria by the Romans (b.c. 65) these ten cities were rebuilt, colonized, and allowed certain peculiar munici- pal privileges, making an assemblage of little principalities some- what after the manner of the Hanse Towns of Germany. Various- * Ata SiSdn'o? is the text in the Codex SinaiL, and is now the accepted reading, behig well authenticated, Tischendorf, Alford, Tragelles, Meyer, Lachmann, and others following it. UNSETTLED. 407 lists of names are given. Perhaps the larger number of authori- ties agree on the following : namely, Damascus, now the oldest city in the world ; Scythopolis, whose site is well known ; Gadara; Pella ; Philadelphia, which was the ancient Rabboth Ammon ; Gerasa, " whose rains are the most magnificent in Palestine;" Canatha or Keneth ; Raphana ; Hippos ; and Dion. * These cities were inhabited mainly by a pagan population, and in the days of Jesus the whole region was populous and prospero as. It was not long before the people began to bring their sick to * •* Cellarius thinks that Csesarea, Philippi, and Gergasa should be substi- tuted for Damascus and Raphana in this list, which is taken from Pliny {Nat. Hist, v. 16). It is true that Pliny is the only writer who extends Decapolis so far north as to include Damascus, which city would seem to be excluded by Josephus (who, however, does not furnish a list), since he calls Scythopo- lis 'the largest of them.' " — McClintock & Strong's Cyclopaedia. 408 THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. the great Healer. Matthew describes the rapid and frequent cures by such words as these : " And great multitudes came untc ^ * * him, having with them lame, blind, maimed, dumb, Cure of the deaf ' & . . ' ; , . - stammerer. ancl manv others, and cast them down at his feet ; and he healed them." Mark singles out a case which he describes in his peculiarly graphic style. Among the invalids was one who was deaf and a stammerer, and they brought him that Jesus might lay hands on him. But in this particular case he did not choose to exert his healing power in that way. He took the patient privately from the multitude, and put his fingers into the man's ears, and having spitten, he touched his tongue, and sighed, as in prayer, and said, "Ephphatha," an Aramaic word, which Mark translates " Be opened." And his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plainly. Jesus charged him and his friends that they should not publish this transaction. But they disobeyed him, and in proportion to the earnestness of his charge was the zeal with which they made the cure known. Each reader of this passage must have his own opinion of the motives of the great Worker. This much we have already learned, that Jesus had no selfish motives, was not fanatic nor timid, was neither a magician nor a charlatan. Whatever else be denied, the purely sincere deepness of his nature must have become ap- parent. He had no tricks and no evasions. We must always recollect the circumstances under which an act was performed, and the character of the actor. Jesus was now in a region in- habited principally by pagans, among whom, however, were many Jews. And then the ruling passion with Jesus was an intense desire to do good to their souls through the bodies of men. Now, unless we could have the spiritual penetration of this great Teacher, and see each particular case as it rose, we could not fairly criticize the variations which he made in the style of his mighty deeds ; in that sometimes he merely spoke, sometimes he touched, sometimes he sent the patient off to wash in a certain pool, sometimes he healed in the heart of the crowd, sometimes, as in this case, took the sufferer into privacy. Although we can- not perceive the reason in the patient, we may, as in this case, perceive some reason in the circumstances. It would have been contrary to his plans and the spirit of his life to excite a furor in this pagan population; it would have been every way UNSETTLED. 409 injurious to Jew arid Gentile, to allow to be created for himself the reputation of magician. He took the man into privacy, he prayed, he touched him, he commanded ; it was done on an instant. The Jews said, " He hath done all things well ; " the pagans glo rified the God of Israel. For three days Jesus was with this mixed multitude, healing and teaching, the crowd probably constantly growing as the report of the miracles spread. At the close of the third day Jesus called his disciples and said, " I have compassion on the multitude, because already they have continued with me three days and have noth- - -, T .-it ii Feeding of foai mg to eat: and I am unwilling to send them tilousaild> away fasting lest they fall in the way." They could not readily cross the lake, nor visit the towns, but would be compelled to return to their mountain homes by way of the passes through which they had followed Jesus. The disciples 6eemed to have forgotten his great miracle in feeding the five thousand, or they may have thought that he would not repeat 60 signal a creative act, or they may have chosen to let him indicate how the wants of all these people should be relieved. Their reply was, " Whence should we have so many loaves in the desert as to fill so great a multitude ? " Jesus said, " How many have you ? " They answered, " Seven, and a few little fishesP Jesus commanded the multitude to be seated, and taking the food he gave thanks, and divided it, and gave it to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. They all ate and were satis- fied. And they took up of the fragments seven baskets full. And the number of eaters was about four thousand men, besides children and women. The narrative here is very similar to that of the previous won- derful feeding of five thousand people. Perhaps, in some par- ticulars, they grew alike before they were written; but there are points of difference. The assembly here was largely heathen, the need was more pressing, the number of eaters was smaller, the number of loaves was larger, and the number of baskets of broken meat gathered after the meal was smaller than in the former instance. It is also to be observed that the word trans- lated "basket" is not the same as in the former instance. There, as the note on p. 388 shows, it meant the wallet which a Jew ordinarily carried on his journeys. Here it means a fish basket 410 THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. That these two words mean different things is apparent from the fact that they are not confounded in the two narratives, and from the other fact, that when Jesus afterward called the memory of his disciples to the two instances he discriminates in the use of the words, keeping the former to the first and the latter to the second instance. One cannot help pausing to say that, if these narratives had been fabrications, the author would have put this for the first and the other for the second miracle ; for obviously it is a more splen- did thing to feed five thousand on five loaves, and take up twelve baskets of fragments, than to feed four thousand on seven loaves, and save only seven baskets of fragments. Certainly it is not the manner of romancers and impostors to relate the greater exploits first, and then parade the smaller deeds of their heroes. If a writer of fiction had had this case in hand he would certainly have represented at least ten thousand eaters, and have reduced the number of loaves to two, if not to one. We may not comprehend all the physical and spiritual phenomena in this history, but it certainly sounds as if reported by an honest eye-witness. Jesus dismissed the multitude and took ship, perhaps a ship which the disciples kept in readiness for his accommodation, and went to the western side of the lake, to the coasts Dalmanutlia. f Magadan or Magdala as Matthew reports, to Matt, xv., xvi.; DaL mai mtha as tne more exact Mark records. Mark viii. ; Luke „. , , ._. . , -^ n . ..... ^ lne probability is that Dalmanutha was a village near Magdala, the latter being generally identified with El Mejdel, a poor hamlet near the lake on the south side of the plain of Gennesaret. "Whether he remained here a short time and encountered the Pharisaic party, or returned to Capernaum and there had this de- cisive interview with them, has been a question. I incline to believe that this fresh trial took place m Capernaum. It was obviously premeditated and planned. Dalmanutha was so obscure a place that we cannot think they would have expected him there. Wherever they did meet, it was where the Pharisees and Sadducees lay in wait for him, and this would most naturally be at his home in Capernaum. This is not a matter of great importance. It was on the western shore of the lake. It was in Galilee. It is noticed that now for the first time the Sadducees, the " rationalists " and infidels of their day, had UNSETTLED. 4:11 united themselves with the Pharisees, the Puritans of that day, tc put Jesus to a new trial. Here was a great combination of pow- erful influences. The Sadducees were the court party. Herod was a Sadducee. They were the refined and "liberal." The progress of Jesus thus far, if it had attracted their attention, had simply provoked their contempt. But he had begun to be anta- gonistic to them. He was rising from the position of a mere u or- thodox " Jewish sectary, and they were ready to attack him with all the illiberality for which professed "liberals" have always been noted. Now on the return of Jesus to his home, a return which seems to have the appearance of giving his own people a fresh oppor- tunity to accept him and his doctrine, these par- , , ,.,., , . n . -, A sign demanded. ties, whose hostility was deepening and widening, came to him demanding " a sign from heaven." The Jewish peo- ple had studied their prophets with a perpetual tendency to mate- rialism. In their minds such passages as Daniel vii. 13 had always a sensuous interpretation. They pressed Jesus for a sign in the heavens, which could be seen of all men. They seemed disposed to drive him to some act or word which should be an acknowledg- ment that he was a false Messiah : certainly the Sadducees held that opinion; but if a trae Messiah, which the Pharisees may secretly have wished, then he must be forced into a position which should make him the powerful head of a rebellion which was to break the Poman yoke and render the Jews the rulers of the world. Thus, for most opposite reasons, the Sadducees and the Pharisees conspired. His reply was, " When you see a cloud rise out of the west, immediately ye say 'A shower is coming,' and so it is : and when the south wind is blowing you say, c There will be heat,' and it cometh to pass. You hypocrites, ep J ° you can discern the face of the earth and of the sky, and how is it that you do not discern this time ? Yes, and why even of yourselves do you not judge what is right? For when you are going with your adversary to a magistrate, give diligence while on the way to be delivered from him, lest he drag you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and the officer cast you into prison. I tell you you shall not come out thence until you have paid the last mite." And then he groaned in spirit and said, "A wicked and adulterous generation seeks a sign. No sign shall 412 THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. be given it but the sign of Jonah." Saying this he left them, and the words and tone of the history indicate that he abandoned these men forever to the hardness of their hearts. They had finally rejected him. They might have had most beautiful use? oat of his life, but they would not. The parabolic language of Jesus seems plain to us. They were weather prophets. When the wind came from the sea on the west, they predicted rain ; when it came from weatherpropliets the burning deserts on the south, they predicted heat. The laws in the physical world acted with such regularity that a certain state of phenomena being given, another condition of affairs would inevitably take place. They ought to have known the signs of spiritual as well as those of phy- sical meteorology. His life was, in the nation, what west wind or south wind was in the land. They ought to have been wise enough to fore-read coining events by what was obvious before their eyes. One is not more difficult to understand than the other; and if men become learned in one department and re- main ignorant in the other, it is most manifestly because they do not choose to study the latter. If in their ignorance they pre- tend to knowledge, they are hypocrites. And he brings the interest of what he calls " this time v close home to them. He represents himself as plaintiff in a case in which his nation was defendant, and himself as fendaS;^ ^ **" dra gg m g tnem to tne judgment-seat of the right- ful ruler. It was a matter of the gravest moment to them that they should make peace with him. It was no time to be indulging in study of ordinary phenomena. The nation was being pulled forward to its crisis, to its judgment, and he warned them that unless they made peace with him they should soon suffer the extreme fate of nations by being utterly destroyed. They had become spiritual adulterers, which means, in Jewish phraseology, contaminated with heathenism. To such heathens there would be vouchsafed only the sign of the prophet Jonah. Let them ponder that. He gave them no explanation, he sug- gested no application of the reference to the case in hand. He left them, and crossed the lake. In the excitement of this interview and the haste of the de- parture the disciples forgot to carry provisions with them. The thoughts of Jesus also were upon other things. He saw how UNSETTLED. . 413 jKwi\iall} r even vet his disciples entered into his grand life of self abnegation. They were yet very secular; they were yet some how hoping for sensuous Messianic displays. Their thoughts and desires lingered with the flesh- ^ T ^? leaven of pots of the Egypt they were leaving. He said to them, very solemnly: "See and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees and of Herod." That is, keep yourselves from hypocrisy, and skepticism, and secularism. The} are contagious. They spread in the heart and in a community like leaven. How blind they still were is apparent from their comments among themselves. They said : " It is because we took not loaves." Jesus perceived, it and said : " Why do you reason among your- selves, O Little-Faiths ! because you have not loaves ? Do you not yet perceive ? Do you not yet understand ? Have you your heart hardened? Having eyes, do you not see? and, having ears, do you not hear? When I broke the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up ? " They answered : " Twelve." "And when the seven loaves among the four thousand, how many baskets full ? " They said : " Seven." And Jesus said : " How is it that you do not under- stand that I did not speak concerning bread, when I warned you of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees?" At last their dense stupidity was penetrated, and they perceived that he had not warned them to break from all communication with these sects, but to guard against their wicked doctrines. They were now at Bethsaida-Julias, in Perea. Matthew re- cords (xi. 21) that Jesus said that he had wrought many mighty works in this Bethsaida ; but the only one dis- tinguished and recorded is the cure of a blind Bethsaida, on man. Mark tells the story. He is the historian ^ e ™^-™f f tiie lake jVIirk who seems specially attracted by what has the viii characteristic of progressiveness, and the cure of the blind man was of that kind. He did not seem to know much of Jesus, or to take any special interest in him, or to have any no- ticeable degree of faith in him, or to have any ardent desire for a cure. In this case it was the friends who seemed to have a great zeal in his behalf. They brought him to Jesus, and be- sought that he might be cured. Jesus took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. What conversation they 414 THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. had is not recorded. In all the cases of his miracles we have studied there seems to have been an adaptation of the cure to the spiritual benefit of the sufferer, and some connection between hi? state of mind and the method of his cure. The intent was to develop the faith of the subject. In this case Jesus put spittle on the eyes of the man, and then laid his hands on him and asked him if he saw anything. The man, with a tone of joy, and in the delightful confusion of a sudden and unexpected relief, ex- claimed : " I see the men ; for I see them as trees, walking." Then Jesus laid his hands upon his eyes, and he saw clearly : he was thoroughly restored and saw all things plainly. The man seems to have lived in the country. Jesus sent him to his house, telling him not to return to the village. COPPEK SHEKEL. CHAPTEE II. THE GREAT CONFESSION. Then Jesus and bis disciples went up towards the region of Caesarea Philippi. This important city was originally called Paueas, from a cave and a temple dedicated to n r C s e Pan. Philip the tetrarch enlarged and beauti- PMippi. Matt. fied the town, and gave it the name of Caesarea, xvi. ; Mark viii ; in honor of the emperor Tiberius. His own Luke 1X -' xii > name was afterwards added, to distinguish this from the Caesarea which was the Roman metropolis of Palestine, and was situated about half-way between Joppa and Dora, on the main road leading from Tyre to Egypt. Caesarea Philippi, the northernmost limit of the travels of Jesus, was a picturesque and important place, and seems to have had a number of villages de- pendent upon it. It was most famous as being the spot in which the principal source of the Jordan is found. Jesus gave the re- gion fresh historic interest. Somewhere in this region he had retired for private devotion when his disciples found him. It was another crisis in his life. The hierarchic party had greatly decreased his , .^ rrn i • • . -i • Another crisis. popularity. I hey were working against him per- sistently and successfully. How far they had succeeded in af- fecting the dispositions of his disciples was to be tested. If they had become so intimidated as not to be willing and ready to fol- low him into any extremity, then his work was a failure. He should be compelled to abandon his designs totally, or reorganize his plans and begin afresh. He had been forced from Galilee. He was in the tetrarchy of Philip. The lines were drawn more closely about him. Some movement must soon be made. He made it now. Turning to his disciples, he put the direct question : " Whom do men say that I am % " This was to draw from them a statement of their knowledge of current and popular opinions of him OKSABEA PHU.IPPI. 41 6 THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. They were quite frank, and replied : " Some say that you are John the Baptist risen from the dead ; others, Elijah ; others, Jeru- A test question. miah > otners > one of tne prophets." Lightfoot shows that the Jews believed that the pro- phets were to rise again at the coining of the Christ. " The nearer still the hingdon of heaven came, but so much the more did they dream of the resurrection of the prophets." It is re- markable that no section of the people regarded Jesus as a divine personage — as the Messiah, the Christ — in any high spiritual sense ; for had it been so the disciples would not have failed to report it. According to their account Jesus did not stand so high with the people as at the beginning of his ministry. The reply of the disciples is really a curious and interesting study. Herod was terrified, and really believed that John had come back from the dead to imperil him. The Court party gave currency to this belief, because John had emphatically declared that he was not the Messiah, and it was to the interest of the king's friends to maintain that view, namely, that this man Jesus was not to have Messianic honors paid him, nor in any sense be regarded as Messiah. Messiah was still to come. They were in- terested in keeping him in the future. There were others who noticed the extraordinary severity of his castigations, and they said he was Elijah, so like was he to that terrible prophet. Others noticed how he was withdrawing himself, and becoming more and more sad. Perhaps at this period of his ministry there did naturally come melancholy cadences into his speeches. He was a man of sorrows. He was acquainted with griefs. He was being rejected by his own people, whom he loved, and whom he wished to bless. He was being driven into exile. Such melan- choly readily suggested the prophet of the Lamentations. To others he seemed only as some of the ancient prophets, not individually distinguishable ; so low was the estimate of most of the people. He had not then struck root into his nation generally : how might it be with his own family of disciples ? He determined to test it. It was a moment of profoundest interest to him and to them. The question and reply were to constitute a bond of perpetual union between them, or were to be the signal of the dissolution of this important little community. THE GREAT CONFESSION. 417 Peter's solemn confession. Hdw important they were to the world they could not possibly have known. No very important man does know his own value. " But whom say ye that I am ? " " You are the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the living God," was the profoundly solemn answer of Peter. It was a profession of faith ; it was a confession of everything ; it was an act of worship. He acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, to the exclusion of all other claim- ants to that high and holy office ; he confessed him as a divine person ; not a son of God, but the Son of the living God, in a sense in which it could be applied to no other man. He does not report the general opinion of the body of disciples,* but per- forms an act of personal worship, using such forms and words as men who are Christians have since employed in prayer. No such admission had ever before been made. It embodied a Messianic idea loftier and broader than any other Jewish mind and heart had held. They believed that the Messiah, the Christ, should be one of the sons of men, like any other great man, and should be chosen and anointed, by reason of the greatness and splendors of his virtues, to be the deliverer of his people. But Peter ac- knowledged his Messiah as directly begotten of God. In his sol- emn phrase he did not use the word " living " to distinguish God, the true God, from dead idols, but to intensify the idea that was in the word " Son." It was not the question who God was, but the question who Jesus was, that Peter was answering. Jesus accepted the homage. Let us remind ourselves that we are making historical studies and not dogmatic theological asser- tions. The question now is, not whether Jesus was right or wrong, but what he thought and said and did. It is most obvious that at this period of his career he believed himself to be the Son of God in a sense separate and distinct from any other with which the phrase could be applied to other men. He was the Messiah, the Christ, the Sent, the Anointed. His people were looking for a temporal Jesus receives homage. * It is to be noticed that Peter re- ports the opinions of others, but when Jesus asked the opinion of the disci- ples Peter fails to give it. We do not know from him what it was. For him- self he answers, not saying "We think," on behalf of his fellow-disci- 27 pies, nor "I think that you are," etc., on his own behalf, but addressing him with the worshipping assertion, "You are the Christ." The state of mind in which this was uttered is to be consid- ered. 4:18 THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. ieliverer ; he was the only deliverer they should have, and he vvas a spiritual deliverer. With such sentiments he made his solemn reply to Peter : " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father in the heavens. And I also say to thee, Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my congregation, and the gates of Death [Hades] shall not prevail against it. I will give thee the keys of the king- dom of the heavens, and what thou shalt bind upon earth shall be bound in the heavens, and what thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in the heavens." Jesus had been in some measure and by certain terms acknowl- edged as Messiah in early parts of his history, but no confession had yet recognized him as at once divine and ffisMessiahship human> Such he held himself to be. And,more- a revelation. . 7 over, he held that that view of his nature could not be reached by any process of human reasoning or any leap of human imagination. It was a direct revelation from heaven. The lit- eral words of Jesus are : " Flesh and blood have not apocalypsed it to thee, but my Father." From such a mystery no human hand could have raised the veil and made the apocalypse, — no hand but God's. It is manifest that Jesus believed his own character and person such a miracle that no intellectual analysis of his words and acts could enable any man to reach the apprehension of them. He was a blessed man to whom the Eternal Father vouchsafed such a revelation. It must have been the deepest conviction that drew such utterances from Jesus. He was joyous in his solemnity. He calls Simon by his other name, Kephau, Cephas, Peter, Pock. " Kephau " was probably the word he used, speaking in the Ara- maic tongue, and this word Grecized was Ke<£ ^he trouble with many commentators is their hardened ecclesiasticism. When Churchism hangs like a veil over the faces of men, they do not see the face of Jesus, and they hear his words as men hear the mumbling of a priest through the baize curtain at the church-door. A succeed- ing commentator may be afraid to differ from his predecessors, lest THE GREAT CONFESSION. 419 ■ lie be charged with heresy, or at least irregularity. Many of the Protestant writers are as papal as the Roman writers. Roman Catholicism is the concentration of papacy on one pope ; secta- rian Protestantism is the division of the papacy among many popes. Many men seem afraid to know what Jesus really meant. They hear him through the ear-trumpet of " the church ;" they see him through the stained glass of " the church." To reconcile these sayings of Jesus with truth, and the known facts of history, will be a perpetual tax on the ingenuity of those who at the same time hold to Churchism. If a man can only dare to look the truth full in the face, and accept the truth and its logical connections, he will have less difficulty with the questions of the Rock and the Keys. Let us venture to utter the truth, even at the peril of being cast out of the synagogue. Jesus never intended to establish " a church," in the modern sense of the term, namely, a close corporation, inside which should be all that are to be saved, while all outside should be damned. He never intended to institute any ° c body in which should exist the distinction of clergy and laity, which should, as a whole, dictate to its members and to the world what their faith should be. He abrogated priesthood as a corpo- ration by making every man a priest. The churches now on earth are mere human economical arrangements, with no spiritual authority to declare that any man is a saint or a sinner. As com- munities and associations for propagating the principles of Jesus they may be useful ; as hierarchies they are hurtful. They may turn a man out of their body, but that in no way affects his rela- tions to Jesus or to God. Jesus was full of Anti-Churchism. He seemed to have a mission to destroy Churchism, which was so incrusting human hearts that they could not grow into beauty and ripen into maturity in the sunlight of God's love and smile. He was a Seceder, a Dissenter, a Come-outer, an Independent, any- thing you please to call him but Churchman. If he were living in our midst now he would endure to be called "glutton," "wine- bibber," "friend of publicans and sinners," and make no more resentment than he did when he was on earth ; but he would not allow himself for a moment to be shrunk into the contemptible insignificance of a mere " churchman." Living or dying, to the multitudes, to his disciples, in parable or plain speech, he nevei used the word " church," so far as the records show. 420 THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. Twice in Matthew — and it never occurs in the other three evan- gelists — a word in the original is translated "church."* If it were granted, which it is not, that the word means " h " W ° r W * iat is n0W or< ^ nar % understood by church, it would be a most remarkable thing that this Teacher, who was a great talker in every sense, should have only twice alluded to the subject of church. But when we come to examine these two passages we find no " church " in them. One of them is this, which records the confession of Peter. " On this rock will I build my church" are the words of the common Eng- lish version. The Greek word translated " church " is eKKk^ata, ecclesia, which does not mean an organization of any kind, but simply a congregation. An assembly brought together by the common crier in Athens was called ecclesia. In all the English versions before the days of Queen Elizabeth (except Wicklif's) the word was translated " congregation." The word " church " was substituted in the Bishops' Bible for the word " congrega- tion," and by express order of King James was so substituted in the authorized version of 1611, in every place where it occurs in the New Testament. In the German versions the Roman Catho- lic translators and commentators employ the term kirche, church, while the Protestants use gemeinde, congregation. The German Bible published in 1557, by Conrad Badius, has "congregation." As Jesus performed no " ecclesiastical " act, as he made no or- ganization of any kind, as he gave no directions to his disciples to make any kind of close corporation, as he nowhere speaks any- thing which involves the idea of churchness, in any measure or sense, and as he broke in with many ruptures upon the ecclesias- ticism which existed among his own countrymen, teaching that character was everything and mere position an incidental, we have a right to believe that he was no churchman. What, then, did he mean? Simply this. His congregation, that is, all who heard his call and came to it, should be built upon the foundation of the hearty belief that he was a tioT»" C ° ngrega ~ divine personage, the Son of the living God, and sent and set apart to be the Deliverer. Whether he had any right to make such a claim is a question for the de- partment of theology. All that we concern ourselves to know is this — what did he mean % He certainly meant that much, and * The other passage is in Matt, xviii. 17, and will be considered in its place. THE GREAT CONFESSION. 421 that is more than churchism. He meant that whoever took Jesns for his deliverer, that soul was of his congregation, whether bap- tized or not, whether enrolled in any society or church, 01 not All other things had fluxions, but this belief in him was to be the one invariable element of life ; it was to be the firmest foundation on which character could be built. He evidently believed also, and taught, that in all ages there would be men who, like Peter, would plant and stake their all upon a hearty belief in Jesus as the divine Deliverer of human souls, so that, whether there should be visible churches or not, his congregation should exist forever. The "gates of the grave," the under- world, death, — for the word translated " hell " in the com- mon version means this, and not a place of punishment, — " the gates of death shall not prevail against it ; " — which simply means that men may be born and may die, but there would always be those who believed in him as divine, and trusted in him as their Saviour : and these should constitute his " congregation." Quite naturally can the words which follow be interpreted, if one's mind be turned away from the fixed idea of churchism. All the controversy on the meaning of the powers of the keys has arisen from supposing that Jesus e powers was talking "church," to which subject he was making no allusion in any way whatever. The " kingdom of the heavens" does not mean a "church" or the " church." The very- breadth of the expression ought to have led men to see that it means something much larger. The " kingdom of the heavens " can no more be contained in the church than the whole physical heavens can be folded up and laid away in a stone cathedral. He that is only a churchman shall have only the keys of the church. Whatsoever he binds shall be bound in the church, whatsoever he looses shall be loosened in the church. But that is his limit. He cannot go outside this human organization called the church. But whosoever receives Jesus as divine, and trusts him as his Saviour, shall have the keys of all heavens, the range of the universe, and all home-rights in the Father's house of many man- sions. How much grander and more reasonable is this teaching of Jesus than the dogmas of some scholastic theologians ! Take any of their theories, and how little and immaterial they are ! They narrow heaven, and belittle God, and degrade Jesus. They pledge 4:22 THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES, the Infinite One to sanction any decisions of a very frail man, whom Jesus, in almost the next breath after this commendation, was compelled to rebuke and call Satan, or else they yield into the hands of a corporate body of men, comprising wise and fool- ish, learned and ignorant, strong and weak, good and wicked, the monopoly of deciding all moral questions and all human desti- nies. If that is what Jesus meant in this interview, he therein contradicted all that he had taught elsewhere, which was that character is everything and office nothing as concerns a man's per- sonal salvation. It drops him immeasurably. If that was his meaning, he is no more than a priest and a Levite. He ceases to be the cosmopolitan soul, the multitudinous man, the loftiest Son of Man, and the only-begotten Son of God. If there be any consistency in his doctrines, Jesus intended to apply to all men who made Peter's confession this proposition which he uttered concerning Peter. It would be m aning. mog j. imcr itical to take this solitary passage and interpret it into a signification which contradicts all his other teachings. To say that the power of the keys signifies " the pre- rogative of the Apostles either to admit into the kingdom of heaven or to exclude from it," is to say that Almighty God abdi- cated in favor of an impetuous though generous man, who was always blundering, if Peter's primacy is to be maintained ; or that the sceptre of the " King eternal " was transferred to a body of men whom their teacher, to the very last, chid for their stupidity and want of faith. Contrast with this the real meaning of Jesus. Whoever accepts him as the Divine Deliverer, and lives sincerely in that faith, shall be perpetually binding on himself certain things or casting from himself certain things, but all his decisions he shall afterwards find were sanctioned by the heavenly Father. The power of the keys is given to every believer, and it is a power to be exercised over himself alone and not over another. Sincere faith in Jesus is the only safe guide through earth and heaven, and it is a perfectly safe guide. No forms nor ceremonies give entrance into this kingdom, nothing but the heart's unwavering belief that he is " the Anointed Deliverer, the Son of the living God." One may enter " the church," man's organization, by bap- tism and other rites, with oral or written prof ession of creeds, but one can enter the " kingdom of the heavens " only as he takes Jesus for his guide. He may be in both the church and the king- THE GREAT CONFESSION. 423 dom ; but being in one is no evidence whatever that he is in the other. Men shall come from the east and the west and sit down in " the kingdom," while " churchmen " may be cast into outer darkness. It was an immense assertion. Whether he had any right tc make it or not, Jesus certainly did put forward the claim to be the only medium of entrance into the freedom and enjoyment of the kingdom of the heavens. It seems to have satisfied Jesus that he had secured not simply a foothold in human affection, but a real root in humanity. He charged his disciples not to go out and announce him as the Messiah. It was sufficient that they believed in him. The mul- titudes were looking for a sensuous millennium, and a secular Messiah to reign therein. It was too late to revolutionize them. He had not succeeded. His disciples would not succeed. The time for the perception of the beauty and grandeur of a spiritual Messiahship had not arrived. It would come. He was content to await its coming, so that only the " seed of the kingdom " were meanwhile kept in the earth. In the history of Jesus appears what we do not detect in other men. He had a control over history. He allowed nothing to be antedated in fact, while he anticipated everything in thought. The shadow of the cross on his path . . . ° # # r nistory. lay as distinct as that which Gustave Dore, in his terrible pictures, throws everywhere on the way of the "Wan- dering Jew." He saw it. He talked of his death, before it oc- curred, with as much definiteness as he did of that of John the Baptist after it had occurred. His disciples could not see the outline of the shadow on the path until Jesus pointed it out to them. Now he begins to tell them " plainly," says the record in Mark viii., that he must go up to Jerusalem. He had absented himself from the late Passover ; now he " must go to Jerusalem." He should suffer many things. The conspiracy formed against him by the elders and chief priests and scribes should culminate in bis death. He should certainly be killed. But, — on the third day he should rise again ! He plainly pre- dicted that. The prediction of the resurrection seems to have made no im- pression upon them. Whether it was because he talked so much in parables with them that their exegesis was often sorely puz- 4:24 THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. He predicts his resurrection. zled, so that they knew not when to interpret his words literally and when figuratively,* — or whether the startling and astound- ing announcement that he was to be killed came so suddenly after his joy at the recognition of his Messiahship, — the fact comes out afterwards that they totally forgot the prediction of the resurrection. The statement that he, the newly acknowledged Messiah, was to be killed, was more than Peter could bear. He seized him by hand, or dress, or perhaps in embrace, and exclaimed, " God save thee,f lord ; not to thee shall this be ! " He actually undertook to rebuke him, as Matthew and Mark agree in recording. Jesus turned his back on Peter, saying, " Go behind me, Satan : thou art my stumbling-stone ; for thou regardest not the things of Rebukes Peter ^ 0( ^ ^ ut ^ e tnm & s °^ men «" A moment ago the Pock on which the church was to be built ! if we accept the interpretation of churchism : then it is fair to hold churchism to what Jesus says now, and this same Peter is the very devil and a stumbling-stone ! But the words no more apply to Peter here than there, in the sense of a closely restricted personal application. They contain a general truth. He who cannot accept the self-abnegation of Jesus, and endure the humiliation of a violent and ignominious death, but is so carnal and secular as to desire a reign of visible temporal glory, is a stumbling-block to the work of Jesus in the world. When they met face to face, as Jesus and Peter did, it was a personal rebuke. Satan is the Hebrew name for the chief of evil spirits, in whose existence as a personality Jesus certainly believed. The general meaning of the word is Tempter, or, more correctly, Adversary, one who sets himself in opposition to goodness and duty and right. It may have been used in this general sense to Peter, but certainly very pointedly, and with a distinct recognition of the personal existence of Satan. * The reader may consult John iv. 33 ; Matthew xvi. 7 ; and John xi. 12, for passages in which Jesus manifestly spoke figuratively, and which his dis- ciples interpreted literally. At other times he spoke literally and they under- stood him figuratively: see Matthew xv. 15, 17; John xi. 11, 17; and John vi 70 f The phrase in the Greek is an ab- breviation, and literally is, "Propitious to thee," or " Gracious to thee," mean- ing that the goodness of God should save the person from the evil spoken ; a sudden ejaculatory prayer for the safety of the person addressed. The very form shows the great excitement of Peter. THE GREAT CONFESSION. 425 This resistance of Peter to the announcement by Jesus of his coming death is proof that, notwithstanding his noble and lofty acknowledgment of the spiritual Messiahship of Jesus, there still clung worldly notions to the mind of Peter, and to the disciples and followers generally. He therefore called his disciples and the people near to himself, and delivered a discourse to them, the substance of which is preserved by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and which was as follows : — " If any one wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever may wish to save his life shall lose it ; and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gos- pel's, shall find it. For what shall a man be profited if he Addresses his disciples. should gain the whole world and lose his own life, or be cast away ? or what shall a man give in exchange for his life ? Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven, and before the angels of God ; but whosoever shall deny me and be ashamed of me and of my words before men in this sinful and adulterous generation, him will I also deny before my Father which is in the heavens : for the Son of Man shall come in his own glory, and in the glory of his Father, with his angels ; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, That there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom with power." "Which seems to mean this : His Messiahship had been acknow- ledged, but it was to be a bitter disappointment, even to many who acknowledged it, because he was going to be ° o o j^g meaning 1 , killed. If any man thought of becoming his dis- ciple, he must make up his mind to abandon all hopes of pecu- niary advantage and personal ease and indulgence. He must go further. He must deny himself. What flesh and blood call for, he must often refuse even to himself. He must submit to igno- miny and torture. Nothing was so disgraceful and painful as death by crucifixion, in which the condemned was compelled to carry the cross, which was to be the instrument of his torture, to the place of execution. So his disciples must learn perfect sub- mission to extreme sufferings. But there was a compensation even here. A man who gives his life up for the sake of Jesus and those doctrines of philanthropy which he preached, should indeed lose luxuries, comforts, home delights, and many a sensu- ous pleasure, but after all should find the truest and sweetest uses of life : whereas the selfish hoarder of his vital powers should find them shrinking within him. In general, vitality is maintained 426 THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. and strengthened by living largely, putting out the energies widely, life being not income but outgo. In that case why should a man lose his life % If he kill himself in the effort to grasp the whole world, even if that effort should be imagined to prove successful, nothing would come of it. He would be gone, lost, a castaway, out of existence ; then where would there be any use of pleasures if he did not exist to enjoy them ? The basis of everything is life. The universe is nothing without life. A man must therefore do all he can to increase his physical, intellectual, and spiritual vitality. The world will be so much world to him, and the man will be so much man to himself in proportion as he has life. And life is got by giving. The more a man gives himself to his generation the more he gets out of it. Jesus taught that to follow him was the way to gain life by giving it. Men must therefore confess him by following him. He was going through a dark passage. He would eir opes no ^^ concea j ^^ f rom them. But their hope of all a dream. ■»*■•'• -r Messianic glory was not all a dream. It was a mistake in so far as it was secular, but it was a truth in so far as it recognized him as the conquering Deliverer. He was to come in glory, iu his own glory and God's, which he spoke of as being iden- tical, with a holy familiarity, in such style as no man before his time or since has ever dared to employ. The rewards of mankind he represented as being in his hands, — a prodigious claim ! He knew the works of every man, and in exact accordance with those works he should give each man his reward, and there should be no mistake. He closed his address with the statement that there were those present who should not die until they saw the Son of Man coming in his kingdom with power. I do not know what Anincomprehen- he meant Did his disciples? Did any event sible statement. tl . ,.,. t $ , . , , ever occur in their lire-time wnicn corresponds with this statement ? If so, where is it recorded ? I know what theories have been propounded in explanation, have read the commentators, am familiar with the views of theologians, and have perhaps a theory of my own ; but the plain question, to be honestly answered, would amount to this : As each man in that company died, if he had been asked in his last moments whether he had seen any event which was to him a fulfilment of these words of Jesus, could he have designated any such event ? If he could, we have no means of ascertaining the fact. CHAPTEK III. THE TRANSFIGURATION. It was about a week after the confession made by Peter that an event of great interest, as a fresh revelation, occurred in the history of Jesus. The narrative, as col- lected from all the New Testament historians, Probably Mount . ,, . Hermon. Matt. is tins : — .. M , . # § xvu. ; Mark ix. ; Jesus took Peter, James, and John into a high Luke ^ mountain apart. As he prayed he was trans- figured before them. The fashion of his countenance was altered, and his face shone like the sun, and his raiment became shining and white as the snow, white as the light, whiter than any earthly fuller could make them. Moses e gu " and Elijah were present and talking with Jesus, who had a glorious appearance, and they spoke of his death at Jerusalem, "which he should accomplish." The three disciples were heavy with sleep, but this vision kept them awake by its splendor. As Moses and Elijah departed, Peter said unto Jesus, " Sir, it is good for us to be here ! If thou wilt, I will make here three tents; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah." He spoke at random, for he was greatly scared. While he was speaking, the awe of the disciples was increased by the over- spreading of a bright cloud, out of which came the words, " This is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased : hear him." This splendor and these words overpowered them, and they fell on their faces greatly afraid. And when the voice was past, Jesus came and touched them, and said, "Arise, and be not afraid." And when they lifted up their eyes they saw no man but Jesus. As they came down from the mountain his disciples asked him why the Scribes taught that Elijah must first come. His answer was, "Elijah truly shall come, and restore all things: but I say unto you, That Elijah is come already, and they knew him not, BIDON. BAIDK. i ill !& § 111 5 ns m i ;• i I iii iii ■ ■. 428 THE THIRD PASSOVEB TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. but have done to him whatever they wished. Thus also is the Son of Man about to suffer by them." The disciples understood him to mean John the Baptist in this last speech. y i] mus ^ n( j ag ^ descended f rom the mountain, Jesus first come. J charged them, saying, " Tell the vision to no man until the Son of Man be risen from the dead." Luke and Mark say that the injunction was obeyed. The disciples did not tell anything of the vision outside their own circle, but inside they held discussion of the meaning of the perplexing phrase, " risen again from the dead." It would appear that the intimation of his sufferings and death had had a depressing effect upon the mind of his dis- ciples. Under this cloud they struggled and questioned their own hearts for the space of a week, when the event of the trans- figuration gave new form to their thoughts and hopes. It is not known precisely what mountain was the site of this transfiguration. In the fourth century, from a passing remark by Cyril of Jerusalem, tradition fixed on Mount i e o e ^ a ]3 0r m G a iii ee famous for the beauty of its Transfiguration. 7 7 J form and for the wide view of Central Palestine beheld from its summit. In the sixth century three churches were built on its top, suggested by Peter's idea of three booths. Subsequently a monastery was founded. But later criticism has displaced the claims of Tabor. It was possible for Jesus, by a very forced march, of which we have no account, to reach Tabor within the period specified. But why should he return to Galilee, where his enemies were seeking him to "destroy him ? Mark (ix. 30) informs us that he did not go into Galilee until after this event. Moreover, Tabor was occupied, to its summits, by settlements, and had been, probably, from the time of Joshua. Jesus was in the highlands of Gaulonitis, in the region of Csesarea Philippi. Whoever in this place looks up for a "high mountain," immediately sees the sublime heights of Hermon, and the almost common consent of travellers and critics is now given to the theory that the transfiguration took place somewhere on Hermon. Jesus had with him the three representative and trusted dis ciples, Peter and James and John. It was his custom to go into the mountains for evening prayer, and sometimes to continue his devotions through the entire night. He seems to have done so in THE TRANSFIGURATION. 429 this instance. He prayed while his fatigued disciples slept. At some period of the night a strange awe suffused their slumbers. They woke to see their Master in a state of glori- fication. His face shone like the sun, and his very garments were glistening, snowy white, and luminous. Mark was struck with that fact, which must have been narrated to him by one of the spectators, and his simple remark is that they were white "as no fuller on earth can white them." This was the first stage of the marvel. Then two unknown men stood with him. They entered into solemn discourse with Jesus. The disciples learned from the lofty conversation that these were Moses and Eli as, the founder and the defender of the theocracy They spoke to Jesus about his death, which was shortly to occur. It was an awful time to the disciples. It seemed to flash upon Peter's mind that Jesus was now about to declare openly that Messiahship of his which Peter had so recently confessed ; that on this mount he was about to fix Peter ' s conjec- the seat of his empire, with Moses and Elijah as his prime ministers. It was the prevalent belief of the Jews that Elijah was to precede and herald the Messiah, bring back the pot of manna and Aaron's rod, settle the controversies between the Jewish schools, purify the people by some lustration, and hand the nation over to King Messiah. He seemed now about to begin this grand inauguration. But then, on the in- stant, he and Moses retire. Peter, in his general confusion and fright, blunders out a request to Jesus to be permitted to erect there such booths as the Jews were accustomed to put up in a temporary style for their Feasts of Tabernacles, so that Moses and Elijah might remain with Jesus and carry forward the great work. Before Jesus made any response a bright cloud encircled them, and the disciples were sore amazed and frightened as they en- tered the cloud. A new marvel broke on them. A voice sounded from the brightness, saying, e v01ce ' "This is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased: hear him." The disciples fell on their faces, and remained so until Jesus came and touched them and encouraged them to arise, when they found that they were alone with Jesus. Whatever theory may be adopted as to this history, the effects 430 THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. upon the minds of the disciples is the important consideration : whether it was a vision which all three saw consentaneously, in all its parts, in a dream, or whether, being awake, n uenceont e ^ey were m g^^ a physical, intellectual, and spiritual state as, all together, to have witnessed these phenomena, it is certain that there were impressions made upon them which had great influence subsequently upon theii character and conduct. The surpassing glory of Jesus, his con- sistency with the law and the prophets, the subjection of Moses and Elijah to Jesus, his suffering of death not vitiating his claims to the Messiahship, were certainly represented with great power to the minds of these three representative and influential disci- ples, and by them brought to bear upon the whole body of the nearest followers of Jesus. But still there were two perplexities created by this vision and by the words of their Master. One was the " being raised again from the dead," as applied to Jesus. If he were the Messias, how could he die ? How could death have power over a being so glorious that the effulgence of his person rendered his very garments glistening ? They never did find a satisfactory solution of that problem through the whole life-time of their Master. That he was in some mysterious man- ner to accomplish at Jerusalem something which might be repre- sented as a death, they had gathered from the conversation of Moses and Elijah ; but that he should really depart this life by dying, being virtually murdered, and that his spirit should come back to that same mangled body and lift it from the grave, and go about in it as if he had never died, is a series of thoughts which seems never to have entered their minds. Their second trouble was to reconcile the fact that they had seen Elijah leave Jesus, apparently not to return, with the predic- tion of Malachi (iv. 5, 6) that Elijah must first no er per- come w bich, as their religious instructors had plexity. 7 7 & taught them to believe, meant that the personal appearance of the prophet Elijah was to precede that of the Mes- sias. Here he had shown himself to only three of the disci- ples, and not to the body of the people ; and instead of preceding Jesus, had really appeared to no one until this late period in the ministry of Jesus. Their Master gave them to understand that John the Baptist had fulfilled all predictions of a forerunner ; THE TEANSFIGHBATION. 431 that he had preceded Jesus with the power of Elijah, and had been slaughtered, and that the fate of the Baptist prefigured the sufferings which he himself was to endure. His own approach- ing death by violence seemed as plain before his eyes as that of John, which had already been accomplished. After these wonderful revelations Jesus enjoined silence on the three witnesses. We can readily conjecture good reasons for this. They had become so affected by this interview that they could carry the moral influence into the whole body of the disciples without the description of phenomena which might give rise to perplexing and inharmonious discussions. Everything was to be done which should suppress the sensuous Messianic expectations of his followers. The very criticism made on this transaction by such men as Paulus and Yenturini and Strauss in modern days, shows just the spirit with which the narrative of such lofty scenes and experiences would have been met by the multitude and by the learned men of that time, who were generally coarse, skepti- cal, and profane. When no good can possibly come of speaking, and much evil may, it is wisdom to keep silence. Immediately upon the descent from the mountain occurred a scene which stands in contrast with the lofty splendor of the Transfiguration. Jesus came to the nine disci- ples whom he had left behind, and found them in s ar e a p W1l - p ^ great trouble and perplexity, and the hostile Mark ix. ; Matt. Scribes vexing them with questions, and the xvii - ; Luke **• multitude about them in a tumult. But there must have been something in the natural dignity of the person of Jesus, and perhaps on this occasion some reminiscence of the glory wherewith he had shone on the eyes of his three disciples in the Mount ; for the people were amazed at his appearance, and ran towards him and saluted him. He asked them, " Why do ye question among yourselves? " The disciples gave no answer, nor the Scribes. The former were ashamed of their weakness in the absence of their Master, and the latter feared his power now that he was present. The question, however, was soon an- swered by a man from the crowd, who came forward and kneeled down before Jesus, and said : " Teacher, I have brought to thee my son, mine only child, who has a dumb spirit ; and where it seizes him it tears him, and he suddenly cries out and foams, and gnashes with his teeth, and pines away, and the spirit with diffi- 432 THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. culty departs from him ; for he is a lunatic and sore vexed. And I spoke to thy disciples that they should cast him out ; and they could not." Here was the whole case, with all its difficulties, revealed. Here was a spectacle of mental and physical wretchedness, an epileptic and lunatic youth, whom the disciples e emomac j^ no j. p 0wer ^ ^ ea ]^ . anc | "b ecause they failed when they tried, the party antagonistic to Jesus had stirred up the multitude to profane skepticism, and perhaps to taunts, rejecting the Master in the persons of the disciples, who, under these jeers, on account of their weakness, grew still more impotent. The contrast with the Mount of Transfiguration was violent. Rafaelle's great picture in the Vatican presents to the eye the idea of the contrast, but fails to express it all. The Mount was bright and warm, and full of celestial health and har- monies, but here in the plain were physical disease and mental disorder, and darkness, and clang of discordant voices and pas- sions. It smote from the sensitiveness of Jesus the expression : " O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you ? How long shall I suffer you ? " What long pent up agony suspired in that groan ! He had lived to teach them that faith in God was everything as a basis of character and as an energy of life ; and it all seemed to come to nothing. He knew the power and good- ness of God so well that want of trust in Him on the part of others gave Jesus the greatest suffering. He could not endure it. It was not the sins into which their passions betrayed them that was most grievous, but the lack of faith which allowed their pas sions such power over their lives. " Bring him to me," he said. And as they brought him the boy had another fit, and he fell and wallowed foaming. And Jesus asked the father: "How long since this happened to him ? " And he answered : " From a child : — and often it has cast him into the fire and into the wa- ters, that it might destroy him ; but if thou art able, have com- passion on us and help us." Jesus replied : " If thou art able ! — all things are possible to him who believes." There may be a doubt as to the precise shade of meaning which Jesus attached to these words. The emphasis makes great difference. " If thou art able ! " would be quoting the man's words and rebuking him for the implication of inability on the part of Jesus. Repeating THE TRANSFIGURATION. 433 the man's words without any emphasizing would be to say : " It is not a question of ability, physical or intellectual, but purely of faith ; if I have faith enough I can do this ; if my disciples had had faith enough they might have done it." Both these mean- ings may be in the speech of Jesus, but I think that over them predominates the sense given by the words when emphasized as above : " If thou — the father of the child — art able." Ko faith on the part of Jesus would have availed if the man remained un- believing : and, — faith is strength. " If thou art able " to believe — is the reply to " If thou art able " to cure. It is only the repetition of the teaching of Jesus that the greatest power of humanity lies in its trust in the Father God, that this gives a man control over all the possibilities of the universe, and that things become possible to men in proportion to their faith ; that as a man extends the radius of his faith he enlarges the circle of his possi- bilities. Faith and Love, in the system of Jesus, are the two great wings which bear a man upward through the universe to the highest attainments and enjoyments. The father must have felt that there was some rebuke in the reply of Jesus. He burst into tears and said : " Sir, I believe ; do thou help mine unbelief." This is at once so natural, so simple, and so profound, that every . e at er 8 _ Piii. . . emotions, reader must reel that he is perusing a narrative of actual events. The father believed that his unbelief was in the way of the healing of his child ; he believed that Jesus could do something to destroy that unbelief ; he prayed him to do it, 60 that at once his infidelity and his child's malady might be cured. If it was not the voice, it was at least the echo of faith. It was enough. By this time the people had begun to run together. He made no prayer, but said authoritatively, " Dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee come out of him, and enter no more . , i . ,, a i i • i • ii • ,i Jesus heals the into mm. And shrieking, and having greatly , convulsed him, it left ; and the boy lay as if he were dead, so much so that some of the spectators pronounced him dead. But Jesus took his hand and raised him ; and he stood up. When they entered the house, his disciples privately asked him the cause of their failure. He plainly traced it to their lack oi faith. They then prayed, " Lord, increase our faith." His reply 28 434 THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. was, " If you have faith as a grain of mustard, ye might say to this sycamine tree, ' Be rooted up and planted in the sea,' and it would have obeyed you ; or to this mountain, ' Re- y e sci- move h ence yonder ' and it should obev you. And pies could not. -,' -, ,4 -n- nothing should be impossible to you." He also said to them, " This kind can come forth by nothing except by prayer." It was a strong expression of the value attached to faith by Jesus. Stier seldom said a more sensible thing than his com- ment on this passage. " Faith cannot make it its concern, in a literal sense, to be removing mountains of the earth. But if it could be, and ought to be its concern, then faith would be able really [literally] to remove mountains." All the possibilities are within the reach of faith. But if a man have not faith, even the possibilities become impossibilities. The removing of material mountains is a matter of small moment. It would be curious to stand on a peak of the Alps, and see a spur of the mountain lifted by a word and set down quietly in a Swiss lake ; but it would be nothing more. Nothing useful, or beautiful, or profitable would be in it. A man who takes from his fellow-men a mountain of doubt, of intellectual and spiritual difficulty, is greater, does a grander, wiser, better, lovelier thing. Yery currently in the school of the Rabbins was a remover of such difficulties finely called " An Uprooter of mountains." CHAPTEE IV, LAST DAYS IN GALILEE. To such a pitch had risen the opposition to Jesus that he nc longer dared to show himself openly along the high-roads, lest his life and his ministry should be brought to a sudden termination by violence. He could not go Though North- , ,, , , ,, -r , em Galilee. Mark down to the lake, bo, crossing the Jordan near . , r ,, * o ix. ; Matt. xvu. ; its source, by field-paths and through byways Luke ix. he went with his disciples through Upper Galilee. In Gaulonitis he had declared to his nearest and most trusted disciples that his end was approaching, and that it was to be one of great shame and pain. But there were scattered throughout Galilee quite a body of people who in such measure believed on him that they might be called disciples. To these, " of whom a nucleus of more than five hundred brethren survived the trial of the cross," he now made the same announcement in plain lan- guage, saying, " The Son of Man is being delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him ; and when he is killed, after three days he shall arise." Here was an open prediction of a violent death, and of a resurrection after a certain specified time. And yet they could not understand it. They could see no necessity for it. It was so contrary to all their expectations, to his great power and mighty works, that his death was utterly incompre- hensible. The resurrection was totally unintelligible. And they were afraid to ask him what this saying meant ; but it was a sad- ness and a sorrow to them. We do not know how long this journey was, nor what spots of Northern Galilee he visited. It was manifestly not intended to be a circuit of preaching, but a season to be spent in instructing his disciples, especially in the matter of his great trial, which he saw approaching. After some time he brought his disciples to Capernaum. On their arrival, Peter, who was the most demonstrative, and there- 436 THE THIRD PASSOVEE TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. fore the most conspicuous of the little band, was applied to by the collectors of the didrachms. This didrachm (or double-drachm) was of about the value of thirty American centa *. Ti/r u m » m gold, and was the half -shekel tribute to the Tem- tax. Matt. xvu. D 7 pie mentioned in Exodus xxx. 13. Every Jew acknowledged it. Even during the Babylonish captivity it was conscientiously and punctually paid. It was not, then, a tax to the Roman government, for it had been collected long anterior to the Roman rule. Jesus had been absent from his home, and now, upon his return to Capernaum, being in arrears, as this money had been due since the previous March, it was expected that he would attend to it. And yet there was something so excep- tional in his character and history that the collectors hardly dared to approach Jesus on the subject, but preferred to speak to his disciples. After he had passed into the house, they said to Peter, " Does not your Teacher pay the didrachm % " As all paid it, Peter supposed of course that Jesus would, and, generally blun- dering, often through his gushing earnestness and generosity, he said, " Yes." Perhaps he felt that his Teacher's honor was at stake, and, forgetting what he had a short time ago confessed, that Jesus was the Son of the living God, and thus, as Jesus declared of himself, greater than the Temple, he had placed his Master in the difficulty of confessing himself to be liable to Tem- ple-tribute, or of taking a position in which offence would be given where no good could be done. When Peter entered the house, Jesus said to him, " What think- est thou, Simon ? From whom do the kings of the earth receive tariff or poll-tax, of their own sons or of others \ " r. ,/ j. eS1 ^. S Peter answered, " Of others." Of course a prince should not pay it. ' r of blood royal would not pay a capitation-tax! "Therefore the sons are free," responded Jesus. Peter must have heard in the words and tone a very deep meaning. Jesus claimed to be a son of Jehovah in a sense in which no other Jew, and therefore no other human being, could utter the claim. He was a son, free in his Father's house. Other men might pay Temple-tax, but surely not he. The admission of Peter, the logi- cal connection of which that disciple did not perceive, took back his former confession and reduced Jesus to the level of an itiner- ant teacher. From this predicament his Master relieved him, saying, " But, LYSIMACHUt LAST DATS IN GALILEE. 4:37 that we may not offend them, go to the lake and cast a hook, and take the first -fish that comes up ; upon opening its mouth thou shalt find a stater; take that, and give it to them for me and thee." It is to be presumed that Peter did so, else the narrative would have found no place in the history. The stater was a coin equal to the Hebrew shekel, about sixty American cents gold, and was therefore two double didrachms : it paid for two. But it is to be noticed that while Jesus put himself into brotherhood and sympathy with his disciples, there is always a dignified reserve. He does not say, " Give it for us ; " but " for me and for thee." This was a miracle or nothing. It was at least a miracle of knowledge, being out of the usual methods in which knowledge is gained. It was not a creation. There was no need of that. And Jesus never created before , ^^ e ° n t-t -i • -i t t • knowledge. the eyes of men. He did not make the money m the fish. The fish had swallowed it. He knew it, and knew that it would come to Peter's hook. And it came. The tax was paid. It is quite easy to say that this was a selfish act, that it was ex- erted for his personal benefit, and that it was undignified and un- necessary. It occurred. There is nothing else undignified, and unnecessary, and selfish in this man's life. To have paid this special tax would have been to surrender what he had claimed, and to let his disciples down from the high place to which he had been so long engaged in lifting them. As the Son of God, in a sense higher than any which can be claimed by any other, which is manifestly what he thought and taught himself to be, he should not pay the Temple-tax. Kings do not tax princes of the blood royal. As God's Only Begotten he was free in his Father's house. Nevertheless, as it would have been most imprudent to plant himself on that claim at this juncture of his history, and as Peter had pledged the payment of this tax, he performed this miracle, which at once meets the case and declares his superiority to other men. Several circumstances now combined to increase in the disci- ples the rigor of their anticipations of a sensuous Messianic reign. 438 THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. Jesus had told them that the end approached. The intimations of the darkness and sorrow that awaited him, with which he accompanied this prediction, seem to have made Messianic hopes; little impression upon them. The Messiah was '... _"' .. ' to reign. All sorrows would be like the morn- xvm. ; Luke xvu. , . ° , mm xi v> mg cloud before the rising sun. The Transfigura- tion, the miracle of the stater in the fish's mouth, combined with the ground he took as to his non-liability to be taxed, made them feel that the kingdom had in some sense been set up, and that the time of the distribution of honors must be approaching. Certain things had excited their vanity. Peter had received special commendation for his confession. Peter and James and John had been taken to witness the splendors of the Transfiguration. A miracle had been performed by which money had been procured to pay Peter's Temple-tax. Poor human nature could not endure all this, and so they fell into a dis- pute in regard to the Primacy. When they reached the pres- ence of Jesus they were flushed with the excitement of the discussion. Matthew says that they came and submitted the question to Jesus. Mark says that Jesus perceived the thought of their hearts. Their very visages plainly told of the alter- cation they had had. He questioned them as to what had been the subject of dispute. They were silent with shame. But he pushed them to a reply, and they said that they had been dis- puting on the question, " Who is the greater in the kingdom of heaven ? " Here was the spirit of churchism cropping out, with its official distinctions and struggles for office, which have been the curse of religionists in all ages. It was a fitting time to The rule of pre- g ^ ow ^ Qw ^^ kingdom of the heavens which he cgcIgiicg preached, the limitless field and perpetual dura- tion of principles of right, was set against everything that sa- vored of churchism. There were to be no distinctions in that kingdom, no officers, no primacies. He called the twelve out, and laid down to them this principle : " If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all ; " as much as to say, profoundest humility and most extensive usefulness con- stitute the, only ground of distinction in the kingdom of the heavens. The distinctions there are of character and not of office. LAST DAYS IN GALILEE. 439 John's frank confession. To impress this he took a little child * and set him in the midst of them, and when he had taken the boy in his arms he said to his disciples, " Unless yon shall be changed, and -.. , i •-. i in . • x A little child, become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of the heavens. Whosoever, therefore, shall humble himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of the heavens. Whosoever shall receive one of these children in my name receiveth me, and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me." This reminded John of something. The wideness of this catholic speech condemned a little act of sectarian meanness into which the disciples had been betrayed. It was frank in John to say, " Teacher, we saw one cast- ing out demons in thy name, and we forbade him, because he followeth not us." It was a most naive confession. It was an exhibition of denominationalism, sectarianism, churchism, in its very essence, but in its best manner. It gave Jesus an op- portunity to make a speech that ought to make any man blush to acknowledge himself a churchman, and in the same breath claim to be a Christian. Jesus said : " Forbid him not ; for there is no one who shall do a mighty work in my name and be able lightly to speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is for us. And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones believing in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hung upon his neck and that he were sunk in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world from causes of offence ! For it must needs be that offences come ; but woe to the man by whom the offence comes. For every one shall be salted with fire. Salt is good ; but if the salt have becpme saltless, with what will you season it ? Have salt in your- selves, and have peace one with another. See that ye despise not one of these little ones ; for I say unto you, Their* angels in the heavens always behold the face of my Father in the heavens." The connection seems to be this : Forbid no one. The doing of any good thing is sufficient authority for the doing. Do not dis- courage that follower of mine who follows me even at the greatest * There is a church tradition that this child was Ignatius, who afterward be- came a martyr. But there seems to be really no proof of this. The lack of iuch personal distinctions as minister to individual vanity is very striking in the absence of the names of many parties mentioned in the Scripture histories. Where there is no high moral reason foi it, no name is ever mentioned. 440 THE THIRD PASSOVEE TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. distance and with the least faith. Schism is a great evil, and schismatics greatly to be condemned. But who are schismatics % Those who are driven from a church because they will not yield the truth ? No, but those who drive them forth. The doom of a destroyer of faith is terrible. Incen- tives to defection will naturally occur, but woe to the man who makes them. Those who follow me will be subjected to severe trial. As every sacrifice before being presented to God is sprin- kled with salt, so each of my disciples is to be salted with fiery trials. Salt is a symbol of spiritual preservation. Have this spiritual life in you. If it be gone you are worthless. Have a keen, sharp, active spiritual life in yourselves as individuals, and be at peace among yourselves. Have life. Let others have life. Strive not at all for pre-eminence, but very much for inner life. And see that you do not despise one of these little ones. The angels in heaven are like them. God sees in the angels the counterpart of His humblest, simplest children. And, perhaps, he also meant that to those angels He commits the keeping of little children and of child-like men. In this connection Jesus continued to teach them, and said : " Moreover, take heed to yourselves ; if your brother shall tres- pass, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone ; if he shall hear you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear you, take with yourself one or two, that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he neglect to hear them, tell it to the congregation ; * but if he neglect to hear the congregation, let him be to you as a heathen f and a tax-gatherer. Verily I say to you, Whatsoever ye shall bind upon the earth, shall be bound in the heavens ; and whatso- ever ye shall loose upon the earth, shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree upon earth about asking anything, it shall be done for them by my Father in the heavens ; for where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them." \ In this teaching of the method of mending breaches of fra- ternal fidelity Jesus utters some very profound truths. Two men belong to a congregation of fol- lowers of Jesus. One is offended by his brother. Let him not, in * See what was said on the transla- I f Which means one of another na- tion of this word, page 420. I tion, a Gentile. LAST DAYS IN GALILEE. 441 turn, be an offender, but let him bring personal kindness to bear upon the offender for his restoration. It may prevail, and greater love come than existed before. But the offender may be incor- rigible. Let the offended take two witnesses, other brethren, so that this scandal may be kept from spreading, if possible, and so that if one continue to be offensive while the other is peaceable, it may be known which is the offender. If he shall continue un- appeasable, take the case to the congregation. If the voice of the brotherhood be disregarded, then the offender may be to the of- fended as if he were an " outsider," a Gentile, and a tax-gatherer, that is to say, no longer an object of fraternal confidence, but a subject for missionary zeal ; certainly not a person to be hated, for the whole teaching of Jesus and his whole conduct taught a different lesson. He received tax-gatherers and sinners, and ate with them. Row, whatever profound principle may underlie the declaration of what is bound upon earth being bound in heaven, that princi- ple Jesus applies to every believer, to all the dis- • i l i- j- j j. *i_ a .1 "K two agree." ciples, to his congregation, and not to the Apostles alone. That the whole essence of modern churchism and of an- cient hierarchism are totally absent ; that the " power of the keys," as it is called, belongs not to any officials as such, but to all Chris- tians as such, appears from the statement of Jesus, " If two of you shall agree upon earth about asking anything, it shall be done for them by my Father in the heavens ; " and from the reason which he assigns for this, namely, " For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." These seem to be among the profoundest utterances and the loftiest claims of Jesus. "Wherever two souls exist, to both of whom some- thing is equally necessary, and necessary above everything else, so that they go to the heavenly Father with this united and para mount petition, it will be granted. It cannot be a trifling, earthly, temporary, egotistic thing ; it must be something that takes hold of eternity. If such a thing be asked it will be granted, because nothing contrary to God's will can, under such circumstances, be requested. The only permanent platform of union for any two souls lies high up among the loftiest things of eternity. His idea of a true church now comes out. It is not a hierarchy . It does not rest on officials. Any two souls together, united in the name of Jesus, make a church, with all powers and functions ; 442 THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. His idea of a true church. for there is with them always a third, and that person is Jesus. There may be a true church without bishops, elders, and deacons. The fountain of spiritual power and authority is always present where two souls are spiritually con- joined. Whether Jesus makes good these claims is a question for individual spiritual experiences; but that he did make the claims is simply what we must record as history ; and this fact tears from the teaching of Jesus all that men have in- serted therein whereon to build ecclesiasticism, denominationalism, sectarianism, and whatever would give to any one believer in Jesus what does not belong to every other. His was to be a holy catholic church, and a holy catholic church is one in which are no persons who are not holy, and in which is no one who has what i3 not catholic, common to all. Peter, the noble-hearted blunderer, apparently having failed to asten carefully to the discourse of Jesus, but pondering what had been said about offences, broke in with the ques- ow equent y ^ u j^^a j 10w f ^ en q^W mv brother trespass must I forgive ? .' ' • jL.,, . r .„ against me and 1 forgive mm s lill seven times t That seemed a large measure of placability to Peter.* But fancy the look which the large-hearted Teacher gave him when over against Peter's close arithmetical calculation of forgiveness he set a statement of boundless compassion. "Until seven times? I say not that, but until seventy times seven ! " That this compassionateness of Christian character might be impressed upon them he related the following parable : " There- Parable of the f° re shall the kingdom of the heavens be likened unmerciful ser- unto a human f king who wished to compare an vant - account with his slaves. And, beginning to com- pare, there was brought one to him, a debtor of many £ talents. And he not having wherewith to pay, the lord commanded him to be * It greatly exceeded the rabbinical rule of three times, which they based on Amos i. 3 ; ii. 6 ; Job xxxiii. 29, 30. f In the common version it is "a cer- tain king," in the original it is avQptairo) )8arr- *i -, -■ -, «. the seventy. Luke -" 1S somewhat difficult to keep the harmony of x. 1-3, 16 ; Matt, the narrative at this point, and modern criticism vii. 6 ; x 28-25 ; has attacked the whole account of the Mission of Luke vi. 40 ; John ^ S eventVj as g [ Yen fry T^]^ on fa e g YOUIi & that there is no trace of them in the subsequent history of Jesus or his early followers. It would seem that even a super- ficial view of the work assigned these seventy should be an answer to that. Jesus was shortly to go from Galilee to Jerusalem. He sent these messengers before his face. His time was shortening. Seventy men could rapidly spread themselves and make procla- mation of the gospel. It was not intended to institute a perpetual order. Indeed it seems to have been a temporary arrangement, and that Jesus probably remained in Capernaum, from which, we believe, he sent forth these bands, until their return, and then began his journey. It was to be a brief, quick movement, pre- paratory to his travels towards Jerusalem. We are not compelled to understand by the words " into every city and place whither he would come," that Jesus would go to every town they visited, but that he would not enter any town where none of the Seventy had been. The ground occupied by these swift missionaries we cannot positively describe, but it is probable that it included a part of Samaria, and much of Perea and Judaea, where he- spent the last six months of his life. The commission was this : " Go : behold I send you as lambs in the midst of wolves ; be ye therefore wise as the serpent and harmless as the doves. Give not the holy to the dogs, neither cast your pearls before the swine, lest they tram- ple them with their feet, and turning might rend you. But when they persecute you in this city, flee into another ; for verily I say unto you, You shall not finish the cities of Israel until the Son of Man come. A disciple is not above his teacher, nor the slave above his lord ; it is enough for the disciple that is perfect that he be as his teacher, and the slave as his lord. If they have called the house-owner Beelzebul, how much more those of his house- hold ! Fear them not, therefore." They were simply to proclaim his coming and his gospel. But the country was excited against him. It behooved these disciples 'ml ■ ft- mm 1 I I ;:'■': "ii. i;.,( " Al i *V Ii y m^ sill,! mgiigb n r LAST DAYS EST GALILEE. 445 to unite the innocency of doves with the supposed watchfulness of the serpent. In declaring the truths which it was the mission of his life to establish and propagate, they were to use discrimination. It were folly to give the comin Pr ° im consecrated flesh of sacrifices to dogs. It were folly to present jewels to swine, who, finding that these did not satisfy hunger, would crush them into the mire and turn in their voracity upon the givers. Yet, when they had conducted them- selves as well as possible, no circumspection could keep them from being assailed with malignity. When one town rejected them they must escape to another, and thus give the whole land an op- portunity of knowing what it was that Jesus taught. He assured them that they should not have visited all the towns till the Mis- sion of the Son of Man be accomplished by the establishment of his claims as Messiah, if that be the meaning of the saying, " Ye shall not finish the cities of Israel until the Son of Man come." If that be not the meaning — and I am far from being sure, and give it as the most plausible conjecture — then I do not know what Jesus meant. He was going up to Jerusalem. There were two things to be secured, namely, an increased attention to himself and his words, and a sufficient interest upon the part of the popu- lace to give him protection against the growing malignity of the church party — the priests, the scribes, the Pharisees. All this might in some measure be produced by the ministry of the Seventy. The Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was now at hand. It was, as Josephus says, the holiest and greatest of their festivals. The peo- ple would be assembled in great crowds. It would be an occasion for a powerful prophet to make an Galilee and Sa " ,.,,,, ^ , , ., maria. Johnvii, impression which should move the whole nation. .^ . Luke ^ The younger sons of Mary, whom we should call xvii. the half-brothers of Jesus, did not believe he was a prophet, yet perhaps hoped that he might put himself forward as a Messiah, such a Messiah as they, in common with their nation, hoped for — a splendid deliverer, and conqueror, and king. They urged him to go into Judaea, as his popularity seemed waning in Galilee ; and moreover, all that he had accomplished was to attach a few fishermen to his cause. He had not won a person of any social or ecclesiastical distinction. To this politic advice, which would have been sound if Jesus had intended to claim and maintain such a Messiahship as they supposed, he returned this reply :— 446 THE THIRD PASSOVER TO THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. " My time is not at present, but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you ; but it hateth me, because I testify that its works are evil. Go you up unto this feast. I go not up to this feast ; for my time is not yet fulfilled." They wished him to join their caravan, and go up publicly and conspicuously. His time had not arrived. He would not be pre- cipitated. He would avoid as far as possible giving any occasion to his enemies. He would not be of the party of his brethren. But after they had left for Jerusalem, he arranged his plans and went up to the metropolis in a secret manner. He sent messen- gers before his face, who made the necessary preparations, so that in the evening he could enter lodgings, rest, and next day proceed on his journey. They were going along the borders of Galilee and of Samaria. At one of the Samaritan villages Inhospitable Sa- ,, /• -i -i -i • i j_t maritan village tne P artv were refused lodgings because they were going to attend the feast in Jerusalem, thus wit- nessing against Mount Gerizim. Sectarian rancor conquered ori- ental hospitality. James and John, the latter generally conceived, I think, to be a sweetish kind of characterless young man, were so enraged that they desired permission from their Master to call down fire from heaven to consume the town. They were not con- tent that Jesus should do it. They desired the personal gratifi- cation of vengeance on these people. Jesus rebuked them. They then went to the next village on the route. STATES OP TEYPHON. PAET VI. FKOM THE FEAST OF TABEENACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. FROM OCTOBER. AD. 29, TO APRIL, AD. 30— SIX MONTHS. CHAPTEE I. AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. In the mean time his brothers, with many other friends, and all the Jewish people who could travel, had gone up to the Feast of Tabernacles. This festival is spoken of in the Talmud as the Feast par excellence, and by Jo- . T . -f ii nacles. John vii. sephus and by Plutarch as the most holy and glorious of all the Jewish Holidays. It was celebrated in the au- tumn, when the heats were abated and the rains had not begun. The harvest had been gathered, and the Day of Atonement had just passed. In the fulness of their garners, and in the sense of free- dom from the guilt of their sins, the whole people rejoiced together. Moreover, it was a joyful celebration of a sad passage in the early history of their nation, when their fathers had dwelt in booths in the wilderness, and even Jehovah's sanctuary was in a tent. From all parts of the land, and even from many foreign parts, the devout poured into the Holy City. Iso good Jew allowed himself to sleep in a house. Boughs full of green leaves were brought from the country, and temporary booths constructed on house-tops, and along thoroughfares, and in all the environs of the city, until Jerusalem was covered with a temporary forest. Glad ness reigned, and public and private rejoicing prevailed. The Temple service partook of the festal air of the occasion. 448 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. Evening service. Immediately after the regular morning sacrifices, every day, a priest went with a golden vessel to the fountain of Siloah, on the m . . side of the hill on which the Temple stood, and Temple service. # ? ' drew water, which he brought through the water- gate, accompanied by a gay procession and the sound of trumpets, and having mixed it with wine, poured it on the sacrifice upon the altar, amid the hallelujah shouts of the people. This probably reminded them of the supplies of water Jehovah had given to their fathers in the emergencies of the wilderness. The joyf ill- ness of this ceremonial was so great that it passed into a common proverb: "He that never saw the rejoicing of drawing water never saw rejoicing in all his life." * As a complement of the morning service, and retaining another reminiscence of the wilderness life of their ancestors, namely, the guidance by the pillar of fire through the night, there Were set up, in the Court of the Women, two great golden lamp-stands, and when these were kindled they threw their light over the whole city. Then all the Temple music played, and the members of the Sanhedrim, the elders, the rulers of the synagogues, the doctors of the law, and all those who were distinguished by age, piety, and learning, danced wildly and recklessly, in the sight of the women who crowded the balconies, and the men who thronged the court ; he that made himself the most ridiculous achieving the greatest success. Perhaps this ad- dition to the ceremonials was taken from the dance of David before the Ark. There was another peculiarity of this festival. In addition to the usual daily sacrifices, on the first day thirteen young bullocks, two rams, and fourteen lambs of the first year, were sacrificed ; the next day, twelve bullocks; the third day, eleven; and so decreasing until on the seventh day, on which seven bullocks were offered, making seventy in all. This number, the Jewish doctors taught, represented the languages of the seventy nations of the world, and the process of diminution represented the gra- dual reduction of those nations until all things should come under the reign of the Messiah, f The legal limit of the " Feast of Tabernacles " was seven days, * Jennings in his Jewish Antiquities quotes this from the Mishna, tit. Sweah, cap. v., sect. 1. f R. Solomon on Numb, xix., cited by Lightfoot in his Tempk chap, xvi., sect 1. Service, AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 449 but it was followed on the eighth day by a supplemental festival of rejoicing, especially over the ingathered crops, their corn and their wine. This was a day of special jollity, from which Jennings* suggests that the heathen bor- „ ,. , to to ^ festival. rowed their Saturnalia. Plutarch even made the mistake of supposing that it was kept in honor of Bacchus, for he says (Symposia, lib. iv. prob. 5) : " In the time of the vintage the Jews spread tables, furnished with all manner of fruits, and lived in booths, specially of palm and ivy wreathed together, and they call it the ' Feast of Booths ; ' and then a few days after [alluding probably to the last day of the feast] they kept another festivity, which openly shows it was dedicated to Bacchus ; for they carried boughs of palms, etc., in their hands, with which they went into the temple, the Levites (who, he fancies, were so called for Ewo?, one of the names of Bacchus) going before with instruments of music," etc. It was to this gayest of all festivities that the men of the nation were gathering. But over all there was a shadow. The wonder- ful words and works of Jesus had spread themselves through the land. The mission of the Seventy had freshly excited public attention. Every man had something to tell or to hear of what Jesus had been saying or doing. Misrepresentations and exag • gerations were, of course, rife. Opinions differed. Parties were beginning to crystallize. Some were for him, some against. The latter were more and stronger than the former, whose favorable opinion of Jesus we find much modified by the pressure of public sentiment. They said, "He is a good man," while the others said, "Nay, but he deceives the people." His friends did not dare to render a frank expression of their views of his character and his operations. Suddenly, in the midst of the feast, Jesus appeared in the Temple and began to teach. It was like an apparition. What course he had come they knew not. He was not at the beginning of the feast. His absence had occasioned much anxious speculation upon the part of friends and foes. T iX , - M J- r \ Jesus at the feast. lne days were going by, and he did not come. But perhaps on Wednesday, the fourth day of the feast, when expectation of his coming had begun to flag, he calmly walked * Jewish Ant., book iii., sec 6. 29 450 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. into the Temple, took his position, and began to unfold his doctrine as if nothing unusual had occurred, as if his friends were not intensely anxious for his safety, and as if his foes had not been forming plots to compass his destruction. He went amply with wide knowledge, and powerfully with great authority, into his discourses. The Jews listened and were amazed, and started the inquiry, u How does this man know letters, never having learned ? " They intended to disparage him by calling the attention of the people to the fact that he had not received Rabbinical instruction. The intention was to create popular prejudice against him, as if he were an in- terloper, not being a graduate of the schools, not His defensive -, . . ,1 . £ , -, . TT . .-, , being; m tue succession 01 the priests. His replv speech. & r r J was, " My teaching is not mine, but His who sent me." He did not mean his doctrines simply, but also his mode of teaching and the spirit with which he taught. They charged that he usurped the office of teacher. This he denied. God was with him. In proof of this he says, " If any one will do His will he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God or I speak from myself." This is a plain way of practically putting the teachings of any teacher to the test. If a man be living in perfect purity of heart, in strict study and obedience of the physical, intellectual, and spiritual laws and ordinances of God, he will render himself a test of the truth of any other man's teaching. To this test Jesus submitted himself. As if he had said: All of the nation who are acknow- ledged to be living pure lives confess my teaching divine : try it yourselves : in proportion as you do what you already know that God has taught to be the duty of man, in that proportion will you open your hearts to me. And then, in disproof of the allegation that he was an in- truder into the teacher's office, he submits the following plain assertion : " He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory ; and he who seeks the glory of Him that sent him, the same is true, and unrighteousness is not in him." The former is moved by a narrow and low vanity; the latter by a high devout spirit. No ordination, no anointing, no induction into priesthood, no consecration can make, the former a teacher of morality. His selfish vanity breaks his claim. Jesus appealed to them whether such characteristic had ever appeared in him. He did not take his position from self -promptings ; he did not teach for morality what was merely the suggestion of his personal AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 451 fancy ; lie did not seek to glorify himself, being willing for that purpose to warp the truth in unrighteousness. He was so con- scious of his rectitude in this particular that he rested his appeal on the opinion of all the people. That was his defensive speech : he then made an attack upon his enemies. They could not comprehend and obey him, because they had not sought to comprehend and obey those who had preceded him, whom they acknowledged e . a aCKS ,. . , i.i i mi enemies. to be divinely authorized teachers. I here was Moses, the founder of their theocracy, the acknowledged law- giver. They had the Decalogue. They were living in violation of it. The Jewish priesthood of his day were notoriously licen- tious. Their rabbis and elders were so impure that when they brought to Jesus a woman taken in adultery, his speech, which meant, "Let him that is no adulterer throw the first stone," so condemned the entire assembly that not a man of them could remain in his presence. And now they stood around Jesus, a band of conspirators and murderers. He showed them that this was not a mere question of biblical scholarship, but of that essen- tial religion which consists in doing the will of God. What is tho capability of elucidating a point of scholastic perplexity compared with a consecration to doing the will of the Most High God ? And then he charged the rulers that they were at that moment seeking to kill him. The multitude regarded this asser- tion as an exaggeration of his fancy, and said, " You have a demon ! who seeks to kill you ? " — meaning that he was dis- ordered through melancholy. They did not know what .secret machinations were then at work among the rulers. Jesus gave them a reminiscence. Some time ago, in that same city, he had marvellously restored an impotent man to strength ; and beneficent as was this great act of power, it wrought in the hierarchy no sympathy for him, no disposition to co-operate with him for the welfare of the people; but because it infringed some of their oppressive regulations for observing the Sabbath-day, they had plotted against him, and had never ceased to endeavor to com- pass his death. He defended that past act. He put the case to them thus: "Moses gave to you circumcision (not that it is of Moses but of the fathers), and ye circumcise a man on the Sab- bath. If a man receive circumcision on the Sabbath, that 4:52 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. the law of Moses should not be broken, are ye angry with me because I have healed a man on the Sabbath? Judge not according to appearance, bnt judge righteous He defends his • j . » rrn ±. • ±. /-v „ , , ., . iiidgment. lhat is to say — Circumcision was Sabbath, act. J ' ° J earlier than Moses, who merely confirmed in legal enactment what the fathers had always practised as a part of Monotheism. The male child was to be circumcised on the eighth day, even if it fell on the Sabbath, because circumcision was an important sanitary regulation. But the Jewish hierarchy had sought to destroy Jesus because he had made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath, — such poor judges were they, so utterly incapacitated by reason of their adherence to the external letter, utterly unmindful of the internal spirit. This argument began to prevail with the people, and incline them favorably towards Jesus. So, very shortly after, some of them of Jeru- salem said, " Is not this he whom they seek to kill ? And lo ! he speaketh boldly, and they say nothing to him. Do the rulers know whether of a truth that this is the Christ ? But this one, we know whence he is: when the Christ cometh no one knoweth whence he is." This shows how the multitude fluctuated. The courage of Jesus struck them as admirable. They had be- come convinced that the rulers were seeking to destroy Jesus. Perhaps they had been paralyzed by finding in this man some indications of his being the Messiah, which had frightened them. But then they swung away from that feeling by the reflection that Jesus was a Kazarene. They knew him to be a citizen, if not a native, of a mean town in the provinces. The opinion was that the Messias should arise among men by sudden incarna tion, without earthly parentage. But this man's parentage they supposed to be known to them, which is sufficient to their minds to set aside all supposition that he was the Messias. Then cried Jesus in the Temple, teaching and saying, "Ye both know me and know whence I am: and I am not come of myself, but He who sent me is true, whom ye venror^ 11 ^" kn ° W n0t Bllt I lm ° W Him; fOT J am fr ° m Him, and He hath sent me." They thought to humiliate him by their reference to his humble extraction. "With a loud voice, openly in the Temple, he acknowledged his low earthly relationships. As Lange says, "He even treated with a certain cheerful irony the supposition that therewith they kne^w AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 453 his real essential origin." But when he speaks so freely of his heavenly descent they desired to arrest him: but they could not. There was something in him which repelled their rudeness. John says that it was God's overruling providence, " because his hour was not yet come." There were, indeed, among the people those who believed in him because he was a miracle- worker, for they said, " When the Christ comes will he do more signs than this one does?" Such sentiments among the people rendered the rulers uneasy. While these things were going forward the Sanhedrim was in session in the Temple, "in the stone chamber between the fore-court of the Gentiles and the inner court," as Tholuck says. The Pharisees probably conveyed to them this flux and reflux of public opinion. The Sanhedrim sent officers with orders to arrest him. Then said Jesus, with a tone which seems to have disarmed them, " Yet a little while am I with you, and I go to Him that sent me. Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me ; and where I am ye cannot come." This , arming . r» i speech, most probably meant simply that for the present they could not touch him, but that in a short time he would have a more complete separation from them. But the saying alarmed them, and they said, " Where is he about to go that we shall not find him '{ Is he about to go to the dispersion among the Gen- tiles, and teach the Gentiles \ " Thus they were perplexed with contradictory emotions and opinions. They affected to despise him, and yet they could think and talk of nothing else. Jesus was the topic of public and pri- vate discourse. He was the nation's mystery — a riddle to the vul- gar, a problem to the thoughtful, a prodigy to the multitude, and a terror to the rulers. He was admired, and criticised, and hated, and dreaded. There was such a sanctity about him that they could not lay violent hands upon him. But he exposed to each party the meanness and corruption of the other until he became dreadful. To keep him was to be perpetually tormented. To drive him from the country was to send him out to preach a doc- trine which should embrace all mankind^ and thus break up the monopoly of religion which the Jews supposed themselves to pos- sess. To do him violence was perilous, because there was such a profound interest in the man and such a division of popular sen- timent. They were terribly perplexed. 454 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. The " Feast of the Tabernacles," strictly speaking, closed at the end of the seventh day ; but on the eighth day was a supple- mentary festival which concluded the whole, and of the feast^ ^ wn ^ cn was " tne great day of the feast." On the other days the priests, as we have seen, went to the fount of Siloam and drew water, which was brought with great rejoicing into the Temple. This ceremonial was omitted on the eighth day. The seven represented the wandering, the eighth the entrance into the land of rest, the nation's home. The water came to represent in symbol the Holy Spirit of God. It had been always a fact to notice that there was no fountain in the Temple limits on Mount Moriah. This was interpreted to signify that the refreshing spirit was lacking in their dry ecclesiasticism, and the gift of that spirit, like the opening of a fountain, was among the most precious promises of prophecy. Joel (iii. 18) foretold that it should come forth from the House of the Lord, and Ezekiel (xlvii.) describes its breaking forth from under the threshold of the Tem- ple. It was the great expectation of the spiritually minded Jews, and most probably was constantly associated in their minds with other unspeakable benedictions which should come with the Messiah. It was on this day, the great day of the feast, when the failure to draw water from the fountain of the Siloam reminded the peo- ple of the absence of all fountains in the Temple, ountam o 1- ^^ ^ predictions which many undoubtedly in- terpreted literally, and to which a few assigned a high spiritual significance, Jesus, who was accustomed to sit as he taught, rose up, and lifting his voice, cried out to the multitude, " If any one thirst, let him come and drink. He who believes on me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters, as the Scrip- ture has said." He made allusion, probably, to such passages as Isa. xliv. 3, lv. 1, lviii. 11. The meaning seems to be, that in that man's inmost nature shall be sources of refreshment for him- self, which shall yield streams of refreshment for others. This appeal touched the hearts of some, who said, " Of a truth this is the Prophet." Others grew more emphatic, and said, " This is the Christ, the Messiah." Others said, " No ; for doth the Christ come out of Galilee % Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes of the seed of David, and from the town of Bethlehem, where David was % " The party feeling grew strong. Some of the multitude THE POOL OF SILO AM. AT THE JUNCTION OF THE VALLEY OF KIDBON WITH THE TYROPCEON. AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 455 ■called out to arrest him, but no one had the courage to lay hands on him. J The officers sent by the Sanhedrim returned without him and to the indignant question, "Why have ye not brought him?" they answered, "Never did man They cannot speak as this man speaks." The enraged Phari- arrestW sees taunted them: "Are ye also deceived? Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him ? But this cursed mob THE ASSEMBLY OF THE SANHEDEIM. (From an ancient description.) do not know the law » Here Nicodemus, a member of the San- hednm, the person who had had an interview with Jesus by night interposed w:th the question, "Does our law condemn a man except it hear first and know what he does ? " It seemed to be a Plain and honest question, but so excited were this assembly of judges that they began to deal in invective, saying, "Art thou 456 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. also of Galilee ? Search and look, for out of Galilee arises no prophet." They were ready to quote Moses for their purposes, but would not listen when it made against them and their prac- tices ; and it was not true that no proj3het came from Galilee, as Jonah and Amos, and perhaps others, were of that country. So the assembly was broken up in disorder, and every man went to his house, while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives, and there spent the night. Again he came back to the city. The Feast of the Tabernacles had ended. The lights were dead in the great candelabra that had shone upon the city, a reminiscence of the Jerusalem; the piUar of fire which had led their fathers thiwgh sniy John viii. tne wilderness. It was the painful darkness fol- lowing a great light, the silence of a- deserted ban- quet hall, which now lay upon Jerusalem. Jesus entered the Temple to teach the people. Every day a teacher could find hearers there. Now he might still find many who had come up from the provinces and were still lingering in the city. As soon as he was seated and prepared to teach, a very great concourse gathered about him. In the mean time the Scribes and Pharisees had concocted a plan to entrap him, and to raise against him the dislike of the people. They brought to him a woman taken in taken in adultery a dultery, and sat her in the midst of the crowd, and said to Jesus, " Teacher, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now, Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned ; but what do you say ? " The refer ence was to Deuteronomy xxii. 21. The woman must have been unmarried, but betrothed, as stoning was prescribed by the law only for such persons. She was therefore probably young and not hardened. This must have been a most painful ordeal. In nothing does the superior beauty of spiritual goodness over hard and technical morality appear more than in this scene. Jesus was spotlessly pure. He did not assert his purity by bursting into invectives against the "horrid creature." Tie modestly bent his head, and wrote on the ground with his finger. He had no pruri- ent curiosity. The subject was distasteful. But the Scribes and Pharisees seemed carried away with their zeal for purity. They had dragged the poor guilty thing before the public gaze. They were then committing a sin greater than hers, as malicious AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 457 hypocrisy is worse than incontinence. But every man engaged in this exposure had himself committed adultery. Jesus did not wish to touch the question. But they urged it They thought it would embarrass him. If he should say, " Stone her ! " he would be advising a breach of Roman law, which took such power out of Jewish hands. If he considered the case mildly, the populace would be excited against him, as one who was dis- posed to relax the law of Moses. These bad men were animated by many forms of vile passions. So they urged the question. Jesus, blushing, lifted himself up. He looked through each man's eyes to the bottom of his soul. He said : '* Let him among you who has never sinned first cast a stone at her." (See Dent. xvii. 7.) Again he blushed, Caught in theii -i rm i 0Wn tra P- and stooped, and wrote. The word smote them. It aroused their consciences. The oldest Pharisee among them was an adulterer ; so was the youngest Scribe ; so was each man. Some of the crowd probably knew the licentiousness of these hypocrites, and, if so, gave them such significant looks as must have been most embarrassing. The oldest Pharisee among them sneaked off ; so did the youngest Scribe ; so did each man. When Jesus again rose from his stooping posture they had all departed. The woman had not moved. He said : " Where are those your accusers ? Has no man condemned you ? " She answered : " No, sir." — u Neither do I," said Jesus ; " go, and sin no more." She had sinned. He had no license to give to sin. Whether the popular opinion, or even his indulgence, should withhold condem- nation, her only safety was in abstaining from sin. Nothing could have won her from the downward course on which she had en- tered so much as this exquisite tenderness of Jesus. Perhaps, pointing to the huge lamps now kindled, he ex- claimed : " I am the light of the world : he that follows me shall not walk in darkness but has the light of life." On the spot his adversaries endeavored to coun- J^^J^™ teract the force of his teaching by saying to him : " You bear testimony concerning yourself ; your testimony is not true." As if they would quote him against himself, and urge that self-glorification was his aim. Jesus answered : " Even if I bear testimony concerning myself, my testimony is true ; for I know whence I came, and whither I go ; but ye know not whence I come, and whither I go. Ye judge according to the 4:58 FKOM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. flesh ; I judge not any man. And even if I do judge, my judg- ment is true ; for I am not alone, but I and He who sent me. But it is also written in your own law that the testimony of two is true. I am a witness concerning myself, and my Father who sent me witnesses for me." Here is a claim to a mysterious origin and high position in the universe. The nature of the case was such that he was compelled to bear witness concerning himself. Nay, more, his very nature was such that he was compelled to testify of himself, as light, which shows the existence of other things, makes its own existence known. Moreover, they were so fleshly that they could not of themselves discern spiritual things, so that he was obliged to show them. They took a sinful plea- sure in discerning in man what they might condemn. He took nc such pleasure. He was not ready to judge and condemn men If they had been as free from this evil disposition as he, they would not seize every word he spoke as matter for condemna- tion. But when he spoke of his Father as being a witness for him, his enemies asked: "Where is your Father?" His reply was : w Ye neither know me nor my Father : if ye had Where is thy known me ye woll ] ( j have known my Father also." They must have understood him to mean that he felt a consciousness of being one with God. That cer- tainly was the claim which Jesus set forth. Whether he was mis- taken or not, whether he told the truth or a falsehood, — these are two other questions; but whether he made this claim is a ques- tion readily answered. He most manifestly did. And no one could find such a claim made by any man, otherwise very good and exemplary, without feeling that however mistaken he might be, he is unquestionably sincere in his belief. The whole ques- tion of the divinity of Jesus is narrowed to the inquiring whether his judgment was hurt by a false consciousness. If that ques- tion be determined in the affirmative, then we have these difficul- ties on our hands, namely, to account for a man so immaculate, so surpassingly good, so profound, so rapid and searching a reader of the human heart, that the like of him has never risen among the sons of men, — a being with such self-control, such vast powers of mind and wonderful endowments of physique, living the most resplendent of human lives, and dying a sublimest death of mar- tyrdom, and influencing the ages by his life and death, while he AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 459 himself was inwardly crazed by believing himself to be one person while he was in reality another, — living and dying in the belief that he was God, while in point of fact he was really inferior to even any man who knows who he is. It was truth or blasphemy which he was speaking. From the standing-point of the Jews they must have deemed it the latter, and yet they had not the courage to lay hands on the man who had committed in their hearing the greatest crime possible under the theocracy. His good greatness seemed to paralyze them. Then said Jesus again to them : " I go away, and you shall seek me, and in your sins you shall die : for where I go you have not the ability to come." The Jews said: " Will he kill himself ? " He replied : " You are of those beneath ; I am of those above ; you are of the world ; I am not of the world. I said to you that you shall die in your sins ; for if you do not believe that I am, you shall die in your sins." They asked him, sarcastically : " Who are you ? " He replied : " What say I to you from the first % I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but the Father who sent me is here ; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard from Him." John inserts the explana- tory sentence — " They understood not that he spoke to them of the Father, God." So utterly obtuse and fleshly were they that even these mystical utterances of Jesus were incomprehensible. Then he said to them : " When you have lifted up the Son of Man then shall you know that I am, and from myself I do nothing, but as the Father has taught me, so I speak. And He who sent me has not left me alone. He is with me, for I do always those things that please Him." Upon this many of the people believed on him. There was something in the words or in the manner, or in both, which touched them and awoke them into faith. But it was not very great or very intelligent faith, as M ^ any believe on appears from what immediately follows. He said to such : "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disci- ples indeed ; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall eman- cipate you." He saw that they were regarding him in a sensuous light, as a political deliverer from the Roman yoke, and therefore spoke this word to set them right. He had exhibited such cour- age in peril, and spoken so frankly of his consciousness of being one with God that they had begun to think that they might have 4:60 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. been misled by his antecedents and his manner, and that this, after all, was the Christ, the Anointed, the Messias, — still connect- ing him, however, with their hopes of freedom from the Koman yoke. This speech, which claimed that all his triumphs were to be spirit ual, opened their eyes to their misapprehension. More- over, it touched them on the sorest spot of their hearts, as their reply shows. They indignantly answered him : " Seed of Abra- ham are we, and to no man have we been slaves at any time : how do you say then, ' Ye shall be emancipated V n So blind were they as to forget that their fathers had been slaves in Egypt and Babylon for generations, and that they were virtually at that very moment the slaves of the Roman Empire. Jesus replied : " I most solemnly assure you that whoever is do- ing sin is the slave of sin. And the slave abides not in the house continually. If, therefore, the Son shall emancipate you, you shall be indeed freed. I know that you are Abraham's seed ; but you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with my Father, and you then do what you have seen with your father." These last words seem addressed to the crowd promiscuously. It excited their anger greatly. If they had believed on him before, they dropped him now, and with vehemence replied, " Abra- ham is our father." Jesus said unto them, "If you were Abraham's children you would do the works of Abraham ; but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which I have J Scrns^stltm P " heard fr ° m G0(L ThlS dld n0t Abranam ' YoU do the works of your father." This still more in- censed them, and they retorted, " We are not born of fornication. One father have we, God." — " If God were your father," replied Jesus, " you would have held me dear ; for I proceeded forth and have come from God ; neither came I of myself, but He sent me. Why do you not understand my speech % Because you cannot hear my discourse.* Ye are of your father Diabolus (the Calum- niator), and the desires of your father you are minded to do. He was a manslayer from the beginning, and in the truth he has not an abiding-place, for the truth is not in him ; when he speaks a * It is important to notice the dis- tinction between \a\ia and A070S, the former signifying the outward articu- late utterance of the latter, which means a reasonable connected line of thought. AT THE FEAST OF TABEKNACLES. 461 lie he speaks of his own, for he is a liar and the liar's father. But because I speak the truth you do not believe me. Who of you convicts me of wrong % * Why do yon not believe me if I speak the truth ? He who is of God hears the words of God : on this account you hear not, because you are not from God." Upon their claiming to be Abraham's children Jesus showed them that they had none of the characteristics of the spiritual descendants of Abraham. That was tantamount to a charge of spiritual bastardy, which they re- 1 ren0 ra ~ pelled by claiming God as their father. But Jesus shows them that they have not the characteristics of spirit- ual children of God, because they hate the One who has come out from God. If they were God's spiritual children the truth would be their vernacular ; but they cannot receive the truth ; it is as un- intelligible to them as an unknown language. He then pours the awful statement into their ears that they are the children of the Devil, who was at once a liar and a murderer, who in the begin- ning sought to destroy the race, and endeavored to accomplish his nefarious designs by a lie. The Jews showed this disposition towards Jesus — the lying, homicidal spirit — in that they sought to kill him, not for any error of thought or wrong of life, for he appeals to them if they have ever been convinced on evidence that he had done a wrong or made a mistake. It was a great claim. He challenges any flaw to be shown in his doctrines or life. And yet they hate him murderously. If they were of God they would hear the words of God ; but their failure to hear the words of God, which Jesus professed to speak, is proof that they are not of God. Then, they are of the Devil. Jesus rested his reproof on actual facts of which they were cognizant, such as their known desire to slay him. To his lofty rebuke they reply with coarse invective : " Is it not polite in ns to say that thou art a Samaritan, and Jesus char £ ed i t o v i mi • -i with having a de- hast a demon « I hey were going to throw at mon him the two hardest words known in Jewish quar- relling, just because they knew no harder ; but they sought to in- tensify them by saying — It is really a stretch of politeness to call * The word means "error" as well as "fault," mistake of judgment as well as sinfulness of life. So the word which I have translated "convicts" signifies to prove the fallacy in one's logic as well as to fasten upon one the charge of wrong-doing. 462 FK0M FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. } r ou a Samaritan : are we not doing a "handsome" thing to restrain ourselves and go no further than to say " you have a demon ? " Jesus calmly replied, " I have not a demon. I honor my Father and you dishonor me. And I seek not my glory. There is one who seeks it and -judges." The mention of God's His reply. . , , \ ° . , . judgment arouses his compassions, and he says to them, " I solemnly assure you that if any one shall keep my word lie shall not see death through the ages." The Jews replied, " Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham is dead, and the prophets, and you say, ' If a man keep my word he shall not taste of death through the ages.' Are you greater than our father Abraham, who is dead ? And the prophets are dead. Whom do you make yourself ? " This was pressing him to declare his exact position toward God and toward Abraham, — to reveal himself wholly in all his claims. He simply answers that if he glorified himself his glory would be nothing ; that his Father would bring all his glory to light, and that that Father was the God whom they professed to adore. He thus claimed to be the Son of God in an exclusive sense. He adds, " And you have not known Him [although you call Him your God], but I know Him, and if E should say I know Him not, I should be a liar like to you ; but I know Him, and I keep His word." He presents this as if he felt that they were urging him to deny his own consciousness, to de- clare that he was not what he felt himself to be, one with God; to assume a lower position would be to violate his own nature, to falsify his convictions, and to deny the truth of God. In regard to Abraham, however, he said, " Abraham, your father [as you claim], exulted that he saw my day, and he saw it and was glad.' This was an astounding assertion. They said with sarcasm, 44 You have not fifty years yet, and has Abraham seen you ? " Jesus replied most loftily, as if from some far-off eternity, " I most solemnly declare to you that before Abraham was born 1 am." If this be not the senseless assertion which Jesus before ^ j ews toQ ^ it tQ ^ jj. - g a declaration of the consciousness which Jesus felt of his being in ex- istence before time began, before measurements of duration had been discovered, in eternity, eternally coexisting with the Being whom he calls his Father, and whom we all suppose to be God. The Jews took up stones to cast at him, but he somehow hid himself from the frantic multitude and went out of the Temple. CHAPTER II. THE FEAST OF DEDICATION. "Where Jesus went, and how long he stayed in any place, are questions the answers to which escape our closest investigations. He travelled and taught. This is nearly all we can learn. There are certain incidents recorded Perha P s some - . where near Jeri- by his biographers which seem to associate them- cho Luke x selves with this portion of his history, and, even if we have missed their precise chronology, may as well be intro- duced here. They seem to show that Jesus was en route towards Jerusalem to attend for the third time the Feast of the Dedica- tion, a festival which celebrated the renewal of the Temple ser- vice under the Maccabees. On one occasion a lawyer stood up, with the intent, if possible, to entrap Jesus in his sayings. He put this question to Jesus : " Teacher, by doing what shall I inherit perpetual life?" To this Jesus returns two questions, im- T *! e law ^ er ' 3 . , . . question, portant m themselves, and increasing their impor- tance by their relation to each other. Probably pointing to the phylactery of his questioner's robe, on which, as a lawyer, he bore the inscription of that passage of Scripture (Deut. vi. 5) which the Jews were accustomed to repeat daily, he said, "What is written in the law ? " His next question was, " How readest thou ? " lie calls his attention to the fact that a man must first know the words of the record, and that then the mood in which he exam- ines them will have influence on his judgment. So, before mak- ing answer, Jesus asked the lawyer what response he had been able to get for himself out of the law. His reply was, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself." Jesus said, " You have answered rightly. Do this and you shall live." Perhaps this touched him as an intimation that his life had i 464 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. been in fault, and therefore he could not understand the profound spiritual subjects which he had brought forward for discourse. He may have felt piqued, and to make return gave Jesus what perhaps he intended to be a quiet touch of sarcasm by the ques- tion, " And who is my neighbor ? " As if he had said that he had kept the law, unless Jesus gave to the term neighbor perhaps a meaning not altogether accepted among his people, thus covertly seeking to rebuke him for his too great laxity in mingling with the hated Samaritan race. Jesus replied in the beautiful parable of the Good Samaritan. "A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who both stripped and wounded Parable of the M and departed leaving n i m h a lf deacL By a Good Samaritan. \ . . . contingency a certain priest was going down that way : and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and, see- ing him, was moved with com- passion, and coming to him he bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. penny. And on the morrow he took out two denarii,* and gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ( Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again I will repay thee.' " Then Jesus submitted to the lawyer the question, " Which of these three seems to thee to have been neighbor to him that fell among the thieves ? " And he replied, " He who showed mercy on him." Jesus said, " Go, and do thou likewise." The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was proverbially perilous * To English readers of this parable the generosity of the Samaritan in leav- ing two pennies with the landlord seems to be a small thing. But let us recollect that each denarius represented a day's labor. It would surely not be considered a small thing if a New York laboring man should humanely take up a poor fellow who had been maimed, and leave ten dollars to meet his expenses. Per- haps ten dollars now in New York would be a fair representative of two denarii in Palestine in the days of Jesus. It was a liberal provision. THE FEAST OF DEDICATION. 465 by reason of being the resort of highwaymen. Of this Josephus (B. J., iv. 8, 3) informs ns. The priests and Levites who lived in Jericho and officiated in Jerusalem were accns- „ From Jerusalem tomed to take the longer and safer road by way or. to Jericho Bethlehem, but on this occasion they had chosen the shorter route. Their guilt is increased by the fact that the} examined the condition of the wounded man and found it to be so very desperate, and yet their selfish love of safety drowned the voice of conscience and humanity in their hearts. If the lawyer thought it was not the correct and regular thing for a Jew to show mercy to a Samaritan, Jesus showed him the beautiful picture of a Samaritan putting his own life in peril to save a man whom he considered a heretic, and whom he knew to be his na- tional enemy. If the wounded man, however, was not a Jew, — and Jesus does not say he was, — then the Samaritan is represented as having the widest possible humanity. He had met a man ■ x J , A lesson of wide who was a stranger. He did not have even the humanity pleasure which comes from helping an enemy, which is always an intense personal gratification of one's own nobleness. The person before him presented only two claims to his attention and his kindness, namely, he was a man, and in trouble. Here was the very widest humanity. But we know that the helper was a Samaritan, and by introducing this feature into the picture Jesus taught that it is possible to have humanity with heterodoxy, and to have orthodoxy without humanity ; and he also teaches that if a man's orthodoxy do not beget humanity it is barrenly worthless ; that humanity is superior to orthodoxy, and inhumanity is worse than heterodoxy. The beauty of this parable in an sesthetical view, its graphic- ness, its fulness, its wideness and completeness of action, its genuine humaneness, are all heightened by the fact that this great Teacher, who selected the Samaritan to be the model of neighborly behavior, had himself been recently insulted and rejected by the Samaritans. It would seem to have been on this journey to the Feast of Dedi- cation that Jesus and his followers went to the little neighboring village of Bethany, to meet a household consisting of three per- sons, two sisters and a younger brother, of whom we shall have •nore to say hereafter. This family seems to have attracted and 30 Bethany. Mary and Martha. Luke 466 FTtOM FEAST OP TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. held the friendship of Jesus. The sisters were named Martha and Mary, the former probably being the elder and the keeper of the house. Their brother was named Lazarus. When, or how often previously, or whether ever before, Jesus had been in this house, we have no means of knowing positively ; but it would seem from the air of the narrative that Jesus had had some previous intercourse with this interesting domestic circle. Jesus had come into the house tired with travel and preaching. His reception by the sisters shows the difference in their tempera- ments. Mary sat at his feet, listening lovingly to his words. Mary was receptive. But Martha went bustling about the house, preparing many things, intent upon giving Jesus something of a festal reception as he came from his tiresome journey. At last her industry passed over into worry. She became cumbered about much serving. And then she became a little fretful. And she went from the kitchen to the sitting-room and broke in upon the ^artv with the half-plavful, half-petulant speech addressed to Mary tm^ugii tjesus, "Dost thou not care that my sister has left me to serve alone % Bid her therefore " that she help me!" It did not occur to Mary that much preparation would be needed, aprl she loved Jesus so that she went straight into the sitting-room and THE FEAST OF DEDICATION. 467 took a stool at his feet, in the confidence of innocence. Martha loved him just as much, and knew that he must have something to eat, and water to wash with, and a comfortable bed. Mary thought of what she needed of Jesus. Martha thought of what Jesus needed of her. She was so anxious to get back to Jesus that she felt keenly how her work was depriving her of the pleas- ure and profit of the company of her illustrious friend and guest. Mary was having all the good of it. Martha was not envious of her sister, but she desired to have some of the happiness of that society, and if no one helped her she would lose it all. The reply of Jesus has generally been regarded as a rather severe rebuke to Martha, and a boundless compliment to Mary. I venture to say that it was neither the one nor the other. He did most probably convey in his t M ^ rtha tone, as is intimated in the repetition of her name, some dissatisfaction with Martha's course. It was, however, only the dissatisfaction of love, not of anger. He desired to have her there where Mary was. He loved the sisters equally. He was not satisfied that Martha should be worrying in the kitchen, and he should be losing her society. He did not undervalue care for his personal comfort. No man, sinner or saint, ever does. It was a token of her love substantially given. He must have ut- tered the words tenderly, with the tone of love, reproving love for putting itself to trouble. He did need food and a resting-place, but he also needed her company. And so, with a loving smile and a kind look that pleaded his love against his words, he ut- tered this sentence that had in it more of warning than of re- proof. She was in peril. She was undertaking too much for her means. That was making her over-careful. She was becoming distracted and worried, anxious and troubled. She was losing her self-con- trol. She was in danger of losing her whole enjoyment of those for whom she was working. Now, no true man can see his friend, especially if that friend be a woman, making over-exertion for his comfort, and be unconcerned. Unless he be entirely selfish he will interfere. So Jesus did as soon as she opened the door and looked in. ISTor did the reply of Jesus imply that only one dish was neces- sary. That is an absurd interpretation of his words. Nor did it mean that religion was that one thing. This is a mystical inter- 468 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. pretation. The plain, common-sense meaning of this part of the reply is, that he required only one thing in his reception, namely, love of him. Martha had that. All then that was necessary was simple attention to his simple wants. What he says of Mary is not so much complimentary as defen- sive. We must recollect that. It was not a volunteered statement. Martha knew that she loved Jesus, and believed that Mary did too ; but thought that her sister had a very indifferent way oi showing it ; and Martha intimated as much. Jesus simply meant to defend Mary. He said, " Martha, you shall not take away Mary's share in this loving reception of me. She has chosen the part of goodness as well as you." The fact is, that the reply of Jesus w^as a sweet speech to both the women, and both felt pleased and improved by it. There is no record of what followed ; but I have no doubt that when Martha shut the door behind her, Jesus intimated somehow to Mary that she should go to the help of her sister, for he saw that Mary's peril was in the direction of quietism, as Martha's was in the direction of worry.* From Bethany Jesus went up to the metropolis. While passing he saw there a man who had been blind from his birth. f This * I venture to refer the reader to two published sermons of mine, entitled, Mary ; or, Religion in Beauty, and Martha ; or, Religion in Service. f I can unite with Dean Milman, who, in a note to the text of his Hist. Christianity, in loco, says : "I hesitate at the arrangement of no passage in the whole narrative more than this his- tory of the blind man." The Harmo- nists have two opinions, one placing it at the time when Jesus escaped from the wrath of his enemies in the Tem- ple, and the other in the time I have given it in my text above. In favor of thj former it may be urged that the narrative seems so closely connected that we can hardly imagine an interval. Moreover, we know that that conflict in the Temple was on the Sabbath, and that this healing took place on the Sabbath. (ix. 14.) The objection to that view is that Jesus evidently departed alone from the Temple, while at the healing of the blind man his disciples were with him. Archbishop Trench replies that it is easy to suppose that they could have extricated themselves as Jesus did him- self; but the Archbishop must have overlooked the fact that they were not present at that violent interview. The argument from the Sabbath is not con- clusive, because the conflict took place on a festal Sabbath, and this healing on a regular weekly Sabbath. Both might have fallen on the same day, but it is not known that they did. I have been inclined to place it where it stands in the text, because the connection of the conclusion of the narrative seems to me quite as close as that which is urged for the beginning, and the conclusion (John x. 22) connects itself with the Feast of Dedication, at which his disci- ples were with him, as they were not on the former occasion. Moreover, a THE FEAST OF DEDICATION. 469 was the first time that the disciples were in Jerusalem with Jesus. As they were passing a certain place they saw a man who had been blind from his birth. It occurred to the disciples to extract from their Teacher some v1 . e ^ usa em ' T . e i . blind man. John light on a dark difficulty, as old as the history o± ^ human thought. Traces of the profound study given by men to such questions as the existence of evil in the universe of the good God ; the transmission, if not of mental and moral traits, „ , . , . , • Existence of evil, at least of penalties ; the connection between sin and suffering ; and kindred problems, are almost everywhere in the stream of recorded thought, as far up towards the fountain- head as the literature of the world enables us to ascend. It is probably impossible to say when men first began to have these conceptions in shapely manner in their minds. But this much is certain, that very early in the history of human society we discover that the doctrine of retribution was not held merely loosely as hypothesis, but was imbedded in the human mind, and spring- ing up in all forms of human literature and art. The heathen classics are full of it. The students of the old Greek dramatists can never forget with what power it comes out in the writings of ^Eschylus, the father of classic tragedy ; how he shakes his read- ers with the grand horrors of the Prometheus, the Agamemnon, the Eumenides y how in them and his other tragedies which have survived we are thrilled by the perpetual reproduction of ances- tral guilt, the punishment of successive generations of sinners who are pressed into the commission of atrocities by the doom which lay mountain heavy on their race. Nor will they fail to great difficulty lies against the other date, namely, that Jesus would scarcely have left the Temple in a secret man- ner, and then immediately perform a miracle which would attract all eyes to him at the moment of a popular tu- mult, nor would there have been space during the remainder of the day for the events to have occurred which are con- tained in the narrative. It is a beauti- ful thought that it exhibits his godlike calmness to be able thus in his own peril to stand still and work this beneficent miracle. If I were writing a poem in- stead of a history, I should take the other date, in favor of which are Lange, Olshauseu, Meyer, Stier, Trench, and Milman ; against whom, and in favor of the view I adopt, stand Liicke, Tho- luck, De Wette, Alford, and Rev. Mor- ris Dods, who translated and edited Lange' s k ' Life of the Lord Jesus Christ. " Macknight places the healing on the day of the escape from the Temple ; the recognition and subsequent proceed- ings during the visit at the Dedication. The reader must examine and decide foi himself. 470 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. remember how the greatest of Greek dramatic authors, in his wonderful (Edipus, seems to attempt an imitation of the intrica- cies of Divine Providence, and the inevitability of the blow of retribution from the opening of the plot to the tremendous catas- trophe ; nor with what splendid diction and terrible beauty the same doctrines are set forth by Euripides in his wonderful PIicb- dra and overwhelming Medea. Indeed, the whole ancient classic tragedy surges with the heaving billows of sinful passion under the beating tempests of tremendous retribution. The ancient idea of penalty was personified. Nemesis, daugh- ter of Darkness and kinswoman of Shame, was the agent of the gods in the punishment of the violation of law, e ancien pa- an( j wag ^ Q special avenger of family crimes, gan idea. , . With the scent, the swiftness, and the certainty of a sleuth-hound, she followed guilt through all the windings of society and all the doublings of blood, until she smote it with the scourge that infuriated or the sword that destroyed. The skill of even Phidias was employed to embody in marble the popular con- ception of this personation of penalty. This same idea of the inevitable following of pain upon trans- gression, at whatever intervals and through whatever prosperi- ties, — from which was always made the illogical conclusion that no suffering takes place with- out sin, — lay dark and heavy on the Hebrew mind. In that sim- plest, grandest, and most solemn of all the tragedies, the book Job, we see a very powerful representation of this. A man serv- ing God with such consecration and such constancy that even the Almighty spoke of him as His perfect servant, suddenly topples from the pinnacle of human prosperity to the dunghill of the lowest debasement ; from surroundings of comfort, which made him seem like a secure god, into privations and pains which ranked him among the most pitiful of the feeble. When his friends drew near to condole with him, they knew him not. They beheld a blackened ruin lie where there had stood a palace of delights. The sight was so appalling that Eliphaz the Teman- ite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, lifted up their voices and wept, and rent their mantles and crowned them- selves with dust, and sat down with the sufferer seven days and seven nights, and never a man of them essayed to break with syllables the awful silence of that transcendent grief. And when THE FEAST OF DEDICATION. 471 they did, when they had taken a week to contemplate the situa- tion and study the case of Job, these three great men, whom Job had thought worthy to be his friends, embodied their philosophy in such words as these : Eliphaz said : "Who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off? Even as I have seen, they that plough iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same" Bildad said : " Can the rush grow up without mire? Can the flag grow without water? Whilst it is yet in its greenness, and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb. So are the paths of all that forget God ; and the hypocrite's hope shall perish" Zophar boldly said : " Know that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth" And amidst all this intimation or assertion of secret sin, Job was without fault. But it was impracticable for these men to conceive it possible that there could be so much suffering and no sin. We know that Job was in the midst of prodigious pains which were in no way a punishment for either his own sins or the sins of any other. So when we come down to the days of Jesus and the passage of our text, we find the great Teacher confronted with a case of special privation, and his disciples plumply put X a- 4. J 4. u- «wi im • *i- "Who did sin?" the direct question to him : " Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind ? " Here is a sad case, a man who had never beheld God's great expanse of the heavens or fruitful field of the earth — a man who had never seen the love- light in the eye of mother or wife or child — a man to whom the angel rays of holy light had never come flooding in from all the forms of nature and of art, full of reports of beauty. It was a dire privation. It never occurred to the disciples to ask the pre- vious question: "Why came he thus?" They never question, their prejudices and their old ideas which they had received frorm their fathers. If they had ever read the book of Job they had; forgotten its moral. They presumed sin. Here is suffering, where is the sin ? Suffering has only one parent, Sin. All they seemed curious to know was, Who was the sinner ? It broke upon them like a new day on what they supposed the noon of their intelli- gence when the Master said, Neither hath this man sinned, nor* his parents. It was an utterance which smote the mouth of Poetry with the hand of Silence, and emptied the garnered treas- ures of Philosophy into the sea. 472 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. What Jesus thought of it. It is not at all necessary to suppose that the disciples believed in the doctrines of pre-existence and metempsychosis,* or had even heard them. There is no sufficient proof that these Platonic ideas had spread generally among the Hebrew people, or that they pre- vailed to any extent even in the schools of the Rabbis. Here is the ray of light which Jesus let in ol one case, and which maybe applicable to millions: "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents ; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." Not that the man had never committed sin of any kind, not that his parents were faultless, but that this blindness was neither punitive nor the result of sin. It was the grand rev- elation to the world that suffering may exist without sin, and as part of the working of a beneficent law whose sweep describes a circumference too large for human vision, but enclosing a vast field of God's benign operations ; of this circle, the segment, if visible to us, is too small, too fine a point, for us to find the cen- tre, measure the radius, and calculate the area, with all the aids of all the geometry known to man. Jesus says that a man may suffer for God's sake, and by the cure of the blind man and the results of that cure he demonstrated this blessed fact. Jesus added the saying, " While it is day we must work the works of him who sent us. Night comes, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world I am the light of the world." The proverbial expression " Night comes, when no man can work," simply meant that he who did not his work in the day cannot do it in the night ; that when a man neglects an opportunity to do what he should do, he cannot recover it : and Jesus applies this general principle to himself and his disciples. As he was the light of the world, what fitter thing than that he should open the eyes of the blind? So, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and anointed the blind man's eyes therewith, and said to him, " Go, wash in the pool of Siloam." Anciently a virtue was supposed to be in saliva for disorders of * The doctrine of metempsychosis was widely leceived among- the Jews of the Middle Ages, especially among the Cetbalists, who explicitly taught that blindness from the birth was to be ac- counted for by this doctrine ; but we cannot learn that it was taught in the times of Jesus. Lightfoot quotes the Rabbins as teaching that the embryo might sin in the womb, and as quoting for proof the struggle between Jacob and Esau. (Gen. xxv. 22.) Tholuck believes that this was merely the pri- vate opinion of particular individuals. THE FEAST OF DEDICATION. 473 the eyes, as we learn from Livy (Hist. JVat., xxviii. 7). Suetoniua ( Vesp., vii.) and Tacitus (Hist., iv. 8) give accounts of the restoring of a blind man by the Emperor Vespasian, and both speak of the use of saliva, the latter repre- , 1 anne 1 r healing. sentiug the blind man as begging the Emperor to anoint his eyes with spittle.* Jesus himself in a similar case em- ployed it in the healing of a blind man (Mark viii. 23), and also in the case of one suffering from a defect in the organs of speech and hearing. He did not always, however, use outward applica- tions, as we see in the case of the blind man near Jericho (Mat- thew xx. 34). Why he did so in this case we do not positively know. Trench's suggestion seems good : " Probably the reasons which induced him to use these means were ethical ; it was per- haps a help for the weak faith of the man to find that something external was done." It may also have been a test of his faith, as faith was the psychological basis on which Jesus wrought his miracles. It could hardly have been to wash off the clay which would have obstructed the use of the eyes after the miracle haa been wrought, as this would not have been a sufficiently import- ant thing to mention, much less to command. The short history is, that " he went and washed, and came seeing." The recovery of his sight made so great a change in the appear- ance of the man that some of his neighbors doubted his identity, although they still saw a great resemblance to the blind beggar. When he affirmed that he was the very man, they asked him, " How were your eyes opened ? " He answered, " The man who is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said to me, ' Go to the Siloam and wash : ' then I went and washed, and received sight." — "Where is he ? " said they. " I do not know," said he. The people noticed that the man had been healed on the Sab- bath. It was expressly forbidden by some of the Rabbins, accord- ing to Lightfoot, to put saliva on the eyelids on the Sabbath : in case of inflammation of the eyes, s b ^ a t ! Lowever, some did allow this to be done. There being some difference of opinion among their religious teachers and rulers, the man's neighbors brought him to the Pharisees. The wish has often been expressed that some miracle of Jesus had * Trench says that abundant quota- | in Wetstein, in loco. tions to the same effect are to be found 474 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK, been submitted to judicial investigation. Now here is precisely such a case. Jesus had given sight to a man blind from his birth. The man was no fool, but rather a quick-witted, genial person. The best intellects of the nation employed themselves in investi gating the phenomena and circumstances of the case. These in- tellects were not credulous, but exceedingly skeptical ; not spiritu- alistic, but exceedingly materialistic ; not friendly to Jesus, but ex- ceedingly hostile. If it be possible to disprove the alleged work- ing of a miracle we have now an opportunity. Let us study the investigation and results. The Pharisees asked him how he had received his sight. That presumed blindness and a cure. The man admitted both, and to the point of their question, namely, the manner catechised. ^ of the healing, he replied, « He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and I see." There must have been some peculiar quality in the clay, and if so it arose from the saliva of Jesus, for the same dust from which to make the clay, and the same water of Siloam, had been open to the use of millions of men, and yet no other blind man had been healed. This was so manifest to all his inquisitors that a schism was immediately produced. No one doubted that a very wonderful thing had been done, if there were no fraud or collusion in the case. Their hostility to Jesus came out in the saying, " This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath." But some replied, " How can a man that is a sinner work such signs ? " Here was a dilemma. The miracle could not be denied, if there were no fraud, and they could not give up their ideas of Sabbath- keeping so far as to accept a good man, although he had sustained his claims by a miracle. They turned again to the healed man and said, " What do you say of him, seeing he has opened your eyes % " This question in- volves the admission on their part that Jesus had given the man sight in some wonderful way, if his story be true, or else the ad- mission of that upon the man's part, or both. That he believed it was a miracle is manifest from his reply, " He is a prophet." But the inquisitors were not willing to be imposed ft-minftJ upon. They had no interest in admitting a mira- cle, but the contrary. They called his parents and asked them three questions : " Is this your son ? " " Was lie THE FEAST OF DEDICATION. 475 born blind \ " " How does lie now see ? " To which his parents replied : 1. " We know that this is our son ; " 2. " We know that he was horn blind y " 3. " We know not how he now sees, nor do we know who has opened his eyes : he is of full age, he shall speak for himself." The Pharisees in Sanhedrim had ahead} 7 agreed that if any man should acknowledge Jesus to be the Christ, the Messiah, he should be put out of the synagogue, that is, endure the sentence of the thirty days' excommunication.* Of course such a decree did not promote in any way the interests of truth or the interests of Jesus. The fear of it made the parents dodge the question. But we are not to conceive of them as heartlessly selfish, for they knew, as they said, that their son was a man, and they knew that he was very shrewd and ready. They were willing to trust him to take care of himself. He was recalled and put on his oath. " Give glory to God : wc know that this man is a sinner." This address certainly does not mean that he was to ascribe all the glory of his ~ , , . ° 4 The patient put cure to God, and give no reverence to J esus, as on th Hammond and Jeremy Taylor teach. It was a form of adjuration, similar to that which Joshua put to Achan, (see Joshua vii. 19).f They pretended in his absence to have found the existence of fraud, and so they desire him to purge himself by taking an oath and telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. While the man is not to be overcome by their au- * " There .appear to have been two, or some say three kinds of excommuni- cation among the Jews, greatly differ- ing in degrees and intensity, and our Lord often alludes to them, not as though they were a slight matter, but as among the sharpest trials which his servants would have to endure for his name's sake. The mildest was an ex- clusion for thirty days from the syna- gogue, to which period, in case the ex- communicated showed no sign of re- pentance, a similar or a longer period, according to the will of those that im- posed the sentence, was added : in other ways too it was made keener ; it was accompanied with a curse ; none might hold communion with him, no, not even his family, except in cases of absolute necessity. Did he show himself obsti- nate still, he was in the end absolutely separated from the fellowship of the people of God, cut off from the congre- gation, — a sentence answering, as many suppose, to the delivering to Satan ia the apostolic church. 1 Cor. v. 5 ; 1 Tim. i. 20. Our Lord is thought to allude to all these three degrees of separation, Luke vi. 22, expressing the lightest by the a.(pupi(€iu, the severer by the o that territory lying along the east of the Jordan, extending from the foot of Hauran to the desert on the south of the Dead Sea. The river rendered the land fer- tile, so that it was a district of vineyards, and the proximity of the mountains of Gilead and Moab preserved the salubrity of the climate. Jesus came back to the place where John had had a revelation of the Messiah in the son of Mary. To the spot where he was baptized, but which he had never since revisited, Visits the place T . t . « . .,-,. ir > » , . -,, , ,. Jesus returned, as it to re^ird himself for his of his baptism. 7 & coming conflict. It was a region inhabited by a mixed population, and its distance from the capital removed it from the fierce religious contentions of the day. He might have a little rest from those conflicts. Moreover, the testimony which John had borne in his behalf was still remembered by the people. When he performed works which far surpassed even John's pro- phecies of him, the people resorted to him in multitudes, saying, " John indeed wrought no sign ; but all things that John said of this man were true." And many believed on him there. How long he stayed we do not know, but his sojourn was probably several weeks. The time was occupied by journeys and teachings. It is pro- Are there few kabl- e that it was at this period that one said to that be saved ? him, " Lord, are they few that are being saved ? " Luke xiii His answer was : " Strive to enter in through the narrow door ; for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. From the time when the master of the IN PEREA. 4:83 L -use has risen and has shut the door, and you begin to stand without and to knock at the door, saying, 'Lord, open to us,' answering he shall say to /ou, ' I know you not whence you are.' Then you shall begin to say, ' "We hav eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets.' And he shall say to you, ' I know you not whence you are ; depart from me, all workers of iniquity.' There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you thrown out. And they shall come from the east and the m est, and from the north and the south, and shall recline in the kingdom of God. And see, they are last who shall be first, and they are first who shall be last." The question was proposed by some frivolous person in the crowds about him, some person not yet enough attached to him to be called a disciple : Who shall be of the kingdom of the Messiah ? Now there comes forward in the reply of Jesus what we shall find repeatedly presented hereafter, the idea of the last becoming first, and the first falling behind. Many would like to be of the kingdom of God, but are not able to enter in, simply because they do not take the legitimate measures. They " are not able " to break into the kingdom nor to sneak into it, and these are the only ways they try. He represented their final for- lornness by the picture of a head of a household whose family had been wandering about beyond the hour for retiring, and his resolute determination that if they would not keep his regulations they should stay outside. No matter what the privileges of any man, if he do not come in God's ways he cannot come at all ; and no matter whence a man may come, if he come aright he shall have admittance. The same day certain of the Pharisees came and said to him, " Depart hence, for Herod desires to kill you." They invented the story to induce Jesus to leave, or they had reason to know that Herod had animosity towards the Teacher. This latter is quite compatible with his desire to see Jesus. Natures like Herod's are fitful. Jesus seems to have received the statement as a message from Herod, since he made this reply : " Go and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out demons and I do cures to-day and to- morrow, and the third day bring them to an end. Nevertheless, I must walk to-day, and to-morrow, and the following : for it can- not be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem ! " This was not the language of precision, but of irony and melancholy. John had perished by the hands of Herod, but as a general rule the 484 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. hatred which produced martyrdom had its seat at the nation's ecclesiastical headquarters, Jerusalem. It was while engaged in this work that Jesus received the news of the illness of his friend Lazarus. Upon receiving the message he said, "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby." Notwithstanding this news Jesus accepted an invitation to eat with a Pharisee on the Sabbath. This Pharisee was probably a member of the Sanhedrim or a president of the e ropsica S y na2 . 02:ue as h e j s ca lled one of the rulers of the man. Luke xiv. -™ . A Pharisees. At that dinner was a man who had the dropsy. The invitation was not an honest one, as the Phari- sees were lying in wait to find something against Jesus, and this man may have been placed there for the very purpose of trapping Jesus into doing something on the Sabbath ; but the man himself does not seem to have had any sinister intent. Jesus knew the thoughts of the company, and asked this question : " Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath-day or not ? " And they were silent. The question was incisive, was such as answered itself, and made a defence for Jesus. He healed the man and sent him off, and uttered this further defence : " Which of you having an ass or an ox fallen into the pit on the Sabbath-day, will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath-day ? " As if he had said, that if their compassion for the beast or regard for their property should lead them to pull a brute out of the water, surely he ought to be allowed to heal the human being who had the dropsy. He then addressed them this parable : — "When you are bidden of any man to a wedding, recline not on the chief seats, lest a more honorable man than you be bidden of him; and he who bade you and him coming shall say to you, On taking a low '@i Ye place to this one,' and then you begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are bidden, go and recline in the lowest place, that when he who invited you comes he may say to you, 'Friend, go up higher;' then you shall have honor in the presence of them who recline with you. For every one who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted." The value of the parable is in the exhibition it gives us of the quick sight which Jesus had for all the small details of social IN PEREA. 485 intercourse, and the lesson of simple, blithe enjoyment of plea- sures, not seeking distinction, letting the honor come, or, if it do not come, being happy without it all the same. He followed this up with an address to his host. "When you make a dinner or a supper, call not your friends, nor youi brethren, nor your kinsmen, nor your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and a recompense be made you. But when you make a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. And you shall be blessed ; for they cannot repay you : hut you shall be recompensed in the resurrection of the just." Men sometimes invite others to their entertainments in order to be invited again. This Jesus pronounces wrong. He is not to be understood as teaching that a man is never to entertain rich people or kinsfolk, but that when he does so he has no recompense beyond the pleasure which the party gives him. If he will really have a reward from God for the feast, he must bid those who can never repay him, bestowing his hospitality for no personal advantage. Then one of the guests said, " Blessed is he whoever eats bread in the kingdom of God." The remark seems quite natural when we recollect that in the current Jewish notions the resurrection of the just was the same thing as the setting up of the kingdom of God, which was to be inaugurated with a great feast. It led to the delivery of the following parable : — "A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: and sent his slave at supper-time to say to those who were bidden, ' Come, for all things are now ready.' And they all with one voice began to make excuse. The first said to him, 'I have Parable of the Great ° ' Supper. bought a field, and must go out and see it: I pray thee have me excused.' And another said, 'I have bought five yokes of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused.' And another said, 'I have married a wife, and on this account I cannot come.' And the servant came and told his lord these things. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his slave, 'Go out quickly into the broad places and streets of the city, and bring in hither the poor, the maimed, the blind, and the lame.' And the slave said, 'Lord, it has been done as you have com- manded, and yet there is room.' And the lord said to the slave, ' Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say to you, That none of those men who were bidden shali taste of my supper.' " 486 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. The lessons seem quite plain. The kingdom of God is a feast, and men have been invited thereto. They decline to come, not on account of business, buying land and oxen, or marriage, as all these are lawful things, but on account of too much devotion to these things, and the failure to adjust their affairs so as to discharge all duties properly. The " compelling " the uninvited to come in, to fill up the places of the recreant invited guests, is readily understood when we reflect that these people were so poor and worthless and unknown that the messenger would have the greatest difficulty in convincing them that the invitation was for them. Rebuke to the Jewish nation was herein. They had declined the invitation of God, and now God would fill their places with the Gentiles. Great multitudes flocked to him on this journey. Luke reports that he gave them this description of such discipleship as he required, and enforced his teaching with striking ermso isci- illustrations, and the repetition of what he had plesmp. Luke xrv. *■' elsewhere spoken. This is the address : — " If any one come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and. sisters, and yet more, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever bears not his cross, and comes after me, cannot be my disciple. For who of you, wishing to build a tower, does not sit down first to count the cost, whether he has the means to finish it? Lest haply, after he has laid the foundation, and not being able to finish it, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. Or what king, going to war against another king, sits not down first to consult whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him that comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, he being yet afar off", he sends an embassy and asks for peace. So like- wise every one of you who forsakes not all that he has cannot be my dis- ciple. Now, salt is good, but if the salt become insipid, with what shall it be seasoned ? It is fit neither for the land nor for manure : they cast it out He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." This was a sifting speech. It taught them that it was no holi- day amusement to be his disciple, but that it involved a subordi- nation of all the passions to their consecration to him. In using the cross as the symbol of self-denial, Jesus seems again to have given prophetic intimation of his death ; but in the minds of the disciples there could have been no such connection. Internally the erection of a Christian character is like the erection of any IN PEEEA. 487 Publicans and sinners. Lukexv. other great structure ; a man must lay his plan, he must study to know what is necessary to execute it, and he must assure himself that he has the requisite resources. The conflict of Christian life is like any other war. One must consider the opposition, and how and with what he is to meet it. These illustrations mean only to impress the necessity of entering on discipleship with am- [.^ubt determination to go forward to complete success. Then crowds of publicans and sinners drew near to hear him. Luke says, " all the publicans and sinners." He received them kindly, and taught them the ways of the kingdom of the heavens. This gave the Pharisees occasion to murmur. They said, " This man receives sin- ners and eats with them." In reply Jesus delivered those three parables of surpassing beauty which were to illustrate his favorite proposition, that the Son of Man had come to seek and to save that which was actually lost. They ought to be read consecutively without break, and so we give them. " What man of you, having a hundred sheep, and having lost one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he find it ? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And coming into the house he calls ,. _ * ara e ° * e ' J ^ ° Lost Sheep. together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say to you, that like- wise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repents, more than over ninety and nine just persons who have no need of repentance. " Or what woman, having ten drachmae [140 cents], if she lose one drachma [14 cents], does not light a lamp, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it ? . t -, , The Parable of the And when she ■ Lost Com. has found it she calls her friends and her neighbors together, saying, Re- joice with me, for I have found the drachma which I lost. Like- wise I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." " A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, 'Give me the portion of goods that falls to me.' And he divided between them the means of living. And not many days after, the younger son, having gathered all together, took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance living profligately. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that DRACHMA. The Parable of the Prodigal Son. 4:88 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. country ; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country ; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have been filled with the pods that the swine did eat : and no one gave to him. And coming to himself, he said, ' How many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, and I am perishing here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will . say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you ; I am no more worthy to be called your son : make me as one of your hired servants.' And he arose and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said to him, ' Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I am no more worthy to be called your son ; make me as one of your hired servants.' But the father said to his slaves, ' Bring forth quickly the best robe, and put it on him ; and put a ring on his hand, and san- dals on his feet. And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it ; and let us eat and be merry. For this my son was dead and is alive again ; he was lost and is found.' They began to be merry. Now his elder son was in a field : and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. And having called one of the servants, he asked what these things meant. And he said to him, ' Your brother is come : and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has received him safe and sound.' And he was angry, and would not go in ; but his father coming out entreated him. And he, answering, said to his father, ' Lo, these many years do I serve you, and never did I transgress your command ; and you never gave me a kid that I might make merry with my friends. But when this your son has come, who has devoured your means ot living with harlots, you have killed for him the fatted calf.' And he said to him, ' Child, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. But it was needful to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive : he was lost, and is found.' " The connection and the climax in this series of parables must be noticed. They indicate a regular discourse rather than a col- lection of sayings. Ownership, in some sense, is the connecting thought. A lifeless coin, a living domestic animal, a son ; this is the climax. If the order which Luke gives was observed in the address, then it would logically seem thus : The recovery of a lost animal is a cause of rejoicing, — nay, even the recovery of a coin, — how much more the recovery of a son. Men are represented as the sons of God, and all sinful. Sinners are of two classes, — prod- igal sinners and puritan sinners, — those who gravitate toward the condition of outlaws and those who gravitate towards the condi- tion of sneaks. In some particulars the prodigal is worse than the elder brother, in many others the elder brother is worse than the prodigal. The yearning love of the father draws the wan- IN PEEEA. 4S9 derer home ; the goodness of the father bears with the son who is a hypocrite. In any case, when a hnman being is lost, God is the loser. This puts the appeal to every human heart on a higher plane than mere selfish taking care of one's self.* Then followed this parable : — " There was a certain rich man that had a steward; and he was accused to him of wasting his property. And calling him, he said to him, * What is this which I hear of you? Render an account of your , . . , , , , , , A , Parable of the Unjust stewardship ; for you can be no longer a steward. And steward Luke ^ the steward said within himself, ' What shall I do, because my lord takes the stewardship away from me? I am not strong enough to dig; I am ashamed to beg. I know what I will do, that when I am put out of the stewardship they may receive me into their houses.' And calling each one of his lord's debtors, he said to the first, ' How much do you owe my lord?' And he said, 'A hundred baths (866 gallons) of oil.' And he said to him, ' Take your bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty.' Then he said to another, ' And how much do you owe ? ' And he said, ' A hundred cors (1109 bushels) of wheat.' And he said to him, 'Take your bill and write eighty.' And the lord praised the unjust steward, because he did pru- dently ;f for the children of this life are more prudent for their generation than the children of light. "And I tell you, Make for yourselves friends of the riches of injustice, that when it fails they may receive you into the enduring tabernacles. He that is faithful in the least is faithful also in much. If, therefore, you have not been faithful in the unjust riches, who will commit to you the true ? And if you have not been faithful in another's, who will give you yours ? No domestic can serve two masters ; for he will either hate the first and love the other, or he will adhere to the first and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon." Perhaps we shall simplify the difficulties which many have found in this parable by learning to whom it was addressed and what it was intended to teach. It was not ad- dressed to the Scribes and Pharisees, but, as Luke Meaning of the parable. expressly says, "to his disciples." It was in- tended to teach prudence in the management of a man's spiritual affairs. The ordinary lack of this prudence he makes the more conspicuous by contrasting it with the prudence of men who are * See these ideas enlarged in my pub- Wiclif s translation, but unfortunately lished sermons, entitled The Puritan was changed in the common version. Sinner and Lost. There may be prudence without wis- f This seems the very best translation dom, for p:udenc3 is often a rascally of the original word. It was used in virtue. 490 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. absorbed in worldly matters. Here was a steward to whom was committed the affairs of his rich employer. The bonds made by that steward, who seems to have had a power of attorney, would bind the master. He, moreover, lent the money of the master, and took obligations therefor. He became wasteful. Upon learning this the employer expostulated with him indignantly, and ordered him to settle up his affairs. This gave him time to think. But he did not delay. He went from bad to worse. He now resolved to rob his master. Calling the debtors together, he made a swift arrangement with them. They were not poor ten- ants, but rich neighbors in large business themselves, or else they could not have been trusted with such amounts of such costly ar- ticles as oil and wheat. He handed back their bonds, and received in return bonds for a much less sum. They were thus laid under great pecuniary obligation to this steward. They did not know that he was about to lose his place ; but he did. So when he was discharged he had ground of an appeal to them. When his em- ployer discovered what had been done, he complimented the shrewdness of a man who had been most dishonest towards him. It was only the forecast, not the dishonesty, that was praised. Jesus used the parable to teach his disciples prudence in regard to the future of their souls. A great difficulty exists in the say- ing of Jesus : " Make for yourselves friends of Friends of the ^ mammon f injustice, that when it fails they Mammon of un- . . "* , , . , ,, righteousness. m2i J receive J ou mto tne enduring tabernacles/' Money is represented under the name Mammon, and it has been said that this was the name of the Syrian god of wealth, as Plutus was in the Greek mythology. But no proof has been discovered of such a fact. It is called "Unjust Mammon," or "the Mammon of Injustice," as riches are ordinarily, not always, acquired in a sinful way, or used for purposes of injus- tice, or are in themselves delusive. The dealing with large wealth usually leads to some wrong-doing ; and, as Meyer says, " the ethical character of its use is represented as cleaving to itself " in this phrase in the parable. But riches can be used so as to secure permanent spiritual blessings. The disciple of Jesus who does not so use it is not as prudent as the unjust steward. Gen- erally his disciples do not ; and therefore Jesus says that " the children of this life are more prudent for their generation than the children of light " are for the world beyond. m PEEEA. 491 The Pharisees, who were covetous, heard all these things and derided him. To them he addressed the following parable : " There was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, and feasted sumptuously every day. And a certain poor man by the name oi Lazarus was laid at his gate, afflicted with ulcers, and de- siring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich Luke XTi - Parabl8 man's table ; yet even the dogs came and licked his ulcers. LazaruSi And the poor man died, and was carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom. And the rich man also died, and was buried ; and in the under-world he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and saw Abraham from afar, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he called and said, 1 Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue ; for I am in pain in this flame.' "But Abraham said, i Son, remember that you received your good things in your life, and Lazarus in like manner evil things ; but now he is comforted here, and you are in pain. And besides all this, there is a great chasm fixed between us and you, so that those wishing to pass hence to you cannot, neither can they pass thence to us.' And he said, ' I beseech you, then, father, send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, to testify fully to them, that they may not also come to this place of torment' But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.' But he said, ' No, father Abraham, but if one went to them from the dead they would change their minds.' But he said to him, ' If they hear not Moses and the prophets, they would not be persuaded if one rose from the dead.' " This parable is not intended to be a revelation of the outward condition of individual souls in the spiritual world. Jesus takes the imagery of Jewish and Gentile mythology as the mere drapery for the teaching of most impor- n ® n lon ° e tant moral lessons. " Abraham's bosom " is a metaphor for a place of permanent rest in communion with the good. The whole parable is a short and striking drama, convey- ing most solemn and impressive lessons. The main lesson is the ruinousness of unbelief in a spiritual world, an unbelief which renders men selfish in this world, and engrossed with this world, so that they may b v e covetous as the Pharisees were, or self- indulgent as the rich man in the parable was. The Pharisees, so far from being clothed in purple and fine linen, were remarkably abstemious in diet and modest in dress. But penuriousness and prodigality are opposite sins, growing from the trunk of worldli- ness, that is, overestimate of the value of what addresses the senses, the one finding its pleasure in hoarding and the other in 4:92 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. squandering, — and thus worldliness grows from the root of unbe- lief in a spiritual world. In the story two persons are represented as being in extremely opposite conditions. One was rich, the other a beggar. One was clothed in byssus, a linen which was sold in the wo men in is ^ me Q ^ j eSTls f or j^s weight in gold, and in gar- ments colored with the most costly dyes. The other did not have clothes enough to cover his sores. The one had a mansion with a gate ; the other was homeless, and laid about at people's doors, probably by those who desired to be rid of him. In comparison with the splendid condition of the one who fared sumptuously " every day," was the fact that the other waited to catch the crumbs which the servants of the former would .throw to the beggars and the dogs. These latter, such wretched dogs as prowl in Oriental cities, added to the humiliation of the beggar by being his only attendants, licking his sores, and thus making a contrast with the unfeeling human brother. The beggar was named Lazarus in the story. Perhaps it was suggested by the name of the friend of Jesus, whom he was soon to raise from the dead. That men may know that condition is nothing and character everything, Jesus transfers the scene to the under-world. Lazarus dies. He has no funeral. But after death he is happy. Angels escort him to the society of the good and blessed. The rich man dies. His funeral is a pomp. But he is wretched The same men m the under-world. He sees Abraham and Lazar us. iritg _ He cries to them for help. He had found his pleasure in physical delights. His misery is the want of them. He does not deplore his unbelief, but wants his tongue cool. He is a churchman even in the under- world. He claims Abraham as his father. Abraham acknowledges the rela- tionship, calling him " son," but showing him that that is of no avail to a Jew whose character is ruined by unbelief. The rich man's ideas of caste do not desert him in the under-world. He does not presume to ask "Father Abraham" to bring him a drink, but he requests him to send that beggar Lazarus to wait on him. The whole story teaches that in this world, or any other, a man is himself ; that death does not destroy his identity. The same prejudices and passions a man has here he has here- after. IN PEREA. 493 Prayers to departed saints do not seem helpful. Abraham could not help the rich man. There is as great a gulf in the spir- itual world as in this. Men cannot cross and re- cross the line at pleasure. Lazarus could not help the rich man if he would. The rich man had not been specially vicious, may have done many things which he ought to have done, and for that he had received his " good things " in this life. Lazarus was not perfect, and had done many things which he ought not to have done, and he had received his "evil things" in this life. But the great distinction between them was that Laza- rus had built his character on a sure faith in the surpassing im- portance of the spiritual world, and the rich man had erected his on faith in the surpassing importance of the material world. And this difference is immense. The forlorn wretch would seem to have been anxious to prolong the conversation. He remembered his brothers ; but the way he speaks of them leaves us at a loss whether he was more concerned for them or more disposed to arraign God's providence. He desires the dead Lazarus to be sent on an errand for him, and to warn his brothers by telling them that there was a spiritual world. This means that if God had given him sufficient warning he would not have gone into that torment. The reply of Abraham is stern, and by it Jesus gives a powerful lesson for all time. God knows what kind and amount of evidence is necessary to convince those who will be convinced, and he has given it. He knows that no amount of any kind of evidence will convince those who do not choose to know the truth. The appearance of one from the dead would not be more convincing than the Holy Scriptures. And it must be noticed' that almost immediately after this he raised Laz- arus from the grave. A man who had been four days dead came back, and had no more influence upon the unbelieving Jews than Jesus had, or the writings of Moses. There may have been, many suppose there was, in this parable 'a lesson for nations — the rich man representing the Jews and Laz- arus the Gentiles. The spiritual contrast, as to privileges, is as great in one case as in another. The Gentiles shall become the children of Abraham by faith, while the Jews shall be cast out. Perhaps he did mean that also, but it is not quite apparent, and we have given above what we think the clear-sighted hearers of Jesus must have felt to be the meaning of the speaker. 4:94 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. It was probably in this connection that he made the following address to his disciples : — " It is impossible for causes of offence not to come ; but woe to him through whom they come ! It were better for him that a millstone were hung round Luke xvii. On of- ^ s nec k, and he cast into the sea, than that he should cause fences, forgiveness, and one of these little ones to offend. Take heed to your- faith " selves : If your brother trespass, admonish him ; and if he change his mind, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times turn again to thee, saying, I change my mind ; thou shalt forgive him." Then the apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith." And the Lord said — "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard, ye might say to this sycamine- tree, Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea ; and it would have obeyed you. But who of you, having a slave ploughing or tending flocks, will say to him, when he is come from the field, ' Gro imnlediately and recline to eat ? ' And will not rather say to him, ' Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, until I eat and drink ; and afterwards thou shalt eat and drink ? ' Doth he thank the slave because he did the things com- manded him ? So likewise ye, when ye shall have done the things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable slaves ; we have done what was our duty to do." This address teaches the behavior proper among brothers. Through the frailty of human character men will offend, and, what is worse, will cause others to offend. It is a thing to be dreaded. But if one's brother commits an offence he must go to him kindly and admonish, and upon repentance must forgive him, and must do so just as often as the brother offends and repents. As this requires faith, the twelve who were near him united in a prayer for increase of faith, and it has been noticed that this is the only petition in which the whole twelve ever did unite. The reply of Jesus shows something more than the gross marvel which a literal rendering of words would indicate. It shows that Jesus believed there was a loftier circle of existence, in which faith represents what muscular strength stands for in this lower physical world, and, moreover, that in that sphere things are possible which are impossible in this, The disciples were always ready to go into pride, and such a picture of spiritual power Jesus tempered by calling their atten- tion to the fact that they were servants, and that as they expected IN PEEEA. 495 their slaves to do their duty without feeling that they had laid any one under obligation, so when the disciples of Jesus had per- formed their greatest and best works they were to consider in humility that they had merely done their duty. The Bethany in Perea is about thirty miles from the Olivet Bethany, which is less than two miles from Jerusalem ; fifteen stadia says Luke. While Jesus was carrying for- ward his work on the east of the Jordan, Lazarus Sickness and ., , T , i • i -i /• • 1 j> death of Lazarus, sickened. Lazarus was the cherished inend oi j^^ Jesus. Indeed, nowhere else in his history do we find Jesus enjoying the amenities of society in repose, and away from the glare of publicity which notable men of affairs must always endure, except in this household, which consisted of a busy, bustling elder sister, a gentle, thoughtful younger sister, and a quiet brother, probably the youngest of the three. Bethany was so near to Jerusalem that it presented Jesus a place of easy retreat, and it was so small and unimportant a village, lying nes- tled quietly on the mountain side, containing no residence of offi- cial personage, whether civil or ecclesiastical, that it afforded a safe and happy escape from the bickerings and contentions of the excitable metropolis. Jesus had put himself upon the footing of most respectful familiarity with this family, insomuch that Martha came to him with her petty household cares and the gentle Mary became his companion. These people were not desperately poor, but rather in moderately comfortable circumstances, seeing that they entertained company and were owners of a family burial- place. "When Lazarus sickened the sisters despatched a messenger to Jesus, saying simply, " Lord, behold he whom you love is sick." It was a request delicately embedded in an expression of trustful- ness. When Jesus heard it he said, " This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby." This was a declaration which showed that Jesus believed he could see the conclusion of this whole matter, and the results proved how correct it was. It was not merely an opinion of a case of sickness, expressed after hearing the symp- toms from the messenger, but it was of the nature of a prediction. It gave the messenger comfort to carry to the sisters. After receiving the message Jesus remained in Perea two days before he again alluded to the subject or made any change in his 4:96 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. • movements. He then said to his disciples, "Let us go into Judaea." They recalled the painful scenes through which they . had so lately passed with him in Jerusalem, scenes esus s re- w hi c h impressed them deeply with the feeling mains in Perea. , , . . pit that the intentions or the ruling party were most malignant. They replied, "Rabbi, the Jews of late sought to stone you, and do you go there again ? " His answer was, " Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any one walk in the day he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if any one walk in the night he stumbles, because there is no light in him." There is in these words not only a lofty truth as to the special mission of the extraordinary man who uttered them, but an im- portant principle touching all human life. The disciples desired to prolong his life by keeping him from his enemies. He did not desire to lose his life in any sense, either by having his career cut short by his foes, or by his own departure from the line of his rightful work. He held that if he should protract the years of his natural life by keeping out of the line of his work, because the peril of death lay therein, his life would be lost in a worse manner than if he were killed in doing his work at the right time and place. He should have outlived himself, and thus have lost his life. The only safety and happiness lie in doing the assigned work, discharging the obvious duty. That is walking in the light. There is just so much of light and life, say "twelve hours." If a man fill those hours with the right work, he has gained life. If he omit, and then endeavor to go out in the night to work, he stum- bles. To apply it to himself: if his duty call him to Bethany, thither he must go, even if the Jews kill him ; for staying away is stepping out of the light of duty into the night of selfishness. If Jesus do so, he can no longer accomplish any good in Perea, or Galilee, or elsewhere. He must walk in the day. He then said to them, " Lazarus, our friend, is sleeping ; but I go that I may awake him." He knew that Lazarus was dead. Whether by the prophetic spirit that was in him He announces or -^ ^-g -j u( jp; meil t upon whatever description of the death of Laz- ^ J A , K ' . the case tne messenger may nave given, it is not important to decide ; but the fact is that Jesus in Perea knew that Lazarus was dead in the Bethany near Jerusa- lem. He desired to prepare the minds of his disciples for the m perea. 497 dangerous journey, and so began to let them know the exact state of the case. They took his statement literally, and said, " Lord, if he sleep he shall recover." But Jesus spoke of his death. In all languages sleep is represented as the image of death ; but it comes with extraordinary beauty and force from the lips of him who is going to arouse the sleeper. Then Jesus said to them plainly, " Lazarus is dead, and I am glad on your account that I was not there, that ye may believe ; but let us go to him." The history here inserts a little incident which is very beauti- ful, and which sheds light on a certain cast of character. Thomas, called Didymus, turned to his fellow-disciples and said very pathetically, " Let us also go, that we ev0 10n ° may die with him." Thomas was a natural skep- tic, a constitutional doubter, a desponding soul. He required the most grossly palpable proofs to win his belief. But he was true- hearted and brave when he did believe. And of just such stuff do we find a certain class of doubters and melancholy men in all ages. Lazarus was dead. Jesus was going to die. The circle was breaking. "Let us all go together," said this sad, brave man. His faith could not reach to the heights of his Master's predictions, but his fidelity made him ready to follow that Master unto the death. Why Jesus should have delayed two days in Perea after receiv- ing the message of Martha and Mary we can only conjecture, and scarcely any theory yet presented seems entirely satisfactory. He did not idle. He was not en- la ^ y Jesus de " deavoring to while away time. In Perea he found plenty of work to do, and he chose to finish what had been so auspiciously begun. It is true that he might have left some disciples behind him and have returned. But he did not intend to return. His career was coming to its close. He read his cir- cumstances correctly. Moreover, he was never hurried. He had that self-possession which, when conjoined with high intellectual and moral qualities, is the measure of true greatness. He knew what he could do, and what he would do. And then he had re- spect to those, his dearest friends, whose spiritual improvement was a ruling consideration in this matter. He was working for the good of men and for the glory of God. He neither loitered nor hurried. 32 CHAPTEK IT, JESUS ON HIS LAST CIRCUIT. When Jesus reached Bethany he found that Lazarus had been already "four days in the tomb." It would seem that when the messenger was despatched by the sisters, Lazarus n et any near wag g ^ living. Such their message implied. It Jerusalem. . ••-■■© r was theretore satisfactory and consolatory to the messenger to hear Jesus say that that sickness was not unto death. He must have been greatly surprised when he returned and found Lazarus buried, and if he delivered the message to the sisters they mast have been sorely puzzled, for Lazarus had died in the mean time. This message must have seemed to them to show that Jesus had lost his way. He had said that this sickness was not unto death at the very moment when Lazarus was in his grave, for the Jews made haste to bury their dead out of their sight, and a prompt interment was intended to be an honor to the deceased.* When this message came to Martha and Mary it must have been a double blow. They had had such love for Lazarus and such confidence in the power of Jesus ; and now Lazarus was dead and Jesus was mistaken, or, if not mistaken, he did not regard them enough to come and explain his dark sayings. So it seemed to them. Lazarus must have died the day the messenger left for Perea, and been buried before sundown. That journey occupied a day. Jesus spent two other days in Perea, and the fourth was given to the journey to Bethany, so that when he arrived it was the fourth day that the corpse of Lazarus had been in the grave. * For proof that it was customary to bury the dead on the day of their death, see A.cts v. 6, 10, and Jahn's Archaeology, i. 2. In hot countries it is necessary to bury promptly because of the rapid de- composition ; and the Jews had the ad- ditional reason of being fearful of defile- ment by reason of contact with a corpse. Even now, in Jerusalem, the burial, as a general rule, is not deferred more than three or four hours ; and if the death occur so late in the evening that the burial cannot take place that night, it is performed at the earliest break ot day. JESUS ON HIS LAST CIRCUIT. 499 The sorrow of this stricken family had called to them their neighboring friends, and also many Jews from Jerusalem, some undoubtedly sincerely sympathizing with these afflicted young women, others simply going through the ceremonies of condolence in a perfunctory manner, and others perhaps desirous of bringing back into the fold of orthodoxy these excellent women, who had been turned aside by the fascination and friendship of the young heresiareh of Kazareth. There was a crowd in the house. Martha, always busy and bustling, was in a position to hear of the approach of Jesus, aDd she hastened to meet him. Mary was sitting quiet in the house. The traits of character in each came out under the new and exciting circumstance of the arrival of Jesus. Martha met him first, and the words that burst from her lips indicate what had been the thoughts, and probably the sayings, of the sisters in his absence. " Lord, if you had been here my brother had not died ! " This speech is a study. Martha had had ample opportunity to investigate the character of Jesus. She had seen him both fatigued and rested ; had noticed him gazing in «.,,, . -. ,, . Martha's speech, revery far into the air, or down the mountain slope, as he sat before the door of her house ; had heard him when he was engaged in conversation with Lazarus or some of the dis- ciples ; had watched his intercourse with Mary ; noticed, as only woman's quick eye can notice, all his movements about the house, his dress and address, his dispositions of himself, his off-guard moods, his temper under provocation, and all those things which have been said to make a man cease to be a hero to his valet. The whole impression made upon her mind was that he was so holy as to have most intimate communion with God, such intimacy as gave him most extraordinary power, such power as would have enabled him even to push back death and keep her brother alive. But she did not know, it would seem, of the miracles he had wrought in restoring other persons to life, and did not imagine such a possibility as the resurrection of her brother. To Martha Jesus was a divine personage, but not Deity. To the saying. *' If you had been here my brother had not died," she added, proba- bly after a pause and a sob, " Even now I know that whatever you will ask of God, God will give to you." What she expected him to ask of God is not apparent. She was in the tumult of a fresh and great bereavement, swayed by hopes and fears and griefs. The spiritual elevation of every person who came within the 500 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. circle of his influence was manifestly the design of all that Jesna did and said. To give back her brother simply, was merely to indulge Martha's natural desires for a season, leav- ig aims o j k er g ^ j n ~ rea £ distress because her brother might be snatched, from her again at any mo- ment. Her suffering, in that case, would have been such as Wordsworth, in his fine poem of Laodamia, has described to have been that of his heroine when the shade of Protesilaus was re- stored to her for a brief time and then withdrawn. As Olshausen has well said, it was needful that Martha should so ' recover her brother that it would be impossible ever to lose him again, and thus become rooted with him in the element of the imperishable. Jesus proceeded not simply to restore her brother, but to f urnisli her with a remedy against all forms in which death could possibly assault humanity, bodily or spiritually. Jesus said to her, " Your brother shall rise again ! " Martha replied, " I know that he shall rise again at the resur- rection — at the last day." It is to be noticed that she speaks of the resurrection as a doctrine currently received, and as including the restoration to life of all dead men, simply in virtue of their being men and being dead ; and also that this was to be accom- plished for all the race at the last day. As if she had said : " Of course^ as he has shared the fate of all men in dying, he shall share the fate of all men in rising." But Jesus taught her another doctrine and advanced a most prodigious claim for himself. He said : " I am the Resurrection and the Life. He who believes on me, even if he Jesus claims to were dead ^^ l{yQ ^ e Qne who j.^ bt the Resurrec- " . _ __ , J ■ xx tion and believes m me shall not ultimately die. He removes from the plane of natural causes both life and the resurrection, and declares that the power of both re- sides in him ; that he is the dynamical force of life ; that without him no one who is dead could possibly be restored ; and that those who are alive and have connection with him cannot finally per- ish. He represents himself as the fountain of soul-life and of the animal life that is in man. He is the life. He is Lifeness itself. If he bring himself to bear upon the dead they live. If he bring himself to bear upon the living, so long, through the ages, as this remains, they are not able to die. He is the Hesur- rection for Lazarus, and he is the Life for Martha. JESUS ON HIS LAST CIRCUIT. 501 Upon this he appealed to her : " Do yon believe this ? " Martha did not unequivocally express her faith in this startling and immense claim, but she did reply, "I have reached the be- lief that you are the Christ — the Anointed One — ,„ „' J .1111, Martha's caution, the Son of God that was to come into the world. It was a noble thing in her not to give hasty assent to what she could neither understand nor believe. Jesus had uttered some- thing too deep for her, and then startled her by the sudden ques- tion, " Do you believe all this % " She could not say whether she did or not, because she was not sure that she quite apprehended the meaning ; but she did believe that he was the Messiah, and was quite ready to say that much. If that meant what Jesna meant, then " Yes, Lord ; " if not, then " Nay, Lord ; not yet that much ; but I have believed and do believe that you are the Mes siah." Having said this she went her way and privately sought Mary not choosing to let the Jews from Jerusalem know that Jesus was so near, for she must have known the intensity of the malignant hatred of the Jews towards Jesus. S le said to Mary : " The Master is here, and calls for you." When \) ary heard this she arose quickly and came to him. Jesus had n< -t come to the house, nor indeed into the village, but was near, perhaps between the house and the burial-place. When the Jews who were in the house, and had been endeavoring to comfort her, saw Mary rise up hastily and go out, they followed her, thinking that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary reached Jesus she fell at his feet — an act of homage which Martha had not paid, an expression of adoring love, perhaps brought sud- denly from her by the recollection that she had been sitting in the house while her dear friend was so near. She exclaimed, " Lord, if you had been here my brother had not died." In the identity of this speech with that of Martha, both coming out in the great emotion of the first meeting, we see what had been the tenor of their conversation in the absence of the dear friend. It was the unfortunate absence which occasioned all their trouble. The confidence in Jesus of these two women, who were so dif- ferent in temperament, is really affectingly beautiful. The outburst of Mary stirred the hearts of the Jews who had come to mourn with her, and they wept. When Jesus saw this deep emotion he was vehemently agitated. The language of the 502 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES TJWITL THE LAST WEEK. original history (John xi. 33) intimates a complex mental condi tion, a combination of grief and anger, " he grew wroth in hi a spirit and disturbed himself ! " His S3 T mpathies The grief of the were intenge> He loved M He G0 { M not eR _ Jews. dure to see her suffer so keenly. These were rea- sons for tears ; but why should he be angry ? That is not so easy to answer. Neither Mary nor the Jews had done anything on this occasion to arouse his indignation. It is absurd to suppose that the mere death of Lazarus had produced this state of feeling, or that he had any regrets for his own absence when Lazarus died ; because he believed that he was about to raise him from the dead, and he had said to his disciples that he was glad he was not present at the death, because he knew that it was for the glory of God. We cannot very clearly discern good reason for his anger, but he ivas angry. It may be that an intense perception of all the wrong that sin was working in the race came upon him, and the discords and jangles of the world broke on his sensitive soul with a force that excited him violently. If this be not the explanation, we do not know what is ; but it is quite clear that the historian de- scribes him as angered. He said, " Where have you laid him % " They replied, " Lord, come and see." Jesus wept. On the way to the sepulchre the company noticed that manly tears were silently flowing down the cheeks of Jesus, like a shower of soft rain after a thunder-clap. Something Jesus 6 gnQ ° na( ^ ail g ere( l him. Now he was weeping. Some of the Jews said to others, " See how he loved him." And then, recollecting the case of the blind man in Jeru- salem, whom Jesus had restored to sight, they said, " Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind, have caused even that this man should not have died % " It must be noticed that this remark shows that the restoration of the blind man had been settled as a fact in the popular opinion of Jerusalem. The spec- tators saw in Jesus unmistakable signs of affection for Lazarus. He had shown great power in the case of the blind man ; did his ability to save stop at that limit ? In that case he had been criti- cised for doing too much ; here, for doing too little. The anger of Jesus rose again, and exploded in a groan rather than in a ver- bal reply to their foolish gainsaying. JESUS ON HIS LAST CTRCUIT. 503 The j came to the tomb. It was a cave. A stone lay against it. Jesus said to them, " Take the stone away." Martha shrank from the exposure and expostulated : " Lord, al- ready he " — she said with instinctive shuddering e &rave - and painful reluctance — " stinketh ; for he has been buried foul days." Here was a conflict between her faith in the friendly power of Jesus and her natural desponding disposition. She did not know that putrefaction had begun ; the word " for " shows that she had merely inferred it from the length of time her brother had been in the tomb. Jesus reassured her. "Did I not say to you that if you would believe you should see the glory of God." Then they removed the stone. Jesus lifted up his eyes and 6aid, "Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me. And I know that Thou nearest me always ; but because of the mul- titude which stand around I said this that they may believe that Thou hast sent me." This remarkable speech seems to be the utterance of a sentiment of internal spiritual communion, and not a prayer in the form of petition, although Jesus did make such; prayers. This was no "show-prayer." It was a Eucharist, a thanksgiving, such as was in his heart, and he chose to uttes it that the people hearing it might believe that he was the Sent of God, the Christ, the Messiah, or at least perceive that he believed himself to be such. The raising of the dead was the experimentum cruris, the final and indisputable test and proof of Messiahship. He accepted it as such. He had raised the dead at least twice before, in the cases of the daughter of the nobleman and the son of the Nam widow, bat never under cir- cumstances like these, in which the deceased was an adult, had been dead and buried now the fourth day, and spectators from Jerusalem, the seat of ecclesiastical authority and of enmity to Jesus, were present in a crowd sufficient to examine all the phenomena of the miracle, and to detect collusions and tricks. They were certain that Lazarus was dead. It could not have been an arrangement upon the part of these young women and Jesus. His whole character was such that not only would he not have entered into any such arrangement, but if they had desired to glorify the great Teacher by getting up a pseudo-miracle, he would never for the sake of friendship have yielded himself unwillingly to be part of such a scheme. Moreover, the grief of 504: FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. Martha and Mary, as well as that of Jesus, was not feigned. If it had been, the Jews, who had three days for observation, would have detected it. They were so thoroughly convinced of the death of Lazarus that they themselves wept with Mary and ad- mired the tenderness of the friendship of Jesus. It was the crisis of Jesus. He stood before the opened tomb, and, with a loud voice, cried, " Lazarus, come forth." Then he who had been dead came forth, in just such e raises aza- pjjg^ as cor p Ses were customarily laid away in the grave, namely, with narrow strips of linen wrapped about each limb, so that while motion was obstructed it was not impracticable, and with a handkerchief tied about his head. So thorough was the restoration that he needed no aid to obey the command of Jesus, but walked forth into the pre- sence of the assembly. Jesus simply said, " Loose him, and let rrm go." That is, take away whatever encumbers him and let b m go home. One cannot fail to notice the absence of all parade and mum- bUng and incantation, as if this were the work of a magician. The history is beautiful on the side of the human passions, and sublime on the side of the simple exercise of power in doing what only God has always been supposed to be capable of per- forming. There is no indulgence of curiosity, no telling of tales brought back from the prison-house of the sepulchre, no marvels, no self-gratulation upon the part of Jesus, no sense of exhaustion, as if he had poured vital force from himself into his dead friend. The veil is dropped over any conversation Jesus might have had with his dear friend, and the most delicate silence preserved as to the display of feeling upon the part of Lazarus and his sisters at his restoration, and any loving thanks they may have heaped upon their benefactor. Even tradition does not venture upon repeating to us anything Lazarus may have been represented as saying of his sensations in dying, his experience of being dead, and his emotion upon the return of the soul to its seat in the body, and the reattachment of the cords of life which had been snapped. Tradition only tells us that Lazarus asked Jesus if he should die again, and when informed that there still lay before him the inevitable fate of humanity, he never smiled again. But there is no foundation for that. It is the unnatural fancy of some gloomy mind. JESUS ON HIS LAST dKCUTT. 505 History tells us nothing more of Lazarus. In the beginning of the second century many of those whom Jesus had both healed and raised from the dead were still alive, according to Quadratus in Eusebius (II E., iv. 3). From this great miracle the village of Bethany took the name of Lazarus, and to this day is called El-Azariyeh or Lazariyeh. Of the Jews who witnessed the miracle there were two classes, those whom this proof of Messiahship won to Jesus, and those who, overwhelmed for a season by this display of power, which seemed to be omnipotence, nevertheless had no intellectual or spiritual good from the spectacle, but went home chatting about it, or went to the priestly party repeating it, and asking them what they thought about it. Whether in mere gossip or through hostility, these people told the Pharisees what Jesus had done. The Sanhedrim was forthwith assembled to consider the state of affairs. Early in his public career the Jews of Jerusalem had sought to kill Jesus as a Sabbath-breaker (John v. 16, 18). Subsequently, in Galilee, the a J^ b ^ edrim Pharisees had conspired with the Herodians to destroy him (Mark iii. 6). The Sanhedrim had gone so far as to decree excommunication of any one who should confess Jesus as the Messiah (John ix. 22). Officers had once been sent to arrest him (John vii. 25), and the people generally believed that the party in power would never rest until Jesus should be put out of the way. Nevertheless the Sanhedrim had never formally decreed his death. But this raising of Lazarus brought matters to a head. When the council assembled, the first thing apparent to them all was their utter helplessness, so feeble is political power when opposed to moral force. The unarmed Jesus, having no authority— civil, military, or ecclesias- , , Th ® y . acknow " tieal — was gaining such hold upon the populace that they could put no arguments, no authority, no influence before the people to counteract him. They acknowledged his miracles. The greatest learning and the greatest authority in the law, quite as capable of detecting a trick, and quite as willing to expose a fraud as modern minds, admitted that Jesus did " many miracles." They did not deny what such multitudes declared they had witnessed, namely, his raising of the dead. Their utter 506 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEES. spiritual stupidity is seen in that they felt themselves bound to kill Jesus rather than helieve on him. The latter should have been the rational conclusion, but "state reasons" prevailed. They should have said : He has done these great things as re- ported, or he has not; it is so important a matter that we may well afford to put out our utmost resources to settle that ques- tion. If he has done these things, then he is the Messiah, and we must hail him as such : if he has not, we must take all possi- ble pains to demonstrate to the popular mind that all this is noth- ing, and then truth will prevail. Instead of which they admitted that Jesus did perform many miracles, and therefore resolved to kill him! As if that were the way to meet an acknowledged miracle ! They said among themselves, " If we let him thus alone all will believe on him: and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation." This was the utter rejec- ey rejec 1m t ^ on Q £ j egug as their Messiah. In their opinion he as Messiah. . . . , did not have the force to push himself against the Roman power and overthrow it. He was not to be a conqueror ; and if not a conqueror he must not be allowed to go so far forward as to make himself a party, and excite the Roman power to take such measures as should lead to a popular uprising, which might be a sufficient excuse for the total extinction of the Hebrew nationality. That was their great state reason. They did not see that if Jesus had the power to work these great miracles their simple acknowledgment of the fact could do no harm ; and then, in any event, he that could raise the dead could repel the Romans ; and that if the whole affair were a delusion it would shortly die out, and need not be kept alive by the notice of the Sanhedrim. One of the members of this Council was Joseph us Caiaphas. In John xi. 49, he is called "high-priest of that year." The office of high-priest had fallen so low that it had lost nearly all that respect and almost awe which it had formerly inspired. Josephus tells us (Antiq., xviii. 2, 2) that Valerius Gratus, the fifth governor of Judaea, took the high-priest- hood from Ananus, also called Annas, and transferred it to Ishmael, whom he soon removed, substituting Eliezar, a son of Ananus ; that the next year he made another change, conf erring the office on Simon, who held it only a year, when it was given JESUS ON HIS LAST CIRCUIT. 507 to Josephus, surnamed Caiaphas (not Josephus the historian), who held it through the public ministry of Jesus. It will be readily perceived how the Pontificate fell into disrepute, and that the description, " of that year," was the mode of expressing the popu- lar contempt for the incumbents of that office. At the time of tli is history the more con- servative and orthodox still held to Ananus as the law- ful high-priest, although Ca- iaphas enjoyed the office by political favor. In this meeting of the Sanhedrim, this Caiaphas said. " You know noth- His prophecy. ing, nor consider that it is ex- pedient that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not." John says that he did not speak that of himself ; but that holding, however un- high-pkiest. righteously, this high and holy office, the spirit of prophecy still lingering about the breastplate which contained the Urim and Thumviini — the Lights and Rights of God — spoke through Caia- phas, prophesying that " Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for that nation only, but also that he should gather to gether in one the children of God who were scattered abroad." The voice of Caiaphas, according to John, spoke what the mind of Caiaphas did not comprehend. His saying settled the question. The death of Jesus was decreed. It was only needful to deter- mine how to compass his destruction. Jesus was aware of the deadly intent of the ruling party, and so retired to a place called Ephraim in the common version, but spelt Ephrem in the Codex Sinaiticus, and, I think, there can now be little doubt, identical with Ephron. It lay in the wild uncultivated region, hill-country N. E. of Jerusalem, lying between the central t >wns and the Jordan valley. We are indebted to the late Dr. Robin- Bon for the recovery of this place, and its identification with the Ephron. John 508 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. modern village of Taiyibeh. It is nearly twenty miles north of Jerusalem, and stands on a conical bill, upon the top of which is an ancient tower, affording a wide prospect of the wilderness along the valley of the Jordan, of the Bead Sea, and of the mountains beyond. To this place Jesus retired for a few weeks. It gave him a retreat from the multitudes, a respite from his &^gry perse- cutors, and an opportunity to instruct his disciples more thorough- ly in the principles of his religion. There may have been another reason. All his words and actions show that he knew that his end was approaching, and that his death would be violent. Be- tween this moment of retreat and that last fatal conflict he miodbt adopt some method to indulge the Messianic wishes of the friendly portion of the people, yielding himself in some way publicly to their natural desire to honor him. For all this he must have a season of quiet, in which he could undergird his soul for its last struggle, and in which he could so train his disciples that when he should be seized and executed they should not sully his dignity and embitter his last moments by any fanatical and useless out- break. Just such a retreat did Ephrem afford. Here he could not have remained longer than a few weeks, as lie must have entered Ephrem late in February or early in March, and the Passover occurred on the 7th of April. It is not probable that he went into neighboring villages, as he knew that the au- thorities were taking measures to arrest him. ftlis disciples were with him, and this last opportunity to be together apart from the people would be filled with profitable intercourse. He was quite JESUS ON HIS LAST CIRCUIT. 509 soon enough to emerge into a splendid publicity which should precede a terrible death. It was now the intention of Jesus to enter Jerusalem in the most conspicuous manner. Being near the Hue of Samaria he seems to have crossed and gone through Galilee _ ° ° Samaria and to the valley of Jordan. ^ Galilee Lukexvii . As he was passing along the border-line of these two countries, and was entering a certain village, there met him ten men who were lepers. This common misery had made a bond of union. It must have been an affecting sight to see ten men driven from good society, healed excluded from their own houses, standing in a body, forlorn and stricken, as if banned by man and branded by God. They lifted up their feeble and hoarse voices and cried to him, because the law would not allow them to approach the un- tainted nearer than four ells. (Levit. xiii. 46, and Numb. v. 2.) Their cry was, " Jesus, Ruler, compassionate us." It was not the word translated in the common version as Master, meaning Teacher, nor that other word translated Lord. The views of these men were not clear, nor, so far as they went, K orthodox." One was a Samaritan. They simply knew that this was the man who had exercised great power beneficently, and that they were the men who greatly needed his help. They called him " commander " or " chief." He looked at them across the distance, and simply said " Go, show yourselves to the priests." According to the law (Levit. xiii. 2) the priest was to declare when a man had recovered from the leprosy, but the priest could not heal the leper. So, when Jesus gave this direction to the lepers it implied that in their going the healing would come to them. They seemed to feel the authority of that tone. Like a platoon of soldiers, at the word of their commander, they wheeled and marched. As they went they were cleansed. One of them, on perceiving that he was healed, ran back rejoicing and glorify- ing God, and fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. " And he was a Samaritan," adds the honest historian. He was a heretic in his religious views, but full of thankfulness for the great favor bestowed on him. His " orthodox " fellow-sufferers, who had re- ceived the same gift of health, coolly went away, and never came back with thanks. It moved Jesus deeply. He said, evidently with strong emotion, " Were not the ten cleansed ? But where 510 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. are the nine ? Were there none found returning to give glory tc God except this stranger ? " He said to him, " Arise, go your way : your faith has saved you." It is to be noticed that the faith of these ten men was the psychical basis of the operation of Jesus, and that Jesus always looked for a spiritual improvement to follow a bodily healing ; but it seems to have done so in the case of one of the men. When that man openly acknowledged the benefit, it was confirmed to him with an enlargement of the advantage. It is also to be noticed how greatly the popularity of Jesus had decayed. Not long ago the cleansing of one leper would raise the whole country side into a fervid excitement, now the sudden healing of ten men in a body creates no enthusiasm. It was a dark day in the public life of Jesus. Somewhere on this journey, we know not exactly where, some Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God should come. This seems to have been a taunt. His fortune? seemed rather waning than improving. For months, indeed for years, John the Baptist and Jesus had been predicting the coming of the kingdom of God, and, so far as these observers could see, there was no change in the aspect of affairs, ecclesiastically or civilly. His reply was, " The kingdom of God does not come with observation : neither shall they say ' Lo here ! or, There ! ' for behold the kingdom of God is (already) among you." This question and reply show how entirely unable to the very last the countrymen of Jesus were to comprehend his char- acter and mission, and to divest themselves of sensuous ideas of the Messianic appearance and rule. Jesus taught them that that kingdom was not a matter of external display and brilliancy ; nevertheless, as he said to his disciples immediately after, when it came men should not inquire whether it had come and where, because it should be as apparent as the lightning ; but it should be in the souls of men. Turning then to his disciples he said : " Days will come when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and yet shall not see it. And they shall say to you, ' See here,' or, ' See there : ' do not go away nor follow them. For as the m e pre ic ion. jjgjj^jjjg lightens out of one part under heaven, shines to 'the other under heaven, so shall the Son of Man be in his day : but first, he must suffer many things, and be rejected by this generation. And as it waa JESUS ON HIS LAST CIRCUIT. 511 in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man ; they were eating, they were chinking, they were marrying, they were given in mar- riage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came and re- moved all. Likewise as it was in the days of Lot ; they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building : but the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained lire and brim- stone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. In that day he who is upon the house, and his goods in the house, let him not come down to take them away : and he who is in the field, let Mm likewise not return to the things behind. Remem- ber Lot's wife. Whosoever shall have sought to save his life shall lose it ; and whosoever shall have lost his life shall restore it. I. tell you, there shall be two in one bed ; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two shall be grinding at the same mill ; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two shall be in the field ; one shall be taken, and the other left." These revelations of troubles seem to have shocked the disci- ples. They ask in surprise, " Where, Lord ? " His answer is a proverb. " Wherever the body, there also will the eagles be gathered together." It is difficult to lay aside preconceptions and read sincerely any book which has been read over and over by us, and to us, from earliest childhood, with certain comments or presumptions. This passage of the teaching of Jesus has been an excruciation to com- mentators, who, in their turn, have submitted it to all kinds of violent wrenchings and twistings. It is a curiosity in mental his- tory how the destruction of Jerusalem can be supposed to have been taught to the hearers of Jesus. Any terrible catastrophe in human history can just as well be supposed to have been in the mind of Jesus. Let us put ourselves in their places, knowing nothing of Catho- lic and Protestant, and mediseval-scholastic, and modern-critical comments and theories, and listen to Jesus. The disciples had heard the Pharisees when they t heSono™Man taunted him with the question of the establish- ment of that kingdom which he and John had been predicting. He told them that it was already among them, but they had not the sagacity to discern it. The same question would naturally be in the minds of the disciples — " Yes ; when will it appear ? " He instructs them not to be carried away by outward appearances, attractive manifestations, and cries of false Messiahs. None of these things belong to the real kingdom of God, but are the mere outbursts of human passion. When we recall that the Goetae, 512 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem, by means of false promises of miracles, led many away into the wilderness to perish, Vi e can see reason for this warning.* He told them of his own suffering and rejection, and then predicted a Revelation of himself at some time, a Parousia of the Sou of Man, whatever that might mean. But there is a mystic air to this whole speech. In general it seems to teach that coming events do not cast their shadows before, that when any stupendous crisis in the world's affairs oc- curs there is little, if any, outward previous manifestation. It is like a dry rot in a house, which reveals itself only when it has so eaten away the substantial supports that the whole edifice comes to its fall. The flood was such a crisis. The destruction of Sodom was such. Up to the moment of the first plash of rain, up to the moment of the first hurtling of sparks in the hot atmosphere, in the one case and in the other, men and women went about their usual pleasures and businesses as if nothing extraordinary were on the eve of occurring. So shall it be at the Parousia of the Son of Man, whatever and whenever and wherever that may be. And men need not speculate on that. They can never know it. It has no harbingers. It is not in the field of such events which can be prognosticated. Men should simply be always at their posts, always doing their duty, and always right at heart. The Revelation of the Son of Man is a crisis, in the sense of a judgment and discrimination. It shall separate death from life, the dead from the living. Life is preservative. The birds of prey do not attack the living but the dead. Therefore keep alive. It seems that Jesus had in his mind the idea of some display of himself which should be of universal interest. But who can tell all he meant % Because of the troubles that were coming upon the world he spake this parable to his disciples, to teach them not so much the duty as the necessity of prayer, and that men should not be faint- hearted. He said : ' ' There was a certain judge in a certain city, who feared not God neither regarded man. And there was a widow in that city, and she came to him saying, ' Avenge me of my adversary.' And he would not ^Parable of the Unjust ^ & ^ me . ^ afterward he gaid within himself, ' Though I fear not God nor regard man, yet, because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she torment me.' * See Josephus, Ant. xx. 8, 6. Com- | and Acts v. 36, 37. pare Josephus, Be Bell. Jud. , ii. 13, 14, JESUS ON HIS LAST CIRCUIT. 513 Hear what the unjust judge says. And shall not God avenge His chosen, who cry day and night to Him, even though He delay long with them ? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily." To interpret a parable it is necessary to know what is the pivot of instruction on which it revolves. And then it is not necessary to lind a doctrine in all the lights and shades of the picture, in all the folds of the drapery of the statue, of a parable. It has exercised sorely the ingenuity of some commentators that the good God should be likened to an unjust judge. JN r o such thing is done. The parable is intended to teach not the duty, not the beauty, not the profit, but the ab- solute necessity of prayer ; and not the prayer which consists merely of expressions of formal petitions, but the prayer which is the real and constant desire of the sonl. That only is true prayer. [t may be " always." It may sometimes break forth into words of devotion and even agonies of spiritual wrestling ; but men must always pray, and that constant spiritual pressure brings help. The illustration is from an unjust judge, whose injustice the commentators desire to modify, thus destroying the whole force of the parable. The stronger the judge and the more un- just, the poorer and the weaker the suppliant, the more impressive is the lesson of Jesus ; for God is not compared to this judge, but set in contrast with him. The badness of the judge is shown in that he was impious and inhuman — he feared not God, he had no regard for man. Not that he even said this to himself, much less admitted it to other men, but the soliloquy represents his prevail- ing strain of feeling. His petitioner is represented in the utmost helplessness. We have all learned the destitution of Oriental widowhood. This suppliant was a woman, a widow, poor and persecuted. The judge had no disposition to help her, and no reason in the world to do so, except that by the continuance of her prayer she should be a torment to him. In the exaggeration of selfishness he uses a word which signifies to make one black and blue about the eyes. She will overcome him by her impor- tunity. He grants her request, not because it is just, not because he pities her, but because of his selfishness, to save himself from annoyance. The argument of Jesus is this : If constant prayer can prevail against the selfishness of an unjust human being, how certainly it will find answer in the heart of the good God and Father. 33 514 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. Immediately upon delivering this parable Jesus added, "But when the Son of Man comes, will he find the faith upon earth % " It is an expression of despondency. It seems to , x , . intimate that when the Parousia of which he was despondency. speaking shall take place, when the Son of Man shall reveal himself, he may find faith in his coming so rare that the world shall not be prepared for it. The history of the race shows that humanity is never expectant the moment before the fall of some great influence upon its history. He spoke another parable, that of the Pharisee and Publican, which Luke reports in this immediate connection, and which the Harmonists generally assign to this time in the career of Jesus. Whenever spoken, I can see a reason why Luke should report the two parables together, as they are didactically connected, their teachings being of the same subject. This particular parable must be assigned to this general period of the life of Jesus, as it would naturally be suggested by the thousands of pilgrims now going up to the temple for worship. But it does seem that it would be more appropriate where there were Pharisees to hear it, than to be told to his disciples alone ; while, on the other hand, it is true that he had seen in his own family of disciples certain dis- plays of dispositions of which this parable is a corrective. Because I cannot satisfy myself of any better place for the insertion of the parable, I give it here. It was intended to teach humility in prayer, as the parable of the Unjust Judge was to teach persistence. The parable is this : — "Two men went up into the Temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a tax-gatherer. The Pharisee, standing, prayed these [words] : ' God, I thank Thee that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, Parable of the Phari- .■,-,, . T ,. •ee and the Publican, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax-gatherer. I last twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I get.' — And the tax-gatherer, standing afar off, would not even lift up eyes to heaven, but smote on his breast, saying, 'Be merciful to me, the sinful one.' I tell you this man went down to his house justified beyond that one : for every one who exalteth himself shall be humbled ; and he who humbleth himself shall be exalted." Luke says that this parable was levelled against those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others. It is a graphic lesson. The Pharisee went into the Tem- ple. He stood to pray. That was no evidence of pride. The JESUS ON HIS LAST CTKCTTIT. 515 Jews generally stood when they prayed, and the exceptions were when they became excitedly devout, so that to kneel would have been rather a display of ostentation. The tax-gatherer also stood. In several Greek editions occur words which in the common English version are translated " with himself," which some have connected with the standing as indicative of the " Separatists," " he stood by himself" St. Bernard alludes to this apparently proud isolation in prayer. But the words do not occur in the oldest texts, and are doubtless an interpolation. There was no intention to ridicule the man nor to exaggerate Pharisaism, but to contrast it with the simplicity of faith, and teach what Jesus from the beginning until this the closing period of his ministry constantly insisted upon, the superiority of simple faithfulness to one's con- victions over all devotion to mere forms of worship, — so that men might feel how much better it is to be the Penitent than the Puritan. This self-complacent worshipper addressed God in terms of thank- fulness which soon show themselves to be the thin veil covering his pride. He separated himself from all man- kind. He was one class, all other people another ; 1 x ' prayer, and he was better than all others, whom he pro- ceeds to classify as extortioners, unjust, and unclean, — and then as his eye fell upon the tax-gatherer, whose business he regarded as the "sum of all villanies," he added — "or even as this tax-gatherer ?" And having purged himself of all charges that might be brought against his moral character, he proceeds to glorify himself to God in vaunting his discharge of religious duties, and even the per- formance of works of supererogation. " I fast twice in the week." Moses had appointed only an annual fast, the great day of atone- ment (Levit. xvi. 20-31 ; Numb. xxix. 7). But this man superadded two private weekly fasts. " I give tithes of my whole income." The law tithed only the products of the earth and the offspring of the cattle (Numb, xviii. 21 ; Dent. xiv. 22 ; Levit. xxvii. 30) But he was determined to exceed even the requirements of the law, so he tithed all that came to him in his business. He dwells fondly on these things, showing that he was doing them not for the glory of God, but for his own pleasure. He had no sins to confess. He had no worship to offer God. He had contempt for his fellow-men, even for his fellow-worshippers. But the tax-gatherer stood afar off. He had as much right tc 516 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. the Temple as the Pharisee, for he was neither heathen ncr prose lyte. His reverence for God's holiness and holy places was such that it was enough for him to stand even in the pu cai i p rec j ncts f ^g k iy Temple. Perhaps he saw the Pharisee standing in a reserved but conspicu- ous place, and almost envied his fellow- worshipper the holiness which made him worthy of such a position, and felt that he him- self was not fit to breathe the same air with that man of God. All sights about him and all thoughts of himself conspired to humili- ate him. He would not so much as lift up his eyes to heaven. He called himself " the sinner," by a word which means hardened in sin. Jesus did not depreciate the Pharisee. He gave him his full dues. But God is represented to have sent such a comfort into the breast of the publican, that, being forgiven, he left the Temple a happier man than the Pharisee, whose only comfort was in his self-complacency. It is supposed that now Jesus left Galilee, crossing the Jordan into Perea. His plan seems to have been to join himself to the great caravans of pilgrims thronging the Jordan Final departure va n e y i n their progress to the Holy City from all «. m * "ii/r i" the towns about the Sea of Galilee. If we may tnew xix. ; Mark J x rely upon Josephus, the multitudes that attended this feast were enormous. He tells that at one Passover, by actual count, 256,500 paschal lambs were slain. The smallest number of worshippers which the law allowed to each lamb was ten, which would make the number of participants in this feast to have been at least 2,565,000. It seems incredible ; but if allowance be made for exaggeration, still the number must have been immense ; and the roads that led to Jerusalem must have been thronged for several days before the feast and after. It was on this tour that the subject of divorce was brought to the attention of Jesus. He found the Pharisees everywhere his _>. enemies, and everywhere ready to entrap him. This makes this interview deeply interesting, since the case of Herod Antipas, who had put away his wife and taken a married woman to his bed during the life of her husband, made it politically dangerous for any teacher to discuss the law of marriage in the days and under the government of Herod. If Jesus should utter stringent sentiments and lay down strict rules of morality on the subject of marriage and divorce, he should JESUS ON HIS LAST CIRCUIT. 517 probably meet a fate similar to that of John Baptist ; but if his utterances should indicate laxity of sentiment he should lose the confidence of the more moral and pious class of the commu- nity. In the reply of Jesus the attention of the reader is called to the fact that he does not answer as a judge or a legislator. He will not take up personal cases for decision. He will not lay down a canon for ecclesiastical discipline. He speaks as a moral teacher, and only as such. The importance of the utterances on this occasion, and the moral power of Jesus over mankind, is seen in the fact that we have a bare statement of his views spoken authori- _ .. -i i i -i i -i t The influence tatively as a moral teacher should speak, who has of Jesus the right to speak, and yet those few words have exerted a greater power over the whole course of human history and destiny, over literature, over political and social and domestic progress, than all the words of any other one man since the world began ! Is not that a sober historical statement ? Let any man reflect upon monogamy, the sacredness of marriage, the purity of the domestic circle, and this lifting of the family to a position which it never held in Greek or Latin or Hebrew civilization, from which it has had such power over the destinies of the State and the progress of religion, — and then let there be allowed to Jesus only such influence as he is plainly entitled to have acknowl- edged, — and who has, by so few words, sent his influence so widely and so deeply down into the heart of man, and down into the centuries % Certain Pharisees of the school of Hillel came to Jesus with the question, " Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause ? " Let us look at what the Mosaic law of divorce really was. It is recorded in Deuteronomy xxiv. 1-4. " When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes, because he has found some uncleanness in her, then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when „. e - 1 osa c w divorce. she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife. And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of di vorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house ; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife ; her former husband, wliich «*ent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled.''- 518 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. It is to be noticed that provision is made for the husband to put away the wife, but not for the wife to put away the husband. She had no relief, unless her husband committed adultery with another married woman, and then elsewhere the law of Moses provided that he should be put to death. Again, there is great uncertainty as to the meaning of the phrase " some uncleanness." This was a notorious subject of controversy between the schools of Shammai and Hillel in the days of Jesus. The former, it is generally thought, taught that it meant an act of lewdness on the part of the wife ; but this could hardly be, as that was punishable with death. Winer,* however, asserts that the Gemara represents the view of Shammai as less strict: "Even public violations of decorum might furnish ground for divorce according to his doc- trine." Josephus represents the views of Hillel. He sa} r s (Antiq., iv. 8, 23), " He who wishes to be separated from his wife for any reason whatever — and many such are occurring among men — ■ must affirm in writing his intention of no longer cohabiting with her." Knobel, in his Commentary on Deuteronomy, says, "Ervath dabar [in the common version translated 'some uncleanness'] is used of human excrement in Dent, xxiii. 13, and is properly a shame or disgrace (Is. xx. 4) from anything; that is, anything which awakens the feeling of shame and repulsion, inspires aver- sion and disgust, and nauseates in contact — for instance, a bad breath, a running sore," etc. He adds, "In the time of Christ [Jesus] the expression was in controversy. The school of Sham- mai took it as being the same with Dabar ervath [a thing of un- cleanness or disgust] , and understood it of unchaste demeanor and shameless lewd behavior. The school of Hillel, which the Rab- bins follow, explained it as something disgusting, or any other cause" This was, of course, giving the largest license.f To the question from the Pharisees, whether a man might put away his wife for any cause whatever that seemed to him sufficient, Jesus makes the following reply : " Have you not read that he * Quoted in President Woolsey's very valuable Essay on Divorce. f In the Tract. Oittin, fol. 90, it is ex- pressly said, " Even if she had only over- salted his soup; " nay, with shameless license, ' ' even if he should find a fairer one, in whom he has more pleasure." The ■ repeated rule in the Talmud runs : Hillel loosens what Shammai binds. Josephus shows the laxity of the times by coolly telling us that his first wife left him ; and that he put away the second, al- though the mother of three children by him, that he might take the third. — Stier. JESUS ON HIS LAST CTRCUIT. 519 who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ' On this account shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be __ . . . . 1 J The original law. one flesh? ' So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What, therefore, God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." The Pharisees retorted with this question : "Why therefore did Moses command to give a bill of divorcement and to put hei away?" Jesus replied, " Moses, because of your hard-heartedness, suf- fered you to put away your wives : but from the beginning it was not so. But I say to you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, ex- cept for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery." It is noticed that frequently after a public discourse, Jesus was questioned by his disciples as to his meaning. For obvious pru- dential reasons they refrained from asking, in the presence of the captious enemies of their Master, questions the answers to which would relieve their perplexities. On this occasion when they were in private, the disciples reviewing his reply to the Pharisees said to him : " If thus it is the defect of the man with the wife, it does not profit to marry ! " He said, " All receive not this saying, but those to whom it has been given. There are eunuchs that are born -so from the womb of their mother, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs w T ho made themselves for the sake of the kingdom of the heavens. He who is able to receive it, let him receive it." Now if we recall what Jesus said on this subject in the Ser- mon on the Mount, we shall have before us all his teaching on this important subject. " I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, except for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery ; and whosoever shall marry the divorced com- mitteth adultery." The first thing to notice is that Jesus criticises the Mosaic law as not being perfect, as not absolute, as not perpetual. It was an expedient. It was the strictest schoolmaster the t i j i mi , • n i Jesus criticises people could endure. lnere are certain fixed ., ,, . , r r the Mosaic law. principles, certain high ideals in Monotheism, to which Moses did not reach. But he did the best that could b8 done for them with that people. Jesus ascends above Moses. He goes up to the origin of the race. He announces what God did 520 FROM FEAST OF TABEKNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. and what God intended. The Father of all made man to be wedded. The oldest history of creation says : " God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him, male and female created He them." (Gen. i. 27.) It is observable that it does not say that God created them a man and a woman, but " masculine and feminine," after the image of the God, who is at once both masculine and feminine. It requires the union of the masculine and feminine to make oneness in humanity as it does in divinity. God would be only a half-God, therefore no God, if He were either masculine only or feminine only. There is no completeness in any man or woman. The two are required to make one. The tie between husband and wife is closer than that between parent and child. In the beginning there was a single pair. The devotion of the one to the other, the absolute necessity of each to the other for personal relief and comfort, a ad for the propagation of the race, and the indissolubleness of t'te union thus contracted, was demonstrated by their very posi- t) on in the universe. They could never part. Whichever did any- thing that made any separation between them committed a wrong. That represents the normal condition of the estate of wedlock. When men and women multiplied, and there arose a multipli- cation of possibilities of violating the original law, the most that Moses seemed to do was to put in form certain ar- The true law of r , , . P ., n . , divorce rangements for regulating, as iar as possible, the irregularities which had sprung up in society. Hard-hearted men would put their wives away. Moses interposed in behalf of the woman. Jesus goes back to first principles, and thence deduces the law of divorce. 1. The married pair are one in flesh and heart and life ; and neither should do anything which shall weaken or soil this blessed union. 2. No man shall divorce his wife unless he know her to have first violated the law of chastity, otherwise he wrongs her and drives her to do wrong. 3. J£ to that unlawful putting away he superadd the marrying of another woman, he commits adultery with that second woman.* * The statement in Mark, who is as remarkable for his attention to details as he is for his lack of attention to chronological order, is : " Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry an- other, committeth adultery against her." The original Greek is en' avrqv, and this, I believe, refers to the second wife ; and the classical use of this pre- position with the accusative, I think, justifies my interpretation. Of course, at the same time, he is an adulterer quoad his former wife. JESTJS ON HIS LAST CIRCUIT. 521 4:. The wcman who is separated from her husband for her own fault is an adulterers afresh, if she marry again. A form of mar- riage cannot annul the wrong of the transaction. 5. If the hus- band be innocent and the wife guilty, a divorce may ensue, the husband may marry, but the wife may not. A second marriage would be but a continuance of her sin. These five particulars seem to reside in the original law of marriage, as stated by Josus. Dr. Woolsey {Essay on Divorce, p. 59) sums up this teaching very clearly in the following sentence : " The general principle, serving as the groundwork of all these declarations, is, that legal divorce does not, in the view of God, and according to the correct rule of morals, authorize either husband or wife thus separated to marry again, with the single exception that when the divorce oc- curs on account of a sexual crime, the innocent party may, without guilt, contract a second marriage." Whether these views of Jesus were fundamentally right, we are not now to discuss. This is what he taught. This teaching has through ages controlled the opinions of the best minds, and thor- oughly changed domestic life from what we know it to have been in Greece, and Home, and Palestine, in the times of Jesus, to what we know it is in the best parts of America and Europe to-day. It is noticeable that wherever these views have prevailed there has been a better state of society in every other particular, and that departure from these principles has marked social decay, all legis- lation not conformed to these principles having the effect of rap- idly damaging the moral tone of society. No society is so good as that in which a divorced man, unless he be parted from his wife for reasons not implying immorality on his part, is held as an acknowledged adulterer ; and in which a divorced woman, unless she be parted from her husband by reason of his inconti- nence, is treated as an unfortunate woman. What Jesus said to his disciples on the objection which they started and the inference which they made that marriage was un- profitable, it must be admitted is a passage of difficulty. Marriage is the normal condition of + . 0b J ections *>? man. lliat we know. It is always honorable. No celibacy is equal to chastity in marriage. But there may be celibates. Jesus speaks of three kinds, those who are such by nature, by compulsion, and by choice. 1. Some have congenital 522 FKOM FEAST OF TABEENACLE8 UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. disqualifications ; they are born with physical defects which make it impracticable for them to marry. 2. There are those who have been mutilated by men ; and this was a large class in the days of Jesus. In our day the servants who guard the harems in the East are eunuchs, and the Eoman Church, it is said, makes eunuchs for the benefit of sacred art, those who sing the Miserere at the Sistine Chapel at Rome retaining the peculiar characteristics of their voices at the expense of their manhood. In the class of forced celibates also may be reckoned those whom " society," the artificial rules of conventional life, exclude from such a union as nature demands and God sanctions. 3. Those who decline mar- riage for the sake of the kingdom of the heavens, a phrase by which Jesus always seems to set forth his work in the world, be- cause he believed that his work was founded on the principles which maintain the harmonies of the universe, and that his work promulgated and expanded those principles. For the sake of promoting this great work, if he can remain chaste, in some ex- ceptional circumstances, a man may remain in celibacy. Other- wise marriage is better. No man dare be a celibate for his own ease and convenience. The rule is that it is better to marry. It must be a mournful exception which justifies a man to abstain. Such an exception occurred, perhaps, in the case of Paul. Such a celibate was Jesus. But, of course, in this case Jesus spoke figuratively. History gives us a horrible instance of these words having been taken lit- erally. Origen, in the mistaken excess of his ardent youthful zeal for the cause of Jesus, so mutilated himself that he was dis- qualified for marriage. This act was properly condemned by the ancient church, and for it he was excommunicated from the church of Alexandria.* The liberal rule of Jesus comes out at the close of the inter- view. You are not to adopt celibacy as a rule. You are not to teach it as a doctrine. You are not to enforce it on others. u Let him receive it who is able to receive it." But let him be sure he is able. You cannot be sure in respect of another, there- fore you must not lay so grievous and unnatural a burden on another. * On the whole subject of marriage i compare SchafE's History of the Apo&~ and celibacy in the New Testament, | tolic Church, § 112, pp. 448-454. CHAPTEK V. GOING TO JERUSALEM. It was about this time that the blessing of little children must have taken place. As the Passover approached the people knew that the time of his departure for Jerusalem was Jesug blesges lit . drawing near. It reveals to us much of the char- tie children, acter and behavior of Jesus during this trying Matt, xix., xx. ; and depressing period of his life, to learn that Mark x > Luke the mothers of the country were so impressed with his sanctity and benignity that they brought their young chil- dren, even their babes, to him, that he might merely put his hands upon them and pray over them. But the disciples were becoming rigorists. It is painful to see how rapidly men — who at first take advanced ground, become pioneers in mural progress, and make themselves the differentia of their age — do begin to lapse into blindest conservatism so soon as they consolidate their organiza- tion ; do begin to have certain ideas of dignity ; do suppose that they are improving their state and position by as great a remove as possible from naturalness. In this case the disciples probably felt a fresh accession of dignity, as their Master was manifestly about to make a public display of himself, and their hopes of a Messianic inauguration probably began to be augmented. The disciples offered to forbid these mothers as obtrusive. It was below the dignity of their Master. They had nothing to say when the Pharisees were holding him to the discussion of such profound and important questions as the divorce law. They felt that that was employment worthy his noble character and mission ; but that he should be asked to waste his time on babes seemed to them past endurance. So they rebuked these revering mothers. But Jesus, in turn, rebuked the disciples. He had other views and another temper. He was much displeased at the conduct of his friends. It was cutting him off from that portion of the com- munity least offensive to his simple and pure nature. It showed 524 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. upon their part such stubborn adherence to their prejudices in favor of a sensuous, civil, political Messiahship, such wrong views of the kingdom of the heavens, as though its insignia should be the trappings of worldly pomp, that Jesus was much displeased, and said to them, " Suffer the little children to come to me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of the heavens. I most assuredly say to you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter into it." And, having taken them in his arms, he blessed them, placing his hands upon them. The whole picture is simple, natural, beautiful, and sublime. The discourse on marriage crimes stands as a dark background to this brilliant tableau of a great Teacher lifting A beautiful scene. . ,, , . , , . . ,, . ° up infants into his arms, coming near the foun- tains of humanity, airing his soul in the free atmosphere of unso- phisticated childhood. It was an occasion seized to make a lesson for his disciples. They were thinking of a throne, a court, them- selves as Hebrew princes in the regenerated theocracy, and that princes and their king should not be interrupted in their converse by the prattle of babes. Jesus taught them that he knew noth- ing of any such kingdom ; that the kingdom of the heavens, which he preached, and which was also the kingdom of God, was made up of such people, not of children merely, not that the kingdom was theirs exclusively, but that no one could enter and enjoy that kingdom, which is as wide as all the heavens, covering the uni- verse, who did not have childlikeness of disposition ; that so far from children having to grow into manhood in order to enter the fruition of God's kingdom it was absolutely essential that men should shed the hard-shell of their rigid manhood and come back to the unsuspicious, open-eyed, natural sensitiveness of childhood ; and thus have the utmost enjoyment of all that God has made. About this time, as he was on his journey out of the country, a certain ruler came running and kneeled to him, and said, " Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may The neh ruler. j mier ^ perpetual life ? " He seems suddenly to • Luk ' " have felt the necessity of receiving the instruction of Jesus before he left the neighborhood. Jesus replied, " Why do you call me good ? No one is good but one, that is God. You know the commandments : Do not kill ; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not bear false witness ; defraud "Whosoever shall not receive the tang do m. of lh)d 8.S a little child, he shall not enter into it " I — **.* + + + + + + + ^^^^^^.ftfl.f^ f rougjt unto j)im also torn seBgc &j£mmm%&: — sail unta fm Mmmx Slrall not itotnp £jp Hiogitmn nf (!M Is a » Cp, i)C Mall ui Mollis inter Cjtfm - %t ®0oh fpm it|} in lis Jrms, on tljem, anit IkssfHImiu GOING TO JERUSALEM. 525 not ; honor your father and your mother, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself." He answered, " Teacher, all these things have I observed from my youth up." Jesus looked on him and loved him, and then spoke the words that tested him, " One thing is yet wanting to you : if you will be perfect, go sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven ; and come, follow me." lie was very rich, and the saying sent him away very sorrowful. This is a peculiarly interesting case, as exhibiting a phase of human nature worth studying, and as giving fresh insight into the character of Jesus. This person, who seems to have been a ruler of the synagogue, had led a life of scrupulous external morality, but failed to have quiet of spirit and satisfaction of soul. He had probably watched the course and studied the character of Jesus. He had occasional deep longings and high aspirations, but he did not have most thorough earnestness in the pursuit of the highest good, — nay, had a kind of self-conceit and nippantness in talking of the most sacred things, both which came out in his ad dress to Jesus, " Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit perpet ual life ? " To which Jesus's reply seems to be a check ; as if he had said : You seem to talk of goodness very lightly. Goodness is the loftiest thing. No one is absolutely good but God. Do you recognize God's goodness in me, or do you address me with an empty compliment? "As he would not have himself called Mes- siah in the wrong, or at least easily misinterpreted, sense in which the word was then often used, so neither [would he have himself in a mistaken way called] Good Master." (Lange.) He gives the young man, however, no space for reply, but proceeds to answer the question by directing him to the commandments of the Moral Law. . The young man avowed that he had strictly kept all the commandments all his life. This he may have said with an accent of pride, but there was a painful tone in the question, " What yet do I lack?" which moved the compassion of Jesus. The young man may have unduly plumed himself upon his legal righteous- ness, but he was certainly candid. It was in kindness, then, not in severity, that Jesus, whose spir- itual insight into men even his enemies must acknowledge, showed the young man the depth of his own heart and his lack of total earnestness. He was rich. Jesus submitted him to a violent test, namely, the selling of all his property, its distribution to the poor 626 PROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEE£. and his following a Teacher who had no worldly gain or glory to offer. Jesus did not here enact a law for all his followers. He never enacted laws. He simply taught the great fundamental principles of morality, from which each man must make a rule for himself. He saw that the temperament of the young man made it quite easy for him to render his life exemplary of all out- ward morality, while a latent spirit of self-indulgence weakened his whole character. The sorrow the young man felt demon- strated the correctness of the estimate Jesus had formed of him. When he found just what he lacked he was not willing to pay the price of perfection. Being troubled at that saying he went away grieved, for he had great possessions. Jesus made a lesson for his disciples. He turned to them and said, "With what difficulty shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God." This saying astonished 10 y ° e his disciples, and Jesus saw the impression which his words had made. They recollected that riches were a part of the blessings pronounced under the old dispensa- tion, and their Jewish ideas exaggerated the temporal prosperity which ought to visit the children of the kingdom under the new, the Messianic, dispensation, which they were fondly hoping was about to be inaugurated. Jesus said, " Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God.* It is easier for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." Here he speaks of the natural difficulty all men encounter in coming out of a gross worldly life into a spir- itual and lofty mode of existence, a difficulty intensified in the case of the rich, because their hearts grow large and their bur dens are packed bulkily upon them, so that, to use a proverbial expression, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for such a person to divest himself of his love for these material possessions, to cease to be gross and sensuous so as to become fine and spiritual, to enjoy a kingdom whose greatnesses and glories and happinesses are wholly spiritual. At this saying the disciples were astonished out of measure and said, "Who then can be saved? " If it be this temper which * In the common version (Mark x. 24; the reading- is, "Children, how hard it is [for them that trust in riches] to enter into the kingdom of God." The words included in brackets do not occur in the original in the oldest MSS. The trans- lation I have made in the text is of tha Sinait. Cod. in loco. GOING TO JERUSALEM. 527 destroys a man the rich will be lost ; and all men, poor as well aa rich, will be found to be engrossed with the world and filled with worldliness. Matthew and Mark say that Jesus, " looking on them," made his reply. How often the looking of Jesus ? \ , , t . , . -r . Who can be is mentioned by these historians ! It seems that gaved ? they would supplement the words they repeat by intimating that there was something in the eyes and looks of Jesus which was illustrative and explanatory of the sentences he uttered. And most probably there was. If that could be reproduced with his words what light it would probably shed upon all his most profound sayings. The reply was, " With men it is impossible, but not with God ; for with God all things are possible ; " which seems to teach that no man has power of nimself to spiritualize his nature, but that God is able to do that for any man. The impulsive Peter was hereby excited to propound this ques- tion : " Lo ! we have left all and followed you : what therefore shall be to us ? " It is a little difficult to understand the temper in which this question was asked. Peter compared, and perhaps contrasted himself — for the personal " I " is concealed under the modest " we " — with the rich young man who had been con- founded by the test which Jesus applied to his character. How far Peter's renunciation of the comforts of home was proof of his devotion to the spiritual life he may have been at a loss to de- termine. Or, if giving up worldly wealth was all, then, in view of their sacrifices, what might they not expect ? For the apostles were not totally impecunious. Peter had his house, John and James had servants, Matthew had a lucrative office and was able to give a feast to his friends. And even if they had been mere fishers, with a hut by the lake and a net on the shore, a poor man's heart often clings more tenaciously to his little than a rich uan's heart to his much. Jesus answered, " I most assuredly say to you, that you who have followed me in the Palingenesia, when the Son of Man shall sit on his glorious throne, you shall also sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel: and every one who has for- saken brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, on account of my name and the gospel's, shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, and in the age to come life per- petual." The " Palingenesia " is translated " the regeneration " in the 528 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. common version. It means " the renovation," " the renewed ex- istence." It shows what Jesus believed would be his influence ^ w ,. upon the world, that his life would infuse such The Palingene- „ 1 r • -, i gia powerful transforming elements into humanity that the world should be renewed, as since his time it manifestly has been. He began a new seon, a fresh age. It is also to be noticed that incidentally Jesus gives his authority to monogamy as he had on the divorce question very clearly rendered it. He does not say " wives, v as he says " children," but " wife," as he says " mother." He promises them a manifold return for all their sacrifices. His saying about the twelve apostles on the twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes is enigmatical. Unless he furnished a private explanation it must have puzzled them to the close of their lives. If he did give such private interpreta- tion they have failed to record it, and nothing has occurred in the history of the world, so far as I can see, to fulfil the prediction of these words. It is quite easy to give a mystical interpretation, but the plain apostles would not have understood that. The only reasonable ground that I see is to say that this is an unfulfilled prophecy. There is a general truth, well-known to the students of human society, that he who makes the most sacrifices for his race has the greatest moral influence over them, and this abstract truth is embedded in the concrete forms of speech which Jesus here employs. There is also this truth, that they who have, in all ages since his death, devoted themselves to Jesus, and received all his words into loving breasts, have gained in spiritual influence and enjoyment much more than they have lost of power and pleasure in surrendering their visible material properties for their religious principles. Immediately Jesus added, as if to check Peter's presumption, the saying, " But many first shall be last, and last first." There is nothing mercenary in the kingdom of the heavens. No man need fancy that he can do what will entitle him to promotion. It was a bad footing on which Peter set his question, "What shall we have f what shall be to us f " It was the question of the hireling's heart. In illustration of his saying Jesus furnished the following parable : " The kingdom of the heavens is like unto a man, a householder [a human householder], who went out with the dawn to hire laborers into his vineyard : GOING TO JERUSALEM. 520 and having agreed with the laborers for a denarius [15 cents*] the day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour [nine o'clock a.m.] he saw others standing idle in the market-place, and said to them, 'Go you also into my vineyard, and whatsoever may be just T .,, , . t ,, . -. . . Parable of the la- I will give to you.' And they went. And again going out about the sixth and ninth hour [noon and three o'clock p.m.] he did in like manner. And about the eleventh hour [near the close of day] he found others standing, and saith to them, ' Why stand you here all the day idle ? ' They say to him, ' Because no man has hired us.' He says to them, ' Go you also into the vineyard.' Now when the evening was come the lord of the vineyard says to his overseer, ' Call the laborers and pay the hire, beginning from the last unto the first.' And they who came about the eleventh hour received each a denarius. And the first having come, supposed that they should receive more ; but they received each a denarius. But having received it, they murmured against the householder, saying, ' These last have made but one hour, and thou makest them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.' But he answering, said to one of tnem, * Friend, I do you no wrong. Did you not engage with me for a penny ? Take what is yours and begone. But I will give to this last even as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own ? Is your eye evil because I am good? ' Thus the last shall be first, and the first last." Here is the picture of a scene which to this day can be witnessed in Oriental lands. Laborers take their spades and assemble in the market-place. Employers go and bargain with 1 . i li. j mi , An Oriental as many and such as they need. Ihere may be both laborers and hirers who come late. These will meet. In this parable the owner of the vineyard went several times in one day. Each time he hired as many as were present. Those whom he found at noon were not present at sunrise, and those whom he found an hour before sunset had not arrived at noon. When there was a whole day's work the householder made a bargain with the laborers ; when there was but one hour of work he promised what was fair, and they trusted him. The trouble was in the settlement. He gave what he chose out of his own means to the last comers. He chose to give for an hour's labor what was usually considered at that time fair pay for a whole day's work. This did not in any way interfere with the rights of the others. When their time for settlement came they seemed to think that if a denarius was right pay for one hour, at least several denarii would come to those who had been working twelve hours. But the reasoning was unsound. The laborers of an hour * See the representation of a denarius on p. 464. 34 530 FEOM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. received their denarius in part as pay and in part as gratuity. In fact there was no bargain with them • there was with those firsl who had labored longest. The lessons seem quite plain, if we have no system of theology to bolster. 1. The kingdom of heaven is one of moral govern- m , , ment, in which there is proprietorship upon one The lesson. ' , . \ * o aii i side and work on the other. 2. All who are willing may find work to do in this kingdom. All are called. 3. There will certainly be pay and rewards to all who work. 4. Both the rewards and the pay will be distributed on grounds of perfect justice and discriminating mercy. No one will be injured by what is given to another. Whatever imperfections of work or frailty of temper may be in any laborer, he will receive the full amount of any payment stipulated in the covenant. There will be justice to all, and grace to such as can appreciate it. The first laborers were manifestly mercenary, and worked for the money, and evidently with such a temper as they exhibited they could not have done their work well. There must have been something in the last laborers which so won the approval of their employer that he was willing to pay them as though they had done a whole day's work. He called up first those who had come in last. He paid them liberally as liberal workers. He then called up those whom he had engaged first. He paid them justly according to covenant. He showed them his approval of the others, and perhaps for that purpose had paid them first. And thus the first, because of their technical spirit, became last; and the last, who trusted their employer, and wrought heartily without a bar- gain, became first. The kingdom of God is such that they gain most who trust God most ; but every man is fully paid for all service ; and they who trust God most boast themselves least, and mat e no merit of their works. Pursuing their way to Jerusalem, Jesus took occasion for the third time to forewarn his disciples of his approaching death. Nothing seemed to take him at unawares. He A third warning. wit ] ldrew his twelve chosen friends from the x. • Luke xviii crowd and communed with them confidentially, saying to them, according to Mark's record : 41 Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem : and the Son of Man shall be betrayed to the chief priests and scribes : and they shall condemn him to death ; and shall deliver him to the Gentiles to GOING TO JERUSALEM. 531 mock and to scourge and to crucify ; and the third day he shall be raised." It is a remarkable illustration of the force of preconceived opinions that the disciples of Jesus, being filled with expectations of an early display of Messianic glory, could not comprehend words so explicit as these. They were mystic utterances which they filled with the light of their own hopes. It was the third announcement, made by him to his disciples, of his impending fate. The words contain no ambiguity. The Jewish ecclesiastical power was to seize him, and to deliver him to the Roman civil authorities. He was to be mocked, and scourged, and crucified. Could more unambiguous words have been used ? And yet they could not understand them. How much less could they under- stand, " and the third day he shall be raised ? " Perhaps it was this that helped to make the whole statement unintelligible. There was to be a " raising," an elevation, and he is the Messiah. " There is something awful to come between this hour and that elevation, something he calls scourging and crucifying : but how can we know what he means ? " Perhaps that is what they said. A singularly interesting illustration of their state of mind is furnished by an incident which now took place. Jesus had left Ephrem to join the crowds going to Jerusalem. The church had put a price ononis head. He 1 Going to Jeru ' . . salem. was going to deliver himself to the ecclesiastical authorities. He evidently intended to do this in a dignified man- ner. And before going to Jerusalem he prepared to yield him- self to the Messianic hopes and desires of the people. He would see what they would do with him as Messiah. He could not have taken this course in the early portion of his career, for then there would have broken forth a prodigious popular uprising which the Eoman power would have suppressed, and in the collision Jesus would have been crushed. This would have occurred before he had planted his principles in any body of men who should have been committed to their propagation. The circumstances were altered. If he were sacrificed his work would live : and he felt sure that he should even now be sacrificed. This he told his twelve chief followers, among whom were his cousins James and John. Somehow the mother of the two sons of Zebedee, Salome, aunt of Jesus, joined the cavalcade going towards Jericho. The sons probably had an interview with their mother, who was a 532 FltOM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. woman of the heroic mould. They themselves were fiery, impet uous, ambitious men. The question of precedence had been mooted among the disciples. The great Teacher, in whom as the Messiah they all had growing faith, had predicted some awful trouble which he was to encounter. Now was the time for James and John to secure a pledge of the highest posts of honor when he should come into his glory. Salome was his aunt. She had been known and loved by Jesus from his infancy. She had lately contributed of her substance and time to his comfort. Her two sons were his cousins. They had been his steadfast adherents, and almost constant companions. They were men of ability and great force of character. He himself had called them Boanerges, Sons of Thunder. Now, in his hour of depression, if they and their mother should unite in a petition which showed their willing- ness to encounter with him the powers of darkness, would he not he moved to pledge them the highest places in his kingdom ? Could anything more clearly than this disclose the sensuous, Messianic ideas of the warmest friends of Jesus ? They came, Salome and James and John. The mother paid homage to Jesus in a manner which showed that she had a peti- tion to prefer. " What do you wish ? " asked ,. . , Jesus. Her reply was : " Say that these my two disciples. l J J J sons may sit, one on your right hand, and one on your left, in your kingdom." The request was painful to Jesus. He foresaw that he was to be crucified. The unconscious request of this mother was that her two sons might be crucified, one on his right and the other on his left, as it fell to two thieves subsequently. Jesus answered : " You know not what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized ? " The bold answer of the confident brothers is : " We are able." Jesus knew that they must suffer for his sake, and so he tenderly added : " You shall indeed drink of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with ; but to sit on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but for whom it has been prepared by my Father." When the ten heard of the effort which James and John had made to secure glorious posts in the kingdom they were very an- gry. Matthew truthfully and candidly admits his own fault in the premises, while recording that of his brethren. The fact ia GOING TO JERUSALEM. 533 that they all desired the primacy in the kingdom which they vainly fancied was about to be set up in the world. Jesus cor- rected their views and their temper at the same moment, while he pacified them toward the two brothers, by calling the whole company of twelve to him and saying : " You know that the rulers of the nations rule imperiously over them, and the great men oppress them. It shall not be so among you : but whosoever may wish to be great among you, let him be your waiting-man [servant] ; and whosoever may wish to be chief among you shall be slave of all. As the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." This extin- guishes all churchly pride and nips the bud of any hierarchy among them. It is the enunciation of a general principle, wide as the kingdom of the heavens. In the little earthly kingdoms and churches men get their power by tradition or prescription, and the temptation is to be overbearing and oppressive. But a man comes to be important as he is useful. He rules most men who makes himself necessary to most men. That is a fact which no delegated or usurped authority can suppress forever, how much soever it may seem to do so for a season. Call him slave or beggar, if the man have rendered himself essential to the happiness of the largest number of the people, he is their king. Jesus rests his own claim to greatness in that he makes the heaviest possible sacrifice for the greatest possible good of the largest possible number. The cavalcade of pilgrims to the Holy City having crossed the Jordan approached Jericho. In this vicinity occurred the giving of sight to two blind men. The narrative of this cure is related by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, J" eri <*o. Mat- t , • -i , t . thew xx. ; Mark whose stories so curiously cross one another as to T , ' ... x.; Lukexviu. create great perplexity. Matthew says there were two blind men, Mark and Luke say one, the former giving the afflicted man's name as Bartimseus, meaning Son of Timasus. Luke represents the cure to have been made as Jesus was enter- ing, and Matthew and Mark as he was leaving Jericho. That the reader may see the several solutions of these dis- crepancies, I copy the excellent classification of them made by Andrews, inserting in brackets e m men * the names of several authors who have held each particular view. 534 FK0M FEAST OF TABERNACLES TJIHTL THE LAST WEEK. "1. That three blind men were healed; one mentioned by Luke, as lit approached the city ; two mentioned by Matthew (Mark speaks only of one), as he was leaving the city. [Kitto, Augustine, Morrison.] Some [Osiander] make four to have been healed. — 2. That the cases of healing were two, and distinct; one being on his entry into the city, the other on his departure. [Lightfoot, Ebrard, Krafft, Tischendorf, Wiesler, Greswell, Bucher, Lex, Neander.] According to this solution, Matthew combines the two in one, and deeming the exact time and place unimportant, represents them as both occur- ring at the departure of Jesus from the city. — 3. That two were healed, and both at his entry ; but one being better known than the other, he only is men- tioned by Mark and Luke. [Doddridge, Newcome, Lichenstein, Friedlieb.] — 4. That one of the blind men sought to be healed as Jesus approached the city, but was not; that the next morning, joining himself to another, they waited for him by the gate, as he was leaving the city, and were both healed together, Luke, in order to preserve the unity of his narrative, relates the healing of the former, as if it had taken place on the afternoon of the entry. [Bengel, Stier, Trench, Ellicott. See modifications of this view in McKnight and Crosby, and another in Lange on Matt. xx. 30.] — 5. That only one was healed, and he when Jesus left the city. Matthew, according to his custom, uses the plural where the other Evangelists use the singular. [Oosterzee on Luke ; Da Costa.] — 6. That Luke's variance with Matthew and Mark, in regard to place, may be removed by interpreting (xviii. 35) ' as He was come nigh to Jericho,' ev rep eyy^eiv avrov et? 'Ifpt^co, in the general sense of being near to Jericho, but without defining whether he was approaching to it or departing from it. Its meaning here is determined by Matthew and Mark: he was leaving the city, but still near to it. Luke, like Mark, mentions only the more prominent person healed. [Grotius on Matt. xx. 30; Clericus, Diss., ii., Canon 6 ; Pilkington, cited in Townsend v. 33 ; Robinson, Jarvis, Owen.] " Newcome (liar. , 275) holds that Jesus spent several days in Jericho, and that his departure, mentioned by Matthew and Mark, was for a temporary purpose, the blind man being healed as he was returning. McKnight's theory is (Har., ii. 93) that there were two Jerichos ; that as he left one he cured one blind man, and as he left the other he cured the second blind man. Paulus (iii. 44) holds that the procession was so great that the front ranks were leaving the city as that portion in which Jesus was was entering it." The reader has before him the original record and the various theories, and must choose what seems most satisfactory to him. I believe that two were healed, but that one, for some reason, was more conspicuous than the other, or afterward came to be well known to the apostles, and therefore the account of his cure alone is preserved by Mark and Luke. His story is simply this. He was sitting by the road-side, plying his business as a beggar, when he heard that in the vast procession of pilgrims, which was sweeping past him with its bustling noise, was the famous Teacher GOING TO JERUSALEM. 535 and Healer, Jesus of Nazareth. He began at once to cry out, " Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me ! " It will now be per- ceived how at every step the Messianic spirit rises n .. _.._ ... 1/1 r Blind Bartimaeus. among the people. We should naturally expect this when we recollect that the church had set a price upon the head of Jesus, and yet he was publicly, deliberately, and with dignity, going up to the head-quarters of his enemies after he had performed such miracles as made his friends feel that no enemies could crush him. When Bartimaeus made his cry, which was an acknowledgment of the Messianic dignity of Jesus, those nearest bade him keep his peace and make no disturbance. This injunction was not made, as so many seem to think, to repress his acknowledgment of Jesus as the Messiah. The populace had not yet turned against Jesus. They rather sided with him as against the ecclesiastical party * but as there seemed to be in the confluence of events a current of festivity, they did not choose to have the lofty gayeties of the occasion depressed by the unmannerly cries of a beggar. But they could not repress Bartimaeus. The more they tried to silence him, the more he cried, " Son of David, have mercy on me." His voice reached the ear of Jesus, who stood still and said, "Call him." There is a touch of naturalness in the narrative. As soon as Jesus spoke complacently, those very men became very kmd to the beggar they had just now rebuked, and said, " Be of good courage ; rise ; he calls you." How success begets success ! This little history is constantly reproduced in society. Men of such force of character as disturb the public are suppressed if possible. If they be persistent enough to begin to succeed, that same public takes great delight in assisting. As soon as Bartimaeus knew that Jesus called him, he arose, flung aside his loose and probably ragged garment, and leaping up came to Jesus. Jesus said to him, " What will you that I should do to you ? " He answered, a Babboni [My Master] that I might receive my sight ! " The contrast between the ambitious and foolish prayer of James and John and the humble and wise prayer of this beggar is striking. He knew his greatest necessity. He was humble, he was believ- ing, he asked the most needful thing. Jesus neither questioned nor criticized him, but simply said, " Go your way : your faith has healed you." It was a mere breath, a few words, and with- 536 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. out touch, the sight came instantly back to Bartimseus. It was enough. He left all and joined the procession going into Jericho. This permitting himself to be publicly hailed as the Messiah being followed with a striking and sudden miracle openly performed before an immense multitude, excited the people to a great pitch, and they shouted praises to God on their way into Jericho. The city of Jericho, the site of which is now occupied by a miserable village of huts, was a place of considerable historical Jericho. Luke xix. ; Matt. xxv. and commercial importance. It was immediately opposite the spot in the Jordan which was crossed by the Israelites when they to;k possession of the promised land. Here they found much spoL. It was situated in a beautiful plain. Its name, which sig- nifies " Fragrance," indicates that it Avas in the midst of a growth of finest plants. In fact, there bloomed the palm-tree and the balsam " in the midst of a luxuriant and fragrant 'vegetable king- dom." It afterwards became the favorite residence of priests, who loved its shades for contemplation, and of Roman officers, whose presence was required by the richness of the neighborhood, and by its being on the road of travel and of trade from the East. GOING TO JERUSALEM. 537 Zacchaeus. Pilgrims from the Perea side of the Jordan came through Jericho on their way to Jerusalem. Among the residents of Jericho, at the time of the visit of Jesus, was Zacchaeus. He was a Jew. His Hebrew name, notwith- standing its Greek termination, shows that.* He was an officer of the Roman Empire, whether an actual farmer of the revenue, a publicanus, or only a comptroller, who received what was collected by the portitores and then paid it over to the farmer-general, we cannot tell. The Roman law provided that such farmer-general should be a Roman knight, but Josephus says that sometimes Jews obtained the office, as was therefore possible in the case of Zacchaeus. At any rate he had a lucrative place in the customs, and Jericho was an important post by the general reason of its situation, and the particular rea- son of there being then a heavy tax on dates and balsam. This man desired to see Jesus. It is remarkable that as Jesus had achieved what his countrymen regarded as the bad reputation of being the " Friend of Publicans," Zacchaeus, one of the very chief, had never beheld his person, although he had repeatedly been in the neighborhood of Jericho. Moved by curiosity, and perhaps by still higher motives, as the subsequent history would justify us in supposing, he determined to put himself in a position to see the distinguished traveller as he passed. Zacchaeus was so short that he could not see because of the great crowd. His desire to behold Jesus conquered his sense of dignity. So he ranahead of the crowd and climbed up into a sycamore-tree. It is to be remembered that this is not like the tall, close, slender tree of our American river-bottoms. In Palestine it is a great tree, with large trunk and far-spreading arms, and planted near roads and in the open places where several paths meet. The arms grow across the road, giving excellent opportunity for seeing any one passing beneath. Hammocks are sometimes swung in them, and a score of girls and boys may be seen playing among the limbs of this ample tree.f As Jesus passed and looked up he saw Zacchaeus, and somehow knew his name, and surprised him with the sudden address, u Zac- chaeus, make haste and come down ; for to-day I must stay at your * The name is found in its Hebrew form in Ezra ii. 9 ; Nehemiah vii. 14 ; and 2 Mace, x 19. f For a. description and a picture of this tree, see Thomson's Land and Book, ii. 22. 538 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. house." The freedom, the kindness, the cordiality of Jesus won Zacchseus instantaneously. He almost fell from the tree, and with demonstrations of joy received Jesus as his guest. On the way to the house there were some disaffected Jews who criticised this conduct. Uninvited, he had invited himself to be- come the truest of a sinner. Everv man connected His conversion. . , , ., „ with the collection or. the revenues was hateful in the eyes of the Jews, and if one of their own nation accepted such a post he was regarded as specially despicable. It was said by some one in the crowd, " He has gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner." Zacchseus heard it, and knew that he was a sinner, and confessed. He stood in face of the crowd and said to Jesus, " See, Lord, the half of my possessions I give to the poor ; and if I have taken anything from any man by extortion I will restore him fourfold." There was something most honest, deliberate, and ready in this outspoken confession. According to the law (Numbers v. 6) a man who had wronged another and confessed it, was to restore the stolen property and add twenty per cent, of its value. This man knew that he had wronged others, but his quick calculation told him that he could give half his property to the poor, restore all his ill-gotten gains, and pay the injured party three hundred per cent., and yet have all he now cared to retain, since he had now the transcendent honor of entertaining Jesus as a guest in his house. Speaking both to Zacchseus and of him, Jesus said, " This day has salvation come to this house, inasmuch as he also is a Son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost." It was a most noble and free act on the part of Jesus. He rose above caste and prejudice and political partisanship. His quick eye saw the good in Zacchseus, a germ of sweet richness kept from its growth by the difficulties of his position and the prejudice of his people. Jesus suddenly so warmed it that it sprung at once into vigorous growth. Wide-hearted Jesus ! We know nothing more of Zacchseus positively. There is a tradition that he became a disciple of Peter, and subsequently Bishop of Csesarea. But there is no historical proof of this, s5 far as I am aware. It may have been in the house of Zacchaeus, or just as they started, or soon after, that Jesus uttered the Parable of the Pounds, in order to correct the perversely wrong views of his friends in GOING TO JERUSALEM. 539 the multitude, who, seeing they were approaching the Holy City, looked now for the immediate inauguration of his Messianic reign. This expectation of worldly display may have been kindled by the phrase, " The Son of Man is come to seek and save that which was lost." They believed a conflict would come between Jesus and the Church, and that Jesus would triumph and would set up " the kingdom of God " at once. This is the parable : " A certain nobleman went into a far country, to receive for himself a king- dom, and return. And having called ten of his own slaves, he gave them ten mime, and said, ' Trade till I come.' But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, ' We will not Parable of the Pounds - have this man to reign over us.' And it was so on his return, having received the kingdom, that he commanded those slaves to whom he had given th'e money to be called to Mm, that he might know what they had gained by trading. Then came the first and said, 'Lord, your mina has gained ten minae. 1 And he said to him, ' Well ! good slave ! because you have been faith- ful in a very little, have authority over ten cities.' And the second came aijd said, ' Lord, your mina has gained five mina?.' And he said to this man, ' Be you also over five cities. ' And the other came and said, ' Lord, behold your mina, which I have kept laid up in a napkin ; for I feared you, because you are an austere man. You take up what you did not lay down, and reap what you did not sow.' He said to him, 'Out of your own mouth will I condemn you, wicked slave. You knew that I am an austere man, taking up what I laid not down, and reaping what I did not sow. Wherefore then did you not give my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required it with interest ? ' And he said to those who stood by, ' Take from him the mina, and give to him that has ten minse.' And they said to him, ' Lord, he has ten minse.' ' I say that to every one who hath shall be given, and from him who hath not, even what he has shall be taken away. But mine enemies, those who would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.' " This parable is very far from being identical with that of the talents, as we shall see when we come to study the latter. That a writer professing to discharge the functions of criticism should see in this an awkward amalgamation of two other parables 1 , namely, of the Talents and of the Unfaithful Husbandmen, is a conspicuous display of the power of a preconceived theory over critical acumen. (Strauss's Life of Jesus, i. 351.) The parables have a few things in common, but the points of instruction are totally different. Here Jesus is surrounded by two classes of per- sons, one a multitude representing the Jewish people, and the other his little band of disciples. This parable of the pounds is 540 FROM FEAST OF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. intended to teach a lesson to both, as both were more or less look- ing for the setting up of a kingdom which should overthrow Borne. The formal portion of the parable is taken from the then well- known circumstances in the career of Archelaus, the son of Herod the Great. (See the note, page 59.) Jesus dis- f Ar h 1 tinguishes between the servants of the king and the rebellious subjects of the kingdom, and has a lesson for each. The latter will reject their king. The Jews will reject Jesus for their spiritual as they had rejected Archelaus for their civil sovereign. The result will be their destruction and the establishment of Jesus in his kingdom. He meant to tell them that so far from the setting up of a kingdom of temporal power, he was to be rejected by them ; but that this rejection would not harm him, but would destroy the Jewish nation, which very soon subsequently proved to be true in history. He intimated, also, that his was to be a reign of spiritual in- fluence, and therefore, instead of putting arms into the hands of his servants he gave them small properties, which Adapted to the ^ were to u calmly working, negotiating, condition of the , J ' J , f & *?' disciples an( * trac hng until the Lord should come, buck conduct on their part would be the best possible protest against the rebellious subjects, because it would show that these servants had such perfect faith in the return of their master and king that they quietly persisted in trade, so as to have ac- complished all that was possible before his return. He taught his disciples that they who had the faith, the industry, and the endurance to do this should receive a reward proportionate to their success, but out of all proportion to the small sum put in their hands to trade with. If we understand even the Attic mina as the money here designated, the sum did not exceed $15 gold, equal in its purchasing capabilities in that age to many times $15 this day, but still being only one-sixtieth of a talent. He tihat made it tenfold was created ruler over ten cities, and he that made it fivefold, over five cities. As Yon Gerlach well says, " Ten minse would scarcely purchase a home ; and the superabun- dant recompense of grace is ten cities." This interpretation is consistent with the whole narrative, and with the circumstances under which it was uttered, and the state of mind of those to whom it was addressed. As far as practi- GOING TO JERUSALEM. 541 cable it corrected all their misapprehensions before their arrival in Jerusalem. The Passover was approaching. Many had gone up from the country to Jerusalem to make ceremonial purification for the great festival. These persons hoped to find the marvellous Teacher in the Holy City. They made inquiry among themselves, saying : " What think you ; that he will not come up to the feast % " This special form of the inquiry is recorded by John, who states as a reason for it that the church authorities had given directions that if any should discover where Jesus was, information should be given at once that the church might seize him. " Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany." This note of time assists us in adjusting the chronologic connection of events. It does not fix with precision the exact „ . . „ . r ■ Bethany. Fri- day of the arrival in Bethany. That will depend a a y 5 3i s t March, upon the mode of calculation of each reckoner, and Saturday, 1st (See Andrews, p. 396-398.) The six days may A P ril > AD - 80 - include both the Passover and the dav of arrival, . a , ^ v1 -' . ir xiv. ; J ohn xn. 1 . or include the former and exclude the latter, or include the latter and exclude the former, or exclude both. Robinson, including both days, makes his arrival on Saturday ; Strong, by the same computation, fixes it on Sunday — Robinson putting the Passover on Thursday, and Strong on Friday. Gres- well agrees with Robinson, and Luthardt with Strong, but reach these several conclusions by other processes. The language of Moses is, "In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the Lord's Passover." (Levit. xxiii. 5.) The first month is Nisan, and six days before the 14th must have been on the 8th of Nisati. But when did the 14th Nisan fall? on Thursday or Friday? In this case my opinion agrees with that of the great majority of reckoners in fixing the Passover on Thursday ; and, not including the Passover, the date of the arrival will be Friday. The correctness of this conclusion is favored by the consider- ation that Jesus would not unnecessarily travel fifteen miles from Jericho to Bethany on the Sabbath, nor is it possible that he jour- neyed part of the way on Friday and then finished the journey after sunset of Saturday, the Sabbath, as between the two towns was a wilderness with no stopping-place, and the road is exceed- ingly bad ; and moreover, he was with a cavalcade of pilgrims pushing towards the Holy City. It would seem that he probably 542 FK0M FEAST CF TABERNACLES UNTIL THE LAST WEEK. reached Jericho in the evening of Thursday, 7 Nisan (30th March), remained all night with Zacchaeus, made the whole jour- ney to Bethany the next day, reaching the place that evening before the beginning of the Sabbath. He knew that it was to be a week of conflict and anguish, and he would naturally desire to be with his friends of Bethany, refreshing himself in their quiet home. It was soon reported in Jerusalem that Jesus was at the house of Lazarus. Great crowds began to stream out to the little vil- lage, whicli was less than a Sabbath-day's jour- Crowds flock tO n , T • , rni -i -ii • -i ney rrom the city. I here was a double induce- 666 hlTT\ ** ■ ment : they might see Jesus, and at the same time gaze upon Lazarus, who had had the strange experience of being raised from the dead. This combined attractiveness of Jesus and his friend Lazarus incensed the church, and an ecclesiastical council was held to compass the death of both, because Lazarus was living proof that Jesus possessed the strange power of raising the dead, and those who saw them both together believed on Jesus. It was decided to destroy both men after the Passover. They had not then calculated upon the assistance of Judas, whose co-operation hastened the consummation of their plans. The Sabbath — Saturday, April 1 — was spent in the quiet of the house of Lazarus. It was the Jesus. ■*■ last Sabbath in the career of Jesus, and it was appropriate to spend it with the beloved family of Bethany. PAET VIL THE LAST WEEK. FROM APRIL 1 TO APRIL 8, A.D. 30. CHAPTER I, THE FIRST DAT FROM SATURDAY EVENING TO SUNDAY EVENING. Sunday morning came. The Sabbath had ended. Jesus and his followers took up their journey to Jerusalem. It was a gay time in the national calendar. The crowds of pilgrims going up to the great feast received ac- _ _ 1 & o o a -xx-rT j> t an y an< * Jerusa- cessions every hour. When the party of Jesus lem p a im-Snn- reached a village called Bethphage, which means day, April 2. Matt. House of Figs, the site of which it seems not xxi - ; Mark xi - ; possible now to identify, but which lay some- . u e X1X ' ; t0 where on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent forth two of his disciples, saying, " Go into the village over against you, and immediately you shall find an ass tied, and with her a foal whereon never man sat ; having loosed them, bring them unto me. And if any one say anything to you, you shall say, ' The Lord has need of them,' and immediately he will send them." The disciples went on their errand and found a colt tied outside a door at a cross-roads. When they commenced to untie it the owners said, " What are you doing, loosing that colt ? " When the disciples repeated the words of Jesus, the objectors said no more, but let them take it away. It would seem that the dam followed the foal. It was natural that they should keep together. The presence of the ass kept the colt quiet. On the latter the disciples of Jesus spread their garments, and he sat on them, and thus rode forward down the Mount, in the midst of the cavalcade. The 544 THE LAST WEEK. Jesus riding. historian Matthew says that in the doing of this was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet, " Tell the daughter of Zion, see your King comes to you, meek, and sitting upon an ass, even upon a foal, an offspring of a beast of burden." * Why Jesus should have done this is a question which naturally arrests us at this point. It is manifest, from the whole tenor of the history, that he felt that his hour was now about to come. He expected to stand no more by the Sea of Galilee, or walk the streets of Capernaum, Bethsaida, and the other places which had been his haunts. He addressed him- self as to a last conflict with his foes. They had laid a price upon his head. He did not intend to evade their vigilance, but he in- tended not to throw himself recklessly into their hands. There- fore he always left the city in the evening, spending the night in a neighboring village, and returning to the Temple-service in the morning. But he would avoid no responsibility of his position- He rode into Jerusalem. There should be no pomp, and there- fore no blooded steed with rich caparisons and insignia of royalty should carry him. An ass's colt should testify at once his poverty and his dignity. He went in so lifted up that all the people might see him, and " the church " should perceive that he was not afraid of his fate. * Strauss {Life of Jesus, ii. 291) holds that the "Evangelical narratives" of this advance of Jesus to Jerusalem ' ' are formed not so much upon a given fact as upon Old Testament passages and dogmatic ideas." In proof of which he cites Matthew's account of the two disciples bringing two animals, and spreading the garments upon both, and setting Jesus upon both. He accounts for this by Matthew's want of sense and misapprehension of the passage in Zech- ariah (ix. 9). Matthew "paralyzes" "the understanding" of Dr. Strauss when he seems to represent Jesus as riding both animals at once! and the Doctor recovers himself only when he examines Zechariah, where it is written in Hebrew parallelism — ■ " Lowly — and riding upon an ass, And upon a colt, the foal of an ass." Matthew had read that, and supposed that the fulfilment of the prophecy ne- cessitated the riding of two animals at once, and so he made the history con- form to his dogmatic ideas ! But no one would charge Dr. Strauss with being so poor a Hebrew scholar as not to be quite familiar with the Hebrew poetic forms. As soon as he turned to the text in Zech- ariah he knew that the second line was a mere parallelism, being equivalent to and expounding the idea in the first line, the ass in the one being identical with the foal in the other, the second simply amplifying the first. Matthew certain- ly was as good a Hebrew scholar as Dr. Strauss, and the writings of the for- mer, examined critically, show quite as much common sense as the latter. This \ ' paralyzing of the understanding " is an affectation unworthy one who sets up for critic on the most influential of aU the productions of literature. THE FIRST DAY. 545 As the cavalcade descended the sides of the Mount of Olives they met a crowd composed of the friends of Jesus, of those who had admiration of him, of those whom curiosity ii • ,/»i -lii , A great crowd, and the excitement ot me occasion had drawn to- gether, coming out to meet Jesus, who was reported to be approach- ing the city. With the former Lazarus was undoubtedly present, and with the latter the emissaries of the church party. The meet- ing of these tides of people heightened the excitement. They cut branches from the trees and strewed them on the road. They took their very garments from their shoulders and spread them before the colt that bore Jesus. Their hopes of the setting up of the Messianic kingdom waxed warm. They shouted, " Hosanna to the Son of David ! Be praised the King of Israel, coming in the name of the Lord ! Peace in heaven ! Hosanna in the high- est!" This Messianic shout of joy was taken from the Psalm cxviii. 25. The series of Psalms from cxiii. to cxviii., inclusive, called the Great Hallel, was usually chanted by the priests, the whole multitude of worshippers waving branches of willow and palm, and at certain intervals shouting the response, " O Lord, I beseech thee, send now prosperity." This was the Hallelujah or Hosanna. The children who were old enough to wave the branches and re- peat the words joined in the responses. The willow wands them- selves came to be called Hosannas. And so whenever there were occasions of happy excitement and joyous anticipation, this pas- sage from the Psalm became its form of utterance. There were true hearts out of which this cry of joy went up in utmost sincerity ; but the mass of the people were carried away with a wild kind of excitement which had no sub- stantial basis of faith. They were a festival pop- ulation, the people of the city and the vicinity, whose bread was in the maintenance of the sacred metropolitan character of Jeru- salem. As the mass of the citizens of Rome at this day, artists and artisans, depend for their livelihood upon Rome's being kept the centre of ecclesiastical attraction, and might therefore regret any movement which should take the Papal throne from the city or break up a system which by repeated festivals and processions and spectacular exhibitions of surpassing ecclesiastical splendor draws thousands of visitors and tens of thousands of dollars an- nually to Rome, but might favor any candidate for the Papacy 35 546 THE LAST WEEK. who should promise a vast increase of these attractions, so these Jerusalemites did this Sunday shout "Hosanna" to the young Teacher, after whom they cried, " Crucify him, crucify him," on the following Friday. Jesus knew the hollo wness of this parade and of this eulogistic uproar. He allowed himself to be addressed as Messiah. If any sifiister political interpretation were given it, he could appeal to his whole course heretofore. He would try his nation. He meant to be their spiritual leader, and set them free by making them fit to be free, if they would accept such leadership as that. They meant to make him kin'g of the nation civilly, the royal successor of the royal David, the Messiah who should break the Roman yoke, and bring the nations to be tributaries' of the Holy People, planting the banners of the Hebrew faith and polity on every high place of the earth, and making Jerusalem the "World-Metropolis. He could not induce them to accept him as such a king as he meant to be, and he would not be such a king as they desired. They could not induce him to fulfil their wishes, and they would not comply with his requirements. This Palm- Sunday they tried their experiment, hoping to betray him in a moment of excitement into the assumption of a position from which he could not retreat until he had carried out their de- signs. He spent the week in one last long effort to lift them to his plane of vision. They failed. He failed. The same multi tude, when they found they had failed, wheeled into line with the forces of the church, and increased the weight that was flung on the lofty and lovely young Dissenter and Heretic to crush him out of the world. The emissaries of the church failed to understand the temper of this festive mob, and felt as if their case was about to be lost. They said to one another, each blaming his neigh- The c urc ^ or £ Qr mem * c i enC y as men j n sncn circumstances frightened. _ [r _•' . are wont to do, " Do you not perceive how ye pre- vail nothing ? Behold the world is gone after him ! " It really seemed as if the world had gone after him. As they looked upon the mountain side it was covered with an immense multitude, and when these waved their branches and shouted their song the clear air was filled with the multitudinous music ; and the enemies of Jesus, clad in robes of priestly authority, sitting in the high places of churchly power, plotting the murder of Jesus, heard that shout, THE FIRST DAT. 547 and shook in. their timorous pride as Jesus neared the city, sitting simple and quiet on the ass's colt, a pure personage without pre- tence, a good man to be flung up against the rock of the church by the billows of the popular enthusiasm, and left there to perish when that tide ebbed, but who now seemed to priest and Pharisee a bitter riddle of destiny, whose presence shook them with aD ague of fear and inflamed them with a fever of hatred. Some of that party being with the multitude, and offended by this open acknowledgment of his Messiahship, said to Jesus, " Teacher, rebuke your disciples : " which far from doing, Jesua answered, " I tell you that if these should be silent the stones will cry out;" signifying by this proverbial expression, "Do you ex- pect my disciples to be harder than stones ? They have followed me through my years of ministry, they have seen me open the eyes of the blind and unstop the ears of the deaf, and cleanse the skin of the leper, and raise the very dead, and now they see the general people acknowledge me : are they stones that they should show no emotion?" Then they came in sight of the city. From the summit of Mount Olives the view of Jerusalem on the opposite heights is very imposing. The Crusaders broke into jubilation , * « -.i-i-i., -n, T-ii-i rn sight of Je- when they first beheld it. But now Jesus looked msa]em with profound sadness at its walls and temples, and dwellings and towers, with its thousands of historical associa- tions, of kings and prophets and holy men, of splendid worship and bitter bigotry and deeds of violence, in the days of its glory and the days of its gloom, the city of the Great King now held as an outpost of a heathen empire. It was his Father's House on earth. It was the repository of the oracles of God. But now it was about to reject, to betray, and to murder him. What a city it might speedily become if it would but be the first to accept the form of civilization he could give, and the spiritualized forms of faith he could impart ! Its doom rose up before his mind. This great city was hastening to a direful catastrophe and knew it not. The very spirit which led the reigning party in Jerusalem to reject Jesus would precipitate the city into such acts as should bring down upon it the crushing arm of the Roman Empire. He foresaw all that. He was " a man that could certainly divine." He beheld the Roman cohorts encamped with their engines of wa r laying siege to the city of David. He saw the fagot and the sword 548 THE LAST WEEK. carrying destruction to buildings, and death to men, and worse than death to women. He saw the Roman eagle flaunting in the holy place, and the priests murdered as they attempted to flee, and ferocity and lust penetrating everywhere, and soiling and tram- pling and ruining everything sacred in man, or woman, or temple. It swept over the city of the House of God. His was .a great, en- during, tender nature. This outburst was no relieving shower of sentiment overflowing his eyelids ; it was the genuine expression of manliest noblest sorrow for a fall from an eminence so august to an abyss so base, that never in the ages would Jerusalem climb back to the splendid exaltation from which she was about to be toppled. Amid his sobs his disciples heard him apostrophizing the city in these tear-wet words. " If thou hadst known — in this day — even thou — the things for peace ! But now — they are Jesus apostro- i • -, n ,-1 . i-n -i in phizes Jerusalem. hld f r0m thllie e J e& l ~ For <% S sha11 COme U P 0n thee when thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, — and shall level thee with the ground, and thy children in thee : and they shall not leave in thee stone upon stone, because thou know- est not the day of thy visitation ! " Down the slopes of the Olive Mount, past the Gethsemane Gar- den, over the Kedron Creek, went the Palm-Sunday procession. Serene and sad sat Jesus on the colt as the singing and Temple cavalcade, ascending to the white walls, passed through the gates into the streets of Jerusalem, making the city to ring with the gladness of their exuberant song. From the lowliest, Jesus had ascended to the highest place in the nation. This festal procession was becoming something like a royal cortege. All the city was moved. Out of the windows peered priest and Pharisee, and said, "Who is this?" And the people answered, " This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee." Perhaps those who answered were Galilseans themselves, and, becoming proud of the prophet that had sprung from their country, they made a response which was the very answer, whether so intended or not, to anger the hierarchic party. But the tone in which the popular party answered the priestly party sounds to me like an abatement of enthusiasm. They do not cry out, " This is the King of Israel coming in the name of the Lord ! Come down, ye priests and Pharisees, and render him homage." Jesus doubt- less felt all this abatement of popular zeaL THE FIRST DAY. 549 Jesus went forthwith to the Temple, and made an inspection of all things in the holy place. There were certain Greeks, probably Jewish proselytes, who had come np to the feast, and, with all that intellectual inquisitive- ness which marked the Hellenistic character, they T -r-r , . Greeks seek him. were eager to see Jesus. He was a fresh phe- nomenon of humanity. They seem to have been people of cul- ture. They were at least polite, and did not intrude on the Great Teacher, but communicated their desires to Philip of Bethsaida. Perhaps Philip had Greek blood in him, as his name indicates. He certainly had modesty. Although these Greeks represented the most polished forms of civilization, they were, by Hebrew narrowness, regarded as the lowest class of worshippers in the great Temple. He consulted his brother disciple Andrew, and upon agreement they both told Jesus. So far from meeting a repulse these disciples found that the very message filled Jesus with a strange joy. He welcomed the Greeks, and said to them and to his disciples, " The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified. I most assuredly say to you, That except a grain of wheat falling into the ground die, it abides alone ; but if it die, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it unto perpet ual life. If any one serve me, let him follow me ; and where 1 am, there also shall my servant be. If any man serve me, the Father will honor him." The shouts of the people did not exhilarate Jesus, did not for a moment throw him from his mental equipoise. Indeed Jesus seems grand in his solitary sadness amid this po- pular gladness. But the coming of the Greeks t k erew itii 6eems a great delight to him. He is thereby glorified. To say so was disloyalty and heresy. It was enough that as proselytes they were barely admitted within holy precincts. Loyalty to Hebrew traditions demanded contempt of pagans, and loyalty to the church par|^ demanded contempt for all the world that did not live as the Pharisees directed and worship as the priests taught. But the soul of Jesus was so tall as to look over the pale of man's church ; indeed to perceive that that rotten structure was to be by himself felled to the ground, that the whole world might be let into one. That was his glorification. It required martyrdom to accomplish it, and he was going to endure that martyrdom and 550 THE LAST WEEK. accomplish that glorious bringing of all peoples into one. The births of life are through the husks and corruption of death, a truth which finds forceful and beautiful illustration in vegetable reprod action. The man who, like the foolish farmer, will not sow his wheat because he desires to save his wheat, will surely lose it all. " To hate " one's life is a Hebraism signifying to " value less." He who values this present form of life less than the life which is perpetual shall keep both this and that. Jesus intended to yield this petty Palm-Sunday triumph, and even the apparently more substantial royalty of supreme civil rule, so that he might live in the lives of the world and be king over the hearts of the ages. He desired his disciples to follow his example, and promised that all who did, whatever earthly distinctions they might miss, should have honor from God. Then a great shudder passed through him, and he said, " Now is my soul troubled : and what shall I say ? " He paused. He had not been misled for an instant. He knew where all this would end. The horror of death came upon him. He cried out, " Father, save me from this hour." It was a natural cry. It was the instinctive love of life. If he had yielded and pressed that ques- tion, it would have been that loving of life which loses it. He rallied. No ; he will not sacrifice the perpetual to the temporary. He said, " But on this account came I to this hour. Father, glo- rify thy name." We do not know what Jesus meant by " on this account." There was something in his mind which did not, per- haps could not, come out in words. It was a great soul in a frightful spiritual storm. In his agitation the anguish compelled the utterance of the first prayer. He was strong enough to reverse it, and to change it instantly from " my deliverance " to " thy glory." A notable thing then occurred. A sound was heard. It seemed to be a voice from heaven. Three interpretations were given to it. Some said it thundered. Some said, " An angel has spoken to him." Some said there were these words spoken : " And I have glo^fied, and I will glorify." It is plain that all heard a sound. The three interpretations are to be explained on two grounds, the difference in relative position and the difference in psychical condition. Thus on the more dis- tant it may have produced only the impression of an inarticulate heavy noise like thunder ; on those nearer, the impression of arti- culate yet confused utterances, articulate in themselves but not dis- THE FIRST DAY. 551 tinct to the hearers ; on the nearest, the very syllables which are repeated in the history. Or Jesus himself may have heard these words, and have given a subsequent explanation of them to hia disciples. Again, on the supposition that these very w T ords were spoken, there were but few who were so receptive as to hear them, while to others they sounded like a voice in the air, and to others like thunder. This latter view of the case seems to me the more reasonable. That God has spoken to man, all believe who are not atheists 01 the most dreary materialists. Instances in which men of good understanding have believed that they heard voices are not to be put aside by our grossly material philosophy as the hallucinations of a diseased mind. The Jewish writers speak of the Bath-Kol, bi'p-na , the daughter of the voice, as a kind of second voice, an internal articulation, addressed to the inner sense by the good God, and second in authority only to the inspiration enjoyed by the Old Testament prophets. The Targum and Midrash represent it as the actual medium of divine communication with Abraham, Moses, David, Nebuchadnezzar, etc. In the history of the early Christians we have accounts of a " voice or voices," as in the conversion of Saul and the vision of Peter. (Acts ix. 7, x. 13, 15.) Josephus tells of a " voice," supposed by some to be the Bath-Kol, which informed Ilyreanus that his sons had conquered Antiochus. (Ant., xiii. 10, 3.) The same historian relates that, just before the fall of Jerusalem, one night as the priests were going into the Temple to perform their sacred ministrations, they heard a multitudinous voice saying, " Let us go hence." ( War, vi. 53.) Similar instances might be adduced from the records of all succeeding ages like the " tolle, lege," take, read, w^hich Augustine heard when he was converted. Perhaps any finely organized reader of this page will bring from his memory something similar in his own experience. It is scarcely philosophical to call these fancies. Our modern science instructs us that the phenomena which are able to affect objectively do exist subjectively in every man's constitution. Thus there is something existing subjectively in every man w/hieli responds to the objective impingement of the atmospheric waves on the tympanum. Now, unless one be an atheist, or, believing in the existence of God, believe that He never desires to com- municate with man, or desiring to communicate, has not left open 552 THE LAST WEEK. to Himself every avenue of approach, which is free to a man's fellow-men, I can see no difficulty in receiving the theory that this God can form in a man, immediately, the very sensations and perceptions which are produced mediately by his fellow-men who form sounds in the brain of the hearer, through the audi- tory nerves, by waves of air which the speaker sets in motion. Even then each man's impression would be measured by his capabi- lities of reception, as in an audience of a thousand there are a thousand different results produced by the same speech ; as on the exhibition of a picture to a thousand persons, a thousand dif- ferent impressions have been made. To any human or divine fountain, whosoever comes carries away just so much water as his vessel holds. Jesus recognized the voice. He was no fanatic. Through his whole history nothing is more apparent than the absence of all fanaticism. He is no trickster. Nothing seems more open than his public life. His whole his- tory is like a structure which is all windows. From any side one sees all through. He said, " This voice came not on my account, but for you. Now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things unto myself." John says that he said this signifying what manner of death he should die. He felt sure that he was to be crucified. He felt sure that that which his enemies supposed would be a wall between him and the world, keeping all men away from him, namely, his death of ignominy, would be a position of elevation from which he should exert the attractive influence of his great character on the whole world. Then a voice, representing the skepticism of the multitude, said, "We have heard out of the law that the Christ abides through the ages, and how do you say that it is necessary Christ abides that the Son of Man be lifted up ? Who is this forever. Son of Man?" It seems clear from this that the name " Son of Man," to the apprehension of the common people, was identical with the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed Saviour of Israel. Of him the people had a belief, gathered from their sacred writings, that he should abide forever, and this they intei- preted in a sensuous manner. If the reader will take the pains to consult the passages in Isaiah ix. 7, and Daniel vii. 14, he will THE FIRST DAT. 553 see how easy it was for minds not given to the study of spiritual things, but filled with violent national prejudices, to make an in- terpretation like that these people placed on the words. It is also clear that in some part of his sayings that day Jesus had called himself the Son of Man. Especially were they unprepared now to give up so suddenly the hopes which the Palm procession had so greatly kindled. He, Jesus, was to be the Messiah, to remain on the throne of David forever, to administer a government which should have no end, to subdue all peoples to the Hebrew theo- cracy ; and now he speaks as if he were the Son of Man, on whom is laid the necessity of being crucified. They never suspect the soundness of their own orthodoxy nor the correctness of their own logic, by which, from a perpetual reign, they had inferred a per- petual personal presence of the Messiah. Jesus does not resolve this question directly. He says simply, " Walk whilst you have the light, that the darkness may not over- take you : for he who walks in darkness knows not where he goes. As you have the light, believe in the light, that you may be sons of the light." As if he had said : You need not perplex your- selves with questions whose solution one way or another would have no benefit on your moral character. Do what your present duty enjoins. Go forward. Children are obedient to their parents. " Children of the light " is a Hebraism for those who are obedi- ent to the light. Thus ended Sunday the 2d of April. Jesus went out of the city as the evening approached, and over the darkening hills took his way to Bethany, where he lodged thai night. STATER— ANTIOCHT7S EPIPHANES. CHAPTER II. THE SECOND DAY FROM SUNDAY EVENING- TO MONDAY EVENING. The second day of the week found Jesus early on the road accompanied by his disciples, going up to Jerusalem. The record B t B th- ^ s tnatne was hungry. Why the early morn should any and Jerusa- n 'nd him so, when he might have broken fast with lem. Monday, 3d his friends in Bethany, is not so very clear. He April. Matt, xxi.; Mia y ] iave spent the night in devotion, and, being joined by his disciples before sunrise, proceeded at once to the city, knowing that his time was short, and it be- hooved him to do promptly all that he would do before the final catastrophe. As they were going towards the city he saw a solitary hg-tree on the roadside, at some distance in advance, and was attracted by its display of leafage. He approached it, if e arren g- j^pjy ^ e m ight find something on it. There was no fruit; there was nothing but leaves. He said to it, "May no one, to the end of this age, eat fruit of you!" We shall see that the next morning the disciples noticed that it was utterly withered. Few passages in the life of Jesus have been so perplexing to his friends, and such an apparent vantage-ground to those who either dislike Jesus or disbelieve his history as this. The destructive critics, such as Dr. Strauss, call it " a vindictive miracle." This author calls attention to the fact that "it is the only one of its kind in the Evangelical history." The friends of both the his- torian and Jesus have felt that it is a passage specially pressed with difficulties. It is a flaw in the crystal, a muddy place in the clear stream, an ugly cloud on the pure sky. And so the com- mentators have endeavored to explain away what seems to obscure the character of Jesus in this act. But after all attempts there stands the fact that Jesus cursed a tree, and it withered. It was a miracle. Was it vindictive? If Jesus was angry, had he just THE SECOND DAY. 555 cause to be angry ? He had his passions. There is no more sin in anger than in hunger, in the abstract. But was he at all angry ! The trouble in the narrative is that it is believed to tell the fol lowing story, namely : Jesus saw a fig-tree in full leaf ; he was hungry, and went to it, hoping to be able to gather figs ; he was disappointed ; he was angered ; he cursed the tree: under that curse it withered. This is not a pleasant picture of a great and good man. The dif- ficulty is increased by the statement of Mark, " for it was not the season of figs." Then the tree could not reasonably have been expected to have figs. It is treated as a free moral agent, being only a vegetable, and is then destroyed for not doing what it could not do. This seems a hard fate for the tree, and unhandsome con- duct in Jesus. To abate the embarrassment, one commentator * proposes a change in the reading of the Greek, so that it shall read, " whero he was it was the season of figs." This has two difficulties, 1. There is no codex that justifies this reading ; and, 2. It was not a fact. He was in the rocky regions of Judaea, and it was early in April. Josephus tells us that in the neighborhood of the Sea of Galilee figs grew ten months in the year ; but this was not true of the vicinity of Jerusalem. Equally futile is the suggestion of another, to read the passage as a question : " For was it not the season of figs?" Of course it was not. Moreover, that style does not appear in Mark. While he is a graphic word-painter, he has no emotional rhetoric. The same may be said of another f sug- gestion : " it was not a good season for figs." There is no author- ity for the reading, and it was quite too early in the year to de- clare whether it was to be a good season or not. Another explan- ation is that the "fig harvest" had not yet arrived ; that is, Jesus came expecting fruit, because the time in which the figs were gathered had not yet come, so that there could not be the explan- ation that there had been a good crop, and that it had been gath- ered. This is more nearly reasonable than the others. But still there is the fact, in the natural history of the fig, that it does not ordinarily ripen in Palestine until June. We are told there is an early kind which has been gathered as far up as Lebanon as early * Heinsius, Exercit. Sac., ed. 1639, p. | f Hammond, Annot. ad S. Marc 116. 556 THE LAST WEEK. as May, yet the general time of ripening is June. There are othei interpretations, but these will suffice as samples. It is to be observed that none of these explanations touch the root of the matter — the destruction of an inanimate object because it was not in the condition in which it was expected to be found. Friends and foes seem to agree on one point, which Dr. Strauss states thus : " Mark adds these words in order to explain, — what in the case of a particular tree may be easily ex- A great mistake. ■, . , . « . , ,. „ , , plained, even m ng-time, by disease or from local causes, — why Jesus found no fruit upon it? It seems to me that Mark did no such thing. It was not the absence of fruit but the presence of leaves which Mark sought to explain. It appears that in the case of the fig the fruit often appears before, and generally with, the leaves ; the early fruit comes before the leaves, which do not appear until late in the season.* Indeed, the appearance of fig-leaves is one of the signs of approaching summer, as Jesus said (Matthew xxiv. 32), " When its branch . . . puts forth leaves you know that the summer is nigh." If the yap in the original be translated " although " instead of " for," it seems to me that great help will be afforded to the proper comprehension of the passage. ~No man was expecting figs ; but as they went towards Jerusalem, in these first days of April, they saw a fig- tree in foliage, " although it was not the season of figs." If leaves, then there should have been fruit, for the fruit comes first. Jesus was not angry, but, as was usual with Oriental teachers, when he found occasion to teach a lesson symbolically, he seized the occa- sion. He blighted the tree not because it did not have fruit, but be- cause being fruitless it did have leaves. The tree stood a symbol of the Jewish people, leafy and fruitless ; in grea ss . ac [ var , ce f a |] ^} ie na tions of the earth in religious pretensions, while being at the same time quite as destitute of real fruit as the Greeks and Romans and others, whom they re- garded as barbarians and pagans. In a special manner that par- ticular sect of the Jews called the Pharisees leafed out into mani- fold baptisms, and minute tithings, and excessive fastings, and broadened phylacteries, while the fruits of piety and humanity were nowhere to be found in their lives. The act of Jesus was not vindictive, but didactic ; he did no harm to the tree, while he * Hackett's Illus. of Scriptures, p. 141. THE SECOND DAY. 557 A grand truth. impressed a profound lesson upon his disciples by what may be considered an acted Parable and Prophecy. But there is still another consideration which seems to me more important than all others. Possessing power to smite and tc destroy, and being about to yield himself volun- tarily to death, a death from which he might easily extricate himself by destroying all his enemies, it was im- portant that the world should know that he had this power; otherwise the grandeur of his self-sacrifice would be unknown to the race. There were only two ways in which he could exhibit it, by smiting things animate or things inanimate. It was in pur- est mercy that he chose the latter. We now know what he could have done when bound, and buffeted, and insulted, and led out to be crucified. He could have made Caiaphas, or Pilate, or Herod, or the Roman centurion the blasted result of the exercise of his power. To know that he had this power, and did not exert it on men, under the circumstances, is the grandest display of mercy possible to man, and, let it be said devoutly, possible to God. It is worth more than all the trees that ever grew. Plant this stricken tree of Tuesday beside the cross of Friday, and you have a suggestion worth the study of man through all ages of time and of eternity. We have seen that very early in his ministry Jesus had entered the Temple and rebuked its secularization by driving the profaning money-changers from the sacred precincts. (See -icxn\ t, i ,i i Second cleansing p. 126.) It does not seem to have made a per- f the Temple manent cure of the evil. The Temple-market as it was called, tabernce, where animals for sacrifice, and oil, and wine, and salt, and incense, were sold to worshippers, and the uncurrent and profane coin of those who came from distant coun- tries was exchanged, had been set up again in the Court of the Gentiles. Again Jesus overturned the tables of the money- changers and the seats of the dove-sellers, and drove these mer- chants from the House of God, and forbade the carrying of uten- sils through the Holy House, as if it were a common edifice.* * It is supposed that operatives and mechanics on their way to work stepped in for worship, bringing their tools with them and setting them down while they prayed, thus making the Temple a com- mon-place. Perhaps also, rather than take a longer way around, those who were engaged about the Temple carried utensils through the holy places. It was the general secularization of holy things which Jesus rebuked and endeav- ored to reform. 558 THE LAST WEEK. It is to be noticed that the first cleansing of the Temple, at the beginning of his ministry, was performed by Jesus as an act of zeal on his part as a prophet. The learned Selden * and others maintain the existence of a zealot-right, which justified one who was moved by sudden uncontrollable prophetic impulse to attack existing irregularities in the national worship. In some such spirit Jesus seems to have performed the first cleansing. This second purification appears to be made in character of Messiah. The people were giving him such a recognition. He could not, in such a position, allow this profanation of the Temple of God. It is to be noticed that the first purification excelled in violence of act, and the second in severity of word. In both cases there was a majesty and moral force in the very presence of Jesus, which accomplished the cleaning of the courts by the quick disappear- ance of the merchants. Freely combining and using two passages from the prophetic writings, Isaiah lvi. 7, and Jer. vii. 11, he says : " Is it not written that My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations \ But you are making it a den of robbers." The charge is that The Church had become at once narrow and pro- fane. God's religion has the spirit of universality ; it is a religion for all the nations ; theirs excluded the nations, and where Human- ity should have been represented there was a body of thieves. These fine discriminations are characteristic of Jesus — discri- minations which escape ordinary observation, but which, when once made by him, summon the history of the Fine discrimina- -i -• , ,, . n , T . . world to their demonstration. In every age we can now see, since Jesus has indicated it, that there is an exceedingly slight difference between a bigot and a thief. He who is unwilling to allow to his fellow-man the spiritual rights he has in virtue of being a man, will not long hesitate to take from him his material properties. And he who will cheat a saint will not long hesitate, when he has an oppor- tunity, to defraud a sinner. This severity was followed by acts of mercy. Blind and lame people came to him, and he healed them publicly in the Temple. The children caught the general enthusiasm. The " remembrance of Palm-Sunday jubilations and the sight of the discomfited merchants, and of the healed patients, * De Jure Nat. et Gent. , iv. 6. The | Phinehas, Numb. xxv. 11. supposition is suggested by the act of THE SECOND DAT. 559 whose sight and activity had been restored, kindled the ardor of the young, and they sang around the powerful Teacher, " Hosanna to the Son of David." It gave sore displeasure to the churchmen to see a man who was not in the succession, not of the tribe of Aaron, doing things more wonderful than miracles, and receiving these Messianic salutations. To the latter they called his atten- tion, pointing to the children, and saying : " Do you hear what these say ? " His reply was prompt and emphatic : " Yes ! Have you never read, ' Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Tliou hast perfected praise ? ' " (Psalm viii. 2.) They did not believe that he was the Messiah in any sense. The children employed words from the sacred writings which, whatever sense their ten- der minds may have seen in them, no man could accept who did not believe himself to be the Messiah in some sense. Jesus did accept them. More and more the malignity of the church deepened against him. The scribes and chief priests sought how they might destroy him ; for they feared him because the people were astonished at his teaching. During the day he taught in the Temple. "When the evening came he retired to rest in Bethany. CHAPTEK III. THE THIRD DAY FROM MONDAY EVENING TO TUESDAY EVENING. The morning of the third day found Jesus and his disciples re- turning to Jerusalem. It would seem to have been dark when they crossed the Mount of Olives the evening be- fore, so dark that they had not noticed the condi- tion of the fig-tree which they had visited the morn- ing previous. But now its appearance arrested Bethany and Je- rusalem. Tuesday, 3d April, 12th Ni- san, a. u. 783. Matt, xxi., xxii., xxiii. , xxiv. , xxv. , xxvi. ; Mark xi , xi;., xiii., xiv. ; Luke xx. , xxi. their attention. The blight which Jesus shed upon it seemsto have begun to take effect at once, and in twenty-four hours such a change had been wrought that now it was dried up from the rocts. Peter, calling the yesterday to remembrance, said to Jesus : " Rabbi, see ; the fig-tree which you cursed is withered away." The solemn reply of Jesus was : " If you have faith in God, I assuredly say to you, whosoever shall say to this mountain, ' Be removed and cast into the sea,' and shall not be divided in his heart, but shall believe that what he says is coming, it shall be to him. On this account I say to you, All things whatever you pray and ask, believe that you have received, and they shall be to you. And when you stand praying forgive, if you have anything against any one, that your Father in the heavens may also forgive you your trespasses." * It is noticeable that, frequent and wonderful as has been the exhibition of the powers of Jesus, each fresh display strikes his disciples with astonishment. They had seen the dead raised, and now they are astonished at the withering of a fig-tree. Jesus turns them from astonishment at the phenomena to con- sider the necessary internal condition of a powerful soul to be that of faith in God. A literal interpretation of his words about * In the common version, Mark xi. 26, there is added, "But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses." But these words do not appear in the original in the oldest MSS. THE THIRD DAT. 561 removing mountains may be quite puzzling, and perhaps we can hardly satisfy ourselves with the suggestion that he pointed to the opposite mountain, on which the Temple , . -i * t j> »,i i • t • -i - i , Removing moun« stood, as meaning that, by iaitn, his disciples might tains be sustained in such a course as should lift the mountain of Judaism, and fling it out of the way of the progress of true religion. But it is quite natural to suppose that he taught that faith is superior to bodily strength, and that generally the spiritual forces of the universe are superior to the physical. And this is consistent with the spirit of the whole body of his teaching. As for the remainder of his speech, it is a repetition of what we have had in the Sermon on the Mount. The people assembled at an early hour in the Temple. There never had been so exciting a Feast in the knowledge of the oldest worshipper, and the occurrences of the previous day had increased the excitement. Soon after it „ the arrival of Jesus, the representatives of the church party, the High-Priest," accompanied by the scribes and the elders, came to him with that same old foolish churchly question, " By what authority are you doing these things ? and * In the Evangelists it is k ' chief priests." Lange says: " The plural is explained by the then existing relations of the high-priesthood. The high-priest was supposed legally to enjoy his func- tion during life (see Winer, art. Holte- priester) ; and before the exile we read of only one deposition (1 Kings ii 27). But since the time of the Syrian domi- nation the office had often changed hands under foreign influence ; it was often a foot-ball of religious and politi- cal parties, and sometimes even of the mob. This change was especially fre- quent under the Roman government. Thus Annas (Ananus) became high- priest seven years after the birth of Christ (iEra Dion.) ; seven years later Ishmael, at the command of the Roman procurator (Joseph., Antig., xviii. 2, 2) ; afterward Eleazer, son of Annas ; a year later, one Simon; and after another year, Joseph Caiaphas, a son-in-law of A mi as. Thus Caiaphas was now the i 36 official high-priest ; but, in consistency with Jewish feelings, we may assume that Annas was honored in connection with him as the properly legitimate high- priest. This estimation might be fur- ther disguised by the fact of his being at the same time the pD, or vicar of the high-priest (Lightfoot) ; or, if he was, the fcOfcO , president of the Sanhe- drim (Wieseler). Compare, however, Winer, sub Synednum. That, in fact, high respect was paid to him, is proved by the circumstance that Jesus was taken to him first for a private examin- ation (John xviii. 13). And thus he here appears to have come forward with the rest, in his relation of colleague to the official high-priest. Moreover, the heads of the twenty-four classes of the priests might be included under this name. Probably the whole was the re- sult of a very formal and solemn ordi- nance of the Council, at whose heads stood the high-priests." 562 THE LAST WEEK. who gave you this authority to do these things ? " It ought not so much to surprise us that the bigots of the old narrow Judaism should ask these questions as that the nonsense of propounding them should have been perpetuated through eighteen centuries, and be in as full force in London and New York to-day, not to say in Home, as it was in Jerusalem in the days of Jesus. As if in all ages of the world the knowing of any truth does not give to him that knows the authority to proclaim it. As if in all ages, the possession of any moral power to do good does not give the possessor the right to exert that power. As if the luminousness of the intellect of Jesus, and the manifest control he held over the physical world, did not lift him out of the circle to which these stupid and powerless churchmen could with any propriety address such a question. But they had just that dulness of spir- itual perception which ordinarily accompanies narrow cunning. This latter trait appears in them. They hope to give him trouble by a dilemma. He might put forth some claim which would con- flict with the acknowledged canons of "the church ; " any claim he could make they supposed would do that ; or, if he could show no credentials, he would lose his hold upon the people. It is to be noticed that when the zeal of Jesus led him in the first instance, and in the beginning of his ministry, to purify the Temple, the church party demanded a "sign." Now, for the space of three years, he had been filling his ministry with marvels, and signs, and wonders, and miracles. It would make them ridiculous to demand a sign so near the very spot where Lazarus was raised from the dead. They now, perversely, demand his " authority." In their own nets were their feet entangled. Jesus submitted a counter-dilemma. They claimed to be the body set to judge the right of teachers and prophets to fulfil their vocation. Jesus determined that, as they had lemma. 7 J publicly challenged him, they should as publicly demonstrate their capability of sitting in judgment on such cases. With that view he submitted to them a case well known to them, to him, and to the multitude who were listening — the case of John Baptist. Jesus said, " I also will ask of you one question, and answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John — was it from heaven, or from men ? Answer me ! " All the people knew John ; so did the Sanhedrim. THE THIRD DAT. 563 It was a sudden question in the field of theocratic investigation. They saw the dilemma, and held a short private consultation.* Jesus silently awaited their answer. The multi- tude were too deeply interested to disperse. The Sanhedrim had only two courses from which to elect, to retire and leave the field to Jesus, or shape some reply. It was a question which demanded a categorical answer. Should it be " from hea- ven," they knew Jesus would reply, " Why then did you not be- lieve him 1 " and they recollected that John had borne the most emphatic testimony to Jesus. They would thus acknowledge John, whom they had rejected ; but if they did so, it would deprive them of all prestige and influence in judging Jesus. " The Church " weighed consequences, not truth ; that is the fashion of " The Church " in every land, in all ages. But if they should say " of men," deciding that John had no authority from heaven, that his was a self-assumed office, in which he was sustained by his partisans, who also were without divine authority, then they feared that the people would stone them, for the multitude held John to be a. prophet. There was uo escape. They saw it, and returned to Jesus with the statement, " We do not know." And Jesus said to them, " Neither do I tell } t ou by what authority I do these things." If they were not able to determine from the whole ministry of John, which was now completed, whether he had God's favor or not, still less were they able to judge Jesus in the midst of this excite- ment. Their discomfiture was complete. They acknowledged their inability to exercise the functions of the highest office in a theocracy, which office they were ostentatiously parading, and the dignity, the authority, and the power of which they had brought forth to crush Jesus. He appealed from the highest church tri- bunal to the private judgment of mankind, and is sustained wher- ever there are candid judges. He then poured in upon these pretentious churchmen a raking broadside of parables. In further reply he said, " But what think ye ? A man had two children : and he came to the first and said, ' Child, go work to- * For the report of this consultation we are probably indebted to Mcodemus, who was a member of the Sandedrim, and a private friend to the disciples of Jesus, to whom he probably communi- cated what had passed in this consulta- tion. 564 THE LAST WEEK. day in the vineyard.' And he answering, said, f I will not.' Afterwards, having repented, he went. And he came* to the other, and said likewise. And he answering, said, ' I go, Parable of the . „ ^ went nQt Which of ^ twQ did ^ Two Sons. will of his father ? " They answered, " The first." Jesus said to them, " The tax-gatherers and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you believed him not ; but the tax- gatherers and the harlots believed him ; but you, when you had seen, repented not afterward, that you might believe him." This was exceedingly severe. These churchmen had expressed a willingness to serve God, as had been shown in their high moral professions and pretensions of legal righteousness. John came an earnest preacher of that very kind of righteousness, urging that it be done from the heart toward God. The scribes and Pharisees phowed their insincerity by rejecting just such a preacher as it is evident they would have hailed with joy, if they had not been hypocrites. And when God set the seal of His sanction by the conversion of the worst class of men and women in the commu- nity, even then the church authorities rejected him who bore the credentials of the heavenly Father's approval of his ministry. So perverse was their hypocrisy, that when the most convincing proofs of their error came, they refused to repent of the original rejection of John. In general two classes of sinners are here represented, as in the parable of the Prodigal Son, the one at first outbreaking, yet afterward repentant and obedient, the other pretending to obedi- ence, going the full length of obedience in speech, while disobe- dient at heart and in action. Publicans and harlots are the former, hypocrites and churchmen are the latter. Jesus continues his pungent appeal to the consciences of his adversaries. He said : " Hear another parable : A man, a house- holder, planted a vineyard, and made a hedge Parable of the about it and di2; ed a w i ne -trough, and built a Wicked Husband- mSirL tower, and let it out to farmers, and went abroad. And at the season of fruit he sent a slave to the farmers, that he might receive from the farmers [his share] of the fruits of the vineyard. And [the farmers] having caught him, beat and sent him away with nothing. And again he sent to them another : and him they wounded in the head and dishon- THE THIRD DAT. 565 ored. And again he sent another, and that one they killed ; and many others, beating some and killing some. He had yet one be- loved son. He sent him at last to them, saying, ' They will rever ence my son.' But these farmers said among themselves, ' This is the heir ; come, let ns kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' And they took and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard." Then Jesus put the question : " When, then, the lord of the vine- yard shall come what shall he do to these farmers ? " From some one burst forth the reply : " He will miserably destroy those wicked men and let out the vineyard to other farmers, who shall render him the fruits in their season." Some one present ex- claimed : " Be it not so ! " or, as the passage stands in our com- mon version, " God forbid." Quoting Psalm cxviii. 22, Jesus said : " Have you not read this Scripture : ' A stone which the builders rejected the same became a head of a corner; from the Lord this came, and is wonderful to our eyes % ' " The chief priests and Pharisees felt the keenness of the speech against their principles and practices. They were not able to an- swer him, and therefore sought to silence by killing him, a thing they had already decreed to do. They were deterred only by a fear of the people, whose enthusiasm for Jesus was still easily ex- cited. Jesus went forward with his parables, so searching and so in- structive. He said to them : " The kingdom of the heavens is likened to a man, a king, who made wedding- feasts for his son, and sent forth his slaves to call . ParaUe •" Ma *- those who had been invited to the wedding-feast ; Son and they did not wish to come. Again he sent other slaves, saying : ' Tell those who have been invited, Behold I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready : come to the feast.' But they, making light of it, went away, one to his farm, another to his merchan- dise. And the rest, having seized his servants, insulted and slew them. And the king was enraged, and having sent his armies he destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then says he to his slaves : ' The wedding-feast is ready, but they who were in- vited were not worthy. Go you, therefore, to the outlets [the roads leading out into the country], and as many as you find call to the wedding-feast.' So, going out into the roads, those slaves 566 THE LAST WEEK. The heavenly Miigdom. gathered all whom they found, both bad and good, and the bride- chamber was fully furnished with guests. And the king, coming in to view the guests, saw there a man who had not on a wedding garment ; and he says to him : ' Friend, how did you come iu here, not having a wedding-garment ? ' And he was speechless. Then the king said to his servants : ' Having bound his feet and hands, cast him into the darkness which is without ; there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth : for many are called, but few chosen. " This seems to be an enlarged repetition of a parable uttered earlier in his ministry in the house of the Pharisee. (See p. 485.) That such a Teacher as Jesus often repeated his teachings is what may reasonably be supposed. He represents the heavenly kingdom in the light of a festivity, combining the two images under which the prophets were fond of painting the reign of the Messiah, namely, a feast and a wedding.* Here it is a feast given by a king on a special high oceasion,f the mar- riage of his son. Invitations are issued to great numbers of per- sons. In accordance with Oriental custom, at the time specified the second invitation is issued. An instance of this appears in the invitation of Esther to Haman to come to a banquet on the morrow, and the sending a chamberlain at the appointed hour to bring him to the feast. (Compare Esther v. 8, with vi. 14.) The subjects of this king had been entertaining feelings of rebellion against him, and now that they were able to insult him through his messengers, they did not let the occasion pass. Some treated the invitation with contempt, going, one to his estate, which he had already acquired, and another to the business which he hoped would enrich him, showing how they preferred their private inter- ests to the will and pleasure of their sovereign. Others, wrought up to rebellion, went so far as to kill the messengers of their king. The Pharisees saw in all this that Jesus meant to present a pic- torial history of the rebellious Jews, and felt that he was severe on them. But then he began to speak prophetically by describing the burning of the city by the enraged king. Could he be 80 audacious as to mean Jerusalem, holy Jerusalem, that that top- * Compare Isaiah xxv. 6, lxv. 13 ; Cant. v. 1, with Isaiah lxi. 10, lxii. 5, and Hosea ii. 19. f Hochzeit, high-time, in Germany, still means a marriage -feast. THE THIRD DAY. 567 Without the wedding-gar- ment. most of cities should be so destroyed \ It really seemed so. And if this festival was the good time of the Messianic reign, did he mean that the Jews were to be destroyed and the Gentiles brought in ? It really seemed so. After the destruction of the city the servants were ordered to go into the " outlets," where the streets ran into the country,* and bring in the outsiders. Jesus thus added fuel to the flame of the wrath of his enemies. But another lesson is made from this narrative. When the house became crowded the king went in to survey the guests, and found a man without the wedding-garment. He addressed him in language at once gentle and searching. Re called him " friend :" but in the Greek the " not having " is put in a word which suggests not simply the absence of the wedding-dress, but some defect in the behavior of the guest in allowing himself to be present without such a dress.f The speechlessness of the guest indicates that he had not even a specious apology to offer. The narrative assumes that garments w T ere at the guest's command, and therefore that the king himself had provided them. There seems to be no trace of such a custom exactly in this form, but we do know that splendid garments were reckoned among the treasures of Eastern chieftains and kings ; that some of them pos- sessed immense numbers of robes ; that the gift of costly raiment was a mark of honor ; and that a mantle presented by a king was to be worn in his presence, and that a failure to appear therein was considered offensive.:): In addition to what we read in the Old Testament, Horace § tells us that Lucullus found in his wardrobe not less than five thousand mantles. The fashions did not change as with us, and a man of wealth might accumulate and preserve * Trench guards his readers against being misled by the English word *' highways," as if this referred to the country, whereas the whole scene is represented as lying in a city. But this usually accurate and learned writ- er seems to have forgotten that the city is represented to have been burned before those servants go out into the highways. The original Greek word means outways as well as through- ways. f We are indebted to Trench for call- ing attention to the fact ' s that it is the subjective and not the objective particle of negation, which is here used." Ov tx wv signifies not having, without being con- scious of tbe absence of anything, or the necessity of its being present ; ytiij €% God, all j ustice towards man, all equipoise of character were set forth in a sentence which can be pronounced in a breath. They had accepted money from Caesar's mint, thus acknowledging the dominion of the Emperor ; thus they had settled against themselves in practical every-day life, the question which one of their schools had determined in the rabbinical rule, " The coin of the country shows the master." * Jesus thus gave a summary of his teaching in an answer the most profound, because it states what underlies all life and all the duties thereof; the most lofty, because it crowns the highest hopes of man for this present life, and his grandest for the life to come ; the most beauti- ful, because in it law and freedom kiss each other; the most power- ful, because it holds despotism and anarchy apart, and holds religion and progressive free life together. No other one sentence uttered among men has done so much for the progress of human society. It was not a divorcing of religion from government, and a putting of God out of the affairs of the nations, as if human A profound lea • son. * Ellicott quotes Maimonides in Ge- tdao" chap v. : " Ubicunque numisma regis alicujus obtinet, illic incolae regem istum pro domino agnoscunt. " See also Lightfoot, Hot. Eeb., in Matt. xxii. 2a 572 THE LAST WEEK. government and divine rule stood at neutrality or in antagonism. Nor was it a sanction of Jewish ideas of unity, as if service to an earthly monarch were treason to God, as under their theocracy they had grown to believe, since God was king. Caesar exists by appointment of God. Government does not exist by the will of the governed, nor by the will of the governor, but by the ordi- nance of God. Men dare not be without government ; nor is it practicable if men should attempt it. Duty to the government is best discharged by devotion to God ; and duty to God involves the discharge of obligations to the government. These hypocrites and liars who were tempting Jesus were like all the disciples of the " higher law " school in every age, making their pretended piety an excuse for a violation of civil obligations. They were willing to serve neither God nor Caesar, pleading one against the other that they might be free from both. But Jesus, instead of admitting the alternative of Caesar or God, assumes and impresses the con- nection of Caesar and God. Perhaps the idea that Jesus intended to convey a lesson by the allusion to the image on the coin is not without foundation. It has obtained in all Christian ages. Man bears God's image in his soul from the birth, and is a man because he does bear that image, as a piece of silver is a coin because it bears the image of the reigning prince. Eender your inner spiritual life to God and devote your outer worldly life to your country, might seem to be the lesson for each individual. In any case there is no collision of duties. When the Pharisees and Herodians heard the saying of Jesus they marvelled at the wisdom of his reply, and seeing that they could not take hold of his words before the people, they held their peace and left him, and went their way. \ But their pursuit of Jesus was not to be thus abandoned. If he cannot be caught by an adroit question regarding political princi- ples, perhaps he can be betrayed into saying some- The pursuit not ^ j n g wn ich shall rouse against him the adherents of one of the sects among the people. To that end the Sadducees approached him ; and they had a question so shaped that any answer they could conceive would either commit him against the law of Moses or drive him into the helplessness of silence. Jesus had endorsed the law of Moses, and had also explicitly taught the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. THE THIRD DAY. 573 The Sadducees were materialistic pantheists. They did not believe in any spirit, whether of man, angel, or God. They did not believe in the resurrection of the body, and therefore, as the body was all there was of man, the continued existence of con- scious personal identity was not received by them. They ran their principles to the logical ends of atheism or pantheism. In out- ward life they were decent, and considered themselves a part of the " church," and, so far as we can see, were not debarred by their philosophical tenets from being members of the Sanhedrim. For political reasons they were ready to join the Pharisees and the Herodians — indeed some of the sect may have been Herodians — in putting aside a man whose course threatened to bring the Jews into collision with the Romans without the prospect of making a successful revolt against the dominant empire. The Sadducees plant themselves on Moses and quote the law of' the Levirate marriage, thus : " Teacher, Moses said, If any one die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up seed to his brother. But there a ^ e stion b 7 ^e were with us seven brothers ; and the first, having married, died, and not having seed he left his wife to his brother. Likewise the second also, and the third, until the seventh. And last of all the woman died. Now in the resurrection of which of the seven shall she be wife?" From their standiug-point this seems like a difficulty from which Jesus cannot extricate himself. He must admit that their statement of the law, being a free render- ing of Deuteronomy xxv. 5, is quite correct. Then they state a case. Whether it occurred in real life or is imagined in order to test the principle, is not important. It might occur. It would have been sufficient to take the very case which Moses supposed, namely, of two brothers ; but the greater the number the greater the perplexity, and therefore they state seven. It is clear that they suppose that Moses did not believe in the resurrection, and the question which they state involves, as they think, in any reply which Jesus can make, a surrender of the truth of the doctrine of the resurrection, or of the binding force of the law of Mose?, It is quite clear that they did not propound the question that they might be enlightened. It was to entangle Jesus. The reply of Jesus was lofty in its spirit and demolishing in its stroke. He did not deign a reply to a sneer at a great doctrine, nor a solution specially applicable to a case sensually conceived 574 THE LAST WEEK. and coarsely stated. He showed their folly and stated the great principle involved in the case, and demonstrated by a single quota- tion from the writings of Moses that the great law- sus - giver was neither pantheist nor Sadducee. His reply is, " You are wandering, knowing neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but as the angels of God in heaven are they. But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not known precisely that spoken to you by God, saying, ' I am the God of Abraham, and God of Isaac, and God of Jacob?' He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living." He rejects their pantheistic notions, asserts the personality of God, teaches that those of whom Jehovah is God cannot be dead, but alive. God is ; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob esus against ar& ^ ^ggg men are d ea0 \ so far as the world is pantheism. able to perceive ; but they are as certainly alive as God is. He answers their quotation from Moses of the provision for Levirate marriages, by showing them, by another quotation from Moses (Exod. iii. 6), how the belief in the continued exist- ence of men after death underlay the highest teachings of the great lawgiver. He gives them to understand that their question, which was propounded in the spirit of libertinism, involved a gross error, which came of their ignorance of both the meaning of Scripture and the power of God. It does not seem that Jesus charged the Sadducees with being ignorant of the omnipotence of God, but that they did not discern the power of God in holy Scripture ; that to them a writing was a writing, and nothing more ; in short, that they did not know that the fact of the power of God being in the Scripture was a proof that God is a spirit. The marriage relation is one of the natural and not of the spir- itual body. This forced Levirate marriage was most unnatural. Whether any love existed between the widow and rai her brother-in-law, whether or not she loved an- other man better, or he had already a wife whom he loved, his brother's widow must be taken to his arms. The whole arrangement was made for the preservation of the family. There should be no need for any such regulation in the world which men enter at death. There the men do not marry, and women are not married. If sex remain, there is nothing which demands such unions as we have on earth ; so then the case which THE THIRD DAY. 575 the Sadducees cited as conclusive really had no bearing whatever on the question under discussion. The Sadducees did not see far enough to perceive that human beings may exist in two states successively, without losing their identity ; while we, who are in one of those states, do not see how arrangements of the other can at all correspond with this. A priori, it would be reasonable to suppose that we could not see this connexion, and that any diffi- culty proposed would amount simply to an acknowledgment of our ignorance, and no proof of any other proposition whatever. That is what Jesus implies. You are in error ; your error is the result of your ignorance ; but your ignorance can have no effect upon the facts of God and of eternity. The reply of Jesus silenced the Sadducees and excited the admiration of the multitude, and even some of the better-minded Pharisees, according to Luke, exclaimed : " Well said ! " so de- lighted were they with the reply. One of them, a lawyer, came forward Avith a question to Jesus. The term " lawyer," z/o/u/eo?, so frequent in the Evangelists, must be understood to mean one who devoted himself to the study and exposition of the Mosaic law, a Th * law 7 er ' a . . question. biblical scholar, a Doctor of Divinity, rather than one practising in the courts of civil and criminal law. We are not quite sure as to the spirit which prompted this question. The Pharisees were undoubtedly elated that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees. They might have felt that now was the time to show their superiority by proposing a good question, implying they were not concerned in things so gross as those which occupied the Sadducees. Or this lawyer may have personally desired to know what was the opinion of this Teacher upon a question which was one of great interest in the schools of the Pharisees. Or the Pharisaic party may have wished to make him repeat the com- mand which asserted the great doctrine of monotheism, from which they argued, as Mohammed has subsequently, that God could have no son, and to reflect it upon the claim which Jesus had made of being the Son of God in an exceptional sense. These suppositions are suggested by the question itself, by the answer of Jesus, and by the counter-question which followed. The lawyer asked, " Of what nature is the first commandment of all % " This is strictly the meaning of the question, and not, as in the common version of Mark, " Which is the first \ " and of 576 THE LAST WEEK. Matthew, "Which is the great commandment?" The legal spirit had taken such possession of the Jews that they enumer- ated, says Braune, 365 prohibitions, according to mandmenT COm ~ ^ e days °f tne vear ? and 228 commandments, according to the parts of the body. The Pharisees distinguished between light and heavy, great and small laws. They regarded them quantitively. Each command in the deca- logue had its adherents. There was no danger in any selection Jesus might make. But the point of peril lay here : if he said, as was most probable from his character and teaching, that the first commandment, " Thou shalt have no other God before me," contained the principle of supreme love £o God, his answer would make the basis for a charge of blasphemy. In the original it is irota, " what hind of a law," what is the spirit and principle of the chief law. We shall see that the two counts against Jesus at* last were political aspiration and blasphemy, into both which his adversaries had endeavored to force him ; and having failed of the first they are still trying the second. Jesus answered, " The first is, Hear, Israel ; the Lord our God is one Lord ; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your intel- rep y Iqq^ and all your strength. This is the first and great command. The second is like it, this : You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is not any other commandment greater than these ; on these two commandments depend the law and the prophets." It will be perceived that as he had foiled their efforts to make him compromise himself politically, so now, from any involvement in blasphemy, which would have been caused by a surrender of the claims he had al- ready made, especially if accompanied by an assertion of the debt of supreme love to God alone, Jesus saves himself, by adding imme- diately after the first command the second, and saying that it was like the first, and then conjoining them and declaring that on the two w T as suspended all that the law and the prophets contained. It was bringing together what God had joined and man had sepa- rated, namely, God and man, heaven and earth. It was a decla- ration that all the morality of the law, and the religious faith and fervor of the prophets, lay in loving God up to the full measure of human capability, and loving one's fellow-man up to the full measure of a healthy and natural self-love which has not run THE THIED DAY. 577 to selfishness. The reply was simple, comprehensive, and sub- lime. The scribe felt it. He exclaimed, " Well, Teacher, you have spoken the truth. One He is : and there is not another besides Ilim. And to love Him with all your heart, and all your under- standing, and all your strength, and to love your neighbor as your- self, is more than all the whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices." This gushing expression of belief seemed to please Jesus, who said to him, " You are not far from the kingdom of God." This is an important sentence. It lets us into the knowledge of the meaning of Jesus when he speaks of " the kingdom of God," which he makes synonymous with " the kingdom of the heavens." An apprehension of the spiritual meaning of the laws of God, of the abstract essence which is independent of the concrete forms of right, and on which those concrete forms themselves depend, is the beginning of the comprehension of a kingdom whose existence does not rest upon matter as a foundation, nor grow out of matter as a root, a kingdom which is itself the substance of all visible things. The things that are seen are to be known thor- oughly only as understood in their connection with the things that are not seen. The former 0#ist from the latter, and the latter sulsht for the former. That is the fundamental principle of all the teachings of Jesus, and so indispensable did he consider it that he regarded his whole mission of teaching as embraced in the work of preaching that kingdom. While the Pharisees were collected together, Jesus in Ids turn began to propound questions. He had upset all their traps and silenced all their cavils. He turned upon them with the question: "How does it seem to you question about the Christ ? Whose son is he ? " They were scandalized because Jesus had claimed to be the Son of God, since God could have no son, in their opinion. But they were looking for the Messiah, that is the Christ, that is the Anointed Deliverer. Now He must be some one's son. Whose ? " David's," was their reply. Jesus said : " In what sense, then, did David, by the Holy Spirit, call him Lord, saying, ' The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit on my right hand, until I put your ene- mies under your feet? If, then, David calls him Lord, in what sense is he his son \ " The tranquillity of Jesus, his serene self-possession, after the 37 578 THE LAST WEEK. badgering through which his unscrupulous and malicious enemies had carried him, must occur to every reader of the narrative. The original historians do not point it out, in- The Evangelists deed th a l mos t entirely avoid characterization, avoid characten- • #• • zat ion. narrating facts and sayings, apparently innocent of all their highest connections. And yet there are those connections. Jesus had been hailed by the people as Messiah ; he was in the Temple acting as Messiah ; he turned the conversation with his enemies into a discussion of the Messiah. Let the reader go back to the account of the first visit of Jesus to the Temple after his circumcision, and recollect the question which the boy of twelve years propounded to his mother when she was concerned at his being separated from her company : " Do you not know that I must be about my Father's business ? " in a special manner claiming God for his father, and the affairs of the Temple the business in which he should be engaged. (Luke ii. 49, 50.) Now he confounds their pertinacity and instructs their igno- rance at the same time. He quotes the first verse of Psalm ex., _ .,; a psalm the Jews in the time of Jesus univer- David s Son and * .. _ _ . . „ _. .. David's Lord sa *v interpreted as Messianic* J- hey do not deny that this is a prophecy of the Messiah, Christ. But the Pharisees in their teaching had entirely lost * The Jews never denied the Mes- sianic application of this psalm before the days of Jesus, and his argument came upon them so suddenly that they did not think of dodging his blow by making the denial then. Indeed, as I euggest in the text, they would not have dared to face the people with such a denial. Better take the blow of Je- sus than outrage the feelings of the multitude by denying what had always been taught and believed. But after- ward, when Christians pushed this ar- gument of Jesus, and when it ceased to be dangerous, they denied the Messianic applicability of the psalm. Justin Mar- tyr (Dialog, cont. Tryph.) and Ter- tullian (Adv. Marcion) mention the ex- planation which makes Hezekiah the subject as common among the Jews of that day. Chrysostom found in his day a great diversity of opinions among the Jews. It was applied to Abraham, Zerubbabel, Hezekiah, the Jewish peo- ple, etc. But there was not the slight- est difference of opinion among the Jews before the day when Jesus pre- sented his argument in the Temple. Then it became evident that if the Mes- sianic interpretation be adhered to, the charge of blasphemy against Jesus was absurd, and his execution for blasphemy was a murder of most outrageous char- acter. The reader, if he can consult the books, will find this historical state- ment verified by Hengstenberg, Chris- tol., i. vol.; Michaelis, Annot on Uagio* graph. , i. vol. ; and Wetstein on Matt xxii. 44. THE THIRD DAY. 579 eight of the spiritual character of the Messiah. They had come to regard him merely as a man, chosen by the Almighty to be Messiah, Christ, because of his surpassing virtue. They could not see the possibility of any one being superior to themselves, as they were in the succession of the regularly appointed teachers oi the Scriptures, still less could they understand that any one should be superior to David. The term Messiah, Christ, Anointed, given in words from three languages, but meaning the same thing, was originally applied to all Hebrew kings and chief magistrates, as Arsaces was among the Persians, Pharaoh among -the Egyptians, and (Jiesar among the Romans. But in process of thought and of time it came to be associated with the One looked-for Deliv- erer of the nation. This man should be of the lineage of David. It was easy to say he was David's son, and in one sense it was not incorrect. But David, under the highest inspiration, as they be- lieved, said that Jehovah said to this Messiah : " Sit on my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet ; " and David calls this Messiah " My Lord." They had not thought of this before. On their theory they are confounded ; on the theory of Jesus all is plain. God could have a son, who should sit at his right, that is, share with Him the government of the world, and who at the same time could be a descendant of David. The same person could be Son of God and Son of Man, being Son of David. They could not deny that those words were in the Scriptures. They dared not say — whatever Sadducees might — that the words were not inspired, and they could not stultify themselves, and shock popular prejudice by sud- agaiu pe^exed. " denly denying what they themselves and all their predecessors had taught, namely, that that inspired splendid lyric referred to the Messiah. They were silenced. They asked Jesus no more questions. Then followed the last public discourse of Jesus to the Jews. It is exceedingly terrible. Turning to the multitude and to his disciples, he said : " Upon Moses's seat the scribes and Pharisees have seated themselves. Therefore all, whatever they shall say to you, do ; but do not according to their works, for they say, and do not. And they bind great heavy burdens, and lay them on the shoulders of The 'f t pubUc ^ «»■«'»«» course of Jesus. men ; but they will not move them with their finger. For all their works the^ do for to be seen of men; for they broaden their 580 THE LAST WEEK. phylacteries and enlarge their fringes ; and they love the top- couches at feasts and the top-seats in the synagogues and the salutations in the market-places and to be called of men Rabbi. " But do not you be called Rabbi ; for one is your Leader, and you are all brethren. And call no one your father on the earth ; for one is your Father, the Heavenly : neither be you called leaders ; for one is your Leader, the Christ [Messiah]. But the greater of you shall be servant. A nd whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he who shall humble himself shall be exalted." * Then turning to the church party, he said : " Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! because ye devour the houses of widows and for a pretence make long prayers; therefore you shall receive the greater condemnation. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! because ye shut the kingdom of the heavens in front of men, for you neither go in yourselves, nor allow those who are coming in to enter. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for you go about sea and ?and to make one proselyte, and when he becomes so you make him tenfold more a son of Gehenna than yourselves. Woe unto you, the blind guides, who say, 'Whosoever shall swear by the Temple, it is nothing ; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the Temple, he is a debtor ! ' Fools and blind ! for which is greater, the gold, or the Temple which makes the gold holy 2 And, ' If one shall swear by the altar, it is nothing ; but if any one swear by the gift that is on it, he is a debtor ! ' Blind ! for which is the greater, the gift, or the altar which makes the gift holy ? He, therefore, who swears by the altar, swears by it and by all things on it ; and he who swears by the Tem- ple, swears by it and by Him who dwells in it ; and he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God, and by Him who sits upon it. " Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for you tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judg- ment, mercy, and faith. These it was right to do, and not to leave the others undone. Blind guides ! straining out a gnat, swallowing a camel. " Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for you cleanse the out- side of the cup and of the dish, but within they are full of rapacity and in- justice. Blind Pharisees ! cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the dish, that the outside of them may be clean also. " Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for you are like to whited sepulchres, which outwardly indeed appear beautiful, but are within full of the bones of the dead and of all filth. Thus you also outwardly in- deed appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and law- lessness ! "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you build the tombs of the prophets and ornament the monuments of the just, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. So that you testify to yourselves that you are the sons of the muiderers of the prophets, and you have filled up the THE THIRD DAY. 581 measure of your fathers. Serpents, breed of vipers, how can you escape the judgment of Gehenna ? " On this account, see, I send to you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you shall kill and crucify, and some of them you shall scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias, whom ye slew between the Temple and the altar. I assuredly say to you, All these things shall come upon this generation. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! killing the prophets and stoning them that are sent to you, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings ; and you were not willing ! See ! your house is left to you desolate ! For, I say to you, You shall not see me from this time, till you shall say. Praised ~be he coming in the Lord's name! " This is a terrible speech. One is remanded to the Sermon on the Mount by various points of similarity and contrast. The main resemblance lies in this, that both are discourses on Character. One was delivered in the beginning, and the Q Com P ared *** , , , P , . . . & , i Sermon on the other at the end or his ministry, yet both set Mount forth the ruling doctrine of his life, nam el} 7 , that office is nothing, that profession is nothing, that internal spiritual character is everything. It will be perceived also that parts of the Sermon of the Mount, as well as parts of this Denunciatory Valedictory, were repeated at several stages of his ministry, so as to give a certain class of critics some ground for saying that both are collections, made by the art and insight of the Evangelist (Matthew), who grouped his teachings into something like ora- tions. But there is a terrible beauty of unity in this last fiery discourse, which, more than any argument of criticism, it seems to me, will make every reader feel that it was all delivered at once. Passages may have been, and doubtless were, uttered as occasion called them forth ; but here, in his Farewell to Juda- ism and Jerusalem, Jesus pours his soul in a full tide of grand and pure passion down the channel of a final discourse. Moreover, one perceives that the Sermon on the Mount is constructed upon the principle of describing, first, the essentials of a good character, and then the results in the open life ; while the Denunciatory Valedictory first describes a wrong outward life, and then traces these fruits to the sap of hypocrisy. It has also been noticed that the number of the woes in this case is equal to the number of benedictions in that, and some have made 582 THE LAST "WEEK. a strict correspondence. While we may not be able to perceive that as closely as others, the analysis of this discourse will never- theless suggest it. The speech opens with some instructions to his disciples in the presence of the multitude. He advises them to do as the scribes and the Pharisees said, not as thev did. These Instruction. . , . _ ' . ■ *\, _ men had the seat or doctrinal authority. Bur- densome as were some of the regulations which they imposed on the people, in their public teachings they inculcated sound mo- rality. If the disciples of Jesus had set themselves in a revo- lutionary maimer against these teachers of the law there would have been public disorder, a worse thing than allowing these men to retain the seat they had taken, representing Moses in the teaching of the law. But their conduct was so wicked that no authority which they seemed to derive from their position was to give them such an influence over the disciples of Jesus, and the multitudes who heard him, as to lead them into imitating the example of these hypocrites, who covered the viciousness of their lives by laying heavy burdens on the shoulders of other men. Their whole life was a sham. They never did right because it was right and because it would be pleasing to God, but simply that they might enjoy the applause of men. Their life was a perpetual lie. That they might have the reputation of sanctity they made broad their phylacteries and fringes. In literal application of the figurative expressions of Exodus xiii. 9, 16, and Deuteronomy vi. 8, 9, that the law should be bound as frontlets between the eyes, the Phari- e p y ac ry. gees made what is called " the tepkilla on the head," and in the text and elsewhere called phylactery. These were strips of parchment on which, with an ink prepared for the purpose, were written four passages of Scripture, namely, Exodus xiii. 2-10, 11-17; Deuteronomy vi. 4-9, and 13-22. These strips were rolled up in a case of black calf-skin, which was attached to a stiffer piece of leather, having thongs, covered with Hebrew letters, which thongs being passed round the head and made into a knot in the shape of i, were passed over the breasts. Instead of writing the law of God on their memories and affections, as the Scriptures had taught them, these Phari- sees contented themselves with making a parade of their phy- lacteries. THE THIRD DAT. 583 In Numbers xv. 38, Jehovah commands the Israelites to " make them fringes [in Hebrew nS* 1 ^, tsitsitK] in the borders of their garments," and " that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribbon of blue." The blue was the symbolical color of heaven and of God's faithfulness. It was much used in sacred things. The High-Priest's ephod, the loops of the curtains of the Tabernacle, the ribbons for the breastplate, and the ribbons for the plate of the mitre, were blue. Setting up these tsitsithim they were to remind themselves of their being children of the covenant, and that they were faithfully to keep the commandments of a God who on His part would be faithful to all His promises. Losing all memory of the spiritual meaning of the regulations, these hypocrites had learned to satisfy them- selves with an enlargement of the fringe on the garment in place of a deepening sentiment of humble piety in the soul. These men loved the chief place at feasts. Among the Greeks the seat of honor was the highest place on the divan, among the Persians and the Romans it was the middle place. The Pharisees loved also the highest places in the synagogues, and it gratified their vanity to be called Teacher, Doctor, Rabbi. Against these Jesus warned his disciples. They were not to love to be called Rabbi, a title which occurs in three forms, Rab, Teacher, Doctor ; Rabbi, My Doctor or Teacher ; Rabboni, My great Doctor. Nor were they to call any man " Father," in the sense of granting him any infallibility of judgment or power over their consciences. All the disciples of Jesus are of equal authority, all are brethren. " Papa," as the simple Moravians call their great man, Count Zin- zendorf ; " Founder," as Methodists denominate good John Wesley ; " Holy Father in God," as bishops are sometimes called ; " Pope," which is the same as "Papa;" "Doctor of Divinity," the Chris- tian equivalent of the Jewish " Rabbi," are all dangerous titles.* Rabbi." * It is contemptible in any minister of the G-ospel to seek the title of Doctor of Divinity. The solicitation of its be- stowal on himself proves the applicant unworthy. It is foolish and Pharisaic to reject it. No man can possibly prove to any other man that his rejection was not prompted by vanity. Probably no man yet has rejected it who was not known to his acquaintances to be, on other grounds, a very vain man. It is as Pharisaic to reject it as to seek it. No man for such a cause can plead thia teaching of Jesus in justification, be- cause the public rejection violates the spirit of this very precept. It says to the world, ' ' See : 1 am greater than these Doctors of Divinity ; I can afford 584 THE LAST WEEK. But it is not the employment of a name which Jesus de- nounces, it is the spirit of vanity which animated the Phari- sees, and the servile spirit which the employment of titles is apt to engender. Paul and Peter spoke of themselves as spiri- tual fathers.* Jesus teaches that positions in the societies of his followers, such as should afterward be formed, were not to be regarded as dignities, but rather as services; that no man should seek them for the honor they might confer, but for the field of usefulness they might afford; and that no man should lead off a sect, there being but one leader ; and that the whole body of believers are brethren, of whom God is the Father. Then he turned upon the Pharisees and exposed and de- nounced them. 1. Opposed to that "poverty of spirit" which is the subject of the first benediction in the Sermon on the Mount, is a de- nunciation of that lie which pervaded the long First contrast ~ , , . * . . ° with the Sermon P ravers °* charity made by these sanctimonious Pharisees, while they were privately devouring the houses of defenceless widows. Even in their prayers they lied. They were not able to be honest at their devotions. And this is mentioned first, because it seems to be a key to the whole. If when a man approaches God in prayer he is a hypocrite, how can he be otherwise with his fellow-men ? To obtain the property of the helpless unrighteously is bad enough, but to commit this villany under the garb of piety is absolutely damnable. 2. In the " Sermon," he had blessed mourners, encouraging all who are penitent, making their heartfelt grief a source of com- fort to them. But the Pharisees, being unchari- table and hypocritical at once, not only did not repent and prepare themselves for the kingdom of the heavens, but actually kept others from entering. They sat in the seat of Second contrast. to dispense with the title." The only- decent course is silence. But Christian colleges ought to be careful in the be- stowal of a title which so tests the Christianity of the recipient. Jesus teaches us that we ought not to love to be called by any names which seem to elevate us above our brethren. Mr., Master, might just as well be rejected as Dr., Teacher, for originally it meant the same; and it is much worse to allow one's self to be called " Rever- end " than to allow the title of Doctor. It is not courtesy which Jesus condemns, but vanity. * See 1 Cor. iv. 15 ; 1 Tim. i. 2; Ti- tus i. 4 ; 1 Peter v. 13. THE THIRD DAY. 585 Moses. They should have been the teachers of a true spiritual religion. But, instead, when men showed any signs of a spir- itual awakening they repressed them, as they were trying to sup- press him who taught the highest spiritual truths. Their sitting at the door of knowledge as janitors was a lie, over which Jesus pronounced a " woe." 3. Their position, however, demanded that they should do something. They spent their strength on proselyting. It was not to save souls ; it was not even to convert hea- . i . , T -ujt «j. j Third contrast. thens into Jews, nor even bad Jews into good Jews, but it was to add to the number of their sect. It was that same spirit which sometimes now seizes the sects of Christendom, making them proud of the growth of the " denomination," the " connection," " the church," or whatever else the sect may be called. It is opposed to that "meekness " which is the subject of the third benediction in " the Sermon." They were fierce and hot, like the Gehenna, the burning valley of Hinnom, and when they made a pervert he was doubly as bad as themselves, as per- verts, the world through, usually are. 4. Jesus denounces their morality, which was a base casuistryj the very opposite of that " hungering and thirsting after right- eousness " which he had blessed in " the Ser- mon." They had gone blind on the simplest and plainest questions of morality. He gives a case. The oath by the Temple — " by this Dwelling " — was frequent. Sometimes it was by the Temple-treasure. The Pharisees distinguished be- tween the binding obligation of these oaths. The violation of the former was a trivial offence ; of the latter was a heinous crime. It was the foolish casuistry of those who set more store by the church than by the chapel or meeting-house, who forget the value of that which sanctifies, and think only of that which may be sanctified, as if building, ornaments, vestments, ceremonials, con- stitute the kingdom of the heavens. So of their other case : an oath by the gift on the altar is more binding than an oath by the altar itself. This folly would seem to be transparent to any men, if we did not know that learned " doctors " of the later a^es had not taught in the spirit which makes the rubric of a ritual more important than an enactment of the Decalogue. Their whole system of ethics was rotten, and Jesus cursed it. 5. And then he pronounced a woe over their hypocrisy in what 586 THE LAST WEEK. they would have considered their devotion to religion. The iav? of tithes, as set forth in Levit. xxvii. 30 ; Numb, xviii. 21 ; Dent. Fifth t t x ^' ^ > an( ^ x * v * ^~28, embraced only the grain that grew in their fields and the fruits that grew in their orchards. But the schools had applied the rule to the smallest product of the garden. With scrupulous exactness the Pharisees paid these. Jesus does not intimate that they defrauded the Tem- ple treasury ; but their sin lay in devoting themselves to outward goodness of behavior and neglecting justice, mercy, and fidelity. It is common for men who never suspect themselves of being Phari- sees, to fancy themselves just in character because they are scru- pulous upon some one right point of practice. It is the spirit of justice that is required, that justice which dwells with fidelity and mercy, that mercy on which he had pronounced the fifth benedic- tion in the " Sermon." Of what avail their tithes, their outward strict legality, if their souls were " lawless," that is, if they did not submit heartily to the law of God ? He does not disparage attention to the minutest regulation, nor the most punctilious ob- servance of all regulations ; what he denounces is the being con- tent with these while the weightier matters are neglected. 6. It was not wrong to cleanse the outside of the cup, but if either was to be neglected let it not be the inside. If their scru- pulousness led them to strain their wine through a filter, so that they might not swallow an unclean insect, how absurd would such rigid observance of the law be when contrasted with the swallowing of so huge an unclean beast as a camel ! Jesus uses this proverbial expression to exhibit their enormous hypocrisy. 7. This is set forth in the horrible figure of a grave, the tomb over which was whitened, not to beautify it but to warn all passers-by that they were in peril of becoming legally un clean.* But that very signal of filth made the graveyard picturesque, while it failed to sweeten the grave that was full of the corruption of putrefying corpses. Such were these Purists — pure and white as lime outside, but inwardly filthy as Sixth contrast. Seventh contrast. * " The graves were, every year, on the 15'th Adar, whitened with a kind of chalk (tcotHa), a practice derived by the Kabbins from Ezekiel xxxix. 15; not merely for the sake of appearance but also that these places, the touch of which was defilement (Numb. xix. 10), might be more easily seen and avoided. (See the Eabbinical passages in Light- foot, Schottgen, and Wetstein.) Thus they always had a pleasant outward ap- pearance." — . THE THIRD DAY. 587 Final woe. lotting flesh. What a contrast with the pure in heart who re- ceive the sixth benediction of the sermon on the Mount ! 8. The eighth " woe " sums up the whole by denouncing their hatred of the true spiritual life. As a benediction was pro- nounced in the " Sermon on the Mount " on those who were persecuted for righteousness' sake, so in this valedictory is a woe uttered against those who are murder- ers of the prophets and those who inherit the spirit of the perse- cutors. The fathers of those Pharisees had killed the prophets. and those Pharisees themselves had adorned their graves, glad that the prophets who harassed their wicked fathers were not alive to torment their more wicked children. Men praise those of a former generation who did the very thing for which they denounce those of their own. Stier (vol. hi. 232) quotes : " Ask in Moses's times, Who are the good people % they will be Abraham and Isaac and Jacob ; but not Moses — he should be stoned. Ask in Samuel's times, Who are the good people % they will be Moses and Joshua ; but not Samuel. Ask in the times of Christ, and they will be all the former prophets, with Samuel ; but not Christ and his Apostles." (Berlerib. Bibel.) They were in the last times. The opposition to spiritual views of God's government of the universe, which has prevailed in the Jewish heart and was growing intenser with each succeeding generation, culminated in the men of the time of Jesus. He was about to close the list of martyrs. Of those who had preceded him he speaks strangely. He speaks as from the consciousness of Almighty God ; as if he, in fact, were Almighty God. He (Jesus) had been sending prophets and wise men to persuade them away from their materialism to a spiritual religion. It had been a failure. They had grown worse and worse. They were now reaching the very worst. The blood of the martyrs was about to be demanded at their hands, from the blood of Abel, who represented the religion of spirituality, and was killed by Cain, who represented material, outward, churchly religion, to the blood of Zachariah, who, by the order of King Joash, was stoned in the Court of the Temple, and who died say- ing, " The Lord looks on this and requires it." * The goodness Last times. * See 2 Chron. xxiv. 20. The cri- tics and commentators have had much hard work with Matt, xxiii. 36, where Zacharias is called "the son of Bara- chias." Relief came with Tischendorfa discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus, from 588 THE LAST WEEK. The heart of Jesus melts. of this man and of his father Jehoiada, and the atrocity of his mur- der, kept his memory vividly in the minds of the Jews. Jesus told the Jews that the measure was full. They were making the last martyrdoms, and then would come their judgment and their destruction. He seemed to hear the wings of the Roman eagle sounding in the air. Dear Jerusalem was the frightened brood of chickens. He had denounced with the utmost vehemence the sins which he had pictured with the most poignant invective. But the sinners were his own people. That which was about to be the prey of the bird of power and plunder was his own Jerusalem, metropolis of his nation, seat of the throne of his ancestors, site of the Temple of his Father. His heart melted. After the flash of the light- ning-stroke of his terribly eloquent denunciation of their sins came the shower of the rain of his pity and compassion. The omnipotence of God is not able to reduce the obstinacy of man. Even this Jesus, who had opened the eyes of the blind, and the ears of the deaf, who had stilled the stormy sea, who had cleansed the leper, and raised the dead, even this Jesus had not power to break the rebellion of his proud countrymen. Even Omnipotence is not a sufficient servant for Love. He sets the feebleness of his tears over against the power of his miracles, and to this day his sob in the pathos of his " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem," wins more hearts to ways of goodness and love than his eightfold "woe, woe," repels from the paths of badness and hate. And thus ended his Valedictory to Judaism. It is no longei his. Jerusalem is no longer the House of his Father. He speaks of it to the Jews as " Your House." It represents no longer Religion but Churchism. It has ceased to be God's, and becomes Man's. He sat down in the Court of the "Women, opposite the Treasury, where the chest for alms is placed. He saw the rich ostenta- tiously throw in their heavy coin, whose ring arrested the atten- which it appears that those words were not originally in Matthew, but crept in from some copyist's note. Zacharias is known to have been the son of Je- hoiada. After all, it may have been Zecharias, the son of Barachias. In Ezra, v. 1, we have " Zechariah, the son of Iddo," and in the book of Zecha- riah, i. 1, 7, we have Zecharias, the son of Barachias, the son of Iddo. The Old Testament does not mention his murder, but Whitby quotes the Targum as saying that he was killed "in the day of propitiation." THE THIRD DAY. 589 tion of spectators. Among the donors came a woman, a poor widow, and she threw in two lepta, which make a quadrans. A lepton was a bronze coin, the smallest in value of all in circulation at that time. Two lepta r mite. made a Roman quadrans, which was equal to about one-fifth of an American cent, so that one lepton really represented the imaginary mill of American currency. When Jesus saw all this, there stood before him again the two types, the religionist of externals and the religionist of in- ternals : one good in such deeds as men would acknowledge, and the other good in such thoughts and character as God acknowledges. He called the attention of his disciples to this. His comment was, " I assuredly say to you, That this poor widow has cast more in than all they that have cast into the trea- sury ; for all they cast in of their superfluity ; but she of her poverty cast in all that she had, even her whole living." She had two lepta. She might have given alms and saved something for herself. The beauty of her character lay in her perfect con- secration. She held nothing back. The moral sense of the world has indorsed the verdict of Jesus. The testimony of one of his biographers, John (xii. 42), is that " among the chief rulers many believed on him ; but on account of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue ; for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." We cannot now learn what means the friends of Jesus had of knowing this, but the conduct of Nico- demus would make it probable, even if it had not been asserted. It may have been at this time, and in the presence of these os- tentatious alms-givers and of these time-serving rulers, that Jesus made the utterances recorded by John, xii. 44-50 : aT T-iiT -it . i a. Last appearance " He who believes on me believes not on me but . .' m , in the Temple, on Him that sent me. And he who sees me sees Him that sent me. I have come a light into the world, that who- soever believes on me should not remain in darkness. And if any one hear my words, and keep them not, I do not judge him ; for I did not come that I should judge the world, but that I should save the world. He who rejects me, and does not receive my words, has one who judges him the word that I have spoken 590 THE LAST WEEK. that shall judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken of myself, but the Father who sent me gave me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is continuous life : whatever I speak, as the Father has spoken to me, thus I speak." He ceased. It was his last utterance in the Temple, from which he now departed. As they were going out the disciples looked upon the Temple, its massiveness and solidity,- and beautiful adornings of gifts and goodly stones. They said, " Teacher, see what T , manner of stones and what buildings ! " They would seem to intimate a contrast between the apparent strength of the huge structure before them and the prophecy of desolation which Jesus had uttered concerning it. Perhaps also they had a natural national pride in the grandeur of their Temple, and there might have been a deprecatory tone in their speech. The solemn reply of Jesus was, " Do you see all these great buildings? There shall not be left here stone on stone that shall not be thrown down." They silently passed up Mount Olivet on the way to Bethany. It was evening. He sat down to rest on a projection from which could be seen the city, now crowded with nearly , . three millions of worshippers, and from which the Temple, its roof covered with golden spikes, that flashed and glittered in the setting sun, was specially conspicuous. It was a grand sight. Perhaps also faintly through the evening stillness came snatches of psalms and hymns from singers in the Temple, as up through the quiet air curled slowly the smoke from the evening sacrifice. Then Peter, James, John, and Andrew came to him with the complex question, " Tell us, when shall these things be ? and what shall be the sign of your coming and of the end of the present order of things ? " They acknowledged his Messiah- Bhip. They connected the fall of the Temple with the destruc- tion of the existing order of things. They could not conceive for a moment that the downfall of the world should not immediately follow the overthrow of the Temple. Jesus replied : "Take care lest any one should deceive you, for many shall come in my name, saying, ' I am the Christ, 1 and shall deceive many. The time draws near. Go not after them. And you shall be about to [you shaD in the future] hear of wars and rumors of wars : see to it, be not troubled ' THE THIRD DAY. 591 for it is necessary that this come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation Bhall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be shocks and famines in places; and Discourses to the dia- fearful things and great signs shall there be from heaven, ° ip , es ' a f /f ° m e ° ° ° ' Talents and of the Ten but all these are only the beginning of the pangs of virgins. childbirth. " But beware of men, for before all these things they shall lay their hands on you and persecute you, they will deliver you up to the councils, and into the prisons, and shall scourge you in the synagogues; and you shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, and it shall turn to you for a testimony to them and to the nations. But when they shall deliver you up be not over-anxious beforehand how or what ye shall speak, nor premeditate what you shall answer, but whatever shall be given you in that hour, that speak. I will give you a mouth and wisdom which your adversaries shall not be able to resist nor gainsay ; for you are not the speakers, but the Spirit of your Father speaking in you. " Think not that I came to cast peace on the earth ; I came not to cast peace but a sword rather, and divisions. I came to cast lire upon the earth ; and what will I ? If it were already kindled ! For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And the enemies of a man are those of his own house- hold : for from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. " And they shall deliver you up to affliction. And a brother shall betray a brother to death, and a father a child, and children shall rise up against their parents and shall put them to death. They shall kill some of you, and you shall be detested of all nations on account of my name. And afterwards many shall be caused to fall and betray their associates for affliction. " I say to you, my friends, Be not afraid of those who kill the body and after that have not anything more to do. I will show ye whom ye should serve : Him, who after He has killed has power to cast into Gehenna. Fear Him. And many false prophets shall be raised up and deceive many. And because lawlessness shall abound, the love of many will become cold. But he who en- dures to the end, the same shall be preserved. By your patience gain your lives. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the king dom. And preached shall be this glad tidings of the kingdom through the whole inhabited world, for a testimony to all nations, and then shall come the end. "When, then, you shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, and tfca abomination of desolation, spoken of through the prophet Daniel, stationed ir the sacred place, where it should not be — [he who reads, let him understand — then know that her desolation is at hand ; then let those who are in Judaea flee to the mountains ; and let those who are in the midst of her depart out, and let not those who are in the country places enter into her, and let not him who is on the roof come down to take anything out of his house ; nor let him that is in the field turn back to take his garment. Remember Lot's wife. For these are days of punishment, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. 592 THE LAST WEEK. " And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that suckle in those days ! But pray that your flight be not in winter nor on the Sabbath-days ; for there shall be in those days great distress on the land, and wrath on this people, such as has not been seen from the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall be. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations ; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the nations, until the times of the nations shall be fulfilled. And except those days were shortened there should no flesh be saved : but on account of the chosen those days shall be shortened. " Days will come when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you shall not see it. Then if any one shall say unto you, ' Lo ! here is Christ,' or ' there,' believe not. For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show signs and wonders, so as to deceive, if possible, even the chosen. But I have told you before. If they shall say to you, ' Behold he is in the desert ! ' go not forth ; ' Behold he is in the secret chambers ! ' believe not. For as the lightning comes out of the east and shines to the west, so shall be the coming of the Son of Man, in his day." His hearers broke in with the interrupting question, " Where, Lord % " He replied, " Where the carcass is, there are gathered the eagles." He resumed : — "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken ; and on the earth distress of nations, men in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and waves, men fainting for fear and expectation of the things coming on the inhabited world. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man ; and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great trumpet, and he shall gather his chosen from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws nigh. " Now learn the parable from the fig-tree and all the trees. When already its branch has become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is nigh. Thus also when you shall see all these things, know that the kingdom of God is near, at the doors. I assuredly say to you, This race shall not pass away until all these things be done. But concerning that day and hour knows no one, not the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. But as the Days of Noe, so shall be the coming of the Son of Man. For as they were in the days which were before the flood, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took all away ; likewise as it was in the days of Lot ; they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building ; but on the day Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them THE THIRD DAY. 593 ak ; thus shall be also in the day when the Son of Man shall be revealed. I tell you that in that night there shall be two in one bed, one shall be taken and the other left : then there shall be two in the field, one shall be taken and one left : two grinding at the mill, one shall be taken and one left. " Look to yourselves lest at any time your hearts be oppressed with surfeit- ing and drunkenness and anxious cares of this life, and so that day may come on you unawares ; for as a snare shall it come on all those who dwell on the face of all the earth. Watch, then, and at every season pray that you may be considered worthy to escape all the things about to come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man : for you know not when the time is. But know this, that if the householder had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken into : on this account do you be ready also, for in an hour when you do not think it, the Son of Man comes." Peter broke in with, " Lord, do you speak this parable to us, or even to all % " Jesus replied : — " What I say to you I say to all, Watch. It is as a man taking a far journey, who, leaving his house, gave authority to his slaves, and to each man liis work, and commanded the gatekeeper to watch. Who, then, is the faithful and wise slave whom the Lord will make ruler over his household, to give them the food in season ? Happy slave that, whom his lord coming shall find doing so ! I assuredly say to you that he shall make him ruler over all hi& possessions. But if the bad slave shall say in his heart, ' My lord delays,' and shall begin to strike his fellow-slaves, and to eat and drink with the drunken, the lord of that slave shall come on a day which he expects not, and in an hour that he knows not, and shall cut him in two, and give him his part with the hypocrites ; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. " Now that slave who knew his Lord's will and prepared not, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten much ; but he who knew not and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few. To whom much is given, of him much shall be required ; and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more. Watch, therefore, for you know not what day your Lord comes — whether at even, or at midnight, or at the cock- crowing, or in the morning — lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. 11 Then the kingdom of the heavens shall be likened to ten virgins, who, having taken their lamps, went forth to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, five prudent. For the foolish, having taken lamps, took no oil with them ; but the prudent took oil in the vessels with their lamps. But, the bridegroom delaying, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight a cry was made, ' Behold ! the bridegroom ! go out to meet him.' Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps ; and the foolish said to the prudent, ' Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out.' But the prudent answered, saying : ' Lest there be not enough for us and you, go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.' And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and they who were ready went in with him to the wedding-feast ; ar d the 38 594 THE LAST WEEK. door was shut. Afterwards come also the other virgins, saying : ' Sir, sir, open to us ; ' but he answering, said, ' I assuredly say to you, I do not know you.' " Let your loins be girded about, and your lamps burning, and yourselves like men waiting for their lord, when he will return from the wedding, thai when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately. Happy slaves they whom the lord coming shall find watching. I assuredly say tc you, that he shall gird himself and make them recline, and will come near and serve them. And if he shall come in the second watch, or in the third watch, and find them thus, happy are they ! Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour. " And when the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all the nations ; and he shall separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats ; and he will place the sheep on the right hand, but the goats on his left. Then shall the King say to those on his right hand, ' Come, you who are praised of my Father, inherit the king- dom prepared for you from the foundation of the world : for I hungered and you gave me to eat, I thirsted and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you made me a companion, naked and you clothed me : I was sick, and you visited me ; I was in prison, and you came to me.' Then shall the right- eous answer him, saying : ' Lord, when did we see you hungry, and fed you ? or thirsty, and gave you drink ? and when did we see you a stranger, and en- tertained you ; or naked, and clothed you ? and when did we see you sick, or in prison, and came to you ? ' And the King, answering, shall say to them : * I assuredly say to you, inasmuch as you did it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.' Then shall he say also to those on the left hand, ' Depart from me, you accursed, to the perpetual fire prepared for the devil and his angels ; for I hungered and you did not give me to eat, I thirsted and you did not give me to drink, I was a stranger and you did not enter- tain me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they shall answer, saying, ' Lord, when did we see you hungering, or thirsting, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to you ? ' Then he shall answer them, saying, ' I assuredly say to you, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of these least ones, ye did it not to me.' And these shall go away into perpetual punishment, but the righteous into perpetual life." This extraordinary discourse contains statements of what was then future, which cannot be regarded as the mere results of extraordinary sagacity, as some political men A prophecy. foretold the French Revolution years before it broke upon Europe. The character of the average Jewish mind and the state of feeling among the Jewish people might have led any observant person to perceive that the fanaticism of the people was becoming frantic, and that the wild excitement which led them to persecute Jesus to the death, because he would not be a THE THIRD DAT. 595 political leader against Home, would finally dash Judaism with such violence against the Ruler of the nations as to produce such results as came forty years afterwards, in the taking of the city by Titus and the dispersion of the Jewish people by Hadrian. But here some of the details are such as one would utter who had the veil of the future lifted, and beheld coming events with the intense spiritual insight of an inspired Seer. And yet there are none of the particularities which distinguish the predictions of the believers in a millennium, none of their chiliastic sensuous ideas. He takes the complexity of the question of his friends as the foundation of a description of the future, which embraced both the destruction of the Jewish theocracy and the final ground of judgment of men and nations. What he had said in the Temple naturally led his disciples to ask for further information. He had dislocated their ideas of the government of the world. They had not dreamed that the Tem- ple would be destroyed. There would come days of darkness, but the arrival of the Messiah would cover Mount Zion with splendor and flood the world with theocratic glory. Now he says that Judaism, with its Temple, is to be swept away. What then should be their relation to the world and to God ? They had rea- son to seek to be taught on these points. He first warns them to beware of interpreting the pangs of child-birth into the agonies preceding death. The nations would be astir. Yast physical and national upheavals .,..! 1-1 t ipi •• The nations would take place, but the end 01 the existing or- g^^ der of things is not yet. What men call endings are really beginnings. Deaths are births. His people, those who adopted his principles, would suffer many bitternesses. Christians should suffer especially at the hands of churchmen. The truth, for which he was about to suffer death, would always be an occa- sion of contention. There would always be the double trouble of opposing ecclesiastical influence and those distracting pretenders the false prophets. But endurance, prudence, and vigilance would bring his followers through all troubles. Jerusalem should certainly be destroyed. A desolating abomi- nation should stand in the holy place, when the eagles of the Eoman standard, which were wor- Jera salem de- shipped as idols, as representing the divinity of power, should be planted in the precincts of the Temple of Jeho THE LAST WEEK. vah. He gave directions to his followers what to do then. They should flee to the mountains, probably those of Perea, any place which should take them from these horrors. That the gospel of Matthew was written before the destruction of Jerusalem, ap- pears from the fact that he calls attention to this prediction and these directions by the parenthesis, " Let the reader understand." The Christians subsequently obeyed these directions. When the Roman armies encamped against Jerusalem, they fled to Pel la, and thus escaped that terrible slaughter in which 1,500,000 Jews are said to have fallen. If the whole Jewish populace had given up their idea of a political Messiah, and yielded to the spiritual teachings of Jesus, and felt that the Messiah's kingdom was inward and not outward, and abandoned all thought of attempting by the sword what was in that way wholly impracticable, they would have avoided that terrific catastrophe, which filled the world with shudderings, and to this day stands up as the bloodiest horror of the past. But amid all commotions, when pseudo-Christs arose, the dis- ciples of Jesus were not to be drawn hither and thither in vain expectation of the revelation of the Son of Man. When that really occurred, men should not have to look after it. It would force itself on the attention of all men like a lightning-flash. It would fall like a thunderbolt. The disciples said, " Where, Lord \ " His reply was a proverbial form of expression containing a general principle. Wherever there is a dead carcass, there the vultures do come. To keep from being eaten by birds of prey, you must keep alive. God has his scaven- gers everywhere. If a man die, or a nation, or a church, there are forces provided to consume the dead body and transmute it into live tissue. Judaism is dead. The wings of the vultures are abroad in the sky, and these devouring birds will scent the prey, and come and take it away. From the fatal downfall of Jerusalem the Teacher ascends to the general judgment of mankind. Here there is nothing to gratify vain curiosity. There is a graphic repre- General judg- fe f. . ,. t • / i • ment of mankind mentation of prodigious events in nature and in human society, as ushering in what Jesus calls the Parousia of the Son of Man, that is, his coming, his appearing, his revelation of himself. It may be delayed, but it will come. God works gradually forward to great results ; but they often '■r^„- ■■ : ■ THE THUCD DAY. 597 break upon the world at last like thunder-claps. The flood in the days of Noah and the rain of fire in the days of Lot are examples. The people on whom this ruin fell were years in ripening for their doom ; but it fell at last like the downcoming of an enor- mous trip-hammer. It will be so as often a? God shall visit the world with summary judgment. One cataclysm may succeed an- other, but the world does not take warning. The Deluge was no lesson to Sodom and Gomorrah, nor the destruction of those cities a warning to the Jews in the days of Jesus, nor the downfall of Jerusalem and Judaism any preventive of the French Revolution. So whatever this " Parousia " of the Son of Man may mean, it will come suddenly, and all the development of the causes will not make men ready for the results. The race of mankind, Jesus taught, should not disappear from the earth before all the things he had predicted should come to pass. The certainty should strengthen the faith, while the suddenness should keep all who believe that Jesus is a true Teacher on the spiritual alert. The words of warning, he distinctly asserts, were not confined to his immediate friends, but to all men, for they are founded on gen- eral and perpetual principles. The necessity of vigilance is illustrated further by the case of servants whose master is absent. Of the time of his return they have no certain knowledge, but they know he will return, and they must keep in a perpetual state of readiness. This is further illustrated by the parable of ten virgins, who, according to Oriental custom, were waiting until the bridegroom should appear, bringing his wife to his home. They were to add to the splendor of the procession by their torches. As is often the case in these in- stances, a delay keeps the bridegroom until midnight. The vir- gins all sleep, so that the foolish do not perceive that their lamps are dying out, nor are the wise virgins wakeful enough to warn their sisters of their danger ; and so the call comes upon all sud- denly. The wise have oil enough for themselves, and they proper- ly conclude that it is better to have five torches burning brilliantly through the whole time of the procession than that the party should enter with ten, all of which should soon be extinguished.* * Trench quotes Ward ( View of the Hindoos, vol. 2, p. 29), who describes the parts of a marriage ceremony in India of which he was an eye-witness. He says : "After waiting two or three hours, at length, near midnight, it was announced, as in the very words of Scrip- ture, ' Behold, the bridegroom comes 598 THE LAST WEEK. He thus teaches personal responsibility and the necessity of cease- less vigilance. Jesus sets forth himself as the representative of humanity. Humanity shall be judged by him in both senses. His moral sense is the standard of judgment. Whatever Jesus the re- j n -j ur y j s ^one to any human being, however feeble, presentative of . '! \. . _ J . _ & ' _ _ . ' humanity iriendless, unmnuential, apparently worthless, is to bring to the injurer just what that act would bring if done to Jesus. He is the Son of Humanity. Hurt humanity and you hurt him. Do good to humanity at any point, and you do good to him. Water to any thirsty man, bread to any hungry woman, clothing to any naked child, kind attention to any unknown stranger, visit to any prisoner, criminal or innocent, is set down as done to the Son of Man. He refuses to have any- thing which the giver is not willing to bestow upon humanity. He takes the lowliest human being, whoever he or she may be, and says, " Inasmuch as you did it not to this least one you did it not to me." Any failure of duty to any human being Jesus takes as a personal neglect of himself, while he acknowledges as a per- sonal favor the slightest kindness done to the most nearly insigni- ficant human being. This is the most sublime and tender Humaneness. It is to be remarked how, in the setting forth of the doctrine of future rewards and punishments, the goodness of the heavenly Father is presented by Jesus. From the foundation of the world a state of exaltation had been prepared for all the good. God does not make devils, and bad people, and hells. Angels may make themselves devils, the sons of God may make themselves bad people, wickedness may make hells ; but God makes only kingdoms of glory, and angels, and sons of God. He does all he can to keep angels from becoming devils, and men from becoming bad, and high celestial places from becoming infernal pits. He uses all possible attractions to keep men from going away from him. He does not curse them, but they are accursed. He does not drive them away, but they do depart. To be a man, one must have a free will. To be a son of God, and made in the likeness go ye out to meet him.* All the per- sons employed now lighted their lamps and ran with them in their hands to fill up their stations in the procession — some of them had lost their lights and were unprepared, but it was then too late to seek them ; and the cavalcade moved forward." THE THIRD DAY. 599 of God, one must be as free as God. Does not every man who re- flects and examines his consciousness feel sure that he is ? When a man chooses to put himself in such position that the attraction of hell becomes greater than the attraction of heaven, he gravitates naturally toward hell. And yet there is nothing dogmatic in all this wonderful dis- course. There is uo question of curiosity settled, no question the answer to which could have no bearing on the moral character of men. ~No subscription to mat i sn , formal creeds secures the final benediction, but only such belief as is the necessary root of the moral tree which bears the fruits of humanity, is saving. God's discriminations here are all made in regard to character ; and so will be the dis- criminations of the other world. Jesus sets himself forward as the representative of humanity, while he is the judge of mankind. Such belief in him, as that representative, as shall lead to such love for him as shall produce on all possible occasions all possible kindness to all kinds of men, it is that belief which keeps a man in the circle of the humane, and the humane are those who are drawn closely to Jesus, " the Son of Man" and thus to one an- other. As humanity dies out of man devilishness sets in. Jesus recognized the existence of a personal devil. Men, in every act, become more and more like one or the other — like Jesus or the devil. There are judgments from time to time on earth : there are to be judgments in the future, the details of which are not fur- nished, but in general terms of appalling grandeur those judg- ments are described. One of these temporal judgments of men should be had at the destruction of Jerusalem, the horrors of which Should typify another, a spiritual, a grander judgment on a broader scale. That stupendous event should have no effect upon the character of those whose sentence it should pronounce, but that character should determine the sentence. They shall go away, the righteous — that is the humane — into continuous life ; the wicked— that is the inhumane — into continuous punishment. He does not tell us how long that punishment and that life shall be. He uses a word (clioovlos) which specially conceals any definite conclusion. It may be endless, it may have an end, it may be immediate and to continue through the existing state of things ; it is pain and pleasure set over against one another, with no limit of time. Time, measureless or limited, is very little, but character is everything. CHAPTEE IY. THE FOURTH DAY FROM TUESDAY EVENING TO WEDNESDAY EVENING. At the conclusion of this speech, most probably on the same evening, Tuesday, which was the beginning of the fourth day of . the week, according to Jewish reckoning, and hopes while they were going towards Bethany, Jesus said to his friends, " You know that after two days is the Feast of the Passover, and the Son of Man is be- trayed to be crucified." There could be nothing plainer than that. He should not carry out the Jewish Messianic idea. He should disappoint all the worldly hopes of his personal friends. They must give up forever their expectations that he would prove a temporal Deliverer and regard him hereafter as a spiritual Messiah. When Jesus and his disciples reached Bethany they found that an entertainment had been provided for them in the house of Simon " the leper." Who he was we do not Feast in Simon's know. It is probable that he had had the leprosy eve^in A^nT aild Lad be6n heakd hj JeSUS ' ^ ^ he gaVG a.d. 30 ' ' ^ s su PP er m token of his gratitude. Perhaps he was a relative of Lazarus ; if not, the two families were intimate, as Lazarus, and Martha, and Mary were present, " and Martha served." After the meal had begun, while Jesus reclined at the table, Mary came in quietly and opened a flask, and noiselessly poured the ointment on the head of her friend. She had Mary anoints Je- . , , .,, , ,-, r t • i Bus watched with loving eyes the agony or his soul, his harassed look as he returned from his daily conflicts in Jerusalem. She naturally desired to make some marked and significant display of her love. On that aching head she poured the nard. There, stretched from the couch, were the Tollen,, throbbing feet that had been standing in the Temple THE FOURTH DAY. 601 during the day, and bringing him across Olivet in the evening She recollected that they had stood beside her brother's grave. Now, there sat that brother, alive, well, and eating. Her heart went out in all lovingness. She spent the remainder of the oint- ment on his feet, then threw the flask away, and wrapped the deai limbs in her hair. So silently and unobtrusively had she done this, that it was oni; when the house was filled with the odor of the ointment that the disciples perceived what had been done, although Jesus from the first knew that it was Mary, and what she was doing. There was one dark spirit at the feast, who was about to do the deed of treason which was to damn his fame forever. It was Ju das Iscariot. He ventured the first sinister criti- cism. "Why was this waste of the ointment made ? Why was it not sold and given to the poor \ " The othei disciples concurred in this view, after it had been suggested by treasurer Judas under the specious guise of consideration for the poor. The criticism grew into a murmur round the table. The reply of Jesus is most striking. " Let her alone," said he ; " why do you trouble her ? She lias wrought a beautiful work on me. You have the poor with you always, and , .,, • 'V""ii ii The reply of Je- when you will you may do them good ; but me sug you have not always. She has done what she could : she came beforehand to anoint my body for the burial. Verily I say to you, Wherever the gospel shall be preached in the whole world, what she has done shall also be spoken of as a me- morial of her." This is a remarkable speech every way. Jesus was caught in the toils of his enemies. He always knew that there was to be no temporal kingdom, with offices, and honors, and emoluments, and that now death lay near before him. Beyond that death he saw that his cause was to rise and conquer, that the whole world was to hear the glad tidings of Jesus, and that whenever and wher- ever that gospel was preached, Mary's graceful tribute should be recited as a memorial of her. It is noticeable as showing the care of Jesus for the graceful when it has no special utility. Jesus took care of the beautiful ; he knew that the useful would take care of itself. He showed how much more precious in his sight is the service of the heart than the service of the head ; the worship of love than the labor of thought. 602 THE LAST WEEK. While Jesus was predicting the downfall of Jerusalem, as he sat on a projection of Mount Olivet, the churchmen inside the . city were plotting his destruction. He had that A meeting of , ^ , . t n ° . s conspirators. ^ humbled them m the sight of the people. He had every day increased their rage more and more, and had constantly escaped, always going out of the city at nightfall. They felt that they must do something promptly and decisively to suppress Jesus. With that view a large, and perhaps confidential, assemblage of chief priests and scribes and elders met together " in the palace of the high-priest," says Matthew. They did not go to the usual place, the council-chamber called Gazith, which, according to the Talmud, joined the south side of the Temple ; they went to the hall or court of Caiaphas, son-in- law of Annas, a man who had degraded the pontificate by giv- ing it political connections. It is not certain where this " palace," or hall, or court was. An ancient tradition makes it the country- house of Caiaphas, the ruins of which are still shown on the sum- mit of the Hill of Evil Counsel.* The intent of the meeting was to devise some scheme of subtil- ity by which they could quickly move him out of the way. They did not dare to attempt to take him openly. He postponed ^ad adherents and warm partisans. The popu- lace were excited in his behalf. His recent mir- acles and his manifest triumph over the church party in the most public manner had brought the people to his side. The shouts of the Palm-Sunday Messianic salutations had scarce yet died out of the air. If they arrested him publicly there might be a public attempt at rescue, and then there would have been a collision. The Roman guard, who never studied Jewish ecclesiastical ques- tions, and who, from the tower of Antonia, looked down upon the Temple court and kept the often tumultuous crowd of worship- pers under surveillance, would have rushed upon them with the sword and consigned both parties to indiscriminate slaughter. By craft, therefore, must he be taken. After a long consultation this was the result of their deliberations : that the Passover should be * ' ' Tradition makes the bargain with Judas to have been entered into at the country-house of Caiaphas, the ruins of which are still shown upon the sum- mit of the Hill of Evil Counsel. The tradition is not ancient ; but it is men- tioned as a singular fact that the mon- ument of Annas, who may have had a country-seat near his son-in-law, is found in this neighborhood." Williams, H. C, ii. 496, quoted by Andrews. THE FOURTH DAY. 603 allowed to go by, that the crowds of visitors to the metropolis on this festal occasion should be permitted to depart, and that then the Sanhedrim should contrive to do away with Jesus, without noise, without calling attention to him. It never seemed to have entered their minds that this end might be gained by the treason of some member of the circle of Jesus. What they were resolv- ing should be after the Passover, Jesus was predicting should take place on that very day. We can fancy the surprise and diabolical delight of the San- hedrim when suddenly one of the Twelve, one of the most inti- mate friends of Jesus, found access to them and offered to betray him to them, so that they might th avoid the difficulties of his apprehension in pub- lic. This was Judas of Kerioth. The reply of Jesus to his criti- cism of Mary's waste of the ointment seemed to convince Judas that things were not going forward on the path he had marked out in his own mind, and so he took the resolve to precipitate the work by a bold movement. He went back from Simon's house to Jerusalem and sought the ecclesiastical authori- ties. They were glad, and covenanted with him "for thirty pieces of silver." These pieces are supposed to be the silver shekels, each of which was worth a little over two English shil lings, or fifty American cents, so that the whole sum offered Ju- das was a little more than £3 English, or $15 American. A re- ference to Exodus xxi. 32, shows that this had more anciently been the price of a slave.* It has been suggested by Lange that when the Sanhedrim made this offer to Judas it was with cunning irony. Judas accepted. The case of Judas is a study. We may as well enter upon it here, anticipating so much of the remainder of his history as the New Testament writers record. No historical character has had so hard a fate. Even if the uita. ingenuity of those who please themselves in mak- ing theories which shall expose the falseness of long-received conclusions, or the pleas of those whose amiability is in excess, * Compare the remarkable passage in Zechariah xi. 12. The case of Ju- 604 THE LAST WEEK. shall do something for poor Judas, there will still remain the f act that for more than eighteen centuries his name has been a horror in all lands where it has been known, his fame the blackest among men, his portrait in the gallery of historical personages the most deeply draped, and his whole character considered the most infer- nal of all that have been mortal. Poets, painters, and preachers have united to damn him from generation to generation.* He has been the one culprit who for long ages had not a single hu- man brother to say one word in his behalf. This itself has been a terrible doom. Of late years examination of his character, his motives, and his conduct has gone far to mitigate the verdict of the past. Every . examination of the career of Jesus involves an ex- tions amination of the case of Judas, and the very unanimity of opinion in past ages has so aroused the suspicion of modern criticism, that some writers who have not concerned themselves with Jesus have found a fascination in the unique historical position of Judas, attracting them to an analysis of his natural characteristics and of his motives in this most unfortunate and fatal betrayal of his Teacher. The German critics first suggested that the story of Judas had been misread and the man misunderstood ; that appearances were so frightfully against him at the first as to put him under a cloud, which his sudden death, quickly following his betrayal of Jesus, prevented him from dissipating, and which no one subsequently had any interest in removing, while partisanship for Jesus gave his followers a reason for making that cloud as dark as possible. * I have been told by a friend that in South America an image of Judas is submitted, on certain days, to the pop- ular execration, and that he himself had given Judas a kick in the streets of Rio. There was not much of Judas left at the close of a day of such treatment. In the Prince of the House of Da- vid, a romance founded on the facts in the life of Jesus, the author, Rev. Mr. lngraham, gives his ideal of Judas in the following description, which shows how this ideal was constructed by the natural dislike to Judas caused by the historical position he sustains towards Jesus: — "He was low in height, was ill-featured, and his attire was mean : but he had a suspicious air, combined with a cringing deference, that made made me think he must be a hypocrite. He smiled with his mouth and teeth, but at the same time looked sinister out of his eyes. An air of humility seemed to be put on to conceal the pride and wickedness of his character. He looked like a man who could artfully deceive to gain his selfish ends, and who would kneel to you to overturn you. The sound of his voice confirmed my first impression of him." THE FOURTH DAY. 605 De Quincey sums up the reasonings of the Germans along this line of thought with suggestions of his own, the amount of which is that Judas was not in the bad sense a traitor, . that his movements during this Passover week theory were not intended to crush, nay, nor even to re- tard, but rather to advance the cause of Jesus. He may have had some self-seeking in all that he did, but not base treachery and certainly not petty avarice. His reasoning was fallacious, as subsequent events have shown, but it was just such as an aver- age intellect would have pursued before the catastrophe, in view of such facts as are now known to have been before the mind of Judas, and specially operative upon such a mental and moral con- stitution as that of Judas. Quite lately this theory has been taken up by Mr. Story, an American sculptor residing in Rome, and worked into a poem of considerable dramatic force, entitled The Roman Lawyer in Jerusalem, first published in Black- poe wood, and afterward in a small volume. In this poem the theory is such an advance on that of the Germans and De Quincey as to make Judas, upon the whole, the very best and noblest of the Twelve Apostles, most believing, most daring, yet most delicate. Of all the Apostles he was the only one who so believed in the Godhood of Jesus that he felt that no power could kill him, and if he could put his Master in just such relation to human power that he would be compelled to let his Godhead break through his humanity, then should be brought to pass, what they all desired, the immediate inauguration of the Messianic kingdom. It might be a personal disaster to Judas to do it, but none of the other dis- ciples had the faith in Jesus and the dariug to make the venture. Judas had. But when he saw his dire mistake, and that Jesus did not burst out into undeniable Messianic splendor and power, Judas was so delicately constituted that his heart broke. This is the argument of Mr. Story's poem. Let us see how much of all this has ground in history and reason. Jesus originally selected Judas from a company of at least sixty of his followers to be of the number of the Twelve who should be on his " staff " and should be charged with the special duty of propagating his doctrines. Judas, then, was no worse and no better than the rest of them. He was an average man, 606 THE LAST W EEK. of average moral and intellectual endowments. But he was drawn to Jesus, and by Jesus selected to the Apostolate. Tie was religious above the average. Through his whole Judas compared connection with Jesus, up to this point, he does with the other ,,. , ,i • i • v i n Apostles nothing and says nothing which draws a reproof from Jesus. He behaves better than the rest. He never had said or done anything to make Jesus say to him as he had to Peter, " Get behind me, Satan." He was a better-tem- pered man than John, who is the admiration of painters and romancers, for never, like John, had he desired to call down fire from heaven to consume his fellow-men. He never was such a profane liar as Peter proved to be, nor so ambitious as John and his brother James, who desired to share the Messianic kingdom with Jesus, and sit one on his right hand and the other on his left, ruling over their brethren. The only occasion when even acuteness can discover anything that can be tortured into a reproof is the supper in the house of Simon the Leper, when Judas suggested that the e o y re- mone y w hj c h had been spent on the ointment by Mary might have been better expended on the poor. If any candid reader will forget that it was Judas who made this remark, and notice that what Jesus said was not in opposition to the remark of Judas, a remark which Judas himself had learned from the very teaching of Jesus, — if the reader will only fancy that John might have said the same thing, and Jesus might have made to him the same reply, then all sign of reproof will disappear. It is to be recollected by those who will be criti- cal that when we read the account of that supper in John's twelfth chapter, we are prejudiced by the statement that it was Judas Iscariot who made the suggestion of economy in the matter of the ointment, and that John takes pains to inform us that it was he " which should betray him," and then he adds the damaging parenthesis : " This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bore what was put therein." If we had only the narratives of Matthew and Mark we could never have had any suspicion that Jesus was reproving the suggestion of giving the money to the poor, but was rather, with his usual lofty yet tender courtesy, protecting the woman who loved him and was anointing him. It is to be considered, then, that John's saying "he was a thief " THE FOURTH DAY. 607 does not prove that Judas had ever committed an act of theft or showed any signs of a proclivity towards peculation. He certainly had not been a thief up to the time of his elec- tion for the Apostolate. He was a man of execu- ti tive ability surpassing them all, and supposed to be a man of honesty equal to them all, else he had not been made their treasurer. That they had an insignificant exchequer is not proof that they would therefore be careless as to the person who should manage it : quite the contrary. Poor people who invest their sav- ings a dime at a time, need to be more careful than men who would not be embarrassed for an hour by the breaking of a bank in which they have deposited ten thousand dollars. These disciples were scrupulous and careful. There must have been frequent auditing of the accounts of Judas, not from any suspicion of foul dealing on his part, but to know how far their little fund would meet their pressing wants. A widow whose toil brings such weekly wages as that the most rigid economy must be exer- cised to keep her outgo from exceeding her income, counts over her little store more frequently and carefully than the Roths- childs count their ample assets. The disciples would have de- tected the leakage if Judas had purloined. Jesus would have found some method of. reproof, or at least of warning. But nothing of this kind ever occurred. No suspicion against Judas arose among the disciples until after the betrayal of Jesus. John wrote this verdict after Judas had betrayed Jesus. The other disciples must have been unspeakably outraged. It was natural. They would not have deserved to be the friends of Jesus if they had not felt the utmost horror at the betrayal. That would naturally lead them to believe any evil thing of the be- trayer, and as Judas certainly did receive money for his services in this transaction, it was most natural to suppose that he was so avaricious that he would have stolen, that he who would " sell his Master," for so they regarded it, for thirty shekels, the price of a slave, would not hesitate to steal, being at heart a thief ; and that he who had not tenderness enough for such a Master as Jesus as to make the earth, even if it were a solid chrysolite, no tempta- tion as a bribe for betrayal, could not have had any care for the poor. This is all that the words of John do really prove, namely, that his fellow- Apostles regarded the act of Judas as so horrible as to put him beyond the pale of Christian charity ; in which 608 THE LAST WEEK. they might have been as much mistaken as John was when he wanted fire from heaven to burn up the Samaritan village. Judas had the " worldly " part of the work of the Apostles to attend to. He made the little purchases, and thus, as De Quincey suggests, came in contact with the " petty shop keepers," or, as I should say, mingled with that class from whom he gathered the popular opinion of men and measures. He was not confined to the spiritual influence of the inner circle of the friends of Jesus. He went out frequently into " the world," and coming back Judas believed, as they all did, that Jesus was going to establish a temporal kingdom. The difference between the eleven and Judas, as it seems to me, was simply this, that their's was a vague belief and expectation, influ- encing them more as a dream than as a vital power shaping their lives. Judas was no fanatic and no poet. I think Mr. Story not quite right when he speaks of him as a man " who took his dreams for firm realities." He studied all the phenomena of the case as a man of affairs, as an astute politician. He had more knowledge of the world and more practical sense than the other Apostles. He believed in the desirableness of throwing off the Roman yoke. He believed the time had come to do it. The people had grown into an impatience Uhat was passionate. If a proper leader could be found and a proper time to strike, the work could be accomplished. He found that leader in Jesus. It would seem probable that more than the other Apostles he believed in the Messiahship of Jesus, and in a loftier and at the same time more practical way. Let us suppose that he brooded over this thought for three years, not as a dreamer, but as a prac- tical working man. He would naturally come to see it in a light in which the other Apostles could not study it. The capacities of Jesus for such a leadership would be a question of profound in- terest. He saw in him prodigious power, power to work mira- cles, to escape through the heart of a mob as if he bore a charmed life. He was capable of overawing men. A crowd of merchants had rushed out of the Temple before his eyes of rebuke. There was a majestic augustness about him which made Judas feel that this was a King of Men. Devils bowed before him, while children were attracted to his side and were petted when they came, and women absolutely adored him to the very kissing of his feet. He THE FOURTH DAY. 609 could raise the dead with a word ; could he not slay the wicked with a look ? Jesus had all the personal dignities and graces for a king of kings ; but there was one defect : he had no policy and no " push." So it must have seemed to Judas. . . r . , „ . . , Judas s opinion Jesus never took advantage 01 his personal pop- of Jesus# ularity to consolidate a party. He fed thousands of people and got nothing back. He confounded the ecclesiasti- cal leaders, and yet would not found a church, and now, when his affairs seemed to be reaching a crisis, he was making no move- ments ecclesiastical or political. This behavior, in the eyes of a politician, was simply absurd. Judas, no more than the other Apostles, recognized the interiomess and thoroughness of the kingdom which Jesus was preaching and trying to make them understand, how that it was like that ether which pervades the atmosphere, and glass, and all transparent substances, and is where there is neither air nor glass, — a kingdom which did not need to displace any existing kingdom or church, — a kingdom which could as well subsist in political anarchies as in empires, in re- publics as in despotisms, a kingdom which had no need of any outward and visible State, or any outward and visible Church, but could and would subsist in all forms of States and all forms of Church, and without all States and all Churches, a kingdom which did not exist, but subsist and persist, that did not stand out but fill through, that was not & phenomenon but a noumenon. Rooted and grounded in the belief that a temporal, sensuous, visible, Hebrew kingdom was to cover the earth and subdue the nations, nothing else would satisfy Judas. And he must have believed that Jesus expected such a He longed for a i * ••■■» : t i ,-i, . .-. •. temporal king- kmgdom, and expected to reign over it, but that dom he had not the promptness at the right moment to make the stroke, the requisite coup oVetat. In De Quincey's language, he seemed to Judas to be " sublimely over-gifted for purposes of speculation, but not commensurately endowed for the business of action and the sudden emergencies of life." And to Judas the conduct of his brother Apostles, and of all the follow- ers of Jesus, was most unwise and unprofitable. They needed all their funds, and yet were wasting it on ointment. The Apostles and the other friends of Jesus were doing nothing for him, sim- ply enjoying his society, walking about with him, behaving like 610 THE LAST WEEK. children. It must have chafed Judas ; and although he made no special profession of attachment to Jesus, and received no dis- criminating attention from him, Judas may have felt at heart that he was doing more for " the cause " than they all, or at least had the most earnest desire to do. Over these things he had been brooding for months, if not years. Now the crisis was coming. Jesus himself seemed to be aban- . doning the Messianic work on which he had en- tered. It behooves us to consider every element which may have entered into the calculations of Judas. At this juncture of affairs he may have reviewed his reasonings and seen things in this position : he had been right as to the claims of Jesus to the Messiahship, or he had been wrong; the Established Church and Government had some claims upon Judas ; the Church was the enemy of Jesus ; the Church desired to suppress Jesus privately; Judas could agree with the clergy to point out Jesus at night quietly; then one of two things would occur — Jesus would raise the populace and proceed to carry the revolu- tion forward with vigor, or else he was an impostor, and it was right that he should be surrendered. This last thought I think could have been at most only a side-light on the mind of Judas. He could hardly have suspected Jesus of being an impostor. But in such a case as this a man is actuated by many, and sometimes contradictory, motives. But I agree with Neander, that avarice could scarcely have been a leading motive in the case of Judas. If he was avaricious and treacherous at heart, why, after receiv- ing the money from the priests, did he point out Jesus % There was nothing more to be gained, and it was not so offensive a thing to cheat the malignant priests as to betray his good Master. He kept his contract, showing that he was not treacherous ; and he returned the money when he saw that he was wrong. All that he did, in act, was to designate Jesus in a crowd at night. Let us consider the circumstances of his remorse and death, not forgetting the truth of Neander's re- Remorse and , « a ■ i .li • j-t death of Judas. mark : As a g eneral thm g> the impressions made upon a man by the results of his action testify but little as to his character and motives ; none can tell how an evil deed, even when deliberately planned and perpe trated, will react upon the conscience." Mark, Luke, and John are silent. Matthew and the writer of the Acts of the Apostles THE FOURTH DAY. 611 are our only authorities. The former says (xxvii. 3) that when Judas saw that Jesus was condemned he returned the money to the priests and acknowledged that he had betrayed innocent blood; and then went out and hanged himself. In the Acts (i. 16) Peter, who had acted very basely at the betrayal of Jesus, is represented as saying that Judas had purchased a field with the wages of iniquity, " and falling on his face he burst asunder and all his bowels gushed forth." It is plain that both these accounts cannot be accurate. If he returned the money, then he did not buy a field with it. If he hanged himself, he did not meet with the horrible end depicted by Peter. Casaubon suggests that, according to Matthew, Judas hanged himself, and that he did this over the Valley of Gehinnon ; the branch broke or the rope was torn, and Judas, according to Peter, fell headlong and burst asunder ! This seems ridiculous ; and yet there does not seem to be any better theory. If taken literally, the accounts are con- tradictory, and one or the other was mistaken. Peter's speech is evidently loosely rhetorical. There must have been other facts of which we have no knowledge, and which might reconcile these statements. We are to remember the rooted belief among the Apostles and their countrymen that every marked physical evil was retributive of the individual's sins. It must needs be that they should sup- pose that Judas should have something horrible in his death. It is quite clear that he did come to some tragic end. When he saw what he had done, when he beheld Jesus with such placidity sub- mitting himself to the hands of the church and the state for ex- ecution, all at once there rolled back upon him the tide of his earliest affection for Jesus, the remembrance of all the beautiful and beneficent life of Jesus, a perception of his own huge and irremediable blunder, and he rushed to the hierarchy and flung their money back to them, and went out appalled, horror-stricken, heart-broken, strangling with his emotions, and fell down dead. This figurative rendering seems to be the only reasonable method of harmonizing the two accounts. We are not to apologize for Judas, nor add unwarrantably to his badness, but strive to find out what he was. He was an average politician. He was audacious ^fj"^ ° ° rather than treacherous. He believed that the cause of Jesus needed the hand of policy to steady it and push it 612 THE LAST WEEK. forward. He dared to take out of the hand of the Master what waa the work of the Master, and he perished in the attempt. His ruin was caused by the impatience and pride of his utter worldliness. But for his impatient policy he never would have consulted with the church party. But for his impatient pride he would have led a life of penitence which would have restored him. It was through his worldliness and not through his sagacity that the devil entered into him. Peter did quite as basely as he ; but Peter repented and lived to recover himself. If social damage had not seemed to the worldliness of Judas the greatest of all evils, repentance might have brought recovery to him as it did to Peter. The fourth day of the week began on Tuesday evening and closed on Wednesday evening. On Tuesday evening Judas prob- ably had his interview with the church autho- April a.d 30 rities. Then Jesus went with his disciples to Bethany. The temporary absence of Judas would scarcely have been noticed by the other disciples, as he must have been accustomed to be absent in his attendance on the " temporalities " of the body. History is silent on this Wednesday. There is not an intimation of any movement upon the part of the authorities or of Jesus. He seems to have gone into profound retirement. There is no notice of any communication even with his disciples. It is a strange calm stealing in between the commo- tion of the preceding and the storm of the succeeding days. Jesus evidently felt his position, and knew all that was going for- ward. We may fancy the thoughts and feelings of such a head and such a heart as his, but there is no history. CHAPTER Y, THE FIFTH DAY — FKOM WEDNESDAY EVENING TO THURSDAY EVENING. The fifth day of the week began on Wednesday evening, and closed on Thursday evening. It was the first day of unleavened bread, when the Passover must be killed. The leavened bread Passover was the feast commemorative of the deliverance of the nation from the Egyptian bondage. The history of its appointment and method of observ- ance are given in Exod. xii. The feast was celebrated by compa- nies, numbering not less than ten nor more than twenty. In be- half of the whole company, one, as a representative, presented the lamb in the Temple to be sacrificed by the Levites. It was then carried to the house where the party was assembled, and eaten; and if they could not consume it before daylight they were to burn the remainder. Jesus was approached by his disciples, to know where he would have them prepare for his eating of the Passover. There is no point in the chronology of the career of Jesus which has elicited more controversy than the question on what evening Jesus ate the Passover. To repeat all that has been written on this subject would be to produce another volume larger than this, and, after all, the discrepancy between the statements of John and those of the other biographers seems to be as far from being har- monized as ever.* There is no space to give even a synopsis of the arguments, which would require many pages. The result of all seems to be that the most rational conclusion is that all the Evangelists spoke of one feast; that it was a Paschal supper; that Jesus ate that supper with his disciples on Thursday night, the evening following the 14th Nisan, April 6, a.tt. 783, a.d. 30, being the evening from which, according to Jewish calculation, began the sixth day, Friday, 15th Nisan. * Readers who have abundance of time may find this question amply dis- cussed in Andrews's Life of our Lord, Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Greas- well's Dissertations, and a note in Cros- by's Jesus, p. 429. 614 THE LAST WEEK. During the day, before the evening, in reply to his disciples, Jesus sent Peter and John to prepare for the eating of the Pass- over Supper. He said, "On your entering the Preparation for it man ghall meet bearing a pitcher ; f ol- the Supper, . " ' . . . , , J . ?. , , Thursday 6th *- ow mm mto tne nouse mto which he enters. April, a.d. 30. And you shall speak to the Master of the house, saying, i The Teacher says to you, My time is at hand. Where is the guest-chamber, where I may eat the Pass- over with my disciples ? ' And he shall show you a large upper room, cushioned ; and there make ready." There need be very little speculation upon the mysteriousness of this message. Those who are so materialistic that any narrative not totally common- place bears internal evidence of its untruth, will reject this por- tion of the history, as they will that of the sending for the ass's colt in Bethphage. Those who accept it are able to believe in the psychology of the New Testament, and will have no difficul- ties. Men's powers of inspection, circumspection, and transpec- tion differ. Jesus had them all in an extraordinary measure. He knew what was working in Judas. He knew that he had pledged himself to indicate his Master in such a way that the authorities might take him without raising a multitude. That was all the priests desired. That was all Judas was to do. But Jesus, while marching forward in the line on which his fate lay, would not precipitate himself thereupon. He would not put in the hands of Judas, who was watching, such information as might be used to break up the Paschal Supper. Jesus determined to eat that with his disciples. His clear spiritual sight enabled him to talk of the man with the pitcher of water, and the house he should en- ter, and the owner thereof, as if all, down to the cushions in the guest-chamber, were present before his eyes, as in some sense they certainly must have been. The disciples found all as he had described. It is not known who was this citizen of Jerusalem in whose lumse Jesus ate this Supper. He was some secret friend of Jesus. There is no sign of bargain in advance. It was At whose house? ^ nec essary. It was the custom to furnish room for the Passover gratis. The rule was to leave the earthen jugs and the skins of the sacrificed animals for the host, but he took no pay. The trouble in the mind of the disciples seems to have been that they had postponed finding a place until it might be THE FIFTH DAY. 61b exceedingly difficult to do so. But the calm Jesus knew just where to send them. Thronged and crowded as the city was, he knew a secret adherent, a friend to " The Master," who would gladly open his house for him, and who, strangely, had a vacant chamber ready. All this displays more than even extraordinary sagacity on the part of Jesus. • The disciples made ready. The law was that the Paschal lamb was to be slain " between the evenings." Tin's phrase has had a variety of meanings assigned by the Jewish writ- ers. In the times of Josephus {Bell. Jud., vi. 9, 3), the Pharisees held that the first evening began when the sun declined towards the horizon, the second at sunset Some, however, taught that the phrase included the time from a little before to a little after sunset. The Samaritans and Karaites interpreted it to mean from sunset to dark. It was probably about three o'clock that the lamb was slain, and before six that the sup- per was eaten. " Between the evenings." CHAPTER VI. THE SIXTH DAY FROM THURSDAY EVENING TO FRIDAY EVENING. Section 1. — The Supper. \ At the appointed hour they entered the chamber, and Jesus said to them, " With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer ; for I say to you that I Thursday even- win not eafc thereo f until the time when it shall a d 30 Jesus's ^ e ^ u^Ued i n tne kingdom of God." This was opening speech. said, perhaps, while they were standing, as the ceremony of the Passover was to remind them of their night out of Egypt. They were about to recline at the ta- ble, and then arose the old question of precedence, who should be first. It might have been the attraction of love. Jesus was so melancholy, yet so serene. He was growing sublimely beautiful. Who should sit next him % But they waxed warm, and the feel- ing was not generous. It ran rather in the channel of Oriental etiquette, the position at the table being important. It was somehow settled at last, John being next to him on one side, and most probably Judas on the other. It was customary at this feast to have four cups of wine mixed with He gives them water> ^nd Jesus took one of these cups, and the wine and the . . . . bread having given thanks, he gave it to his disciples, saying, " Take and divide this among yourselves, for I say to you, that I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God shall come." After they had been eating some time, he took bread, and having given thanks, he broke it, and gave it to them, saying, " This is my body, which is about to be given in behalf of you : this do in remembrance of me." Then, after they had eaten, he took the cup, and gave it to them, saying, " This cup is the New Testament in my blood, now to be poured forth in behalf of you ! " This seemed designed to appropriate to himself what was THE SIXTH DAY. 617 typical in the unleavened bread, and in the mingled wine and water of the Paschal feast. Whenever they celebrated the Pass- over they were to remember him. He seems to intimate that a thought of him was wrapped up in the Passover idea. Might it not also mean that, whenever they should eat bread and drink wine, under any circumstances, they should have remembrance oi him \ It was this tender injunction which led his followers to in- stitute w r hat is so appropriately called " The Lord's Supper." Jesus then rose from the table, laid aside his outer garment, took a basin of water and a towel, and proceeded to wash the feet of his disciples, and to wipe them with the towel. When men came off a journey it was the custom „ e was es for the host to have their feet washed, and this service was ordinarily performed by a slave. It has been sug- gested that in the hurry and crowd of the festival, and in prepar- ing his own Passover, the host had on this occasion omitted this attention, and that the dispute as to who should be greatest arose among the disciples on the point of the feet washing. But as the Passover was to be eaten with staves in their hands and all the preparations for a journey, it would scarcely seem necessary that the feet should have been washed on this occasion. At any rate Jesus found reason in their disputings to teach them an impres- sive lesson of love's humility. When he came to Simon Peter, that vehement disciple broke forth, " Do you wash my feet % " Jesus said, " What I am doing you do not perceive now, but you shall understand hereafter." He w T as not to be put off so. The old impetuous self-will broke forth, " You shall never wash my feet." It was " the pride that apes humility." He would have it his own way. He had better ideas of propriety than his Mas- ter ! Jesus brought him to terms by the calm statement, " If I do not wash you, you have no part with me." Suddenly the im- petuous self-will of Peter new to the opposite extreme. If that was the case nothing would satisfy him but a regular bath. He exclaimed, " Not my feet only, but also the hands and the head ! " There was no need of any such immersion, and Jesus said, " He that is bathed needs not to wash, but is wholly clean." And turning to his disciples he said, "And you are clean — but not all." The re- ply to Peter seems to signify that this feet washing was not a sacrament, not a " means of grace," as such things are called, not 618 THE LAST WEEK. a cleansing ceremonial. If the disciples were not pure in heait his washing of their feet would not cleanse them. It did not cleanse Judas and Peter, who shortly after outraged all truth and decency in his betrayal and denial. When this was done he resumed his garments and his seat at the table, and said, " Do you know what I have done to you 1 You call me 'The Teacher,' and 'The Lord;' and you speak gracefully : for I am. If then I, the Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another's feet ; for I have given you an example that as I have done for you, you also should do. I most assuredly say to you that the slave is not greater than his Lord, nor the [Apostle] sent greater than he who has sent him. If you know these things, you are happy if you do them. I do not speak of you all : I know whom I have chosen ; but the Scripture may be fulfilled : * He who eats bread with me has lifted up his heel against me.' * Now I tell you, before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass you may know that I am. Most assuredly I say to you, He who receives whomsoever I send receives me ; and he who re- ceives me receives Him who sent me.'' It seems impossible to read this whole history without feeling that Jesus knew all his circumstances and read the spirits of all about him. He knew that Judas would secretly . . betray him, so that the church party might quiet- ly take him without arousing a popular demon- stration in his favor. Whatever might be his knowledge of the case, if he should seem to have as implicitly trusted Judas as the others, and if his betrayal should afterwards seem to his disciples to have been as unexpected to him as it certainly was to them, their faith would be shaken. But to indicate the betrayer would be to exasperate the disciples against him, to precipitate matters, and to surrender his own dignity. Not a moment of petty pas- sion or of towering wrath broke on the sky-like loftiness and purity of this wonderful soul. He went just far enough to save their faith from a prodigious shock. As they sat and did eat he was sad and troubled in spirit. He had spoken of the mission of his disciples, and the blessedness of those who received his friends. But he could not bear that the benediction should go to Judas, and so he made a Scriptural quo- * Psalm xli. 9. THE SIXTH DAY. 619 The self -inspec- tion of the Apos- tles. tation which should show that he discriminated. He added, " I most assuredly say to you that one of you, now eating with me, shall betray me." This fearful speech filled them with terrible suspicions. They looked at one an- other, perhaps running over in memory the inci- dents of their companionship to ascertain who might have shown signs of a baseness capable of committing so hideous an act. There was nothing. No suspicion pointed to Judas. He was as little likely as any to perform an act so execrable. Then they began self-inspection. Each man searched his own heart to see what root there was in him that might so suddenly spring up and bear such a poisonous fruit. But no one would allow such a dire possibility to him- self. Then one after another they began to mur- mur, " Lord, is it I ? Lord, is it I ? " He re- plied, " He who dips the hand with me in the dish, he shall betray me. The Son of Man indeed is going, as it is written of him, but woe to that man through whom the Son of Man is be trayed ! It were good for that man if he had not been born ! " Next to Jesus sat John, who is fond of designating himself as " the disciple whom Jesus loved," although none of the other histo rians show any partiality on the part of Jesus. Peter was at some distance. He signed to John to ask Jesus who it was that should betray him. He did ask him, and Jesus answered, but perhaps in a tone that the others could not hear, " He it is, to whom, having dipped the sop, I shall give it." He dipped the " sop" and gave it to Judas, who seems to have been sitting on his other side. Then he faltered out, " Rabbi, what, am I he ? " It would seem that Judas did not intend to betray him that night. Nor is it probable that his plan was to do this until after the close of the feast. But the proceedings at this supper hastened him. Jesus replied, " You have said it. What you do, do quickly." No man at the table knew for what intent this had been spoken to Judas. Evidently if Peter had known which one it was he would have slain him on the spot, for he was a choleric man, and had a sword with him ; and although he himself was about to be most base, and violate all the sanctity of his friendship for Jesus quite as much as Judas, yet he did not know that, and he was a rash man, although destitute of moral courage. So none of the company knew the intent of the communication which Jesus Am I he? 620 THE LAST WEEK. made to Judas, and when he arose and left them may they not have supposed that the Master had sent him out on some errand % " It was night," says John. In every sense it was night. The daylight had gone away from the tops of " the mountains round about Jerusalem," and darkness was settling Judas leaves. n -. ., . , 1 , k , deeply on the ravines and gardens around the city. The little band of followers were groping in a perplexity like midnight. It was night in the soul of Judas ; such dark night as utterly bewildered him. He had laid his plans in utter worldliness. He was being hurried up and disconcerted. The men he had left in the upper chamber were simple, unworldly souls, and he was sagacious. He had at least a plan ; they none. He had gone thus far with it. Should he go forward ? Should he go back \ Was there any reason to recede from the position he had taken % Why should he go back ? Did Jesus mean to urge him on by what he said ? It may have flashed upon his mind that perhaps Jesus did. When men have set themselves to a theory everything favors it. Judas had forgotten the fearful " woe " just uttered. He must have felt himself out of sympathy with the other disciples. The very looks and tones of Jesus must have perturbed him. But going forward might be failure and ruin. He was in a storm of conflicting emotions and motives. Satan had him. " It was night." After Judas had left, Jesus said, " Now the Son of Man is glo- rified, and God is glorified in him. And God shall glorify him in Himself, and shall immediately glorify him. Little children, yet a short time I am with you. You shall seek me ; and, as I said to the Jews, where I go you cannot gome ; and now I say to you. A new commandment I give to you, That you love one another ; as I have loved you, you also shall love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another." Peter said, u Lord, where are you going \ " He could not even apprehend the idea that Jesus would die. The whole discourse of Jesus about his departure was a perplexing riddle to his disciples. It seemed as if he were going off somewhere to have a terrible conflict. This was con- firmed when Jesus answered, " Where I go you cannot follow me now, but you shall follow me afterwards." Peter persisted : " Lord, why cannot I follow you now ? I will lay down my life for you ! " Jesus replied : " Will you lay down your life for me % THE SIXTH DAY. 621 I most assuredly say to you, The cock shall not crow till you have thrice denied that you know me." Then he said to his disciples : " You shall all be offended in me this night ; for it is written, ' I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered.'* But after I am risen again I will go before you into Galilee." Peter again responded still more vehemently : " If all shall be offended in you, yet will not I. Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you ! " And Jesus said to him, " Simon, Satan has acquired you,f to sift you as wheat : but I have prayed for you that your faith fail not. And when you have turned strengthen your brethren." Then to all the disciples, " When I sent you without purse, or wallet, or sandals, did you want anything P They said, " Nothing." "But now," said he, " he that has a purse, let him take it, and likewise his wallet : and he who has no knife, let him sell his garment and buy one. For I say to you, that that which is written must be ac- complished in me, ' And he was numbered with the law-break- ers.' X Also that concerning me has an end." § His disciples informed him that there were two swords in the chamber. Jesus said, " Enough is," as perhaps we should say, " Enough of this." He was simply striving to impress upon their minds that there was to be a change ; that whereas they went out formerly with perfect safety, and the assurance that his name A pY\ *vn o*a T"n*f*- would be a passport to them everywhere, because dicted & it was in the palmy days of his great popularity, a change was to come because he was going away, and his name was to be coupled with ignominy. The stupidity of these simple men is annoying to us ; but we are to remember that we carry back to the inspection of their words and acts the light which * Zechariah xiii. 7. f The force of the Greek middle in this passage is noticed by Gresswell. It signifies not merely that Satan desired to have, but had actually got possession of the Apostles, that they had been given up to him to sift. He had got out Judas, and was like to get out Peter ; but Jesus was praying for him. In the original the pronoun is in the plural in the first, and singular in the second sec- tion of the sentence. " Satan has re- quired you Apostles to sift you ; but I have prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith," etc. It was too late for Judas, and the other Apostles were not in so much peril as Peter, whose tempera- ment particularly exposed him. X Isaiah liii. 12. § Olshausen's interpretation of this seems good : " What stands written oi me, as regards this earthly life, with all which it involves, is being fulfilled.' 622 THE LAST WEEK. subsequent events have afforded, and that we lack the deep im pression on their minds made by personally witnessing repeated miracles which had made Jesus seem to them to be invulnerable to human attacks. If he was going to have trouble, they were ready to fight ; and when he went into details of purse and wallet and traveller's-knife, the last seemed to them to indicate a con- flict. It was customary for the Galilseans to travel armed. Peter wore his sword ; and it seems that another disciple also had come in with his. But two swords against the combined forces of the Jewish hierarchy and the Roman power seemed so preposterous to Jesus that he said, " Enough of this ! " The perturbation of the disciples must have been very great. To soothe them, Jesus in most artless, charming, and affectionate words said, "Let not your hearts be disturbed. Believe: iu God and in me believe.* In the house of my Father the mansions are many. But if not, I would have told you ; because f I go that I may prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will receive you to myself ; that where I am there you may be also!" Nothing could be more tender between men. If he paused a moment, thinking of the meeting in the spiritual world after all the trials and conflicts of this, he added very soon, " And where I go you know the way." Thomas, the honest and despon- dent skeptic, said, " Lord, we do not know where you are going ; and how can we know the way % " Jesus answered him, " I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me you should have known my Father also ; and henceforth you know Him and have seen Him." * For the benefit of readers who know nothing of Greek, it is proper to say, what scholars know, that this verb in the original (pisteuete) is the same in the indicative and in the imperative, and that we have the ancient MSS. with- out punctuation. This gives us choice of many readings. 1. That of the com- mon version, ' ' Ye believe in God ; be- lieve also in me." where it is rendered as indicative in the first clause, and im- perative in the second. 2. That which I have chosen above, where both are imperative, and a slight difference in punctuation gives a great difference in sense. 3. " You believe in God and you believe in me." But the trouble was that their faith in God and in Jesus was weakening. 4. '"Believe in God, then you will believe in me." In the rendering which I have chosen the con- sistency of tenses is maintained. The first Trio-revere, pisteuete, is, as it were the text of this consolatory discourse. •f This passage might bear the follow- ing translation : ' ' But if not, I would not have told you that I go to prepare a place for you." THE SIXTH DAT. 623 Philip, leaning towards materialism and demanding evidences of which his senses might take cognizance, now says, " Lord, show us the Father and it is sufficient for us." Jesus answered, " Am I so long time with you, and yet rialism have you not known me, Philip ? He who has seen me has seen the Father, * and how then do you say, ' Show us the Father?' Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me ? The words which I speak to you, I speak not of myself ; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. f Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me. But if not, believe the works themselves. I most assuredly say to you, He who believes on me, the works that I do, shall he do also, and greater than these shall he do, because I go unto the Father.^ And whatsoever you shall ask in my name that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you shall ask me anything in my name, I will do it. If you love me, keep my command- ments, and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate,§ that he may abide with you forever, the Spirit of Truth, which the world is not able to receive, because it does not see it nor know it. You know it, for it dwells with you and shall be in you." " I will not leave you orphans. I am coming to you. Yet a little while and the world sees me no more; but you see me. Because I live, you shall live also. In that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me ; and he who loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.''' Here occurred another interruption, showing how deeply planted * If this reply does not make a dis- tinct and explicit claim to divinity on the part of Jesus, it would seem ex- ceedingly difficult to frame a proposi- tion in Greek or English, which could. Whether the claim be well founded is a question for another department ; but the historian is obliged to record that Jesus claimed to be TnE Father of the "Universe, the unoriginated God. f Not as a human being, but as a God, he claims to speak his marvellous words and do his miraculous acts. X "Which simply means that moral works are greater than miracles, being an imperishable plane concerned with spirit and not with matter, always bene- ficent, and involving not simply divine autocratic volition, but such divine power of truth as moves the free-will of men. § A legal term. Jesus had been the assistant of his disciples, standing up for them and defending him ; after his departure, the Spirit of Truth which should dwell in them, and in every emergency assist them, should be theii Advocate. 624 THE LAST WEEK. Thaddeus puz zled. in the minds of the Apostles was the idea of a splendid temporal reign of the Messiah. Judas Thaddeus (Matt. x. 3), " not Iscariot," was puzzled at the thought of a Messiah who should limit the display of his glory to the small circle of his immediate followers. He asked, " Lord, and how is it that you are about to manifest yourself to us and not to the world ? " — meaning the whole world. To make him comprehend in some measure the spirituality of his teachings, Jesus replied, — ■ " If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him. He who does not love me, does not keep my commandments. And the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father's, who sent me. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and remind you of all things that I have said to you. " Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you ; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. You have heard that I said to you, that I am going away and am coming to you. If you loved me, you would rejoice because I go to the Father ; for my Father is greater than I.* And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it has come to pass, you might believe. No longer will I talk much with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and in me he has nothing, f But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father has commanded me so I do, arise, let us go hence." Section 2. — Valedictory and Last Prayer. It was probably at this point that they sang some portion or the whole of the Great Hallel, which comprised the cxv., cxvi., cxvii., and cxviii. Psalms. Maimonides (De So- crif. jPasch., viii. 14) says that it was sung while the Paschal lamb was being eaten. But it does not appear to have been confined so strictly to any particular portion of the feast. A part may have been sung now and a part then. Jesus resumed his discourse in the chamber, after the Hallel, or else when they had passed the city walls, and before they had crossed The Hallel. * In this he seems to draw a distinc- tion between the merely human soul which made him a man and the eternal Godhead which he believed to exist in his nature, which was the greater part of -.iim, and which was that that spoke the words and wrought the miracles which he represented as done by the Father. f Simply meaning that all the power in the world could avail nothing against him, if he did not freely and voluntari- ly surrender himself. The God that was in him marked out a course for the, Man that was in him, and he intended to follow it. But the world, and the prince or ruler of the world, must never for a moment fancy that it or he had conquered Jesus. THE SIXTH DAT. 625 the Kedron. He did not hurry. He had lingered in the cham- ber delivering a consolatory discourse to his disciples, and now he walked slowly, or paused and stood, and talked with them. He knew what Judas was doing, and he neither hastened nor retarded events. It is not known what suggested the opening of the out-door dis- courses, if the remainder of this discourse was delivered in the open air. They may have been passing vineyards ; Nature was perpetually inspiring the speeches of Jesus. He resumed : — " I am the vine, the true one, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me not bearing fruit, He removes it, and every branch bearing fruit He prunes it that it may bear more fruit. Already ye are clean through the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me and I in you. As the branch is not able to bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, so cannot you, except you abide in me. I am the vine, you the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, the same bears much fruit ; for without me you can do nothing. If any one do not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered ; and they gather it and cast it into the fire, and it is burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, whatsoever things you wish, seek, and it shall be done to you. In this is my Father glorified that you bear much fruit, and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments you shall abide in my love ; even as I also have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. " These things have I spoken to you that my joy might abide in you, and your joy might be made full. This is my commandment, That you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love than this has no man. that he lay down his life for his friend. You are my friends, if you do whatever I com- mand you. " No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his lord is doing. But I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and appointed you, that you shall go and bear fruit, and that your fruit shall remain ; that whatever you shall ask of the Father in my name He may give it to you. " These things I command you, that you love one another. If the world hate you, you know that it hated me first. If you were of the world, the world would love its own ; but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, on this account the world hates you. Remem- ber the word which I have spoken to you, The slave is not greater than his lord. If they persecuted me they will also persecute you. If they have kept my word they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you, on account of my name, because they do not know Him who sent me. " If I had not come and spoken to them they would not have sin ; but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them works which no other man has done, they would 40 626 THE LAST WEEK. not have sin. But now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. But that it might be fulfilled, the word which in their law is written of them, 'They hated me causelessly.'* But when the Advocate is come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth which proceeds from the Father, he shall testify concerning me. And you also shall bear wit- ness, because you have been with me from the beginning. " These things have I spoken to you that you should not be offended. For they shall make you excommunicated ; more, the hour is coming that who- ever kills you will think that he offers a service to God, And these things will they do to you, because they have not known the Father nor me. But these things have I told you that when the hour shall come you may remem- ber that I spoke of them ; and these things I did not say to you at the begin- ning, because I was with you. " But now I am going away to Him who sent me, and none of you asks me 1 Whither are you going ? ' But because I have said those things to you, sor- row has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is profitable to you that I go away. For if I go not away the Advocate will not come. But if I depart I will send him to you. And when he is come he will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment : of sin, because they do not believe in me ; of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and you see me no more ; and of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. " Many things yet have I to say to you, but you cannot bear them ; but when he the Spirit of Truth is come he will guide yon in the truth, for he shall not speak from out of himself, but whatever he hears he shall speak ; and he will tell you things to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and announce to you. All things that the Father has are mine. There- fore I said that he takes of mine and shall announce to you. "A little while and you shall not see me ; and again a little while and you shall see me." Then said some of his disciples among themselves : " What is this that he is saying to us, ' A little while and ye shall see me no m.ore, and again a little while and ye shall see me : and, Because I go to the Father f ' what is this ' little while \ ' We do not understand what he is saying." Jesus knew that they were about to ask him, and anticipated them by resuming : — "Do you inquire among yourselves because I said, A little while and you shall not see me, and again a little while and you shall see me ? I most assuredly say to you, That you shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice. You shall be sorrowful, but your (sorrow shall De turned into joy. A woman when she is about to bring forth hath sorrow, because her hour is come ; but when she has given birth to the * See Psalm xxxv. 19, and lxix. 4. THE SIXTH DAT. 627 child she remembers the anguish no more, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye, therefore, now indeed have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one takes from you. "And in that day you shall ask me nothing. I most assuredly say to you, Whatever you shall ask the Father in my name, He shall give it to you. Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name. Ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be made full. These things have I spoken to you in pro- verbs : the hour is coming when I shall no longer speak to you in proverbs, but I shall tell you plainly concerning the Father. In that day you shall ask in my name ; and I do not say to you that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came from God. I came forth from the Father, and have come into the world : again I leave the world and go to the Father." Some one of his disciples said to him : " Now you are speaking in frankness, and not speaking a proverb. Now we know that you know all things, and have no need that any one should ask you. By this we believe that you belief came forth from God." Jesus answered : " Do you now believe % Behold, the hour is coming, and the hour has come, that you shall be scattered, every one to his own, and shall leave me alone. And I am not alone, because the Father is with me. These things have I spoken to you, that in me you might have peace. In the world you have anguish ; but be courageous, I have conquered the world ! " Then Jesus lifted up his eyes and prayed audibly, while the dis- ciples must have listened in perplexity and awe. And this is the prayer as John records it : — " O Father, the hour has come. Glorify Thy Son that Thy Son may glorify Thee. As Thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give per- petual life to every one whom Thou hast given him. And this is the perpetual life, that they might know Thee the The Prayer of Jesu3 - only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. I have glorified Thee on the earfh. I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do. " And now glorify Thou me, O Father, with Thyself by the glory which I had with Thee before the world was. I have shown Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest me out of the world. They were Thine, and Thou gavest them to me. And they have kept Thy word. Now they know that all things, what- ever Thou hast given me, are from Thee, for I have given theni the words Thou gavest me, and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from Thee ; and they have believed that Thou didst send me. I pray for them. For the world I pray not, but for those whom Thou hast given me ; for they are tliine. And Thou hast given them to me, and I am glorified in THE LAST WEEK. them. And I am no longer in the world, and these are in the world, and I am coming to Thee. " O Holy Father, keep them in Thy name, whom Thou hast given me, that they may be one as we. When I was with them I kept them in Thy name and guarded them, and not one of them is lost, except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. And now I am coming to Thee, and these things I am speaking in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them Thy word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not pray that Thou wouldst take them out of the world, but that Thou wouldst keep them from evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Make them holy in the truth: Thy word is truth. As Thou hast sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world, and for their sakes I make myself holy that they also may be made holy in the truth. " But not for these alone do I pray, but for those also who believe on me through their word, that they all may be one, even as Thou art in me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that Thou has sent me. And the glory which Thou hast given me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we : I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one ; and that the world may know that Thou didst send me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved me. " O Father, that which Thou hast given me I will that where I am they also may be with me, that they may behold my glory, which Thou hast given me ; for Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. " O righteous Father, the world also has not known Thee, but I have known Thee, and these have known that Thou didst send me. Thy name I both have made known to them, and will make it known, that the love wherewith Thou hast loved them may be in them, and I in them ! " Section 3. — Gethsemane. Perhaps at the close of this prayer they sang another portion of the Great Ilallel. Then they went to the Mount of Olives, cross- ing the brook Kedron, the name signifying " Mud- TheKedronval- , & -> , „ Ti _ , ,, ,? J , ^ , , . . ay Jorook. It was probably through what is called St. Stephen's Gate that Jesus and his band passed down and crossed the Kedron, which runs about 200 feet from the city walls. On the slope of the Mount of Olives, which rises herefrom, and near the road leading on to Bethany, was the Garden of Gethsemane, meaning an " oil-press," — the garden having derived its name most probably from an oil-press which belonged to the estate. Whether we now know the precise spot where Jesus was in agony, and where he was betrayed, is THE SIXTH DAT. somewhat uncertain ; but it is quite certain that it could not have been far from the plot which the Latin Church has recently bought and enclosed. We cannot say that the eight venerable trees, which are so impressive to all travellers, were standing in the days of Jesus. It is probable that they were not, as Josephus informs us that Titus cut down all the trees round about Jerusa lem (B. J., vi. 1, 1), and that the Tenth Legion were posted about KIDRON VALLEY. FROM AKELDAMA. the Mount of Olives (v. 2, 3, and vi. 2, 8). But these trees must' have been planted very early by the hands of those who, cherish- ing the memory of Jesus, desired to mark the traditionary spot. Dr. Thomson is inclined to place the garden in the secluded vale several hundred yards to the north-east of the present Gethsemane. In any case it was near the city, and Judas and the other disci- ples knew that Jesus was accustomed to frequent it for private de- votion. 630 THE LAST WEEK. Having entered Gethsemane a great heaviness fell on him, and he said to his disciples : " Sit down and pray that you do not en- ter into temptation, while I go and pray yonder." gar n. ^ ^^ w ^h. him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John. They walked farther into the garden. He began to be sorrowful, and terrified, and depressed. They must have perceived it, but he opened his heart to these friends and said : " My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death ; remain here and watch with me." It seemed to be a sense of abandonment coming upon him. "Nameless contrarieties of sensation overwhelmed him, and choked and straitened his heart, as if they would have stifled and killed him." His appeal to his three friends is very pathetic. He went a little farther from the three disciples, about a stone's throw. He had probably, as Dean Alford conjectures, gone with his three friends into a portion of the garden from which the moonlight would be excluded by the rocks and buildings on the opposite side of the gorge. It was the vernal equinox, and this must have been near midnight, so the moon, being two days from its full, would be able to cast shadows thus. As his anguish deepened he went into the deepest gloom of the garden. He kneeled down, he fell upon his face, he prayed. His prayer was : " O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me ; yet, not as I will, but as Thou wilt." How long Solitary prayer. , . , --. ° he thus agonized we cannot know. J3ut he must have had some comfort from his prayer, for after some time he returned to the three disciples and found them all asleep. The travel and excitement of the day had proved too much for them. They certainly did not comprehend the crisis which had come in the affairs of Jesus. He addressed Peter with the intensely pathetic appeal, " What, could you not watch with me one hour ? Eise, watch and pray, that you do not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." He left his poor, heavy- eyed, and exhausted friends, and went back and prayed, saying : " O my Father, if this may not pass away except I drink it, Thy will be done." He came the second time to his disciples and found them all asleep. Down on his soul fell a great horror of A horror. 1 , ° desertion. It was past the midnight. Over the hill in Bethany, Lazarus and Martha and Mary, and perhaps his THE SIXTH DAT. 631 own mother, for she was at the feast, were sleeping. In front lay Jerusalem, the moon sailing on above and beyond the city, whose walls on this side grew darker from top to bottom ; and within those walls they were plotting to destroy him without fair trial. Judas had left him on an errand that was to be disastrous. Here lay Peter, James, and John, asleep, near his scene of un- speakable anguish. There lay the other eight, asleep also. His country was under the Roman, whose garrison filled yonder tower of Antonia. The church was arrayed against him. His mother was away, and Mary Magdalen, his true friend. He was alone. He staggered back and fell upon the ground, and the third time he prayed this prayer of exquisite pain and perfect submis- sion. The horror of his position lay heavy on , . T i • i j ^ The sweat of him. In his agony he prayed more earnestly ; blood and his sweat was as it were clots of blood falling down to the ground. His friends afterward believed that an angel appeared to him and gave him succor. That he was strengthened, and his serenity in some measure restored, appears from the tone of his address to his disciples, and by his whole bearing in what immediately followed. He said : " Do you sleep on now and rest." Then he suddenly said: "It is enough. Be- hold, the hour is here, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise ; let us go. See, he that betrays me is here ! " And while he was speaking these words, Judas, who knew the place, and knew that it was a resort of Jesus and his disciples, probably having sought him in vain in the cham- ber where he had left him, came upon the party. He was accompanied by a band of men whom he had received from the chief priests and Pharisees. They were not all Roman soldiers, but some were servants of the priests and some were members of the Sanhedrim. They had no official authority to do as they did. They were the minions of the church party. This brings us to an examination of what a learned Jewish physician, M. Salvador, of Paris, pronounces " the most memo- rable trial in all history." This writer produced a work, entitled The Institutions of Moses and the Hebrew People. At his own request, M. Dupin the elder, a French lawyer of distinction, reviewed the chapter on the " Trial and Condemnation of Jesus." 632 THE LAST WEEK. We shall be indebted to both works, and we make this general ac knowledgment to save specific references. Candor ought to com- pel any Christian writer to admit that it was not a question of " deicide," a name invented to represent an impossible sin, as the church party did not believe that Jesus was a God in any sense. The simple question is, Did he receive justice as a Hebrew citizen under Hebrew law ? The Mosaic law provided three securities for justice in a crim- inal proceeding, namely, publicity of the trial, entire liberty of defence for the accused, and safeguards against law false testimony. For the latter there must be at least two witnesses. According to the Hebrew text, " One witness is no witness." Testimony was rendered un- der oath. If a witness against the accused perjured himself, he was compelled to undergo the punishment which would have be- fallen the accused if he had been convicted. If the accused were convicted, the witnesses by whose evidence he perished dealt the first blow, in proof of the truth of their testimony. A woman could not be a witness, because she might not have the courage to deal such a blow. Eo man could testify against himself. The testimony was required to be exceedingly specific. The very hour, as well as day, place, and circumstances must be mentioned. There were twenty-three judges. Those who believed the accused to be innocent spoke first, those who believed him guilty spoke afterwards, " and with the greatest moderation." The most pro- found attention was given to the accused when he wished to speak. Of the twenty-three votes eleven would acquit, while it required thirteen to condemn. If acquitted, the accused was dis- charged instantly; if condemned, the sentence was not pro- nounced until the third day. On the third day any judge who had been in favor of condemning might change his vote, so as to acquit, but one who had once voted for acquittal could not change his vote so as to condemn. If, then, at least thirteen judges voted for condemnation, the prisoner was led forth slowly. The judges remained on the bench. An officer was stationed at the door with a flag, while another, on horseback, accompanied the prisoner, looking back constantly, as he would be recalled by the waving of the flag if any testimony in favor had been brought before the judges. On his own declaration that he recalled some reasons which had escaped him, the prisoner could be brought THE SIXTH DAY. 633 back to the judges as often as five times. As the procession ad- vanced slowly, a herald with a loud voice proclaimed, " This man [stating his name and surname] is led to punishment for [here the crime was named]. The witnesses who have sworn against him are [here their names were recited]. If any one has evi- dence in his favor let him come forth and give it quickly." This is an epitome of M. Salvador's representation of the ad- ministration of criminal law among the Hebrews. We shall now see whether Jesus had a fair trial. We may recall that, before tampering with Judas, the church party had determined that Jesus should die, thus pronouncing sentence upon him before any beginning of even a show of trial. Then they had appointed emis- saries, employing evil men, for none but wicked men, feigning themselves to be good, could be engaged in such work, to dog the steps of Jesus and entangle him in his talk. There was nothing done by Jesus which any one was willing to lay voluntarily be- fore the authorities and denounce as a crime against God or social order. So far from this, they arrested him before any allegation was made, and they did this craftily and stealthily, so that " the people " might not know. They desired to postpone the arrest until the termination of the Passover should have emptied the city of the multitudes from all parts of the country who had heard and seen Jesus, not one of whom had accused him of any crime, and many of whom might have given testimony in his favor. When circumstances hurried up the operations of Judas they seized Jesus, rushed him through a mock trial, and crucified him in the space of less than ten hours. We shall examine each point in the progress of this affair in the light of the Hebrew law as stated by M. Salvador, a learned defender of his ancestors and their action in the case of Jesus. In the first place it was unjust to begin to prosecute, not to say persecute, him before any charges had been laid before the Grand Council. In the next place it was a gross irregu- larity to attempt to take him privately, and not rre ^ ulari ies « give him the benefit of all the publicity of a most open trial in clear daylight, and not in the night. This was enhanced by employing a spy, and bribing him to assist in their unlawful proce- dure. They go about to take him without any regular and legal Roman or Jewish order for his arrest. The Sanhedrim had had 634 THE LAST WEEK. a conclave, but not a regular sitting, and did not proceed as a court of law, but rather as a band of conspirators. They took counsel how they might slay him, as John says (xi. 53), not how they might administer justice in his case. And I think we shall see how the whole procedure was the execution of a foregone conclusion, and was the condemnation of a man before trial. The signal of Judas was a kiss. He was not to lay hands on his Master, nor join this mob in their attack. He was simply to designate Jesus, and this was the preconcerted The signal. . ° , , . , . , , r . . sign, the selection 01 which perhaps intimates that Jesus was accustomed to receive this affectionate mode of salutation from his apostles, when they had been separated for a season. Judas approached him and said, so as to be heard by the band, " Hail, Rabbi," and kissed him. The reply of Jesus was most mild, and to Judas must have been painfully cutting. Matthew repeats it as, " Friend, for what are you here ? " Luke says that Jesus said, "Do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?" — and his manner of narrating it might imply that Jesus prevented the kiss by the question; but Matthew and Mark distinctly affirm that Judas actually kissed Jesus; all the historians showing that Jesus knew the intent of this salu- tation. Upon this Jesus stepped forward to the crowd and said, " Whom do you seek \ " They replied, " Jesus the Nazarene." He answered, "I am he." What there was of majesty, innocence, and spiritual power in his presence and reply we may conjecture from the fact that though they were all armed, and were many, coming out against a man whose friends were few and unprepared for conflict, they stag- gered backwards and fell to the ground. Here was a man capable of inspiring such awe, and yet never voluntarily, so far as we can perceive, putting forth any influences to serve or save himself. He stood alone in that garden, in the broad light of the full paschal moon, and the band of conspirators and ruffians who had come to take him lay prone on the ground. He recalls them by asking a second time, " Whom seek ye ? " And they made the same reply as before, " Jesus the Nazarene." He said to them, " I have told you that I am he ; if, therefore, you seek me, let these go away," so that his disciples might not suffer with. him. i THE SIXTH DAT. 635 They then advanced to seize him, and his disciples, perceiving what would follow, said, " Lord, shall we smite with the sword ? " The impetuous Peter did not wait for a reply, but Peter's zeal immediately made a blow at the nearest man, who happened to be one Malchus, a servant of the high-priest, and cut off his right ear. M. Dupin argues that the fact that Peter was not arrested, either at this moment or afterwards, when he was recognized by a relative of Malchus at the house of the high-priest, is proof that this was an illegal seizure, otherwise Peter's resistance would have been " an act of rebellion by an armed force against a judicial order." Jesus healed the priest's servant with a touch. He also restrained his disciples, who, under the awe which the presence of Jesus inspired in his per- secutors, might have perhaps delivered him. He said to Peter, " Return your sword into its place ; for all who take the sword shall perish by the sword. Do you think that I am not able to pray unto my Father, and He shall forthwith give me more than twelve legions of angels % But how then should the Scrip- ture be fulfilled, that thus it must be? The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it % " He did not, however, forbear to let the multitude understand that he knew the illegality of what they were doing. "Have you come out as against a thief, with swords and clubs, to take me? I sat daily teaching in the Temple, and ye laid no hold upon me. But this is the hour, and the power of darkness. All this has come to pass that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled." It was a dis- tinct intimation to the mob that he was suffering voluntarily, and quite as distinct an intimation to his disciples that he waa going to suffer certainly. So they understood it, and forsook him and fled. 036 TELE LAST w rerck. Section 4. — The Trial. Then the band and the captain and officers of the Jews laid fiands on Jesus, and bound him and led him away. This was another outrage. He was aioue and unarmed, tfe oifered no resistance to his captors, but nau come forward and surrendered himselt volun- tarily, and yet they treated him as a condemn tsu malefactor or resisting culprit. jmaav morn- ing, Apm O, A.JJ. Si'. A iresn out- rage. They took Jesus to the house of Annas. Annas had been high-priest. He was first appointed to that office about a.d. 7, by Quirinius, Proconsul of Syria, but wap de- posed by Valerius Gratus, Procurator of Judaea, about seven years later, who gave the office to Ismael, and Annas. THE SIXTH DAT. 637 then to Eliezer, the son of Annas, who held it only a year, was succeeded by Simon, who held it another year, and then it fel? into the hands of Caiaphas, the son-in-law of Annas. Annas had not been high-priest for nearly twenty years ; but as father-in-law of the actual high-priest, and his sagan or substitute, and having held the high office himself, he exerted great influence. Never- theless the carrying of Jesus to Annas was a vexatious and irre- gular procedure, contrary to the spirit of the Hebrew law, as subjecting a m^, before any trial or condemnation, to an insult- ing inspection. Annas had no right to question Jesus. He was not the proper person to deal with the case. He had no jurisdiction. If he had had, it was not lawful to put a man in a position to condemn himself ; indeed, according to Jewish tioni JL law, his own words could not be used against him- self. So that any catechising of Jesus in regard to his disciples and his doctrines was unlawful. It was a compliment to Annas, but an insult to Jesus, as a citizen, to be carried forward to gratify the curiosity of this bad old man, who was one of the conspirators against the life of the prisoner. There was an opportunity now to do Jesus simple justice. H Annas had been right-minded he would have taken Jesus into his house, and, even if under guard, have kept him until the daylight. His great personal influence, his relations with the high-priest (who had married his daughter) and with the Sanhedrim, would have justified Annas herein. Instead of which he aided and abetted those lawless men in their persecution of Jesus. He sent him bound, in the night, to the palace of Caiaphas. This palace must have been near the chamber in which the Sanhedrim held its sessions. The night was wearing away. It was growing so cold that while the Sanhedrim was being unlawfully assembled, for it could not meet at night or on the Sabbath, they made a fire. Until the council could be gathered, Caiaphas seems to have taken upon himself the catechising of Jesus, which he had no right to do personally, but only in his place as President of the San- hedrim. He asked him of his doctrines and his disciples, wuth evident malice of intent to criminate the prisoner and inculpate his friends. His dignified reply was, "I spoke openly to the world. I 638 THE LAST WEEK. at all times taught in the synagogue and in the Temple, where all the Jews resort, and I have said nothing in secret. Why do you question me? Question those who heard me what 1 said unto them: behold, they know what I said." Here he threw himself upon the great reserved Hebrew rights, freedom of speech and being confronted by one's accusers. Caiaphas must have felt that his proceeding was at least irregular. If he had been conducting a trial he should have called for witnesses. The reply of Jesus was just what any Hebrew would naturally give under the circumstances, provided he had intelligence enough to know and courage enough to assert Jegug his rights. But one of the ecclesiastical officers who stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand and said, " Do you answer the high-priest so % " The reply of Jesus is full of indescribable dignity and forbearance : " If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil : but if well, why do you smite me ? " Here is another speech which shows that Jesus knew his rights and was aware that they were invaded. The man who struck him might have borne testimony against him, if they were both together in a court having jurisdiction; but if he did not appear as a witness he had no right to insult him by striking him when he was bound. This was an additional out- rage which the high-priest permitted to be perpetrated. It accumulates the proof that Jesus never had a fair trial as a citizen. When another high-priest commanded those who stood by Paul, when he was up for a hearing, to smite him on the mouth, the intrepid Apostle answered, " God shall smite you, you whited wall; for do you sit to judge me after the laws and command me to be smitten contrary to law \ " (Acts xxiii. 3.) All this persecution of Jesus, it is to be noticed, took place in the night, contrary to law, which demanded daylight and utmost publicity. In the mean time Peter began to recover his self-possession. He desired to learn what was happening to his Master, and so went to the palace of Caiaphas and lingered outside. He was joined by "another disciple" (John xviii. 15) whose name is not given. It has been assumed to be John. There seems little ground for the presumption. We can only speculate. The probabilities are that it was Judas. THE SIXTH DAY. 639 Whoever that other disciple was, he was "known to the high- priest." There is no reason to believe that John was ; while we know that that very week Judas had been with this digni- tary making arrangements for the betrayal of Jesus. This will also account for the freedom with which he entered the palace of the high-priest, and the interest he could make for the admission of Peter. John would have been in almost as much danger as Peter, as he was generally as prominent in the group about the Teacher. On the supposition that this other disciple was Judas the whole history becomes easy. Peter might have been ad- mitted on the supposition that he was an accomplice with Judas in the delivery of Jesus. On any of the theories which have been advanced on his character, and motives it was natural that Judas in his excitement should follow Jesus into the palace of the high-priest to see the result, and would be relieved by the presence of another disciple. However that may have been, Peter entered. In the court of the palace the slaves and officers had made a fire, and stood warming themselves. Peter went up to the fire and warmed himself with them. It may be that the maid who kept the door began to fear that she was admitting strangers too freely, or she may have seen the look of concern on the face of Peter. She went up to him and said, " And are you not one of this man's disciples 1 " He denied it before them all, saying, " I am not ; I do not know him, nor do I understand what you are saying." This peremptory challenge disconcerted Peter, and he walked out into the court. Perhaps he put on the air of a man insulted before a company. But an excitement had been begun by his presence. Another maid-servant, . , probably passing him in the court and coming up to the fire, stated her belief that the uneasy man out there was a disciple of Jesus. While Peter was out in the court-yard the cock crew. But it does not seem to have recalled the prediction of Jesus. Upon his return to the fire the whisper went round : " This fellow was also with Jesus the Nazarene," until one boldly blurted out the charge, and still another directly put the question to him : " Are you not one of his disciples % " He made a second distinct denial, backing it up with some profane expression, and asserting that he did " not know the man." 640 THE LAST WEEK. These denials seem to have occurred while the high-priest wae examining Jesus. There was an interval of an hour, which was spent in assembling the Sanhedrim and in inducing men to be- come witnesses. It was cold. Jesus was in the hall inside, which opened probably on the court where Peter and the servants and officers were. The embarrassing examinations to which Peter had been subjected began to be painful. He must have re- collected the prominent part he had taken in the affair of Geth- semane. He endeavored to throw suspicion from himself by engaging in free conversation with the others, as being no more personally interested in what was going forward than they were. But it did not succeed. His very garrulousness aroused suspi- cion. One said, " Of a truth this. man was with him ; for he is a Galilsean : his speech betrays him." Jesus was of Galilee. The Galilseans were a turbulent race. Most of the disciples of Jesus were known to be Galilseans. Their dialect was not that of cul- tivated Jews, nor of even the uncultivated inhabitants of the me- tropolis. So they made his accentuation a proof against him. This called special and unfriendly attention to him. A slave of the high-priest and brother of that Malchus whose ear Peter had hacked with his sword, regarding him carefully, brought the charge home upon him, saying, " Did I not see you in the garden with him ? " This was too much for Peter. He could not retreat from his former denials. He was at the point to be discovered. His im- petuous sword-thrust in the garden was about to His third denial. , , -, i . TT • , -, . n -, be turned upon him. He was m mortal peril and in mortal fear. There was nothing to be done but to plunge for- ward. He broke into cursing and swearing, and, amid dreadful imprecations, denied that he ever had any knowledge of " this man " of whom they were speaking. Amid his ungrateful denials and horrid blasphemies the cock crew a second time. And Jesus, whose smiting Peter had witnessed, turned and looked upon him. It was the last look Peter received from the eyes of his Master before his death. The look and the crowing of the cock came together, and Peter saw how truly had come to pass what Jesus had so pathetically predicted, that before the cock should crow twice he should deny his Master thrice. Covering his head with his mantle he flung himself out of the company and went off weeping bitterly. THE SIXTH DAY. 641 We now return to the examination of Jesus. The night had been spent in a fruitless search for witnesses willing to render such testimony as the persecutors of Jesus sup- posed sufficient to convict him. Only two were necessary, but these could not be obtained. The bribes they were able to offer, of security and gain, could not move Judas and another to testify against him. The day began to break over Olivet. The Sanhedrim was assembled. " The priests, the elders, and the scribes " were there, three classes of men having special enmity against Jesus. They led the prisoner, perhaps in solemn procession, from the palace of the high-priest into the council-chamber on the Temple mount. In the examination which followed there finally came forward two witnesses. The testimony of the first was : " He said i I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.' " The testimony of the second was : " This man said, ' I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.' " The friends and biographers of Jesus asserted that both -statements were false, both in form and in intention. The nearest that the words of Jesus approached any formula that could have been even wrested into either of these statements is when he said, " De- stroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up," pointing probably to his body, at least his friends say that he signified that (John ii. 19), and that he spoke in this evasive way as being a proper reply to his enemies under the circumstances. But the first of these witnesses made the impression that he had threat- ened to destroy the Temple, and the second that he merely asserted his power to do so. Their testimony did not agree, and " one witness is no witness." Then the high-priest rose up and said to Jesus, " Do you answer nothing to what these witness against you ? " But Jesus held his peace. The testimony refuted itself. Then they asked him, " If you are the Christ, tell us." He replied, " If I tell you, you vvill not believe ; and if I shall question, you will not answer." It will be perceived that his persecutors desired to obtain evi- dence against him on two counts, — first, blasphemy; secondly, sedition : on the first they could condemn him to death as lords spiritual, and on the second the Bo- man power could execute bim. If they could prove only the 642 THE LAST WEEK former, as it was a mere question of religion, the secular arm would not destroy him, and the right to inflict capital punishment had been taken away from the Jews. If they proved only the latter, they would leave to him all his moral influence over the people, in whose eyes any rebellion against Rome was a high vir- tue. If both together could be made out, the prisoner would perish. They could have found ample proof that Jesus had vio- lated the Sabbath, according to their law of observance ; but the testimony would have shown that he had always therewith con- nected the performance of a miracle. They could have proved that he had denounced the clergy and the church, and set the traditions and ceremonials of Pharisaism at naught ; but that would have excited in his behalf the friendly feeling of the Sadducees, who, as well, despised churchism. There was a narrow path to tread, and they persistently kept in it. They could not prove the necessary allegations, and they attempted illegally to extort con- fessions from the prisoner which they might use to his damage. Then Caiaphas solemnly said to him, " I adjure you by the liv- ing God, that you tell us if you are the Christ [the Messiah] the Son of God." He calls upon the prisoner on esus pu on oa ^ ^ testify in regard to himself while he is on trial on a criminal and capital charge, " a gross infraction of that rule of morals and jurisprudence," says Dupin " which forbids our placing an accused person between the dan ger of perjury and the fear of inculpating himself, and thus mak- ing his situation more hazardous." But when the high-priest per- sisted, Jesus replied, " You have said it ; moreover I say to you, From this time you shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven." Among the ancients the deity was represented, hieroglyphically, as being in the clouds, to signify his celestial habitation. Traces of the reduction of that picture to language are found through the sacred books of the Jews. " Jehovah rideth upon a swift cloud," Isa. xix. 1 ; " The clouds are the dust of His feet," Nahum i. 3 ; "I saw in the night vi- sions, and behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven," Daniel vii. 13. It is very probable that Jesus had special reference to this vision of Daniel, as well as general lefer- ence to the idea contained in this pictorial representation, which, reduced to our language, would mean a claim upon the part of THE SIXTH DAY. 64:3 Jesus to have a divine relation to the world and to be about to be acknowledged as a divine person. It is not for a moment to be supposed that he intended his words to be taken literally, or that the Sanhedrim so took them. Literally they amount to nothing, unless one should take them as the harmless exaggeration of a weak head. But Jesus was no such man, and the hour was too solemn for anything of the kind. He was on trial for his life ; he obviously believed that his hour had come ; and he was speak- ing from the depths of his nature. He did not mean that he was coming on the clouds of heaven literally. It were a ridiculous thing ; and thus far we have found nothing ridiculous, surely, in the character and words of Jesus r how many soever inexplicable things we may have discovered. The high-priest did not so un- derstand him, else he would have burst into laughter instead of exhibiting horror. Jesus meant to claim divinity. So Caiaphas understood him, and so the Sanhedrim. Therein was the blas- phemy. If this be not the meaning of Jesus, this part of his his- tory seems to me wholly unintelligible. When the high-priest heard the reply of Jesus he " rent hi? clothes." The sacerdotal robe was worn only in the Temple. Jt was his Simla, or upper garment, which Caiaphas tore. This expression of pain and grief and hor- v e 3U ge 3 ror would at first burst forth naturally, afterward it came to be enacted theatrically, as we frequently see grief " performed," at some of our modern funerals. It became so ex- cessive that it was moderated by ecclesiastical law, among the regulations of which was one (Levit. xxi. 10) forbidding the high- priest to rend his clothes. We learn, however, from 1 Macca- bees xi. 71, and from Josephus, B.J., ii. 15, § 2, 4, that this rending was allowable to the high-priest in cases of blasphemy. To this violent gesture Caiaphas added the exclamation, " See ! he has uttered blasphemy ! What further need have we of witnesses ? See, now, you have heard the blasphemy ! What is your opin- ion?" Here is one who is at once accuser and judge, and he presents the disgraceful spectacle of a judge in a rage. He de- mands a verdict of condemnation based upon the words of the prisoner, as those words are interpreted by himself. All this was contrary to well-established Hebrew law. The whole council caught the temper of this violent man. The judges excitedly asked him again, "Are you then the Son of 644 THE LAST WEEK. God ? " — " I am," said Jesus. They cried out, " He deserves tc die." The officers, the slaves, the bystanders generally broke into furious revilings, taunts, and insults. While . still on his trial, before condemnation, the high priest and the council gave him over to the bru- talities of the unofficial people. They spat in his face, slave? slapped him with the palms of their hands, they blindfolded him, and said, " Prophesy to us, O Messiah, who is he that struck you." And the judge and the jury allowed all this. Indeed these men probably did it that they might obtain the favor of their masters. And yet it is maintained by such learned and liberal modern Jews as M. Salvador that as a Hebrew citizen Jesus was fairly tried. While suffering these things Jesus heard Peter cursing and swearing, and avowing that he never knew him. From his inf uri ated judges he turned and looked upon his faithless disciple. Jesus was most completely abandoned. Section 5. — Pilate. It is to be remembered that Palestine was a conquered pro- vince, regularly governed by the conquerors. Six years after the birth of Jesus, Archelaus, son of Herod, had The Procurator. , 1 -i-itt j a • i been deposed, and Judsea and Samaria annexed to the province of Syria, the Prceses or governor of which was the highest representative of Poman imperialism. Nevertheless a special procurator was appointed for Judsea, and the office at this time was held by Pontius Pilate. The procurator ordinarily resided at Csesarea, by the seaside, but usually came up with troops to attend the great festivals, partly for the enjoyment he might have amid the excitements, and partly because it was his duty to keep the Poman authority before the eyes of the Jews, and to be ready to repress any popular outbreak which would be likely to occur when so many people were assembled at the me- tropolis. During the six years in which he had held the office Pilate had incensed the Jews by his violence and oppression. The Sanhedrim had no right to inflict capital punishment. Wherever Pome extended its dominion the jus gladii, the right of the sword, the power over life and death, was The jvsgladii. taken f rom the conquered. In the case of the Jews all minor matters were left in the hands of their council, THE SIXTH DAY. 646 especially the settlement of all religious questions, but civil cases were tried by the procurator, and capital cases by the Prseses. Ir. this case it seems to have been deputed to the procurator. He was present in the city. It was the beginning of Friday. The Passover was to commence on the evening of that day. They had only that morning to secure the condemnation and execution of Jesus. If delayed until the festival had passed, the whole coun- try might be aroused and a great reaction in his favor might set in. It was, therefore, determined to keep him bound and guarded, and to assemble at daybreak and push their plans to a consummation. All the night long was Jesus buffeted, tortured, insulted. They would have killed him if they had dared ; but Pome looked down on them from the tower of Antonia and kept even churchly rage in check. Day began to dawn. The light was breaking over Olivet. The earliest movements must be made. The procurator must be seen as early as practicable. There was a reassembling of the Sanhedrim. In the night session they had condemned him : but beyond that they were powerless ; they could not execute him, and they could not see Pilate at that hour. The object of the morning meeting was to concoct plans to have him put to death, according to their verdict. This could be done only through Pilate. They pre-arranged their methods. They took Jesus bound, making as imposing a procession as possible ; thus, as far as in them lay, prejudicing his case. The palace of Pilate had been desecrated in their eyes by having been the residence of a Gentile. These scrupulous officials, intent on a ciime, compassing the destruction of a man against whom they could prove nothing, although he had led a public life by the space of three years, were so cautious that they would not defile themselves by entering a Gentile's house, because the Passover was at hand. They forgot that the members of the Sanhedrim were bound to spend the day fasting in which they had con- demned a man to death. Churehism is the same in all ages. They sent in to Pilate, and he came out, as his custom was. Then commenced a play of passions on both sides, which consti- tutes a profoundly interesting study. He saw the crowd, the council, the prisoner. It was an unusual hour. It must be an unusual case. His quick eye interpreted the general meaning of the scene. Turning to Caia- 646 THE LAST WEEK. phas and the Sanhedrim, he said, "What accusation do yon bring against this man ? " It is not poetry, it is criticism, to strive to know what looks and gestures accompanied any speech of any historical character. It is well known how greatly these vary the sense of the mere words. If we could know precisely the motions of the person, the play of the lips, the glance of the eye of Jesus, how much more intelligible would his words be, and how our interpretation of them might be changed. And still more how we should be helped by a knowledge of the precise tone and emphasis he em- ployed. The same is true of others, and here of Pilate. He may have looked at Jesus and seen him pale and worn, yet calm as the morning in whose light he stood. He may have contrasted the face of the prisoner, so free from passion, with the heated and fierce glare in the countenances of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrim, whose excitement and anger through the night must have left their traces ; and Pilate may have uttered unfeigned surprise by the exclamatory question, " What accusation do you bring against him f " as if intimating that if either party should be plaintiff it was Jesus. But, read with any emphasis, the question gave the churchmen plainly to understand that in this case Pilate did not intend to pronounce a confirmation of any sentence they may have passed, ordering its execution without examination and perfunctorily. Unfortunately for him he had in haste done such things before, and thus emboldened these men to venture in this case a presumption upon his judicial carelessness. He gave them to understand that he intended to take cognizance of this case. His question assumed, what the Sanhedrim knew to be true, that he had the right of original jurisdiction, as repre sentative of the Poman Emperor. This took them aback. They had not expected from Pilate such assertion of his rights. They expected of him simply the secular sanction to their ecclesiastical verdict. They expected to be acknowledged as judges. But Pi- late took the bench, and put them on the stand of the witnesses. This touched their pride to the quick, while it seemed to inti- mate a miscarriage of their whole plan. Their ., arrogant reply was, " If he were not a malefactor we would not have delivered him up to you.'* As if they resented the insult which was implied in his words, THE SIXTH DAT. 647 that they could have condemned an innocent man. But Pilate was as proud as Caiaphas. In reply to their claim to be judges, he said, " Take him, and judge him according to your law." As if he had ironically said, " Oh, that is it ! You do not vouchsafe to inform me even of the accusation against this man. You claim to be judges. You know your limit. I am sure that I am will- ing that you should try him according to your law, and condemn him, and punish him as far as the law will permit. If you be judges, take the case away, and do not trouble me with it." This irony was stinging ; but the Roman might become obstinate, and insist that the case remain with them, and they could not put Jesus to death ; and so the whole scheme was like to miscarry. This brought them to terms. They were obliged to submit the indictment. If they had had all power in their hands tbey would have stoned him for blasphemy. It is noticeable that Jesus had predicted that his career would „. ound end in crucifixion, the Roman — rather than in stoning, the Hebrew — mode of execution. The probabilities had all been in favor of the latter. It was this sudden and unex- pected obstinacy of Pilate which changed the current of affairs. For a moment they were in perplexity. To tell Pilate that Jesus had committed blasphemy, by claiming to be the Son of (xod, would go for nothing. He had no interest in. their religious questions : he was utterly a pagan. They changed their ground, and said, " We found this one perverting our nation, and forbid- ding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ, a King." There are three counts in this allegation ; the first two being to the nation notoriously false, and the third being to Pilate merely ridiculous. Jesus had explicitly taught the people to " render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's ; " but the bare fact that such a question should have been brought to him is an in- dication of the unsettled state of the public mind, and how ready the people were to listen to any suggestions of rebellion. Caia- phas and his fellow-conspirators knew that, in the sense in which Pilate must have understood it, the third count was false. Jesus had aspired to no temporal rule, and had done nothing to make himself a rival of Caesar, but had simply claimed to be the Mes- siah, a claim in which the representative of the Roman Emperor could have no official, and scarcely any personal, interest. When Pilate, from the portico of his palace, looked .down /apoB 648 THE LAST WEEK. the meek face of the prophet from Galilee and saw his hands bound, and the spittle of the slaves on his beard, chara-e an( ^ *^ s general friendlessness, and how thor- oughly he was in the hands of his enemies, it must have seemed the most absurd thing to him that Caiaphas should bring such a man, under such circumstances, and charge him with the loftiest political ambition and the most immense political enterprise. And then a suspicion must have come to him that there was something behind all this ; that if Jesus really had entertained ideas of revolt, these priests were the very first men to foster any opposition and trouble to Home, and the very last men to oppose or even embarrass the movements of any real rebel. But as the allegation had been made, the investigation must be had. Pilate went into the preetorium, so as to take his official position. The Roman trial was public. Any could enter. Jesus had no scruples, and when he was called went in at once. There were the representatives of the scrupulous churchmen present. If they could not go in, they could send in those who should watch and in some measure influence proceedings. Friends of Jesus might also enter and report to those outside. Pilate said to Jesus, " Are you the King of the Jews ? " Whether Pilate intended it or not, there was a trap in the question. It could not have a categorical answer. If Jesus said "Yes," to Pilate's manner of thought it might seem an acknowledgment of the charge of sedition they were making against him. If he said "No," it would seem an abandonment of the Messianic claims he had al- ready advanced. His reply to Pilate was a question, " Do you say this of yourself, or did others tell it you of me?" To a man of the world like Pilate it should have showed that the person be- fore him was not a crazy adventurer from the rural districts, whose claim to be Tiberius himself, if he had made it, would have been as harmless as any other utterance of wild insanity. It meant, " Do you put that question to me in the Poman or the Jewish, in the political or the ecclesiastical sense % " — " Am I a Jew \ " Pilate replied rather petulantly. u Your own nation and the high-priest have delivered you to me ! What have you done ? " Jesus had done nothing. His abstinence from all politics was remarkable. His enemies could bring nothing against him. The In the prseto- riura. THE SIXTH DAT. 649 charge of sedition was an unfounded calumny, and they had not been able to find a solitary man in the crowded city to bear wit- ness thereto. But now he can approach an answer to Pilate which shall be consistent at once with his innocence and his claims. He said : " My kingdom is not of this world. If my king- < , P , , . -it,! -II , Jesus replies to dom were or this world, then would my servants pa ate fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews. My kingdom is not from hence." Here was a statement which implied that there was a kingdom whose defenders were not the Roman eagles. To an imperial official there seemed no kingdom that was not Roman. Or, if any other kingdom, it would draw sword but in vain, for it should soon succumb to Roman power. But the kingdom of Jesus was totally disengaged from secular governments, reigning under and over and through them, and would survive them, and did not need the defence of the sword. But a kingdom implied a king, and yet such a kingdom as Jesus had beeu describing seemed a mere vague idea ; so Pilate asked, " Are you not a king then ? " Now Jesus had placed his judge in such a posture that the an- swer about to be given should not be deceptive : " Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this purpose came I into the world, that I S C ° n rep y * should bear witness concerning the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice." It was the kingdom of truth, and not of physical power, in which he claimed to be supreme. Such a claim threatened no danger to the Emperor : why, then, should Pilate care for it? He had heard such things before. There were Greek and Roman philosophers who taught that those who lived by the truth were kings among men. And it seemed to Pilate that it was the same proposition he had heard often, now pronounced by a Jew. He did not believe that men could reach the ultimate and absolute truth. It was a pretty fancy for poetic dreamers, a fine theory for recluses and philosophers, but there was nothing practical in it, nor useful to a man of affairs. It may have been with some bitterness of regret that such a search should be, as he believed, fruitless, that Pilate exclaimed with a sigh, " "What is truth ? " as he passed out to the portico to announce the acquittal of Jesus to the priests, which he did by saying, "I find no fault in him." 650 THE LAST WEEK. Then the vehement Sanhedrim repeated their accusations. Jesus said not a word. The contrast between the raging churchmen and the meek heretic struck Pilate so forcibly that he appealed to him: "Do you answer nothing % See how many things they witness against you." Jesus kept his silence. In the ecclesiastical and in the civil courts Jesus paid no attention to anything that did not touch his claims to Messiahship. When that was involved he was perfectly ex- plicit, giving his persecutors and his judges ample ground. On all else he was silent. He seemed determined, when put to death, to perish in his claim to be the Son of God in a sense signifying that he was God's equal. This self-control seemed marvellous to Pilate, who reiterated his judgment, saying, " I find no fault in this man." But the crowd about the portico was fierce. How- ever innocent Jesus might be, he had manifestly rendered himseli odious to the ecclesiastical rulers. It placed Pilate in a trying position. For all that appeared, he should have set Jesus free : but to do so peremptorily, before he had allayed the passionate excitement of the church party, would be to peril all parties. His parley with the priests was in the interests of Jesus and justice. But the rabid mob shouted, " He stirs up the multitude through- out all Judaea, even beginning from Galilee to this place." Here was a distinct charge of sedition : but the naming of Galilee was an outlet for the perplexed Pilate. They mentioned it as a sinister circumstance that this man's ministry had begun among the turbulent Galilseans, in a country belonging to his political adversary. The shrewd Pilate saw in it a solution of his diffi- culty. Section 6. — Herod. The part which Herod Antipas had taken in the murder of John the Baptist has been narrated. This king, Koman in office, Hebrew in faith, licentious in life, had been Herod and Jesus. i , -i ■. ,.,. • ,1 haunted by superstitious terror ever since the assassination of John in prison. When he heard that another prophet was travelling through the country, preaching with a skill the effects of which surpassed those of the vehement eloquence of John, and to such preaching adding the wonder of miracles, until the whole land was full of his fame, and when it was whispered THE SIXTH DAT. 651 that this new preacher was Elias, or one of the old prophets, or perhaps John the Baptist, the guilty soul of Herod adopted the last of these suppositions and said, " It is John." At first he en deavored to induce Jesus to leave the country by conveying to him the warning that if he remained in the territory of Herod that prince would kill him. But as time wore away, and his conscience hardened, and his feelings of terror were allayed, he conceived a curiosity to see the great things which Jesus did. There had come a cloud between Herod and Pilate. Some of the turbulent subjects of the former had visited Jerusalem on a fes- tival occasion, and created an insurrection which Pilate had suppressed by indiscriminate slaughter, late not stopping to send them for trial to the courts in the dominion of Herod. This had made an estrangement between the rulers. Now the Galilsean king had come up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. It would be a graceful recognition of Herod's jurisdiction, and a compliment, to send this distinguished prisoner to him for trial, and it would free Pilate from further proceedings. Therefore he sent him to Herod. It did heal the quarrel ; but it did not relieve Pilate of the case. When the frivolous Herod saw Jesus he was glad. There was not manliness enough in him to see that this was a most perplex- ing affair, in which the empire, his own tetrarchy, the weal of the Jewish people, and the interests Herod of his ancestral religion, as well as the fate of a great and good man might be involved. It was an opportunity to have an exhibition of legerdemain or necromancy, and this in- cestuous assassin had no such weight on his seared conscience that he could not enjoy any species of entertainment. He catechised Jesus in many ways, endeavoring to draw him at least into con- versation. Jesus looked at him with that broad look which inno- cent manliness gives to crime. He could have spoken what would have riven Herod, but he was silent. The church party stood near, and were vehement and violent in their accusations ; but not a word could be extorted from Jesus. He had never be- fore met any man or woman or child to whom he would not speak. There never was so great a sinner that, with any expres- sion of contrition, could, not have a word from Jesus. But Herod lived and died, probably the only man who, having seen Jesus, never heard the tones of his voice nor a syllable from his lips. 652 THE LAST WEEK. There was no point of contact between Jesus and Herod. II he had addressed Jesus with any proper desire to know any P ro P er thing, Herod would doubtless have had a Jesus speechless. , ~ ° , m i -r».i word irom the great 1 eacher. Pilate was a time- serving coward, and Caiaphas a hypocritical bigot, but Jesus talked with them. Herod's frivolous licentiousness had eaten his whole manhood out. Fretted by the profound, the majestic, the awful silence of Jesus, Herod and his military guard set him at naught, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him back to Pilate. If we were writing a poem instead of a history, we might indulge in descriptions of the probable reflec- tions of Herod after the speechless prophet of Galilee had gone out of his presence. Although Herod was so mean that he could allow an uncondemned man, who had been tortured all night, to remain bound and be insulted in his presence, even that bad prince did not have the heart to say that there was in him any- thing worthy of death. Section 7. — Bach to Pilate. Back to Pilate is Jesus now sent. We do not know whether Pilate was in the tower of Antonia, and Herod occupying the palace of his father, which is said to have exceeded the Temple in splendor, but in any case the distance was not great. The troubled procurator discovered that he had appeased Herod, but had not shifted the responsibility of this most perplexing case. When he saw Jesus brought back, wearing a robe of mockery, it plainly confirmed his suspicion that the accused was innocent. The greater part of his public life had been passed in the territory of Herod, who must have known the fact if Jesus had been a sedi- tious person. His treatment of the prisoner plainly said that Herod regarded his kingly pretension as a harmless vagary, not fit to be treated seriously by any ruler. Then Pilate called the Sanhedrim to him and addressed them thus : " You have brought this man to me as one who perverts the people, a revolutionary demagogue. And see, I Pilate and the k ave examined him in your presence, and have Sanhedrim. . found no fault in this man touching those things whereof you accuse him. Neither did Herod, for he sent him to us ; and see, nothing deserving of death has been done by him. I will THE SIXTH DAY. 653 sec turge and release him." It is quite evident that Pilate had no feelings of malignity against Jesus. He was really desirous of releasing him, while desirous at the same time of pleasing the Sanhedrim as far as practicable. He appeals to the fact that he had taken cognizance of the case ; had heard the indictment ; had openly conducted the trial in their presence, so that they could put in any proofs they thought likely to convict, and he had been willing to convict, and had shown his willingness by sending the prisoner to Herod, a native prince and a co-religionist of theirs, as the ruler in whose jurisdiction the most of the life of Jesus had been spent, and where, as they had alleged, Jesus had stirred up the people. ISTo proof of seditious behavior had appeared. This man might be a wild enthusiast, but he was not a dangerous revolution- ist. He should therefore scourge him and release him. This was a great error, and most un-Roman. The man was innocent or guilty. If innocent, his release was imperative ; if guilty, the judge should not have been endeavor- ing to protect him. But Pilate had his political difficulties, and office was sweet to him. Moreover, he may have hoped to satisfy the rancor of the churchmen by the scourging of this young heretic, and thus spare the young man's life. In the mean time the ecclesiastical party were busy with the multitude, inciting them to violent demonstration. They had been telling the people that Jesus had blasphemed before the Sanhe- drim, the high council of the nation, claiming to be Jehovah. It is always to be remembered that the people expected the Messiah to be a man, and not a God, not even an angel, certainly not Jehovah. Blasphemy was the supreme crime in their code of ethics. It was because Jesus was a good man, such a very good man, and exer- cised such great moral power, that they regarded him as about to be their Messiah. If, however, he had blasphemed in the presence of the elders of his people, he could be nothing to them but a de- ceiver. The passions of the mob were adroitly plied by these wily and bitter ecclesiastics, and they were prepared to show an outbreak of passionate reactionary feeling against Jesus. Pilate does not seem to have calculated on this state of affairs when he resolved to appeal from the clergy to the laitv, from the priests to the people. He must have T . he . P eo P le J} P „ against Jesus, known something of the personal popularity of the young prophet, and hoped to be able to array the people 654 THM LAST WEEK. against their rulers. For that purpose, apparently, he gathered them together, and when they were assembled they reminded him of the custom which had added to the festivity of the Passover by the release of some prisoner. How long this had been a custom we know not, nor can we now determine whether it was of purely Jewish or purely Roman origin. The Romans were accustomed to propitiate conquered peoples by acts of political grace. A parallel between a malefactor and the goat slain on atonement- day may have inclined the Israelites to execute great criminals on festivals, and their disposition to release a prisoner at the feast might be referred to the goat which was let go free into the desert. At any rate the custom existed, and when Pilate came before the mob they broke into a demand that he should comply with the custom, which gave them any prisoner they might demand, no matter what his crime. It seems to have flashed upon Pilate as a bright idea. He could now turn this demand to the account of Jesus. He agreed that it was the custom, and that he was prepared to observe it, and then, that they might come to his aid against the priests, he fell upon another expedient. There lay in the prison at that moment a man named Barabbas, whose general notoriety as a robber had culminated in an act of sedition in the very metropolis, in which outbreak it was well known that he had committed murder. As the ringleader of the insurrectionists, who also lay bound with him, it was generally supposed that on this day he would be crucified. He had been tried and convicted for the very crime which had been charged on Jesus, namely, sedition. No one doubted the guilt of Barabbas, while no one could bring a particle of proof to fasten the charge on Jesus. The contrast was striking. Agreeing to observe the custom, he narrows the choice to a selection between Jesus and Barabbas, not having apparently the shadow of a doubt that the popular voice would at once release Jesus from his peril and Pilate from his perplexity. To his utter astonishment the people preferred Barabbas. His trouble was increased at this moment by another circum- stance. It had formerly been forbidden the governors of con- quered provinces to carry their wives with them to the provincial capitals. This rule had been modi- aream. x -*• fled so as to allow the ladies to accompany their lords, the governors being held responsible for any intrigues or THE SIXTH DAT. 655 derelictions of their spouses. Pilate's wife, — whose name as Clau- dia Procla, and whose fame as a woman of devout habits, leaning kindly to the religion of the people whom her husband ruled, tra- dition has preserved, — moved by a morning dream, sent a messenger to her husband beseeching him to have nothing to do against Jesus, who, she was persuaded, was a good man. The message came to Pilate while he was on the judgment-seat, and while he was endeavoring to solve the problem of saving Jesus and placating the church party, bent on his ruin. Worldly man as he was, there was doubtless a tinge of superstition in his heart. He may have had no clear theological opinions, no fixed religious convictions, but all the peoples among whom he had travelled believed in gods, and there was something in this prisoner which strangely influ- enced him ; perhaps lie was a god, and perhaps the gods gave warn ing in dreams. It may have occurred to his recollection what had been rife in Rome, that the night before the great Caesar was assas- sinated, his wife Calphurnia dreamed that her husband's bloody body fell across her knees. Thus his perplexity was increased. He could scarcely persuade himself that the people had made this choice. He was not much of a democrat. He could not have believed that most monstrous falsehood, Voxpqpu- h vox Dei est. But a few days before, the multi- T1 f stable . , , • • -r i -i people, tude had come trooping into Jerusalem, shout- ing paeans to this extraordinarily popular prophet. They certainly could not now prefer Barabbas to him, for Barabbas had made the highway dangerous and had been a common villain. More- over, he had been condemned for that of which their leaders had accused Jesus. It is this which had made Pilate all along sus- picious of the churchmen : they preferred a political charge against Jesus, while he knew that in their hearts they did not love the Roman yoke. But Pilate was giving way. He had already agreed to scourge an innocent man. They pushed him. They cried out " all at once." It was the roar of what Burke calls the Bellua Populus, that wild beast the People. It was becoming frightful. " Not this man ! " " Away with this fellow ! " " Release Barabbas to us ! " What is the governor to do in this case ? Jesus is charged with sedition, and the Jews are proving their loyalty to Rome by urging his destruction ; but they are proving their disloyalty by demanding the release of a man convicted of leading a seditious insurrection. 656 THE LAST WEEK. Standing on his judgment-seat, before the tessellated pavement, Pilate demanded : " What shall I do, then, with Jesus, who is called Christ, whom ye call King of the Jews ? " it " Crucify him, crucify him," they exclaimed. A third time the governor interposed : " What evil has he done ? Prove a capital crime. I have found no cause of death in him. I will release him, after having scourged him." But that proposition did not pacify them. They cried out the more exceedingly, saying, with loud voices, "Let him be cru- cified ! " When the populace united with the priests Pilate gave way. He had shown a weakness of which the priests, who hated him, took advantage. Perhaps he reasoned thus : Things have reached such a pass that quiet can no more be restored without bloodshed. To release Jesus will not save him from this furious mob, who will tear him in pieces. An insurrection will be raised. I shall be compelled to call out the troops. Then several will perish. I shall have to give him up ! The weak ruler sent for a ewer of water, and standing in hia place he washed his hands before them all, and again declared the innocence of Jesus, but by this symbolic act his hards endeavored to throw all responsibility from him- self, saying to the mob, " I am innocent of the blood of this just person ! But see you to it ! " The infuriated multitude answered : " His blood be on us and on our children ! " Then, deceiving himself and drugging his conscience, Pilate con- sented to their demand, and released Barabbas to them. Then Pilate caused Jesus to be scourged. The Koman scourg- ing surpassed the Hebrew in all the particulars of severity. In the latter only the shoulders were bared ; in the esus scourge . £ ormer fa G whole person : in the latter the stripes were limited to forty, save one ; in the former there was no limit. It was the punishment given to a slave. The stripes of the lash were loaded with bones or metallic fragments. The scourging of those who were to be crucified was so frightful that the con- demned frequently escaped the cross by dying under the thongs. Then the soldiers of Pilate took Jesus away into the common hall, called the Prsetorium, probably in the castle of Antonia, and gathered the whole company of the guard, Jesus mocked. ^.^ usually numbered aboilt 400 men. They stripped him again, and on his torn and bleeding shoulders put a Pilate in trouble. THE SIXTH DAY. 657 scarlet robe, probably some old military coat from the wardrobe of the guard-room. Then they plaited a crown from the twigs of some thorny growth. It may have been the Syrian acacia, the thorns of which are as long as an ordinary finger. But we can- not know what particular kind of thorns were used. It is enough that they intended to mock him, and that they were not wanting in cruelty. The more painful as well as humiliating the instru- ment of their mockery, the more acceptable it would be. Then they put a reed in his hand as a mock sceptre. Then they knelt before him and ridiculed him and his nation, saying : " Hail ! King of the Jews." And they spat on him. He was bound. The reed was laid in his hands, but he did not hold it. He was perfectly passive. It fell. Some of the guard seized it, and with it drove the thorn-crown down upon his head. They smote and mocked him, varying their indignities. Pilate looked on this wild scene. We can conjecture hxs thoughts from his actions. He must have regarded this whole affair with mingled feelings of perplexity, awe, and apprehension. He had never seen such a sufferer. Most majestic amid ridicule, most serene amid tor tures, here was a man fit to be king anywhere. Yet he had not sought to use his marvellous personal influence for personal ad- vancement. There was Barabbas, coarse and brutal, being the vilest kind of person and doing the very things which the priests had charged upon Jesus. If being seditious was such a heinous crime in their eyes, why should they not desire the destruction of Barabbas, who had been convicted of repeated acts under cir- cumstances of great aggravation, and why should they desire the destruction of. Jesus, who was charged with sedition, but against whom there was proved no single seditious word or act ? It was a great puzzle. Some other basis than loyalty to Rome lay under this extraordinary zeal of the priests. Pilate determined to make one more effort to save the life of this wonderful sufferer. Taking Jesus, thorn-crowned, covered about with the old robe that burlesqued royalty, faint, worn, haggard, as he must have been after the night and morning of agony and torture, he placed the prisoner once more before cce oma the people, reasserting his conviction of the innocence of Jesus. He pointed to this weak and apparently helpless man. He allowed how lonely and friendless and powerless he seemed. 42 658 THE LAST WEEK. Jerusalem should be too magnanimous, and Rome too lofty, to crush out this poor peasant-prophet for fear he should become too strong for Church and State. He said to them : " Ecce Homo ! Behold the man." As if he had said : " Can that be a dangerous person ? " It was a pathetic appeal. Even Pilate's voice may have been unsteady in making this utterance. But the church hate was not to be touched. Jesus was to be de- stroyed. " Crucify him ! Crucify him ! Give him the extreme punishment of a slave," they cried. Pilate said : " Take you him and crucify him ; for I find no fault in him." The crafty priests, determined, if possible, to make Pilate a tool in their hands by inducing him to acknowledge their verdict, making him thus not a judge in a court of ori- , ginal jurisdiction, but a mere recorder of their authoritative decisions, said to Pilate : " We have a law, and according to the law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God." What definite idea this last phrase conveyed to the mind of pagan Pilate we cannot tell, but the whole statement made his soul afraid. He was growing weaker and more superstitious. He went back into the judgment-hall and sent for Jesus and said to him : " Whence are you ? " The wonderful prisoner, who had uttered no complaint, and showed no nervousness, and seemed to take less interest in the whole tragedy than any spectator, held his peace. " What ! " said Pi- late, " do you not speak to me f Do you not know that I have power to crucify you, and power to release you?" Jesus an- swered : a You could have no power against me, unless it were given you from above ; on this account he who has delivered me to you has the greater sin." In the judgment of Jesus, Caiaphas is worse than Pilate. All this increased in Pilate a desire to release Jesus. The pris- oner was guilty of no crime, was apparently capable of no dis- turbance, had no marks of wickedness in his ee ease j^^ry or hi s manners, had been very popular with the masses in the rural districts, had dis- played the most extraordinary composure during a period of extraordinary peril, had the reputation of a miracle- worker, had excited the dreams of Claudia Procla, had called himself the Son of God, and was manifestly the object of intense hatred on the part of the priesthood. Again Pilate sought to release Jesus THE SIXTH DAY. 659 Uut the churchmen had kejifc their strongest form of argument for their last. They return to the political aspect of the affair, and put it before Pilate thus : " If you release this man you are not Cae- sar's friend : whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar." The phrase " Caesar's friend," Amicus Ccesaris, had not only the ordinary signification of the words, but was a title of honor which the Emperors were accustomed to bestow ,t . ... v t . , j Csesar's friend, upon their representatives ruling over subjugated peoples. It was a most ingenious way of putting the case. It struck Pilate on his weakest side. He was a lover of place, an office-seeker, who considered the loss of his political position the greatest misfortune, as is shown in the fact that when that did befall him he retired to Graul and committed suicide. The priests knew their man, and Pilate knew how insecurely already he held his seat, and that such an accusation, if pressed with show of evi- dence, would be his ruin at Pome. Tiberius was suspicious. Pilate had been closeted with Jesus. The trial had been infor- mal. They now had much to show. If he had only taken the strong and dignified position which became an Imperial Procura- tor, and released Jesus as soon as he was convinced that he was innocent, and began to feel perhaps that he was divine, Pilate wo*uld have saved himself ; but he had vacillated so long and grown so weak that this last push toppled him from all his intel- lectual and moral proprieties. He fell. Jesus was brought forth and placed in the judgment-seat, in what was called the Pavement, from the tessellated pavement in front of the judge, and in Hebrew Gabbatha, the etymology of which is not quite clear. The for- ^ tna re " 4/0,7 - 1 stuned. mal ceremonials of a trial were now resumed. Pilate was going to condemn Jesus ; but, enraged at the defeat of his efforts to release him, he called the attention of the Jewish leaders to the pale and poor prisoner at the bar, and said in de- rision, " Behold your king ! " But they called out, " Away, away, crucify him ! " Still taunting them, knowing that by pro- nouncing the sentence he should be secure at Pome, and venting his rage on them he said, " Shall I crucify your king % " They answered, " We have no king but Caesar ! " It was the shriek of a dying nationality. Their earliest ances- tors had lived under a theocracy whose king had held court in a pillar of flame and on the top of rocking Sinai. They had had 660 THE LAST WEEK. no king but Jehovah. Their descendants had had such kings as the great David and the super-splendid Solomon. This very gen- eration of men, who were howling around a pagan ,.^ jms na " court-house to secure the condemnation of Jesus, tionakty. ' had had hopes of a theocratic Messiah. But their thirst for innocent blood was uncontrollable. They throw up all hopes of the future as they did all traditions of the past. They lifted the casket that contained the treasure of their nation- ality and flung it into the maelstrom of the Roman dominion. " We have no king but Caesar." The nationality of Abraham and David and Solomon and the Maccabees was surrendered in spirit, as it had been captured in form, to an imperialism whose repre- sentative was the dark, suspicious, cruel, and debased Tiberius. " We have no king but Caesar ! " Judaism's " loyalty " was Ju- daism's doom. So perishes every church and people and man that will " have no king but Caesar." Then Pilate sealed their fate and his own by delivering Jesus to be crucified. What the precise form of sen- The sentence. , • , i • , i mi tence was in this case we cannot now know. Ine usual formula was, " Ibis ad crucem," " Go to the cross." Section 8. — The Last of Judas. I think it is most probable that this is the point at which Judas reappears. The condemnation by the Sanhedrim would not have aroused him, on any theory of his motives. If His hopes and i , -, T , -.. -, i . he expected Jesus to display superhuman power and deliver himself it was not reasonable to sup- pose that this would occur until he was placed in extremis, aftei his condemnation by the Roman authorities. The verdict of the ecclesiastical council could have little terror for any disciple of Jesus, and every Jew knew that it could not issue in capital pun- ishment without the sanction of the procurator. But Judas, who seems to have been with Peter in the palace of the high-priest, most probably watched every movement of all the parties, and as Pilate or the priest had seemed to have the better of the argument the hopes or fears of Judas had risen or fallen. But now, when he plainly saw that Jesus had received the con- demnation of the church, and the sentence had been ratified by the State, and that " the Master " did not pass out of their midst, but had submitted to scourging and mockery and insult, and waa THE SIXTH DAY. 661 apparently not going to put forth any effort for his own rescue Judas felt the whole ground give way under him. The one huge dark fact fell on his whole superstructure of rea- sonings and it fell. He was smitten with re- . e £ roun morse. He had expected no such issue of his conduct. As by a flash of lightning in a tempestuous midnight a precipice is discovered by the traveller to be at his very feet, so Judas now suddenly saw the abysses of horrible meanings which were in the words that Jesus had spoken at the Supper concern- ing his betrayer. The whole of the beautiful, beneficent life of Jesus rose up before him. He reviewed all the personal kindness and forbearance he had received from the Galilasan prophet. There was nothing in the whole character or life of Jesus which Judas could recollect as being any mitigation of the offence of betraying him. If Jesus had ever done a wrong, or spoken a word which could warrant the suspicion that he might in some way be injurious to the people, Judas would have employed it as an argument to justify himself to himself. But the life of Jesus was faultless, even Judas being judge. He probably felt that this death was to be a martyrdom so conspicuous that it would be seen by far-off generations, and that his own name would be taught to the children of men from age to age as the synonym of treachery. It was too much for him. He had had two davs and nights of intensest anxiety. He gave way under it all. He rushed into the midst of the cruel churchmen, now ready to despise their base instrument, seeing that they , e re urns had gained their end. They were probably ar- ranging for the crucifixion in the same chamber in which he had first met them, when the plan for designating and arresting Jesus was concocted. How gladly they received a recreant disciple of Jesus in the time of their political perplexity, and how courteous they were to him so long as they hoped to get anything out of him, and how glumly they met him when he came back corroded with remorse ! He acknowledged his guilt, hoping somehow vaguely that it would cover the case and avert the fate of Jesus. He shrieked in their hearing, " I have sinned, in that I have be- trayed innocent blood ! " He seemed to think that his confession might convince them that the whole proceeding was wrong, and that they would probably take measures to secure a reversal of 662 THE LAST WEEK. the sentence, which he perceived Pilate would be most ready to grant. But he did not understand the men in whose service he had enlisted. Their cold reply was, " What is that to us ? Do you see to it." It was couched in curter words than the English can well put it : " What to us ? You see ! " They were not seeking justice and judgment : he was a fool if he thought so. They wanted to kill a man who ey regar was .^ ^eir way ; that was all : his being innocent or guilty was nothing. They had needed Judas as a tool ; that was all : they had used him, and now flung him away. His guilty solitude was thus manifested to Judas. God and man, Church and State, seemed turning against him. He went into the Temple, which was now deserted. The priests were away, and the worshippers. The fate of the Galilsean prophet kept all Jerusalem intent and absorbed. His dread loneliness came down on the betrayer like a crushing despair. He walked into the holy place, where none but the priests should go. He was alone with the great God, but lost to all distinctions between sacred and profane. He was desolate, darkened, and doomed. The bag with the thirty pieces of silver was in his hand. He flung it down in the sanctuary ; flung away the remembrancer of his guilty error ; flung down, for the priests to mgs e gaze upon, the proof of the utter ungodliness of money away. t> x ? r t> proscriptive churchism. Then he rushed out to some desert place, and, all shattered, the wretched man met a clouded fate, the record of which by the biographers of Jesus only serves to confound our speculations as to the precise mode of his death. His life went out in a tumultuous, nameless anguish and horror. Id the gallery of the Apostolic portraits a rumpled black cloth falls down over the face of Judas. When the ecclesiastics learned that the money was in the Tem- ple, the scrupulous murderers were sorely perplexed. The killing of Jesus was not so much matter for their consciences ; but here was a question for careful ritualists to study. Here was money which it would not be correct to waste, and which by certain interpretations of the law could not be put directly to the pur- poses of the sanctuary. They devised a method. There was a piece of ground — of little importance, having been spoiled foi THE SIXTH DAY. 663 cultivation by the potteries — adjoining the Hill of Evil Counsel, on which Caiaphas had a country-seat, in which it is said that the death of Jesus had been resolved upon. This _ , F . ,. they bought with the money Judas returned, and named it Aceldama, and dedicated it to the interment of strangers, that is, of such pagans as became proselytes to Judaism, for they were too scrupulous to mingle the dust of believers who were only converts with that of the sons of Abraham. Section 9. — Going to Calvary. After other mockings they took the robe from Jesus, and re- placed his own garments, and led him away to crucify him. It was a part of the punishment that the convicted t -, t , -, . T Bearing- the cross. person should bear his own cross. J esus was no exception. The cross was not that huge combination of timber usually imagined and put into pictures. A man of ordinary strength would have little difficulty in carrying it; but Jesus had passed through so much anguish of mind and torture of body that his strength failed him. He does not appear to have been a person of prodigious powers of endurance, but rather a man of delicate organization. When he fell under the cross the proces- sion met a man coming from the country. It was odd that he should be moving in a contrary way when all the people had been profoundly interested in this tragic affair, and were pouring along the streets to see what might be its issue. He happened at the juncture needed. Roman and Jew equally were too proud to do this menial and degrading service. This man, whose name was Simon, came from Cyrene, in Afri- can Libya, where many Jews resided, who supported a synagogue in Jerusalem. Whether he had come to Jerusa- lem to the festival, or had lately resided there, we e yrenian - cannot tell. It is not probable that he was a disciple of Jesus ; but it is not improbable that, coming suddenly upon this procession, and seeing three men bearing their own crosses, and one — paler and more delicate than the others — lying prone beneath a load he had not strength to carry, Simon should have uttered some excla- mation of natural pity. It was enough to suggest and warrant a military impressment. Thej made him bear the cross of Jesus. The artists have generally misled us as to the appearance of one 664 THE LAST WEEK. crucified and the structure of the cross. It is not known how early the mode of capital punishment by crucifixion was adopt- ed. Traces of the cross have been found among the Scythians, Persians, Egyptians, Carthagini- ans, Greeks, and Romans. It was not a Hebrew mode. The corpse of a criminal who had been executed might be hung upon a tree, but even then it was not permitted to re- main all night (Deut. xxi. 22, 23). Jesus suffered the extreme punishment dealt by Romans to slaves who had been convicted of a capital offence. There were three kinds of crosses : the crux decussata, X ; the crux commissa, T ; an d the crux immissa, y. The cross on which Jesus died is represented by tradition to have been the crux immissa. The upright piece was made just long enough to hold the body a few inches from the ground, and to be sufficiently in the ground to support itself and its burden. There was no support for the feet, as the painters now make in the pic- tures, but on the upright part was a projection, or seat, on which the weight of the body rested. It would have torn the hands and feet fearfully if the whole weight of the body had depended, as Jeremy Taylor says, " on four great wounds." After Jesus had been relieved of the burden of the cross by Simon the Cyrenian, the procession moved forward. It was the custom for the heralds to carry the accusation of each convict before him, written on a tablet whitened with gypsum. Some such epigraph, we suppose, was carried before Jesus, as it was afterwards nailed to the cross. The procession grew as it pro- ceeded. People came forth of their houses. A great company of persons had gathered, and there were many women among them, drawn together by the strange curiosity e j aug ers ^-^ ^ s £ e ^ ^o gee those who are about to die. of Jerusalem. These women, without special sympathy with Jesus as a religious teacher, but having their womanly compas- sions stirred by seeing the sufferings of a man whose appearance contrasted with that of the robbers, who were also carrying their crosses to the place of crucifixion, broke out into bewailing lamentations. It was a touch of nature. The men were all against him. The temper of the mob was opposed to any pity for him. These women did not love him as tenderly as Mary of Bethany, as passionately as Mary of Magdala ; but they were women, and women instinctively know the true man ; and thej THE SIXTH DAT. 665 wept. It moved Jesus. It was the only incident on the way to the crucifixion which seems to have arrested his attention. He said nothing when he fell beneath the cross. He said nothing when they lifted it from his shoulder and gave it to Simon. But who can bear a woman's tears ? Jesus turned and said to them, •' Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for your- selves, and for your children ; for see ! the days are coming in which they shall say, i Happy are the barren, and the wombs that bare not, and the breasts that suckled not.' Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, ' Fall onus;' and to the hills, ' Cover us.' For if they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" The spirit of prophecy came upon him. He seemed to see what would occur on that spot forty years afterwards. Touched by the womanlv tribute of tears, he did not reiect T , . J J ' J Jesus prophesies. the proffered sympathy, but seemed to feel that he was gazing into the eyes of now happy young mothers whose old age should be crushed by a catastrophe of the most over- whelming character. He forgot his grief in theirs. Beyond his cross and sepulchre he saw the Roman investment of the holy city, the siege, the suffering, the horrors, starving mothers snatch- ing food out of the mouths of their own children, and other starv- ing mothers killing and roasting and eating their own offspring ; while men and women and children went creeping through sub- terranean passages and foulest sewers; and others, fleeing, hid themselves in crevices of mountain rocks from the storm which was sweeping Jerusalem. This address to the women was the last utterance of patriotism which came from the mouth of Jesus. He was then brought to a place which was called Golgotha in the Hebrew tongue, meaning " Skull." * The site of the true Calvary has of late years been a subject of pro- found interest to topographers. That the present Church of the Holy Sepulchre is over the place where Jesus died, as it is professed, cannot be believed by those who examine the Golgotha. * " Golgotha means Skull, and the place is not called Kpaviwv towos, i. e., place of skulls, but Kpavtov, i. e., skull. Luke uses Kpaviov." — Lange. The word "Calvary" occurs in our authorized version only once, Luke xxiii. 33, and there it is not a proper name in the original, but was adopted literally by our translators. The He- brew Golgotha, the Greek Kranion, and the Latin Calvaria all mean the same thing, a skull. THE LAST WEEK. history and the spot free from the influence of tradition. Too much stress has been laid on the erection of a basilica on this spot in the early centuries. Churches may have been built to com- memorate facts when there was no intent to designate sites, as we know that the Church of the Ascension, built by the Empress Helena, is not within sight of the spot from which Jesus ascended. The true site must meet all the conditions of the history. These are six, namely : 1. It was without the then existing walls of Je- rusalem, Matt, xxvii. 31, 22 ; xxviii. 11 ; and Paul in Hebrews xiii. 12. 2. It was near the city, John xix. 20. 3. It was popu- larly known as " The Skull," Matt, xxvii. 33; Mark xv. 22 ; Luke xxiii. 33 ; John xix. 27. 4. It was near a gate to a leading thor- oughfare, Matt, xxvii. 39 ; Mark xv. 29 ; Luke xxiii. 26. 5. It was a conspicuous spot, Matt, xxvii. 55 ; Mark xv. 40 ; Luke xxiii. 49. 6. It was near sepulchres and gardens, John xix. 38-42. Not one of these propositions can be affirmed of the spot on which the Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands, which is a low place in- side the old walls, off the thoroughfares, and where no tombs would be allowed. All these six particulars meet in an elevation called the Grotto of Jeremiah; a short distance north of the Damascus Gate. It is outside the city. It is near. It is conspicuously shaped like a skull, and from almost every point of view reminds the beholders of a skull. It is near what is still the entrance to the great thoroughfare from the north of Judsea and all Upper Syria. It can be seen from almost every elevation about Jerusa- lem, and looks down on hills that look down on the modern Church of the Sepulchre. According to Josephus, it was a place of tombs and gardens ; and even now " the number of rock tombs at this place, and the extent and beauty of some of them, impress the stranger with the wealth and splendor of the ancient Jewish capi- tal." (Dr. Porter's Rand-booh, i. 93.)* When they reached the spot, before proceeding to crucify him, they offered him a drink composed of sour wine, in which myrrh had been dissolved. There seems no proof that this was a Roman custom. Lightfoot quotes from the Talmud : " To those that were to be executed they gave a grain of myrrh infused in wine to drink, that their senses might * See True Site of Calvary, by Mr. Fisher Howe, published by A. D. F. Randolph & Co., New York, a capital treatise on this whole question, contain- ing much authority in support of the position taken in the text above. THE SIXTH DAY. 667 be dulled ; as it is said, ' Give strong drink to them that are ready to die, and wine to those that are of a sorrowful heart.' " But this narcotic Jesus refused. He would have nothing to dim the clearness of his vision or enfeeble the vigor of his intellect. Then they crucified him. Section 10. — From Nine o'clock to Noon. It was now nine o'clock in the morning of Friday, 7th of April. On each side of him was a thief crucified. It does not appear that Jesus was submitted to any torture beyond that which was inseparable from crucifixion, and beyond what the two thieves endured. His being crucified ^ tormentors, with them may have been intended as an indig- nity ; but perhaps simply came to pass because it was customary to have executions at this feast. His disciples declared that in that fact was a fulfilment of the prophecy in Isaiah (liii. 12), " He was numbered with the transgressors." While his executioners were performing their work, Jesus prayed for them: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." It was touching and characteristic. He does not say, "I forgive you." That would be to allude too distinctly to the wrongs he was suffering. He thought of their guilt, not his own sufferings. It was a prayer of pure unselfishness. When they had set up the cross they sat down to watch it, as their duty was. The usage was to crucify convicts naked, and the clothing fell to the executioners as a perqui- site. In the case of Jesus they had no difficulty ffarmen t with his outer garments, but when they came to his inmost article of dress they found it a strange fabric, without a seam, woven throughout. It may have been the product of ma- ternal love. It may have been the handiwork of the tender and loving Mary of Bethany, or the passionate Mary of Magdala. How little did love think, as love's fingers wove it, to what tor- ture the precious body it was to cover should finally come. There was something about it which made even rude Roman soldiers pause. They determined not to tear it ; and so cast lots. Again his disciples saw a prophecy fulfilled. In Psalm xxii. 16, 18, it is said, " The assembly of the wicked have enclosed me ; they 668 THE LAST WEEK. pierced my hands and my feet. They part my garments among them, and cast lots for my vesture." This their loving hearts ap- plied to Jesus. When Pilate felt himself compelled to sentence Jesus he made out the accusation on which he had condemned him. This haa Th . , probably been carried before Jesus, and was now attached to the cross over his head. It was writ- ten in Hebrew, and in Greek, and in Latin — in the language of the populace, of the cultivated foreigners, and of the Roman officials. It was this : — "JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS." The Roman judge thus decided that Jesus had no guilt ; that nothing had been substantiated against him ; for this is no crime „ , ,. . that his name should be Jesus, that he should Cassars verdict. / either have been born or have lived in Nazareth, that he should have been literally or somehow figuratively a king of the Jews. It is the assertion of Caesar's government that Jesus was without crime. Personally to Pilate it was more. It was a gratification to be able to fling this slur in the faces of the persis- tent ecclesiastics who had coerced him. It is as if he had said, " This poor forlorn peasant, hanging on this cross, is good enough king for these Jews." Or it might mean, " They said they would have no king but Caesar : I crucify Jesus : if he be their king he is a dead king, and the nails by which I fasten him to the cross bind them to their rejection of all kings but Caesar." The high-priests were not slow to see this. They chose, not- withstanding their averment that they would have no king but Caesar, to leave that question open. They were very loyal eccle- siastics, and the history of the world shows how far such men are to be trusted. Pilate had no faith in them. They rushed back to his palace, where he must have sat moody over the events of the day in which he had played so conspicuous and disagreeable a part. They called his attention to the character of the epigraph on the cross. They prayed him to change it, at least so as to show that it was only a claim set up by Jesus. His surly answer was, " What I have written, I have written." With that he dismissed them. Crucifixion was a tedious mode of execution. The soldiers took out their implements for gaming and sat down to play while THE SIXTH DAY. 660 they keep guard over the crucified. At almost every public exe- cution there are displays of bitter feeling and outbreaks of grim humor. It is not a means of grace to see a fellow- being tortured, however guilty. The cross was set up beside a thoroughfare. Those who passed by saw it. Some one of these recollected what had been testified at the trial, so called, and he wagged his head and taunted Jesus, saying, " You who de- stroy the Temple, and build it in three days, save yourself, if yon are the Son of God, and come down from the cross." This revil- ing was not confined to the lower populace. The chief priests took it up, and probably walking in front of the cross, or stand- ing near enough for Jesus to hear, they said among themselves, not addressing him, " He saved others ; he cannot save himself. If he be the Messiah, let him save himself. He is the king of Is- rael ! Let him now com© down from the cross, and we will be lieve on him. He trusted in God ; let Him now deliver him, if He will ; for he said, 'I am Son of God.' " The spirit of reviling spread itself. The Roman soldiers, hav- ing no ecclesiastical bias and no theological views, began to echo the taunt of the populace and the priests. They offered him vinegar to drink. They mocked. They also said, " If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.' ' That apparently forlorn and helpless peasant-prophet on the cross made great contrast with Caesar's grandeur on the Palatine Hill in Rome, and with the barbaric splendor of some of the kings these soldiers had helped to conquer. The soldiers said to him directly, " If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself." They would like to see him do it. It would be a marvel to see a man disengage himself from the cross. If he should attempt it, he would find Roman valor superior to any legerdemain or terrify- ing magic. If the Jews around these soldiers were not utterly obtuse, they must have felt that this insult reacted upon them in their civil and their ecclesiastical positions. These rude warriors from the Tiber were stamping out their State and their Church in Jesus. Even one of the thieves, in the recklessness which often befalls men who are about to perish, began his raillery. ,, T/ , , -, r . , ,, *■.>!•« The impenitent ,w JLi you are the Messiah, said he, " save your- ^^ self and us, my comrade and myself." This man is a perplexing study. Nature calls for sympathy in behalf of 670 THE LAST WEEK. one who was in like sufferings with himself. -He knew nothing against Jesus personally. If they had not been friends in life they might have been friendly in death. The world was all agviinst them both; why should they not make common cause, and, as far as possible, sustain each other in this last dark passage of their lives ? But no ; he turns upon him, he joins the mad crowd of persecutors. Is it that it was some relief to this man to have the tide of the public hate turned away from himself towards Je- sus ? Is it that we are always gratified to find that there are others more obnoxious than ourselves ? Whatever the motive or the temper of the man, his conduct was another pain inflicted on Jesus. But the other robber was not so obdurate. He rebuked his comrade. " Do you not fear God, seeing that you are in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; The penitent ,. . . ,, , -. r fcMef tor we are receiving the due revvard or our deeds; but this man has done nothing amiss." He then turned his eyes towards Jesus and said, " Jesus, remem- ber me when you shall come in your kingdom." Here was a marvellous confession. What this man could have known of Je- sus prior to this time we have now no means of learning. Pie may have known his whole history, and much as it had interested him, he had not until this moment been able to see in Jesus the sign of his being Israel's king. He may have been of that class of turbulent Jews who restlessly longed for the coming kingdom and the coming king, those Chiliasts who looked for a thousand years of temporal glory to Israel, and were not unwilling occa- sionally to make a blow at the Roman power, however futile that blow might be. In any event, he had seen Jesus coming forth to execution ; had heard his prophecies to the daughters of Jerusa- lem ; had heard his great prayer for his executioners ; had regarded his bearing under the storm of abuse which had been poured upon him ; had seen the superscription on the cross ; had witnessed the intense excitement of the ecclesiastics. But, after all, there are those things producing faith which cannot be described. He believed in Jesus. Jesus did not repel his faith. He accepted it. The man had a sense of guilt and helplessness. He believed in the power of Jesus to save him somehow. He was so humble and modest that he did not interrupt the suffering Jesus with a plea that he woul a rich, a good, and a just man; that he was " waiting for the kingdom of God ; " that he had not consented to the action of the Sanhedrim in the case of Jesus, and, in fact, was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews. The crucified Jesus drew from him a con- fession of attachment which the living Teacher had never been able to elicit. The other was Nicodemus, the ruler who had gone to Jesus by night, early in the career of the great Teacher, and who seems never to have lost his interest in the young prophet now come to an untimely and ignominious end. These two men took charge of the interment. While Joseph went boldly unto Pilate to crave the body of Jesus, Nicodemus went into the city to procure myrrh and aloes for his embalm- ment. The interest they took in Jesus shows how deeply he had impressed them. Neither had dared profess their faith in him. Perhaps that faith was not well defined. But they believed him to be both great and good. They had absented themselves from the Sanhedrim which had been called together that morning by the high-priest. They knew the question to be put to them. Each was probably ignorant of the feelings of the other. But they could not vote to execute Jesus, and they had not the courage to defend him. Now they discover each the other's long regard for Jesus, and they THE SIXTH DAT. 685 tmite in showing delicate attentions to the remains of the cruci- fied prophet. Pilate granted the body. Joseph brought a linen shroud, and Nicodemus brought the spicery. There is a pensive beauty in John's simple statement : " In the place where he was crucified there was a garden ; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid." Matthew says that this sepulchre was Joseph's " own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock." The place was near, and these good men, with pious hands, bore Jesus to it, and thus saved him from being flung into a com- mon ditch with the malefactors who were crucified with him. They seem to have had no helpers. The friends of Jesus had fled. His enemies had returned to the city. Alone and solitary, these honorable counsellors lifted and wrapped and carried and interred the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Joseph rolled np a great stone to the door of the tomb. It was " the Jews' prepara- tion-day." He and Kicodemus left the garden to prepare for the Passover. Two women had watched these great men in their humane and godly work. Joseph and Nicodemus had not consociated with L ' l t "eil ^ esils an( ^ n * s f r l en( l s j but they were probably known as men of wealth and distinction. It must have been a wonder to these women what interest two members of the senate which had condemned Jesus should have in the proper preparation and entombment of his body. They were too shy to address them, and probably the counsellors did not notice the women ; but when the great men went away two humble women were left to keep love's vigil at the gate of death, Mary of Magdala and her friend Mary the mother of Joses. And even they were so thoroughly Jew, that shortly they re- turned to the city, and having "prepared further spices and ointments, they rested the Sabbath-day, according to the com- mandment." That Sabbath-day, April 8, a.d. 30, Jesus spent in Joseph's sepulchre. PAET VIII. THE KESUKKECTION OF JESUS AND SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. FORTY DAYS— FROM APRIL 9 TO MAY 19, AD. 30. It was a remarkable Sabbath. The crucified men had been removed, Jesus had been buried, the Temple worship had been re- sumed, going forward as it had gone for several after crucifixion. centuries, and the church party would fain have had everything move on as if nothing had hap- pened. But a great storm had swept the popular mind. Pilate must have been moody and disturbed. The disciples of Jesus could have had little heart for the Temple services. They loved the buried Jesus, and although all their hopes of him and much of their faith in his sagacity must have disappeared, their hearts were buried in the new sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathsea. The priests had two things to trouble them. There was the rent veil of the Temple. In the dying agony of Jesus had come a con- vulsion which had torn that veil from top to bottom and laid the Holiest of Holies open. That must have been an appalling sight. His body might be removed from the sepulchre, and thus faith in his resurrection be encouraged. That was an anxiety. More- over, these politicians recollected what his disciples had forgot- ten — his own prophecy of his resurrection. Their recollections of his prophecies were accurate, and they supposed his disciples were as cunning as themselves, and they knew what they would do under similar circumstances. That was the second trouble. When the Sabbath was past, the chief priests and Pharisees THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS. 687 went to Pilate and said, " Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, 'After three days I will rise again.' Command, therefore, that the sepulchre be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples come n e , sep c * J x guarded, by night and steal him away, and say unto the people that he is risen from the dead, and so the last deceit be worse than the first." Pilate could have been in no sweet mood, but there was no reason why he should not grant their request He had been forced by them to consent to the death of the young teacher : he might as well yield this also. He cared nothing for the result, and could have taken no interest in the predictions of a man whom he regarded as a harmless and unfortunate fanatic. He was cross. Yes, they shall have a guard, these mad priests who are frightened by a dead peasant ! If it gratifies them to make fools of themselves they may do so : he will not hinder ! He said to them, " Ye shall have a watch : go your way, make it as sure as you can." So they went and made the tomb secure, roll- ing up a stone to its mouth, and sealing it. The Roman guard took possession of the sepulchre. In the mean time Mary of Magdala and other women, knowing that the burial of Jesus by Joseph and Nicodemus had been hur- ried, although decent, had gone out on Saturday evening, the Sabbath being past, and had pro- Pre P arations f or , . t . . .-ip embalming. cured sweet spices, and were waiting anxiously for the morning which should follow the Sabbath, that they might go and anoint the precious body, performing love's last offices before Jesus should be left, as they supposed, to lie forever in that grave. They knew nothing of the government seal on the tomb, and nothing of the Poman guard. They knew that there was a great stone at the mouth of the sepulchre. A s, at earliest dawn, they approached the garden they questioned how they should remove the stone so as to proceed with the embalming. Then they felt a preternatural shaking of the ground beneath their feet. Then, as they looked towards the sepulchre, there was a preternatural light. There had been an earthquake. The stone had been thrown down. An apparition as of an angel sat on the stone. His appearance had so frightened the Poman guard that they had fallen like dead men. Jesus had disappeared from the tomb. The guard had not seen him. The great stone had not detained him. His earliest biographers give no intimation of the hour of the resurrection. 688 THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS He was abroad at daylight. They represent him as having had frequent intercourse with them for forty days, in which he gives them no intimation of the hour of his resurrection. It was be- tween Friday's sunset and Sunday's sunrise. When he rose he did not show himself to the guard : the first fright they had was from the angel. He did not show himself to any one until after the women had visited the sepulchre. There is almost no twilight in Palestine. It is dark ; a glim- mer comes in the eastern skies ; then the sun bounds forth. It was yet dark as the women came near enough to e evo e the sepulchre to see that the stone was gone from women. its mouth. A terrible suspicion flashed on the mind of the devoted Mary of Magdala, that the beloved body had been stolen by the malignant enemies of Jesus, and she could not conjecture what outrages might have been committed on it. In her grief and indignation she rushed back to communicate the horrible news to John, with whom Peter then happened to be. The other women — Mary, Salome, and Joanna — entered. They do not seem to have noticed the angel until they had ascertained the absence of Jesus. They were sorely per- vision in t e pi exe( j e Perhaps they had gone into an inner sepulchre. x ■*■ J ° chamber of the tomb, and returned, after finding that the corpse was missing, when the angel revealed himself to them. Luke says there were two angels, or rather, " two men in long shining garments." The women were afraid. They bowed their heads. The angel said, " Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. Why do you seek the living among the dead ? He is not here. He is risen, as he said. Come and see the place where they laid him." He showed them the spot, and the grave-clothes lying in order, and then said, " Pern ember how he spoke to you when he was yet in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again." The women then dis- tinctly recalled that prediction. The angel added, " Go your way quickly, and tell his disciples / even Peter, that he is risen from the dead, and goes before you into Galilee. There you shall see him, as he said Petr 111688 ^ 6 *° t0 y0U '" The women started off t°wards the city, full of mingled fear and joy. They seem to have missed another party now approaching the sepulchre. AND SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. 689 When Mary of Magdala had reached the city she flew to * he house of John, with whom Peter was, and rushing in breathlessly exclaimed, " They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him." This was startling news. Both the men rose and went out to the sepulchre. Peter had not yet learned that a special message had been sent to him. He had behaved so basely that he did not feel as if he were of the number of the disciples. But he had repented, and he loved the brotherhood of the disciples, and he loved his dead Master, and he would gladly make amends for his denials by devotion to the corpse of Jesus. Still the burden of the bad memory was on him. He did not go as fleetly as John. Both ran ; but John reached the sepulchre first. There a reverent awe checked him. He kneeled down and looked at the grave- clothes. Peter followed, and went right in. There lay the shroud wrapped up, and the napkin, which perhaps Mary of Magdala had wound about his mangled head. Everything was orderly. Ho had been taken away by neither friends nor foes. The former would have had no care for the clothes, or have not removed them ; the latter would have torn them away carelessly. It looked as if Jesus had risen and carefully folded and laid away the garments of the grave, wherewith the hands of respect and love had wrapped him. Peter induced John to follow him. Peter was puzzled. In John there began to spring up some faith. " He saw and be- lieved ; " for as yet, according to John's own testimony, " they did not know the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead." Then they left the sepulchre and went home. But Mary of Magdala stood without at the sepulchre, weeping. The men might go, but she lingered about the spot where she had last seen the body of him whom she loved with n i . v. , ..i i a, i tt Mary of Magdala. ail ner heart and soul, one was alone. Hers was an absorbing love and an absorbing grief. She gazed through her tears down into the sepulchre where the dear Jesus had been laid. She was flooded with sorrow. She saw the two angels in white, but she had no attention to give to even angels. Nothing in heaven or earth could interest her but Jesus. They said to her, " Woman, why are you weeping ? " She could not be astonished or frightened even by so brilliant an apparition as two angels ; but she was ready to burst forth when the subject of her love was U 690 THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS touched. She sobbed out, " Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him ! " What marvellous beauty of loving is here ! " My Lord ! " It «vas the emphasis of appropriating affection. He was hers more than he was any other's. She loved him more than any other woman or any man loved him. And he had done everything for her. She did not ask the angels for any consolation ; she was inconsolable. She turned to go, and through her tears she saw a man standing in the garden. She scarcely looked at him. One man filled her heart and brain and eyes, and he was dead, and his dear body was stolen. When the stranger asked her, " Why do you weep ? whom do you seek ? " she thought it was the gardener, and that he must know all about it. Her reply was, " Sir, if you have borne him hence, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away ! " What marvellous beauty of loving is here ! " Him " — as if every- body must know Mary's " him ! " If it were not considered meet for his corpse to be in that garden because he had died as a malefactor — although she felt that that body, if laid down on God's throne, would sweeten all heaven — she would take it away to some place where, without interruption, he might sleep the sleep of death, and she might weep the tears of the dying. She had not turned to gaze full on the speaker. It was Jesus, and she did not know it. He said to her, " Mary ! " In his lifetime it is probable that he had never called the other Marys with the tone in which he was accustomed to pronounce her name, the poor dear friend whom he had brought out of the darkness of insanity with the marvellous light of his love. The syllables in the familiar tone thrilled her. She turned. She saw him. She knew it was Jesus. She sprang towards him saying, " Rabboni." It seems that she would have embraced him, but Jesus checked her. He said, " Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father : but go to my brethren and say unto them that I ascend unto my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." Mary left him. Her love was obedient. The brilliant moment was past. She might not see him again, but he was alive. He was to meet the brethren in Galilee. He was not the Comforter ; he had not yet come in that cha- racter, as he had promised his disciples, because he had not yet AND SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. 691 ascended to the Father. So Mary of Magdala, lovingest of women, out of whom Jesus had cast seven devils, and into whom seven angels had come, sad Mary, glad Mary, left her Lord and went about the errand on which he sent her. The interview was exceedingly brief. Before the other women could reach the city, Jesus was with them. He met them. He saluted them with "All hail ! " Combining the accounts given by Mark and Matthew, a very natu- The other w0 " ral history seems to me to be this : The women had entered the sepulchre and seen where Jesus lay ; then they had the vision of the angels ; then they went out " quickly " and fled from the sepulchre, for they trembled and were amazed, "and departed with fear and great joy." Leaving the sepulchre in great agitation, they may have wandered off from the city quite as naturally as towards it ; bat recalling the message of the angel to the disciples, their joy predominated ; their mental equipoise began to return. To make up the lost time, they began to run, and thus they met Jesus. They knew him at once. As soon as he saluted them they fell at his feet, clasping them and rendering him hom- age. He permitted in them what he had forbidden in Mary of Magdala. Their worship and their feelings were quite different from those of the loving Mary. Jesus soothed them, saying, " Be not afraid ; go tell the brethren that I go into Galilee, and there shall they see me." As the women went to bear this message to the disciples, some of the watch went to report to the Pharisees, and to consult for their own safety. The Sanhedrim assembled. The soldiers probably told the facts as they occurred. The council was driven to desperation. They had hoped that the money given Judas should end the matter. Now there must be more bribery. They gave the soldiers u large money," as our common version has it ; " sufficient silver pieces " it is in the ori- ginal. They instructed them what to say ; it was this : " His dis- ciples came by night and stole him away while we slept," They a so pledged themselves to stand between them and Pilate, if a report of the affair should reach the governor's ears. We can readily account for the mental and moral temper of the majority of the Sanhedrim. A course of crime had blunted their sensibilities. It was natural that they should offer money to the soldiers. It was natural thai 692 THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS the soldiers should accept it. Their case was this : having dis- charged their duty faithfully, they were in such circumstances that if tried by a military court they would be executed. Caesar would take no " angel " for an excuse. They had suffered the government seal to be violated. They had committed a military crime. If brought to trial their doom was sealed. They would better make all out of their circumstances that could be made. They took the money, and took the pledge of the priests, and went off and awaited events. But there is no evidence that these soldiers ever told to a mili- tary tribunal what the Sanhedrim put into their mouths. They could not be worse men than the priests, and not such fools as to tell a lie that would convict them. It is quite probable that they repeated the stupid falsehood to some of the populace, in the presence of some of the priests, to make good their bargain. The priests would use it among the vulgar people, and thus the report would gain currency among the Jews. But the soldiers would not have said so if arrested. " We slept : " that was a crime for which death would be inflicted, according to imperial law. " They stole : " how could men tell what was done, or who did it, while they were asleep ? But it is quite easy to see why the soldiers did as they were taught : there was in that direc tion some possibility of escape, but none in any other. That the body of Jesus could not have been stolen by any one, a very slight inspection of the facts must show. If stolen, it was by friends or by foes, by the Jewish authorities or by gtolen the disciples. The former could not have taken it ; for if they had, they would have made an exhibi- tion of the corpse after three days, and thus secured a complete demolition of the claims of Jesus. The disciples could not have done so. The presence of the dead body would be a perpetual reminder of the death of their hopes. There would be no stimu- J us in that. They had no conceivable reason for stealing the body. If they had, they could not have accomplished it. They were too few to overpower the guard. If they had made the attack some would have been at least wounded, and perhaps killed, and the uproar would have aroused the city. But this is not charged. It is unreasonable to suppose that all the guard were asleep at once, and that at that juncture the disciples stole the body. That would have involved the breaking of the government seal on a night AKD SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. 693 when tlie moon was at its full, and the city was crowded, and the populace was excited. If that had occurred the disciples would have been prosecuted. But they never were prosecuted. The testimony of the soldiers would then have been called into court, and that would have acquitted the disciples and covered the San- hedrim with shame. There were in the Sanhedrim a few who believed in Jesus, and to them — to such men as Joseph and Nicodemus, for instance — the early historians must have been indebted for a narrative of what had passed in the Sanhedrim, including their infamous and stupid proposition to the soldiers. When the women returned and made their report the disciples did not believe ; but what the women said seemed to them like " crazy talk." That afternoon two disciples left Jerusalem to walk to Em- maus, a village seven miles distant. The name of one is preserved. It was Cleopas ; but we know not who he was. They started probably about half-past three Emmaus o'clock, after the evening sacrifice. They had heard the reports which seemed to have been circulated among the friends of Jesus, that the sepulchre was empty. As they walked they conversed upon the subject nearest to all their hopes and fears and interests, the dead Jesus, and what had happened in the three eventful days. They were perplexed. They " reasoned.'' They were probably striving to reconcile the apparently conflicting facts, the claims of Jesus and his manifest power, with the igno- minious death which he had suffered. Jesus drew near and walked with them ; but they were so absorbed that they did not notice him. He spoke to them respectfully in such a way as not to be offen- sive even in a stranger. " What are these words that ye exchange one with another as ye walk ? " Luke says that " they stood with sorrowful countenances." They stran0 . er looked at Jesus, but did not recognize him. The same historian says, " their eyes were holden that they should not know him." Mark says that Jesus " appeared in another form unto them." It is to be noticed that some change must have passed in the appearance of his person. None of his friends recognized him immediately on first sight ; but none failed to recognize him afterwards. Who can tell what that change was % It was his 694 THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS own body. They all saw, and some touched him. Was the gross- ness of the material body disappearing, and the fineness of the spiritual body coming forth ? But we are to record only what are the facts in the case. When Jesus asked his question the two disciples looked at him. There was nothing in the appearance of this stranger to make him seem a suspicious person, to be avoided, and the Grief of the dis- , r -, . lP , . . les tone and manner of his respectful inquiry com- mended him to the confidence which these simple- hearted men gave him. Cleopas replied : " Are you the only so- journer in Jerusalem who has not known these things that have come to pass there in these days ? " It was a polite reflection on his apparent ignorance. " What things ? " asked the stranger, to draw him out. One of them answered, " Concerning Jesus the Nazarene, who was a man, a prophet mighty in act and speech before God and all the people ; and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and have crucified him." And then, running out into confidential lamentations to the attentive and sympathizing stranger, the speaker continued : " But we hoped that it had been he who was about to redeem Israel ; yet, for all these hopes, this is the third day since these things were done. Besides, certain women of our company astounded us, who were early at the tomb, and not having found his body they returned, saying that they had seen a vision of angels, who say that he is living. And certain of those with us went to the tomb and found it thus, according also as the women had said : but him they saw not ! " The stranger had completely won their confidence and tested the genuineness of their grief, their faith, their love, and their fears. They had even confessed themselves disciples of the pro- phet who had seemed to have failed, whose ignominious execution had blasted their hopes but not their affection. They even ad- mitted him to a knowledge of what was passing in the inner circle of the friends of the crucified Jesus. These simple-hearted pea- sants were the first confessors. Then Jesus replied, " O thoughtless and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken ! Ought not ., . ,. . , The Christ to have suffered these things and to the two disciples. # & enter his glory ? " They supposed their Master to be The Christ of God : if so, the books held to be sacred writings AND SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. 695 by the Jewish people pointed to just such a course of affairs as had happened to Jesus. Then he began with Moses, and running through his writings and those of their prophets, he explained to these simple men that those very things which had shaken their confidence should be confirmatory of the faith of all those who understood and believed the Holy Scriptures. We can never know what special passages Jesus quoted and expounded in this conversation ; but it is not difficult now to see how the whole sys- tem of worship instituted under Moses can be made highly typical of what happened to Jesus, to the minds of those who believe in him. It was new light to these simple but thoughtful men, and they received it gladly. Upon reaching the house where they were to abide, Jesus was about to take his leave and pass on. But he had been so charm- ing a talker, his glowing eloquence had so won . . . Jesus .reveals the hearts of his two ingenuous listeners, that they ki mse if urged him to stay with them. He consented. When the meal was spread Jesus assumed the host's place. As they reclined at the table he took bread and uttered the usual thanksgiving, which, according to the Jewish ritual, was obliga- tory where three ate together. There was something in the tone, or there was some change come over Jesus, which caused them to recognize their dear dead friend, or, perhaps, as he broke the bread they saw his wounded hands. " Their eyes were opened," says Luke. At that instant Jesus became invisible to them. This can scarcely be regarded as the history of a subjective process on their part. That both should see the same man, and hear the same words through a long discourse, and see him as they prepared the meal, and behold and hear him while uttering the thanksgiving, and both lose sight of him at once, and the whole be a mere subjective fancy of both minds, is not at all in accordance with the well-known laws of our intellectual constitu- tion. His disappearance is not explained. Then they said to each other, " Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us by the way, and opened the Scriptures to us ? " They were so excited at what had happened that they arose and returned to Jerusalem. It ., ci ^ re XiTn must have been night ; but enough was happening to draw the little circle closer together. When Cleopas and his 3ompanion reached the city they found the eleven Apostles to- 696 THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS getlier and others of the disciples. As soon as they entered some one said to them, " The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon." And perhaps all the strange occurrences of the day, so far as they knew them, were related by the company to the two who had just come from Emmaus. We do not know when this appearance to Peter occurred. It was some time since morning, of course ; but whether it was before or after the revelation of himself to the Emmaus Jesus appears ,. . , , ,. , . . T , , p , disciples, we nave no means or ascertaining. It might have been after. There was time enough. The company were evidently greatly excited by the appearance to Peter. In an earlier part of the day he may have gone to the sepulchre, or he may have been wandering about the suburbs or through the streets, very disconsolate and unhappy. None of the disciples had as much cause for sorrow as he. He had denied his Lord and broken into profanity. The last look which Jesus gave him must have haunted him. Even if his Master had risen from the dead, would he appear to him ? He had forfeited his place. Perhaps none of his brother Apostles knew how basely he had acted : but Jesus did. Would he allow poor Simon to fall peni- tently at his feet? Nothing can be more beautiful or appropriate than these first appearances of Jesus. He first shows himself to the grief of love in Mary of Magdala. He next shows himself to the grief of per- plexity in the two Emmaus disciples. He then shows himself to the grief of penitence in Peter. It was all in beautiful consis- tency with the character he had displayed through his whole career. After the assembly had informed Cleopas and his companion of what was known in Jerusalem, they, in turn, gave an account of their interview with Jesus in Emmaus and on the way thither, and especially told of how Jesus was made known to them in the breaking of bread. There was great incredulity in the company, and mueh perplexity. They all believed that he was no longer in the sepulchre ; but his appearance to Mary and the other women, and Simon, who professed to have seen him, seemed to them like hallucination. The story told by the Emmaus disciples increased the perplexity of the company. Jesus was seen so often, in such different places, so near the same time, and vanishing so strangely. It began to be frightful. It suggested spiritual appearances They were mournfully disturbed. AND SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. 697 It was probably the first time they had been gathered together since the supper with Jesus on Thursday night. They were afraid of the church authorities, and so the doors were shut. Just when they were in most perplexity by f j£* ^^T 1 all these narratives of preternatural things, Jesus suddenly appeared in their midst. Whether he opened the door, or was admitted by the doorkeeper, who might have seen that it was Jesus, or whether it was accomplished in some way still " unknown to our philosophy," we cannot say. Here is the simple historical statement. It shows that he was no longer in the grave, but was in bodily intercourse with the disciples. As he entered he said : " Peace to you ! " It was his usual salutation. But they were terrified and affrighted. They thought they saw a spirit, a phantasm, a ghost, something produced preternaturally. Their nerves were unstrung by the events of the day. They were so agitated that they did not notice his salutation. He said to them : " Why are you troubled ? And why do rea • sonings arise in your hearts ? " He saw that they regarded him as some strange "appearance" merely. He re- -, 2l n , , t . , ! n Jesus in their proved them tor not believing the men and women . , , who had seen him and had reported his resurrec- tion, thus preparing them for his coming into their midst. He exhibited the wounds which they knew he had received in cruci- fixion. "Behold my feet and my hands, that it is I myself: handle me, and see : for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see me have." Whether they touched him or not we do not know ; they might have done so. But they were overjoyed; they were too glad to believe ; they were full of wonder. The sight of Jesus was first terrible, and then glorious. They were in a state of great mental agitation, described very naturally by these intelligent historians. They behaved just as people would behave who were not playing a part or posturing for effect. Jesus said very simply, " Have you anything to eat here ? " They gave him some broiled fish and some honey-comb. He took them and ate, the whole company beholding him. And while eating, he said to them : " These are ^ eats wifcb the words which I spoke to you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, con- 698 THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS cerning me." These are the parts into which they were accus- tomed to classify the canonical Scriptures. He showed that they all pointed to his death and resurrection. He assisted them, opening their understanding, that they might know what the Scriptures meant in passages which had been sealed to them. He concluded by adding, " Thus it is written that The Christ should suffer, and rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance for the remission of sins should be proclaimed in his name among all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things : and, behold, I send the promise of the Father upon you : but tarry in the city until you be endued with power from on high." He cleared up for them a point which was greatly dark to the Jewish mind, namely, that The Christ, the Messiah of Grod, should be a sufferer. They had so thoroughly misread the Scriptures. We need not be surprised at that, when we see how traditional readings of the New Testament come to have such influence on men, that when one gives a natural and consistent interpretation it often seems a shocking innovation. His com- mand to remain in Jerusalem must be understood as making that their centre and headquarters, as we soon see them ordered to Galilee for a season. John records that Jesus again said, " Peace unto you ! As my Father has sent me, I also will send you." And then he breathed on them, and said: " Receive the Holy Spirit. If The Holy Spirit. !, ,v . , ., , -,-, £ -., A you remit the sins ox any, they shall be remitted to them ; and if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." The act of breathing seems symbolical. These men were from that time very different from the men they had been before. They were wiser, better, deeper, more holy men. The last words are not to be interpreted as conferring upon any corporate body of officials the authority to bind upon their fellow-men the sins of which they have been guilty, and to forgive authoritatively all whom they choose to forgive. The meaning of these words, which are here repeated, having been used before, we have discussed their significance on pp. 421, 422. In addition we may add, (1) That the company addressed were not the tw T elve Apostles, because there were other persons present to whom the Holy Spirit was given, if given to any, and who received this authority quite as much as the Apostles, of whom there were only ten present, the place oi AND SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. 699 Judas II. not having been filled, and Thomas Didymus being ab- sent. (2) Moreover, there is not the slightest historical evidence that any of this company, whether disciples or Apostles, ever, separately or conjointly, attempted to exercise what came long afterward, in churchly corruptions, to be called " Absolution." This pretence of priestcraft rests itself altogether on a misrepre- sentation of this passage. We do not know why Thomas was absent. There is no special blame to be attached to him. He loved Jesus. He was so de- voted to him that when Jesus proposed to return into Judsea, to visit the bereaved family of Laza- ., rus, Thomas proposed to accompany him and die with him (see p. 497). The very love and distress which brought the others together may have kept Thomas apart. He was thor- oughly stunned by the blow. There seemed nothing left to him. He was of that temperament which has its grief aggravated by seeing the grief of others. When the disciples had been lifted into a great joy by seeing their Master, they found Thomas and told him all. They had refused to believe the women ; but they had accepted the testimony of Peter and the two disciples from Emmaus, before Jesus appeared to them. Thomas declined the combined testimony of the whole body of women and men that professed to have seen Jesus. We may assign many and very diverse reasons for this incredu- lity, without supposing Thomas extraordinarily skeptical. It may have been partly wounded love, or love that felt that the news was too good to be true. His associates were compelled to ac- knowledge that Jesus had come to them very much after the manner of an apparition, and that his appearance was changed. They may have confessed that they had not touched their Mas- ter. They could not convince Thomas throughout all that week. To their repeated representations Thomas at last gave his decided answer : " Unless I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe." He was all the week in this unhappy state of mind. If his friends were mis- taken, they were at least happy. Another Sabbath passed, and another Sunday. On Sunday evening the friends of Jesus were collected again. Thomas was now with them. Jesus suddenly stood in their midst, as he had done eight nights before. He repeated the usual salutation, 700 THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS " Peace unto you ! " Then turning at once to Thomas, he said, " Reach hither thy ringer, and see my hands ; and reach hither tlrv hand, and thrust it into my side, and be not faith- Bemblao-e ^ ess > ^ u ^ believing." Thomas had gazed at him through all this speech. It was not a ghost. It was not a phantasm. It was The Master. However changed, it was undoubtedly he. Thomas knew the voice. The Master had not met any of the disciples during the intervening week, else they would have told Thomas. Now Jesus knew his very thoughts, and repeated his very words, and offered himself to the very test which Thomas had proposed. Thomas believed of Jesus three things at once — that he retained his personality ; that he could be where he would at any moment ; and that he knew all things. The whole infidelity of Thomas broke down at once. He ac- knowledged all. The resurrection of Jesus was an accomplished fact. Here were the pierced hands, and ankles, and side. He was omnipresent. He was omniscient. All their preconceptions of their Master were below the fact. He was very God. Thomas worshipped him, calling him " My God." Jesus recog- nized the faith of Thomas in his Godhead as correct, and while receiving the homage due only to God, he administered a mild rebuke for the slowness of the faith of Thomas : " Thomas, you have believed because you have seen me : blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed." II. All these six appearances of Jesus had occurred in or near Je- nisalem. It bound the disciples into a company of believers. But as yet they had no plan. The eleven Apos- G J^ e e e Apostles ** ties left the metropolis for Galilee (Matt, xxviii. 16), whether at the immediate direction of Jesus or at the promptings of prudence we have no means of knowing. But at the last supper he had said to them words which were then incomprehensible : " After I am risen again I will go before you unto Galilee " (Mark xiv. 28). And the angel at the sepulchre had reminded the women of that promise, and directed them to " tell his disciples, and Peter, that he goeth before you unto Galilee." (See p. 689.) They would prudently remain in Jerusalem until the close of the Passover. They would then follow the direction AND SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. 701 of Jesus, and go back to their old homes in Galilee. Beyond that the} 7 had no direction, except the knowledge of the fact that they were to come back to Jerusalem and await the gift of the Holy Spirit. They did not know when that should occur ; in point of fact it did not occur until about two months afterward. While waiting for the reappearance of their Lord, and further direc- tions, they naturally resumed their old employment on which their livelihood depended. One evening, on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, Simon Peter said he should go a fishing. Thomas Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana, and James and John, and two other Apostles, who are not named, were of the company. These seven were all experienced fishermen, but they toiled all night and caught nothing. At break of day Jesus was standing on the shore ; but they did not recognize him. It is related of each appearance of Jesus after his resurrection that he was not recognized at first sight by his most intimate friends. They saw esus F the stranger, standing on the shore, as an early purchaser of fish might be who stood where he saw the men fish- ing and awaited an opportunity to buy. At last he said, " Chil- dren, have you any meat ? " The form of the question would not arouse the suspicion that it was Jesus. They answered, " No." He said to them, " Cast the net on the right side of the ship and you shall find." Even this did not reveal Jesus. Any man acquaint- ed with the lake might have detected from the shore some sign of fish which had eluded their weary eyes. It was an easy thing to do ; so they followed the stranger's direction, and they were not able to draw the net for the multitude of the fishes. John's quick eye first recognized Jesus. He said to Peter, " It is the Lord." Since the crucifixion these two men, so much un- like, each having what the other lacked, had been drawn into a very close companionship. They were in a boat together. Peter, always impulsive, pulled on his fisher's coat to go to Jesus. The vessel was about three hundred feet from the shore. The othei disciples came up to the help of J >im, and they dragged the net and the fishes up near enough to the shore to secure them. Upon landing they saw a fire of coals, and fish thereon, and bread. Jesus directed them to bring of the fish they had just taught ; and Simon Peter, perhaps now recollecting how he had abandoned John, promptly obeyed the command, and landed the 702 THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS unbroken net with its contents of one hundred and fifty-three great fishes. Jesus then said, " Come and dine." Jesus divided the bread and the fish. It was a silent meal. A tender awe was on the company. The disciples knew it was " the Lord," as they had now learned to call him, but they asked him no questions. When all had eaten, Peter, who since his denial of his Master must have felt that he had largely lost the confidence of his asso- ciates, and must have felt very uncomfortable as to the opinion which Jesus had of him, was called to endure a painful ordeal, which resulted, however, in the re-es- tablishment of his confidence in Jesus and of the confidence of his brethren in him. Jesus said to him, " Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me more than these?" This must have recalled to him his boastful professions compared with their reserve, and his cowardly desertion compared with their fidelity. His reply was, " Yes, Lord ; you know that I love you." He does not now rett the proof of his devotion on bragging professions of what he woi Id do, but upon the consciousness of his Master, who must hav« believed, notwithstanding the dark passage of his momen- tary weakness, that Peter loved ; or, if he did not, nothing the disci pie could now say would convince him. Jesus replied, " Feed my , ambs." Perhaps a brief silence ensued. Jesus then varied the cuestion, and, looking down into Peter's eyes, said, "Simon, son o c Jonas, do you love me f " Poor Peter had only the same reply to make : " Yes, Lord ; you know that I love you." Jesus said, k Peed my sheep." After another silence Jesus repeated his questi >n : " Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me ? " All this was passing in the presence of his associate Apostles. Jesus was most tender, but this probing was most painful. But Peter could not complain. Thrice had he denied his Master. The others had not done so. It was not unfair that he should be called upon publicly to make a triple reversal of his triple denial. But it pierced Peter to the heart. This third time lie threw his case on the knowledge of his Master. " Lord, you know all things ; you know that I love you." The "all things" involved Peter's denials; but the subject was so distressing to him that he could not speak more specifically of what was so shameful in his his- tory. Then Jesus replied, " Feed my sheep." It was the com- plete restoration of Peter. He was to be a pastor, an under-shep herd of the flock of God. AND SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. 703 Then in tenderness, but to lay on the over-ardent temperament oi Peter what should be a balance-weight to his character, Jesus intimated to him that he should die a violent death. Jesus had never made a prophecy to gratify curiosity. He would never be classed with fortune- tellers and magicians. But he said to Peter, as indicating his affection for him and his confidence in him, " Verily, verily, I say to you, When you were young you girded yourself, and walked whither you would ; but when you become old you shall stretch forth your hands, and another shall gird you, and carry you whither you would not go." John, who was present, and who records this saying, adds, "This he spake signifying by what death he (Peter) should glorify God." John understood it, and, of course, Peter did. Perhaps Jesus added some tone or ges- ture or word not recorded, which made his speech perfectly intelligible to the parties concerned. Peter had once said that he would follow Jesus anywhere. Jesus had been crucified. It mould be the fate of Peter to follow his Master even to crucifix- ion, and thus haA r e his words verified in a sense he had not meant. Perhaps it was a melancholy comfort to Peter to know that, in any sense, what he had said would come true. Then Jesus rose and said to Peter, " Follow me." Peter looked at his friend John, who had risen and followed with him, drawn by his devotion to Jesus and his friendship for Peter. At the last supper John had asked a question of the Master at the suggestion of Peter. Xow Peter asked a question for John : " Lord, and what this man ? " It was a question of mere affectionate curiosity. Jesus replied, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is it to you % Do you follow me ! " It recalled Peter to a sense of his propriety and of his personal responsibility. It told him nothing about the fate of his friend, but the report was circulated among " the brethren " that John should not die. He did live to a great age. He is the historian of this interview, and adds, "Yet Jesus did not say, He 'shall not die ; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that toyoti?" As John's life prolonged itself, that saying of Jesus must have come to his recollection very often with very great force ; but never perhaps so impressively as when, forty years after, he survived the destruction of Jerusalem, a frightful event ; which Jesus in his discourses was accustomed to associate with his 704 THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS " coming," We cannot fail to notice the claims which Jesus here makes to a complete control over the periods of men's lives. " I will," as applied to fixing the limits of hnman life, is the lan- guage of the Almighty God, and is blasphemy in the mouth of anv one who is not God. III. It appears from Matthew's account (xxviii. 16) that Jesus had appointed a time and a place in Galilee to meet his followers. We know of the time only that it was within forty days after the resurrection. The place was a mountain. It would seem that Mount Tabor would be the most convenient place for such an assemblage. The fact that it was inhabited is against the theory of those who would make it the scene of the Transfiguration, but is rather in favor of its se- lection for this meeting, as the inhabitants were Galilseans, and would be at least not unfriendly to the followers of Jesus. Taboi is six miles east of Nazareth. " Northward it overlooks all the confronting highlands of Galilee ; southward it extends far down into the plain of Jezreel " (Lange). On the top is a table about a mile and a half in circumference. This is the only occasion mentioned by any Evangelist which can correspond with a fact mentioned by Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians (xv. 6). " He was seen of w+w„ „f n „ M above five hundred brethren at once." It would brethren at once. seem that the Apostles had been at pains to make this appointment known to all who might be supposed to be, in any sense, disciples of Jesus. It was a large gathering. Afterwards, in Jerusalem, this company mustered only one hun- dred and twenty. While in Galilee, and before this meeting, the Apostles had doubtlessly been industriously repeating the narra- tive of all the strange occurrences of the resurrection and the repeated appearances of Jesus. Thomas had most probably been giving an account of his mental processes by which he had gone over from despondent unbelief to exultant faith in Jesus as God, and had told how he had worshipped Jesus, and how the Master had received the homage due only to God. Jesus appeared in their midst. No account has been preserved of his manner of approach. When they saw him the body of the sion. AND SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. 705 disciples worshipped him. But some hesitated. In the common version it is said some " doubted " (Matt, xxviii. 17). But this is not the meaning of the word. None doubted T b t Jesus reappears. that this was Jesus. They all knew him, and had all met at this time, on this mountain, at his appointment. But it is most reasonable to suppose that among five hundred persons there should be several who had the temperament of Thomas, and were slow to worship. The historian, who was present, does not say that all worshipped, but he does frankly state that " some hesitated." Jesus met these doubts as to his divinity with a vast claim. He approached the doubters and said, " All power is given to me in heaven and on earth." He claimed to be al- mighty. These words could mean nothing else to the listeners. They must believe that, or they could never undertake the great work he was about to place in their hands. This was the commission : " Go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit : Teaching them to ob- serve all things, whatever I have commanded you: And lo, I am with you every day till the consummation of the present aeon." Of this commission several things are to be noticed. 1. It was the last word of Jesus recorded by his biographers. It was the commitment of his cause into the hands of his friends. It is his last protest against church li- ness. There were the Seventy, who had had a ed word special work to do, and had done it. There were the Twelve, who were still to continue in that work of an itine- rant proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom of Jesus. But neither to the Seventy nor to the Twelve does Jesus grant any corporate powers. What the Seventy had done, and what the Twelve had to do, all his disciples were authorized to do, wher- ever their sphere and whatever their condition in life. All these five hundred might make disciples and baptize them, and all these, when made disciples, might in their turn perform the same offices for others. No word or act of Jesus, before or after his resurrection, can be fairly employed to sustain the modern arti- ficial distinction between " clergymen " and " laymen." 2. Jesus gives the name of God in the synonym of "The 45 706 THE KESUEEECTION OF JESUS Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit." He believed that there is one God. He called himself the Son. He claimed to be God in his oneness with " The Father," in his omnipotence, is concep o j n j^g omnipresence, and in his eternal existence. He allowed his disciples to present to him the worship proper to be rendered to Jehovah. His concept of God was of a triunity. This is quite manifest. The mode of the existence of this oneness and this threeness together he never dis- cusses. God is the Father, God is the Son, God is the Holy Spirit : The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. But he does not say that there are three persons, or three several forms of the exhibition of one person. He makes no dog- matic statement. As this is not a theological treatise, but rather a psychological essay, we have nothing to do with theological sci- entific explanations. But the historical statement is that, in point of fact, in the mind of Jesus the concept of God was that of a triunity. As the Jews were "baptized unto Moses," and so incorporated with that system of religion which is represented under the He- brew theocracy, the kingliness of the One Jehovah, so now the disciples of Jesus are to be baptized unto " The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit," and incorporated into that system of religion which is represented by the triple concept of God as being Father and Son and Spirit, the living lovingness of the One Jehovah. 3. Jesus removed all restrictions to the labors of his disciples, such as are recorded in Matthew x. 5. His gospel is to be preached to all nations. He has so succeeded in this that All restrictions we are ims ^i e to appreciate, even by an effort of removed. . ' x x \ J . the intellect, what a stupendous undertaking it was. All other s}'stems are suited to nationalities. They there- fore intensified all the narrowness of race, and that narrowness helped to perpetuate them. None did so more than the Jewish church. To put Samaritans and Romans and Greeks and distant barbarians on the same footing of spiritual privilege as the elect Jewish race was an idea so wide that it had never before entered the Jewish mind. Jesus believed that his system was as well adapt- ed to one climate as another, and to one nation as another : to the polytheistical Gentiles as to the monotheistic Jews ; to the power- ful Romans as to the weak Gauls ; to the cultivated Greeks as to the rough savages in the forests of Germany. AND SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. 707 It was an idea wholly original with Jesus. He had no prece- dent. He had no human authority for it. He predicted that it should be done. If he had simply delivered a discourse, in which he had taught the desirable- ,. A universal re " ligion. ness of this universal religion, and that discourse had been preserved, it would have rendered his fame immortal, and have placed him far in advance of all the wisest and most profound of human thinkers. Coming from an unlettered me- chanic, raised in one of the meanest villages of the most narrow and bigoted people on earth, the announcement would have been a marvel of grandest thought. The more remarkable fact is, that each succeeding century has brought his w r ords nearer to a ful- filment, and that none since his death has contributed so much to their accomplishment as the present, a century full of hottest political excitements, of vastest enterprises, of most material pro- gress, and largest liberality of thought. 4. His latest words were a claim and a prediction. The} r were a claim of perpetuity, of personal presence, and personal influence. He should exist. He should be present with each disciple in every part of the world, every day, c aim * until the present system of things shall meet the cataclysm which shall inaugurate another seon, another system of things. All our new science demonstrates that the Great Creator divides His biography into parts and into chapters. The whole universe, so far as we have been able to read it, is falling forward. Nothing in the past gives us much help towards ascertaining the probable length of the present seon; but everything we learn in- creases the probability that some vast change shall come. Everything that Jesus predicted has come to pass, except this, and this is coming to pass. The present age promises that when the last day of the system, of which thoughtful mortals form a part, shall arrive, there will be ^ emar a e . . fihnent. disciples of Jesns engaged in his work, according to this prediction. They are now more busy than ever. It is an important series of facts that the books which contain the original history of Jesus, the record of his acts and words, and the predic- tions which he made, constitute the first volume which was set in type and published at the invention of printing;* that at this * It was issued at Mentz, in Germany, I Revived, says of this book : " Though a in 1450. McClure, in his Translators I first attempt, it is beautifully printed on 708 THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS time there are several presses engaged on each of the continents in printing nothing but that volume; that it is printed and circulated in more languages and dialects than any other book o v books considered by any criticism as sacred or profane;* that so soon as a savage tribe is discovered its language is reduced to a grammar, that there shall be translated into it the volume, the central figure of which is Jesus ; that his name occurs more fre- quently in song than that of any other man who ever lived, and that the eighteenth century after that in which he lived has pro- duced more books investigating his character and claims than all the preceding centuries. very fine paper, and with superior ink. At least eighteen copies of this famous edition are known to be in existence at the present time. Twenty-five years ago, one of them, printed on vellum, was sold for five hundred and four pounds sterling ! " * The whole number of languages and dialects into which the Holy Scriptures have been translated is two hundred and fifty-two. Of these, two hundred and five are versions prepared since the ori- gin of Bible Societies, at which time the Scriptures had been translated into only forty-seven different languages. Bagster, in his Bible of Every Land, gives specimens of the Scriptures in various languages and dialects, to the number of about three hundred, includ- ing those which have been printed in different native characters. It is supposed that within three years after the publication of the Great Bible, in 1539, no less than twenty-one thou- sand copies were printed. Between 1524 and 1611, two hundred and sev- enty-eight editions of Bibles or Testa- ments in English were printed. In 1611, 1612, and 1613, five editions of King James's version were published, besides separate editions of the New Testa- ment ; and we have some slight clue to the size of the editions in the fact, that one person in England has recently col- lated no less than seventy copies of the issues of 1611 ; yet, after all, this was the day of small things. Since the beginning of the present century, the British and Foreign Bible Society has issued over sixty-three mil- lions of Bibles and Testaments ; the American Bible Society has issued more than twenty-seven millions of volumes ; other Bible Societies, not far from twenty millions ; while private publish- ers in Great Britain, the United States, and elsewhere, have increased these is- sues by scores of millions besides. In speaking on this subject, Anderson, in his Annals of the English Bible, says : ' ' The volumes of the Scriptures which have already been printed cannot be numbered. Hitherto we have num- bered the editions only ; but this is now impossible. No one can say exactly how many editions even of the English Bible have been published, much less inform us how many copies. 1 '' The volumes of Holy Writ circulated within the present century are greater in number than all that were in the world from Moses to Martin Luther, and are more than double the entire production of the press, from the print- ing of the first Bible in 1450 to the era of Bible Societies in 1804. (Se ual of the American Bible Society.) AND SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. 709 The Ascension. IY. There is but one other thing to record. They all returned to Jerusalem. On the fortieth day after his resurrection, Jesus led them out to the neighborhood of Bethany. There, on some part of the Mount of Olives, they saw him for the last time. He blessed them, and while in the act of pro- nouncing his final benediction, he was parted from them. He ascended in their sight. He passed into a cloud. The rapt disciples stood gazing up into that part of the heavens where they had last beheld their Lord. Suddenly two men in white apparel stood beside the silent group, and one said, " Ye men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken from you into heaven, shall so come in like man- ner as you have seen him taken into heaven." The disciples returned to Jerusalem with great joy. They believed that Jesus, who had departed, was still present, and their sorrow was gone ; and they who, forty days before, were in the darkness of despair, now continually praised God, and waited for the further direction of Jesus. He had become to them the glory of heaven and of earth. MHDAX, FOUND AT UBFA, STRIA. lllllllllllllllllllll iBl II 710 THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS. Who is this Jesus % I have told his story as simply and as conscientiously as possi- ble, and have honestly endeavored to apprehend and to repre- sent the consciousness of Jesus at each moment of his career. The work of the historian is completed. Each reader has now the responsibility of saying who he is. All agree that he was man. The finest intellects of eighteen centuries have believed that he was the greatest and best man that ever lived. All who have so believed have become better men therefor. We have seen that he never performed an act or spoke a word which would have been unbecoming in the Creator of the Universe, if the Creator should ever clothe Himself with human flesh. Millions of men — kings, and poets, and historians, and philosophers, and busy merchants, and rude mechanics, and purest women, and simple children — have believed that he is God. And all who have devoutly believed this, and lived by this as a truth, have become exemplary for all that is beautiful in holiness. What is he who can so live and so die as to produce such lticei lectual and moral results % Header, yoa must answer APPENDICES. Chronology of the Birth of Jesus. — Pp. 26-37. By an inadvertence which I seek to correct in this Appendix, a note was omitted in the proper place, giving full credit for my obligation tc A New Harmony and Exposition of the Gospels, by James Strong, LL.D. (published by Carlton & Lanahan, New York), for much aid which I received from that valuable volume in my discussion of the date of the birth of Jesus. Capernaum. — P. 167. It should have been stated in the text that the proper name " Na- hum " means " consolation." The reader would naturally infer that if it had any signification it was something else than " consolation." The place may have been named for Nahum, or it may not : if not, then its name simply signified " Village of Consolation." T did not detect this inadvertence until after the page had been stereotyped. Addition to Note on P. 189. Perhaps the ocurouj, " them," in Luke v. 17, may refer to o^Xoi qroXXoi, " great multitudes," in verse 15. But what I have written, both in the text and in the note, is unnecessary if the reading of the Sinaitic Codex be adopted. That omits the avrovs, and reads " the power of the Lord wrought in him so that he healed." With the omission of the word " them " at the end of the sentence the difficulty disappears. Slaves at Jubilee. — P. 203. The statement in the second paragraph, in regard to the freeing of slaves at the Jubilee, is to be understood with the limitation stated in Leviticus xxv., from which it would appear that slaves which were " of the heathen round about" them, " of the children of the strangers that 712 APPENDICES. sojourned among" them, did not enjoy this provision of the jubilee. The statement in the text is correct, but this is added for accuracy. Mary of Magdala. — Pp. 321-323. That part of this book which treats of Mary of Magdala was in the hands of the printer before I read Dr. Hanna's view of the case, as he gives it in the Forty Days, etc., chap. ii. I am gratified to have the support of this eloquent preacher so far as that this Mary is not to be confounded with the " sinner " who anointed Jesus, — and that she was not a woman of base character or low condition, — and that the having had seven devils is no proof that she was of depraved and dissolute habits. He well says : " Satanic possession carried then no more evidence along with it of previous immorality than insanity would do now among ourselves." A Translation Explained. — P. 325. In the last paragraph is this translation of the words of Jesus as re- ported by Matthew : " And every city or house divided against itself shall not stand." These words are a literal but not a logical trans- lation of the original, because, when the original is rendered into our language the English words imply that some such city or house may stand. If, however, the word " not " be considered as attached to the predicate and not to the copula, this translation will be a logical as well as a literal rendering. It then means, " Every such city shall fall." [See Whately's Elements of Logic, book ii., chap, ii., § 4.] This explanation applies as well to the translation on p. 143, " that every one who trusts in him may not perish," etc. Discipline.— Pp. 353, 354. This paragraph may be suggested by over-caution, but it may be that my explication of the parable of the Tares may be understood by some readers to be a protest against all church discipline. I would not be so understood. I do not believe that Jesus taught that there was to be no discipline in the church. His lesson is against that excessive rigor which is destructive and not disciplinary, and a caution against undue confidence in our power of discrimination. One sentence on page 353 I should rewrite : " It is better by mistake to permit an evil man to reside in a community, a church, a society, a town, than by mistake fco destroy a good man." APPENDICES. 713 The Woman taken in Adultery. — P. 456. The story of the woman taken in adultery is found only in John's Gospel. The critical editors of the Greek Testament mark this whole passage in the eighth chapter as doubtful or spurious. It does not ap- pear in the Sinaitic Codex. In the first writing of this book I omitted this narrative. Upon a review of the authorities my opinion agrees with that expressed by Dr. Schaff: "The prevailing critical evidence, though mostly negative, is against the passage, .the moral evidence for it. ; in other words, it seems to be no original part of John's written Gos- pel, but the record of an actual event which probably happened about the time indicated by its position in the eighth chapter. The story could not have been invented, the less so as it runs contrary to the ascetic and legalistic tendency of the ancient church, which could not appreciate it." Those who desire to see the authorities on both sides may consult Lange's Commentary on the chapter, with Dr. Schaif's valuable addi- tions in his translation. It is so consistent with the character of Jesus that I think we may accept it as a real event in his life, inserted by some unknown author in the narrative given by John. Bethany=Bethabara. — P. 482. According to the received text, Bethabara is the name of the place where John was baptizing, apparently at the time when Jesus came to him for baptism. (See John i.) But the oldest manuscripts have " Bethany," a reading which Origen states was found in most of the copies of his day. The Translation of Matthew xix. 10. — P. 519. I found it difficult to render the original of the passage which in our common version is translated, " If the case of a man be so with his wife." I am not yet satisfied with this translation, and yet am not pre- pared to suggest a better. The word translated "case" means cause, but specially the cause of something bad. It is a sinister word. My translation appears very awkward, now that I see it in print. The disciples seemed to mean that if their Master's view of the marriage relation was correct, then the relation of a married man to his wife was injurious to him, and it were better one should not marry. Physical Cause of the Death of Jesus. — P. 679. Attention has been called to Dr. Stroud's book on the Physical Cause of the death of Jesus. It has been republished in this country since this portion of the book was written. 714 APPENDICES. After writing my paragraph on the subject, I saw Dr. Hanna* volume on The Last Day of the Passion of our Lord. In the Appendix he has a letter from Dr. Begbie, late President of the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh, in which that learned gentleman accepts Dr. Stroud's theory. He calls attention to the fact that rup- ture of the heart is comparatively a rare affection, and, so far as he knows, limited to persons advanced in life or laboring under some degeneration of the structure of the organ. Jesus, however, was young and healthy, so far as we can discover. How great must have been his anguish to produce this rupture ! Dr. Hanna also quotes a letter from Dr. Simpson, Professor in the University of Edinburgh, who also accepts Dr. Stroud's theory. He asserts that so far as we can now understand the physical condition of Jesus, such a sudden termination of his sufferings in death could be produced only by fatal fainting or by a rupture of the walls of the heart or of larger blood-vessels issuing from it. But the symp- toms, such as the loud cry, show that it was not mortal syncope. He says : " On the other hand, these symptoms were such as have been seen in cases of rupture of the walls of the heart. Thus, in the latest book published in the English language on Diseases of the Heart, the eminent author, Dr. Walshe, Professor of Medicine in University College, Lon- don, when treating of the symptoms indicating death by rupture of the heart, observes : " The hand is suddenly carried to the front of the chest, a piercing shriek uttered," etc., etc. The rapidity of the resulting death is regulated by the size and shape of the ruptured opening. But usually death very speedily ensues in consequence of the blood escaping from the interior of the heart into the cavity of the large surrounding heart, sac, or pericardium ; which sac has, in cases of rupture of the heart, been found on dissection to contain sometimes two, three, four, or more pounds of blood accumulated within it, and separated into red clot and limpid serum, or ' blood and water,' as is seen in blood when collected out of the body in a cup or basin in the operation of common blood-letting." Dr. Josiah C. Nott of this city, a gentleman of well-known high scien- tific attainments, has favored me with a copy of his post-mortem examina- tion of the Pev. Mr. Maffitt, made with the assistance of Dr. E. P. Gaines, in Mobile, in 1850. Mr. Maffitt was known all over the United States as a man of no ordinary pulpit ability. He was what is called a "re- vivalist," and spent the last years of his life in great excitement. He got into trouble, was arraigned before the courts of his church in New York, and subsequently went South, where he was preaching with great success, and apparently in high health, when evil reports pursued him. APPENDICES. 715 and damaging articles from the New York papers were republished in Mo- bile. Parties were arrayed for and against him. He was greatly excited. He was taken suddenly ill, about eight o'clock p.m., on the 27th of June, and died in seven hours When the physician arrived he found him " in great pain, which he referred to the inferior sternal region." He had had pain in the heart on several previous occasions. " Auscultation de- tected no abnormal sound, no palpitation, but the heart beat regularly and slowly." " He was perfectly cold all over, and bathed in cold sweat." After anodynes and carminatives had been administered, he said, " Doctor, I feel better now, everywhere else, but that pain still remains. It is a persistent and abiding pain, that seems to press through me against my spine." "All this time his pulse was regular, full, strong, but rather slow; his strength was good, for he got out of bed several times without help." At one o'clock morphine and calomel were adminis- tered. At two o'clock the pain had left his breast and gone to his heart, but still retained its severity. There was no palpitation. He com- plained of being weaker, and his pulse, although regular, seemed slower and weaker. In fifteen minutes his heart had stopped beating. The post-mortem showed his lungs sound throughout: "pericardium fully distended with fluid, and when opened was found to contain blood and serum." Dr. Nott says : " This being carefully removed by a sponge, I introduced my hand into the sac beneath the heart, and on grasping this organ the contained blood was seen to spirt from a small perforation in the anterior wall of the left ventricle, disclosing at once the imme- diate cause of his death." Dr. Nott pronounced the death " from fatty degeneration, ulceration, and rupture of the hearty'' confirming Dr. Begbie's general view of such cases in his letter to Dr. Hanna. If Mr. Maffitt's heart had not been diseased, he would probably have survived his grief. Jesus was younger by a quarter of a century, and was appa- rently sound. Dr. Nott believed that Mr. Mafntt had a malady which " marches steadily onward," but adds that " it is highly probable that its termination was hastened hy moral causes." I cite it as a well-authen- ticated case, the most modern known to me, of rupture of the heart. IIN" D E IX OF MATTER NOT EASILY FOUND IN THE TABLE OF CONTENTS. Ab-Beth-Din, the, 70. Abercrombie, Dr., quoted, 682. Abia, course of, 15. Abbot, Rupert, quoted, 119. Aceldama, Potter's Field, 663. Acta Philippi, 115. Acta Sanctorum, quoted, 74. Adonis, grove of, 37. ^Enon, 145. ^Eon, 21, 328, 476. yEra, Vulgar, 24. iEschylus, quoted, 119. Alford, Dean, quoted, 31, 34, 47, 94, 114, 130, 140, 181, 184, 195, 225, 289, 295, 303, 335, 406, 630. Alexander, J. A., quoted, 165, 302, 330, 345. Ambivius, procurator, 63. Ambrose, quoted, 293. Amen, 117. "Amicus Caasaris," 659. Anderson's "Annals of English Bible," quoted, 708. Andrew, the Apostle, 114, 221. Andrews, S. J. , quoted, 541, 602, 613. Angaros, Persian, 276. Angel of Jehovah, 109. Angels, appear to shepherds, 40 ; minis- ter to Jesus, 106 ; Scriptural repre- sentations of, 106-111. Anna, the prophetess, 42. Annas, the high-priest, 67, 506, 636. Anriius Rufus, procurator, 63. Annunciation, of John's birth, 15; of birth of Jesus, 20. Anthony, Mark, 29, 358. Antigonus, 29. Antiochus Epiphanes, 129, 551. Antisthenes, quoted, 192. Antonia, tower of, 602, 652, 656. Apostolic Constitutions, 293. Aquinas, Thomas, the Angelic Doctor, 354. Archelaus, his troubles, 58 ; in Rome, 59 ; as Ethnarch, 60 ; his income, 60 ; marries Glaphyra, 60 ; dies in Vienne, 61 ; suggests a parable, 540. Archisynagogus, 163. Aretas, father-in-law to Herod Antipas. 66. Asnapper, colonizes Samaria, 150. Assarion, a coin, 380. Astronomical calculations, 30. Augustine, quoted, 31, 34, 47, 205, 282, 288, 329, 343, 346, 347, 534. Ava, land of, 150. B. Babylon, colonists from, to Samaria, 150. Badius, Conrad, 420. Bahr, quoted, 150. Bagster's "Bible in Every Land," quot- ed, 708. Baptism, John's, 80 ; of Jesus, 84-89. Barabbas, 654 ; preferred to Jesus, 657. Barachias, 588. Bartholomew, the Apostle, 119, 226. Bartimseus, 533. Bath-Kol, the, 551. Beelzebul, 325, 444. Benedictus, the, 21. Bengel, quoted, 93, 140, 142, 225, 285, 289, 534. Bernard, quoted, 119. Bertholdt, quoted, 159. Bethabara, 482. Bethany, 465, 495, 498. Bethany, east, 145, 495. Bethesda, 198. Bethlehem, 36 ; children slain, 32. Bethsaida, denounced, 316, 387. Bethsaida-Julias, 413. Bethphage, 543. Beza, quoted, 142. Bibliotheca Sacra, quoted, 111, 167. Biehle's Economic Calendar, 27. Bloody sweat, cases of, 682. Boanerges, 223, 532. Bonar, quoted, 167. Bordeaux Pilgrim, 37. Bucher, quoted, 534. Burials among the Jews, 498. Byssus, 492. INDEX. 717 Cassar, Augustus, death of, 11 ; decree for taxing, 18. Cassar, Tiberius, 10. Csesarea Philippi, 415, 431. Caiaphas, high-priest, 57, 67, 637, 643. Caligula, Emperor, favors Herod Agrip- pa, 67. Calvary, true site of, 665. Camel's hair, 74. Cana of Galilee, 120. Canatha, 407. Capernaum, 167; denounced, 316. Caravanserai, 40. Cassiodorus, quoted, 26. Cellarius, quoted, 407. Celsus, quoted, 363. Census, ordered by Augustus, 30 ; Ro- man and Jewish methods, 32. Chardin, quoted, 568. Chazzan, The, 163. Chief priests, 69. Chorazin, denounced, 84. Christmas, Latin, 23 ; Creek, 26. Chronology of birth of Jesus, 23. " Church," 420. 440. Chrysostom, quoted, 235, 346, 578. Chuza, 161. Cicero, quoted, 307, 362. Clement of Alexandria, quoted, 115, 249, 362. Cleopas, 50 ; name of an Emmaus disci- ple, 695. Cleopatra and her pearls, 358. Clericus, quoted, 534. Coins, 126. " Congregation," 420, 440. Constantine, Emperor, 37. Consulships, 25. Coponius, procurator. 62, 63. Corban; The, 65, 400! Croesus, 129. Criminal laws of the Jews, 632. Crosby, Dr., quoted, 199, 534, 613. Cross, form and construction of, 664. Cuthah, colonizing Samaria, 150. Cyprian, quoted, 93. Cyrenius (Quirinus), 31, 33, 34, 62. Cyril, of Alexandria, quoted, 181. Cyril, of Jerusalem, quoted, 428. D. Da Costa, quoted, 534. Dalmanutha, 410. Damascus, 407. Dante, quoted, 354. Darius, Hystapes, 151. Darius, Nothus, 151. Death from joy, cases of, 680, 681. Decapolis, 182, 406. Demetrius, 276. Denarius, 464. De Pressense, quoted, 36. De Quincey's theory of Judas, 605, 608 609. De Sacy, quoted, 151. Devil, The, popular superstitions, 376. De Wette, quoted, 93, 469. Diabolus, 460. Dickinson's Version, 300. Didrachm, 436. Didymus (Thomas), 227. Dio Cassius, quoted, 25, 31. Dion, city of Decapolis, 407. Dionysius, Exiguus, 24. Doctor of Divinity, 583. Doddridge, quoted, 534. Dods, Rev. Morris, quoted, 469. Domitian, Emperor, 18. Dora, 415. Dove, at baptism of Jesus, 88. Drachma, coin, 487. Dupin, M. , on trial of Jesus, 631-635. Dwight, Dr., quoted, 107. E. East, The, 43. Ebal, Mount, 150. Ebrard, quoted, 534. Edinburgh Review, quoted, 85. Egypt, Jesus in, 47. Eichhorn, quoted, 93. El-Azariyeh, 505. Elders, 69. Eleazer, high-priest, 63. Eliezer, of Lydda, 164. Elijah, 73, 416 ; with Jesus, 415, 428, 430, 675. Elizabeth, 15, 16, 20, 21. Ellicott, Bishop, quoted, 82, 386, 534, 571. EUiotson, Dr., quoted, 682. El-Mejdel, 410. Emmaus, 693; the walk thither, 693-695. "Ephphatha," 408. Ephratah, 36. Ephrem, 507. Erasmus, quoted, 335. Esarhaddon, 150. Essenes, sketch of, 72. Eunuchs, 521. Euripides, his " Phgsdra and Medaea," 470. Eusebius, quoted, 39, 114, 115, 146, 230, 571. Euthymius, quoted, 142. Excommunication, 475. F. Fairbairn, quoted, 236. 718 INDEX. Parmer, quoted, Fasti, The, 25. Figs, 555. Fountain of the Virgin, 199. Friedlieb, quoted, 534. Furness, quoted, 85. G. Gabriel, and Zacharias, 15, and Mary, 21. Gadara, 365, 407. Gaius, Institutes of, 31. Galilee, " of the Gentiles," 169 ; " no prophet arises out of," 456. Gaulonitis, 428. Gehenna, 585. Gemara, The, 400, 518. Gemini, consulship of the, 25. Genealogical tables of Matthew and Luke, 17. Gennesaret, Plain of, 168. Gerasa, 407. Gerizim, Mount, 150, 446. Gethsemane, 628, 629, 681. Glaphyra, wife of Archelaus, 60. Golgotha, Calvary, 665. "Gospel according to the Hebrews," 214. Graves, whitened, 586. Gresswell, quoted, 225, 235, 243, 386, 534, 541, 613, 621. Grotius, quoted, 137, 202, 476, 534. Grotto of Jeremiah, 666. Gustave Dore, 423. Hackett, quoted, 556. Hades, 418. Hadrian, Emperor, 37. Hallel, the Great, 545, 624. Hamann, quoted, 53. Hamath, 150. Hammond, quoted, 475, 555. Heart, description of the, 680. Hebron, 16. Hegesippus, 229. Heinsius, quoted, 555. Helena, Empress, 39, 666. Heliopolis, 47, 48. Hengstenberg, quoted, 109, 111, 578. Hermon, 406, 427. Herod, the Great, 15 ; interview with wise men. 29 ; date of death, 28 ; becomes king, 29 ; kills the Bethle- hem babes, 32, 46 ; connection with the census, 33 ; Augustus's opinion of him, 48 ; his outrages, 48, 56 ; his family, 57; his will, 58; his funeral, 58; completes the Temple, 131. Herod, Antipas, Tetrarch, 65 ; seducea Herodias, 66 ; quarrels with Pilate, 66 ; his fall and death, 67 ; his char- acter, 67 ; and John Baptist, 148 ; kills John Baptist, 386 ; seeks Jesus, 483 ; at trial of Jesus, 650 ; quarrel with Pilate healed, 651. Herod, Agrippa I. , 57. Herod, Philip I., husband of Herodias, 55. Herodias, forsakes Philip for Antipas, 66 ; whom she instigates to his ruin, 66 ; adheres to him, 67, 148 ; causes death of John Baptist, 385. Herodians, sketch of, 72, 216, 568. Herodotus, quoted, 195, 276, 568. Herzog, quoted, 68. High-priest, 507. High-priesthood, 67, 506, 561. Hill of Evil Counsel, 663. HiUel, 214, 517. Hippolytus, of Thebes, 17. Hippos, of Decapolis, 409. Homer, quoted, 195, 262. Horace,' quoted, 567. Horns of Hattin, 241. Howe, Fisher, quoted, 666. Hubner, quoted, 93, 331. Hyrcanus, 551. Ideler's calculation, 30. Ingraham's "Prince of the House of David," quoted, 604. Ignatius, Martyr, 439. J. Jacob's Bridge, 191. Jacob's well, 152. Jahn, quoted, 64, 498. Jarvis, quoted, 534. James I., Apostle, 170, 222, 590, 630. James II. , Apostle, 228. Jennings, quoted, 448, 449. Jericho, 465. Jerome, quoted, 37, 74, 114, 146, 249 289, 320. Jerusalem, date of destruction, 26. Joazer, High-Priest, 56. Job, 470. John, Apostle, 114, 170, 223, 439, 590 ; his allegation against Judas, 607, 619 ; in Gethsemane, 630, 671 ; at the cross, 673, 678 ; at the sepulchre, 689, 701. John, the Baptist, birth announced, 17* INDEX. no his birth and circumcision, 21 ; early life, 22 ; ministry, 73 ; baptizes Jesus, 84-89 ; discoverer of the Messiah, 90 ; in prison, 311 ; message to Jesus, 312 ; Jesus's estimate of him, 314 ; his execution, 385. Joppa, 415. Joseph, betrothed to Mary, 16 ; his dream, 23 ; in Bethlehem, 39 ; in the Temple, 42 ; takes Mary and Jesus to Egypt, 47 ; settles in Naza- reth, 49 : with Jesus at a passover, 51. Joseph, of Arimathea, 684. Josephus, quoted, 24, 29, 33, 51, 58, 60, 61, 62, 65, 68, 69, 71, 103, 120, 126, 129, 130, 148, 151, 168, 174, 183, 221, 231, 276, 326, 332, 342, 347, 407, 449, 465, 506, 512, 518, 551, 561, 615, 629, 643. Josephus Caiaphas, 506. Judas, of Galilee, heads a revolt, 62. Judas I., Apostle, 230, 624. Judas II. (Iscariot), Apostle, 231, 398, 601 ; his case studied, 603, 619 ; in high-priest's palace, 639; the last of him, 660. Julian, Emperor, 249. Justin, Martyr, 37, 578. Juttah, 16. Juvenal, quoted, 388. Kedron, the creek, 625, 628. Keneth, of Decapolis, 407. Kepler, his calculations, 30, 46. Keraia, The, 265. Bang James, orders "church" inserted in the translation, 420. Kitto, quoted, 534. Knapp, quoted, 142. Krabbe, quoted, 93. Krafft, quoted, 534. Kunol, quoted, 68, 335. L. Lachmann, quoted, 406. Lauge, quoted, 142, 237, 289, 331 , 849, 362, 452, 469, 525, 534, 561. Larduer, quoted, 34, 48. Lawyer, vo/xlkos, 575. Lazariyeh, 505. Lebanon, 406. Lebbeus, 230. Legis Actiones, 31. Leprosy, the, 183-186. Lepton, coin, 589. Lex, quoted, 534. Lichtenstein, quoted, 48, 534. Lightfoot, quoted, 68, 285, 335, 371 417, 448, 472, 534, 561, 571, 586, 666 Livy, quoted, 473. Locke, quoted, 176. Locusts, 74. Liicke, quoted, 142, 469. Luthardt, quoted, 541. Luther, quoted, 142, 405. M. Maccabees, the, 182, 463. McClintock and Strong's Cyclopaedia, quoted, 108, 407. McClure, quoted, 707. Machserus, Castle of, 148, 311. McKnight, quoted, 469, 534. MacWhorter, quoted, 111. Magadan, 410. Magdala, 320, 410. Magi, the, and Herod, 43-46. Magnificat, The, 22. Magor-missabib, 261. Maimonides, quoted, 194, 571, 624. Malchus, high-priest's servant, 640. Maldonatus, Spanish Jesuit, 354. Mammon, 490. Manasseh, 150, 151, 261. Manual, Bible Society, quoted, 708. Mariamne, 57, 60. Mark, his style, 520. Mary, the mother of Jesus, betrothal. 16 ; genealogy, 17 ; in Nazareth, 20 ; the Annunciation, 19 ; visits Eliza- beth, 20 ; pronounces the Magnificat, 20 ; returns to Nazareth, 21 ; hei several sons, 39 ; in Bethlehem, 40 ; in the Temple, 41 ; her relations with Jesus, 672 ; at the cross, 672, 678. Mary Magdalene, 321, 667, 671, 685, 687, 688, 690. Mary, wife of Cleopas, 671. Massillon, quoted, 311. Matthew (Levi), Apostle, 191, 226. Maundrell, quoted, 152. Menahem, heads a revolt, 63. Messiah, The, to be a leper, 186. Metariyeh, 47. Metempsychosis, among the Jews, 472. Meyer, quoted, 93, 142, 279, 317, 406, 442, 469, 586, 675. Michaelis, quoted, 248, 578. Midrash, The, 551. Milman, Dean, quoted, 63, 81, 159, 182, 468, 469. Milton, quoted, 108. Mina, its value, 540. Mishna, The, 27 ; quoted, 68, 69, 400. Money, coins, 126. 720 INDEX. Moreh, an epithet of contempt, Morrison, quoted, 534. Moriah, Mount, 454. Moses, with Jesus, 427. Myth theory, The, 94. N. Nabliis, 149. Nain, 309. Nasi, of the synagogue, 70. Nathanael, 115, 226. Nazareth, 19 ; Jesus settles there, 49 ; Renan's description of it, 50, 54 ; Je- sus revisits, 162. Neander, quoted, 31, 93, 124, 534, 610. Neapolis, 149. Nehemiah, 151. Nemesis, 470. Newcome, quoted, 534. Nicodemus, his interview with Jesus, 133; in the Sanhedrim, 563; secret disciple, 684. Nicophanes, quoted, 114. Nineveh, 332. Nunc Dimittis, The, 42. O. Olearius, quoted, 248. Olshausen, quoted, 93, 133, 343, 347, 469, 500, 621. Oosterzee, quoted, 534. Origen, quoted, 37, 93. Osiander, quoted, 534. Ovid, quoted, 192, 262. Owen, quoted, 534. Palingenesia, The, 527. Palm- Sunday, 546. Paranymph, 147. Paschal Chronicle, 26. Pashur, 261. Passover, crowds at, 516 ; Jesus's last, 616 ; Great Sabbath of, 677. Paulus, quoted, 93. Peccability of Jesus, 97. Pella, of Decapolis, 407 ; Christians find refuge, 596. Perea, 361, 482. Peter (Simon), 114, 170, 181, 219, 398, 402, 405, 417, 436, 527, 590, 593, 617, 619, 620, 630, 638, 639, 671, 688, 689, 696, 701-703. Pfeninger, quoted, 167. Pharisees, sketch of, 71. Phidias, his statue of Nemesis, 470. Philadelphia, of Decapolis, 407. Philip, the Apostle, 115, 225, 362, 388, 549, 623. Philip, the Tetrarch, 415. Philo, quoted, 64, 173. Phoenicia, 402. Phylactery, 463. Pilate, Pontius, procurator, 63 ; ontragei the Jews, 64, 342 ; at trial of Jesus, 644 ; his wife's dream, 655. Pilkington, quoted, 534. Plato, quoted, 173, 202. Plutarch, quoted, 173. Polybius, quoted, 129, 365. Pompey, 129. Porter's Hand-Book, quoted, 666. Potter's Field, 603. Priests, courses of, 15, 29. Procurators, 62. Pseudo-Alexander, 61. Publicans, portitores, 227. Q. Quadrans, coin, 589. Quarantania, Mount of Temptation, 92. Queen of the South, 332. Quirinius (Cyrenius), 16. R. Rab, Rabbi, Rabboni, 113, 583. Rabboth-Ammon, of Decapolis, 407. Raka, a term of reproach, 208. Raphana, of Decapolis, 407. Renan, quoted, 20, 40 ; his description of Nazareth, 50, 55. Robinson, quoted, 120, 125, 167, 198, 200, 241, 317, 367, 507, 534, 541. Rosenmuller, quoted. 344. Routh, quoted, 230. S. Sabinus, procurator, provokes a revolt, 59. Sadducees, sketch of, 71. Sagan, of the Synagogue, 68. Salim, 145. Salome, 531, 671. Salvador, Dr., on "the Trial of Jesus," 631. Samaritans, their origin, 150 ; defile the Temple, 151. Sanballat, 151. Sanhedrim, its origin, 68 ; its constitu- tion, size, President, place of meeting, and jurisdiction, 69, 453, 691. Satan = the Devil, 93, 98 ; Jewish ideas INDEX. 721 of, 100 ; Manichaean idea of, 100 ; idea in Job, 101 ; in David, 101 ; in Zechariah, 101 ; Jesus's idea, 102 ; 178 ; 424. Saton, a Greek measure, 347. Schaff , Dr. , quoted, 284, 522. Schleiermacher, quoted, 42, 93, 335. Schoettgen, quoted, 151, 586. Scythopolis, now Beisan, 146, 407. Selden, quoted, 70, 558. Seneca, quoted, 279. Sepharvaim, colonizes Samaria, 150. Sepp, quoted, 49. Shalmanezer, carries Israelites into cap- tivity, 150. Shammai, head of a Jewish school, 214. Shaw, quoted, 74. Shechem, capital of Samaria, 149. Shekel, value of, 60. Sheliach, officer of the synagogue, 163. Shepherds, see angels, 39 ; village of, 40. k> Shoe's hatchet," 68. Sicarii, 63. Sidon, denounced, 316 ; visited, 402, 405. Siloam, 454, 472. Simeon, at the circumcision of Jesus, 41. Simla, high-priest's garment, 643. Simon I., Apostle, see "Peter." Simon II., Apostle, 231. Simon of Cyrene, 663. Simon, Zelotes, 231. Smith, Sir J. E., quoted, 298. Smith, Dr. Wm., " Dictionary of the Bible," quoted, 29, 71, 74, 151, 163, 219, 222, 613. Smith, Dr. Wm., " N. T. History," quoted, 57, 103. " Son of David," 18, 119, 403. " Son of God," 118. "Son of the Law-," 51. " Son of Man," first use, 117; 361; 599. Sophocles, his "CEdipus," 470. Spartian, his " Life of Hadrian," 31. Stanley, quoted, 74, 166, 168, 242, 320. Stater, coin for Temple-tax, 437. Stier, quoted, 53, 335, 347, 383, 469, 518, 534. Story, W. W. , his theory of Judas, 605. Strabo, quoted, 74. Strong, his "Harmony," quoted, 165, 265. 332. 541. Stroud, Dr. Wm., quoted, 679. Sue, his " Wandering Jew," 99. Suetonius, quoted, 25, 31, 45. Sycamore tree, 537. Sychar =r Shechem, 152. Synagogue, full account of, 162-164. T. Tabor, Mount, 428, 704. Tacitus, quoted, 31; "breviarum of Augustus," 32 ; prevailing expectation of the Coming One, 45 ; speaks of Jesus, 65, 186, 473. Talent, value of, 442. Talmud, quoted, 55, 80, 192, 331, 400 666. Targuin, The, 551. Taxing, The, under Cyrenius, 31 . Taylor, Jeremy, quoted, 475, 664. Tell Hum, ruins of, 168. Temple, The, 128; tax, 126, 436; tabernge, 557 ; veil rent, 676. Temptation of Jesus, 91. Tephilla = Phylactery, 582. Tertullian, quoted, 578. Thaddeus, 230. Theodoret, quoted, 114. Theodorus of Mopsuestia, quoted, 93 347. Theophylact, quoted, 343. Tholuck, quoted, 141, 152, 244, 269 453, 469. Thomas, Apostle, 227, 362, 497, 699. Thomson, Abp., quoted, 33. Thomson, his " Land and Book," quot ed, 92, 146, 167, 184, 245, 298, 346, 360, 387, 390, 537, 629. Tiberius, Emperor, 17, 24, 26, 66. Tischendorf, quoted, 386, 406, 534. Townsend, quoted, 49. Tragelles, quoted, 406. Trajan, Emperor, 224. Trench, Abp., quoted, 124, 151, 184, 185 S53, 355, 469, 473, 475, 534, 567 597. Trent, Council of, its Catechism, 287. Tristam, quoted, 366. Tsitsith, The, 583. "Twelve, The," 235. Tyre, 402, 405. U. Upham, Dr. F. W., his "The Wis« Men," 46. Urim and Thummim, The, 507. V. Valerius Gratus, procurator, 68, 506. Van de Velde, quoted, 140. Varus, Prefect of Syria, 60. Vespasian, Emperor, 12, 149. Victorius, quoted, 26. Vitellius, 66. Voice, at baptism of Jesus, 77. Voltaire, on number slain at Bethl©* hem, 47. Von der Hardt, quoted, 262. 722 INDEX. Von Gerlach, quoted, 540. Vorstius, quoted, 69. Vulgar ^Era, The, 26. W. Ward, " View of the Hindoos," 597. Weisse, quoted, 93. Wesley, quoted, 167. Wetstein, quoted, 248, 473, 578, 586. Wiclif s translation, 489. Wieseler, quoted, 29, 31, 68, 386, 534, 561 Williams, "Holy City," quoted, 602. Wilson, "Lands of the Bible," quoted, 167. Winer, quoted, 342, 518, 561. "Wise Men," The, 28, 30, 43. Xenophon, quoted, 141, 276. Zacharias, sees apparition, 15 ; becomei dumb, 16 ; names his son John, 21 ; pronounces the " Benedictus," 21; his sacerdotal class, 27. Zealots, The, 63. Zealot-right, The, 558. Zelotes, Simon, 231. Zoroaster, 44. Zinzendorf , Count, 583. Zumpt, quoted, 36. PASSAGES OF THE OLD AND THE NEW TESTAMENT AND APOCRYPHA, Alluded to, or Quoted ; other than the Four Evangelists. Genesis i. 201 ; i. 27, 520 ; ii. 201 ; iv. 3, 201 ; vii. 4, 10, 202 ; viii. 10, 12, 202; xii. 6, 149; xiv. 22,567; xvi. 7-13, 109 ; xviii. 6, 347 ; xviii. 8, 108 ; xviii. 109; xviii. 110; xix. 3, 108; xxii. 110 ; xxxiii. 18, 150; xxv. 9, 363; xxv. 22, 472 ; xxiv. 7, 40, 109 ; xxviii. 12, 108 ; xxviii. 12, 109 ; xxix. 25-30, 202; xxxii. 2, 108; xxxv. 19, 47; xxxv. 29, 363. Exodus iii. 110; iii. 6, 574; xii. 46, 678; xiii. 2-10, 11-17,582; xiii. 9, 16, 582; xvi. 202 ; xx. 202 ; xx. 26, 276 ; xxi. 24, 274 ; xxi. 32, 603 ; xxx. 13, 126 ; xxx. 13, 436; xxxii. 110; xxxiv. 28, 98 ; xxxv. 3, 203. Levit. xii. 24, 41 ; xii. 8, 41 ; xiii. 45, 185; xvi. 20-31, 515; xviii. 2, 509; xviii. 46, 509; xix. 18, 277; xxi. 10, 643 ; xxiii. 27-29, 203 ; xxiii. 5, 541 ; xxiv. 20, 274; xxvii. 30, 335; xxvii. 30, 515 ; xxvii. 30, 586. Numbers v. 2, 509; v. 6, 538; vi. 1-21, 16; vi. 9, 185; ix. 12, 678; xv. 32, 203; xv. 37-40, 371; xv. 38, 583; xviii. 15, 16, 43; xviii. 21, 515; xviii. 21, 586; xix. 448; xix. 10, 586; xx. 10, 269 ; xxi. 143 ; xxiv. 17, 45; xxiv. 17, 158; xxv. 11, 558; xxvii. 8-11, 19; xxviii 9,212; xxix. 7, 515. Beut. v. 26, 173; vi. 16, 104; vi. 5, 463; vi. 4-9, 13-22, 582; viii. 3, 103; xii. 6, 586; xiv. 22, 515; xiv. 22-28, 586 ; xvii. 7, 457 ; xviii. 15, 112; xviii. 18, 116; xviii. 15, 158; xix. 14, 253; xix. 21, 274; xxi. 22, 23, 664; xxi. 23, 677; xxii. 11, 150; xxii. 12, 371 ; xxii. 21, 456; xxiii. 25, 211 ; xxiii. 13, 518; xxv. 5, 573; xxvi. 14, 173. Joshua xviii. 16, 269. Judges ii. 110 ; vi. 22, 109 ; vi. 110 ; vi. 14, 110 ; vi. 22, 110 ; vi. 19, 347 ; xiii 15, 16, 108 ; xiii. 110 ; xiii. 22, 110 ; xiv. 12, 567. 1 Sam. i. 24, 347 ; vi. 5, 475 ; xiv. 25. 74; xv. 22, 212 ; xxi 212 ; xxii. 20-23, 212. 2 Sam. viii. 17, 212 ; xix. 22, 101 ; xix. 27, 107 ; xxiv. 107. 1 Kings ii. 27, 561 ; v. 4, 101 ; x. 1, 332 ; xviii. 26, 282 ; xix. 8, 98 ; xxii. 19, 108. 2 Kings v. 27, 177 ; v. 184 ; v. 14, 15, 185 ; v. 5, 567 ; xii. 4, 126 ; xvii. 24, 150 ; xvii. 41, 150 ; xix. 15, 107 ; xix. 107; xxiii. 10, 13, 14, 268. INDEX. 723 1 Chron. xii. 22, 108; xv. 11, 212; xxi. 1, 101 ; xxi. 20, 109 ; xxi. 30, 109 ; xxiv. 10, 15 ; xxiv. 27 ; xlix. 10, 158. 2 Ghron. iv. 24, 567; xviii. 18, 107; xxiv. 6, 9, 126; xxiv. 18-22, 336; xxiv. 20, 587; xxx. 21-26, 204; xxxiv. 4, 5, 268. Ezra ii. 9, 537 ; iv. 2, 10, 150 ; viii. 15, 163 ; x. 11, 475. Nehemiah vii. 14, 537 ; viii.' 2, 163 ; viii. 9-12, 204; ix. 1, 163; xii. 29; xiii. 15-22, 204. Esther v. 8, 566 ; vi. 14, 566. Job i. 6, 101 ; ii. 1-7, 101 ; iv. 18, 108 ; xxvii. 16, 567 ; xxxiii. 29, 30, 442. Psalms ii. 6-9, 116 ; viii. 2, 559 ; xvii. 15, 255; xxii. 16, 18, 667; xxv. 13, 253 ; xxxiv. 7, 111 ; xxxv. 5, 111 ; xxxv. 19, 626 ; xxxvii. 9, 253 ; xxxvii. 11, 253 ; xxxix. 5, 296; xli. 9, 618 ; xlii. 1, 255 ; li. 12, 141 ; lxviii. 108 ; lxix. 4, 626; lxix. 9, 127; lxxxii. 6, 481 ; xci. 104 ; xcii. 204 ; civ. 4, 107 ; cvi. 28, 173 ; cix. 6, 101 ; ex. 578 ; cxiii. 545 ; cxv. 624 ; cxvi. 624 ; cxvii. 624 ; cxviii. 545 ; cxviii. 624 ; cxviii. 22, 565 ; cxlvi. 8, 476. Isaiah vi. 1-3, 108 ; viii. 19, 173 ; ix. 6, 116 ; ix. 7, 552 ; xi. 1-5, 10, 116 ; xix. 1, 642 ; xx. 4, 518 ; xxv. 656, 6 ; xxx. 29, 204 ; xl. 2, 7, 476 ; xlii. 1-4, 217; xlix. 24, 327; liii. 49; liii. 2-12, 116 ; liii. 12, 327 ; liii. 12, 621 ; liii. 12, 667 ; liv. 13, 396 ; lv. 1, 255 ; lvi. 7, 558 ; lviii. 6, 165 ; lviii. 13, 203 ; lx. 3, 45 ; lxi. 1, 2, 165 ; lxi. 10, 566 ; lxii. 5, 566 ; lxiii. 9, 110 ; lxv. 13, 566. Jeremiah vii. 11, 558 ; xvii. 21, 203 ; xx. 261 ; xxi. 12-14, 204 ; xxii. 30, 19 ; xxiii. 5, 6, 116 ; xxxi. 15, 47 ; xxxi. 33, 141 ; xxxi. 33, 34, 396 ; xxxiii. 15, 116 ; xli. 17, 39. Ezekiel viii. 1, 163; x. 1, 106; xiv. 1, 163; xviii. 31, 141 ; xx. 1, 163; xx. 12-24, 204 ; xxiv. 17, 185 ; xxviii. 14, 107; xxxiii. 31, 163 ; xxxiv. 23, 116; xxxvi. 24-28, 141 ; xlvii. 454. Daniel iv. 13, 23, 107 ; vii. 9, 10, 108 ; vii. 13, 118; 315; 361; 411: 642; vii. 14, 552 ; 136 ; viii. 14, 831 ; viii. 13, 107; ix. 21-23, 16; ix. 24, 45 ix. 25, 116 ; x. 13, 107 ; x. 7, 109 x. 8, 15, 17, 109. Rosea ii. 6, 204 ; ii. 9, 566 ; vi. 6, 192 vi. 6, 212 ; xi. 1, 47. Joel ii. 26, 29, 396 ; iii. 18, 454. Amosi. 3, 442; ii. 6, 442. Micah v. 2, 36 ; v. 1, 37 ; v. 2, 46 v. 2, 116. Nahum i. 3, 642. Haggai ii. 7, 116. Zech. ii. 12-15, 110; iii. 1, 101; iii, 8, 116 ; vi. 15, 111 ; vii. 5, 163 ; ix. 9, 116 ; ix. 9, 544 ; xi. 12, 603 ; xii. 8, 111 ; xii. 60, 678; xiii. 4, 74; xiii. 7, 116 ; xiii. 1,141 ; xiii. 7, 621. Malachi iii. 1, 116; iv. 5, 6, 74; iv. 5, 112; iv. 2, 116; iv. 5, 6,430. ToUt iv. 3, 363 ; xii. 19, 108. Song ii. 1, 2, 16, 298. Cant. v. 1, 566. 1 Mace. iv. 52, 59, 480; xi. 71, 643. 2 Mace. i. 10, 69 ; iv. 44 ; 69 ; xi. 27, 69 ; x. 9, 537. Acts i. 3, 115 ; i. 13, 223 ; i. 13, 226 i. 13, 228; i. 13, 231; i. 13, 230 i. 16, 611 ; iv. 12, 13, 119 ; iv. 13 219; v. 36, 37, 209; v. 36, 37 512; vi. 6, 10, 498; vii. 56, 70 vii. 55, 118 ; ix. 7, 551 ; x. 47, 48 221 ; x. 13, 15, 551 ; xii. 1, 223 xii. 17, 229; xiii. 15, 164; xv. 13 19, 229; xix. 13, 326; xx. 33, 567 xxi. 18, 229 ; xxiii. 3, 638; xxvii. 3, 611. Romans xvi. 25, 328. 1 Cor. i. 21, 257; iv. 15, 584; vii. 249 ; viii. 13, 613 ; xv. 6, 704. 2 Cor. xi. 25, 331. Gal. ii. 9, 229. Eph. iii. 9, 328. Col. i. 26, 328. 1 Timothy i. 2, 584. 2 Timothy ii. 8, 20. Titus i. 4, 584. Hebrews xiii. 12, 666. James v. 1, 2, 567. 1 Peter v. 13, 584. 1 John ii. 16, 98. Jude. ver. 17, 231. Rev. i. 13, 118. ix. 5, 181; xii 724 SOTJKOES. SOURCES. [The following books have been consulted, and, so far as known, credited foi what use has been made of them. The list may be serviceable to those who de- sire to verify my quotations or to prosecute studies in this department.] Abbott, Rev. Lyman : Jesus of Nazareth. 1 vol. Ainslee, Rev. Robert : Translation of Tischendorf's Greek New Testament, lvol. Adams, Nehemiah, D.D. : Friends of Christ in the New Testament. 1 vol. Alexander, Joseph A., D.D. : Matthew Explained. 1 vol. " " Mark Explained. 1 vol. Alford, Henry, D.D. : New Testament Revised. 1 vol. u " Our Lord and His Twelve Disciples. 1 vol. " " Greek Testament, with Notes (on Evangelists). 1 voL Alger, W. R. : History of the Doctrine of a Future Life. 1 vol. Andrews, S. J. : Life of our Lord upon Earth. 1 vol. Anonymous. "Ecce Agnus Dei." 1 vol. " "EcceDeus." lvol. " "Ecce Homo." lvol. " Jesus of History. 1 vol. Augusttne • Homilies on the Gospel of St. John. 2 vols. il Sermons. 1 vol. Bagster : Polyglott Bible. 2 vols. Balfour, W. P. : Lessons from Jesus. 1 vol. Balfour, W. : Import of Sheol, Hades. 1 vol. Barclay, J. T. : City of the Great Bang. 1 vol. Baum, E. P. : Companion to the Bible. 1 vol. Bengel, J. A. : Gnomon of the New Testament. 2 vols. Bibliotheca Sacra. 30 vols. Bloomfield, Bishop : Greek Testament, with Notes. 2 vols. Blunt, Rev. J. H. : Dictionary of Devotional and Historical Theology. 1 voL Bourdillon, Rev. Francis : Parables of Our Lord. 1 vol. Briepot, Abbe : La Vie de N. S. Jesus-Christ. 3 vols. Brown, James : Bible Truths with Shakesperian Parallels. 1 vol. 1 ' Rev. John : Discourses and Sayings of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 vol* Bun sen, E. : Hidden Wisdom of Christ. 1 vol. Burt, N. C. : Hours among the Gospels. 1 vol. Calmet, A. : Dictionary of the Bible. 4 vols. Christian Examiner for 1854. 1 vol. Clark, Rev. G. W. : New Harmony of the Four Gospels. 1 vol. Clayton, G. : Angelology. 1 vol. Cobbe, F. P. : Studies, Old and New. 1 vol. Cox, Robert : Literature of the Sabbath Question. 2 vols. Crosby, Dr. Howard : Jesus and His Works. 1 vol. Cust, E. : Horse Dominicae. 1 vol. sources. 725 De Pressens£, E. : Jesus Christ. 1 voL De Qulncey, Thomas : Theological Essays. 1 vol. " " Historical Essays. 1 vol. Dickenson, R. : Corrected Version of the New Testament. 1 voL Ellicott, Bishop : Historical Lectures on Jesus Christ. 1 vol. Eusebius : Ecclesiastical History and Life of Constantine — ed. 1638, folio. I vol. Ewald, H. : The Life of Jesus Christ. 1 vol. Fairbairn, Dr. Patrick : Typology of Scripture. 2 vols. Farmer, Hugh : Demoniacs of the New Testament. 1 vol. Fowler, Wm., LL.B. : Miracles. 1 vol. Furness, W. H. : Jesus and His Biographers. 1 vol. " " Jesus. 1vol. Gilmore, J. R. : Life of Christ. 1 voL Gresswell, Edward : Dissertations on the Harmony of the Four Gospels. vols. Hackett, H. B. : Illustrations of Scripture. 1 vol. Hale, W. H. : History of the Jews. 1 vol. Hammond's Paraphrase and Annotations on New Testament. 3 vols. Hanna : The Life of Christ. 6 vols. Hardwick, C. : Christ and other Masters. 2 vols. Hemans, Charles J. : Ancient Christianity and Sacred Art. 1 vol. Hengstenberg, E. W. : Christology. 3 vols. Herodotus : Translated by Rawlinson. 4 vols. Hill, Genl. D. H. : Sermon on the Mount. 1 vol. Howe, Fisher : True Site of Calvary. 1 vol. Jamieson, Mrs. A. : History of our Lord, as exemplified in Works of Art. 2 vola, Jarvis, S. F. : Chronological Introduction to History of the Church. 1 vol. Jennings, D. : Jewish Antiquities. 1 vol. Jones, Joel, LL.D. : Notes on the Scripture. 1 vol. Josephus : Translated by Whiston. 6 vols. Justin Martyr : Writings of. 1 vol. Lange : Life of the Lord Jesus. 5 vols. Leathes, S. : Witness of Old Testament to Christ. 1 vol. " " Paul to Christ. 1vol. Lowth, Bishop : Isaiah. 1 vol. McClintock and Strong : Cyclopaedia. 3 vols. Mackay, R. W. : Rise and Progress of Christianity. 1 vol. McWhorter, A. : Yahveh Christ. 1 vol. Michaelis, J. D. : Introduction to N. T. 6 vols. Miles, H. A. : Traces of Picture Writing in the Bible. 1 vol. Milman, Dean : History of the Jews. 3 vols. Moore, T. V. : The Last Days of Jesus. 1 vol. Mountpord, William : Miracles, Past and Present. 1 voL Murray : Hand-book of Syria and Palestine. 1 vol. Neander, A. : Life of Christ. 1 vol. Noyes : New Testament, Translated from Greek Text of Tischendorf. 1 vol. Olshausen, Dr. H. : Commentary, etc. 6 vols. Parker, Joseph : Homiletic Analysis of New Testament. 1 vol. Pliny : Natural History, Edition Bohn's Library. 6 vols. "26 SOURCES. Plumtre, Prof. : Christ and Christendom. 1 vol. Peime, W. C. : Tent Life in the Holy Land. 1 vol. Priestley, Joseph : Early Opinions Concerning Christ. 1 vol. Rammohun Roy : Precepts of Jesns. 1 vol. Renan, Ernst : Life of Jesus. 1 vol. Reville, Dr. Albert : The Devil. 1 vol. Robinson, Dr. E. : Biblical Researches, etc. 2 vols. Ryle, Rev. J. C. : Thoughts on the Gospel of St. John. 1 vol Schaff, Dr. P. : History of the Christian Church. 3 vols. " " Person of Christ. 1vol. Schenkel : Sketch of the Character of Jesus. 2 vols. Smallbrook, Bishop : on Miracles. 2 vols. Smith, Dr. Wm. : Chronological Tables. 1 vol. " " Dictionary of the Bible. 4 vols. " " New Testament History. 1vol. Small Books • ■$ ^ tate of ■ M - an Defore tne Promulgation of Christianity. 1 vol ( Greek Philosophy from the Age of Socrates to Christ. I vol Stackhouse, T. : History of Holy Bible. 6 vols. Stanley, Prof. A. P. : Sinai and Palestine. 1 vol. Stephen, Sir George : Life of Christ. 1 voL Stier, R. : The Words of the Lord Jesus. 6 vols. Story, W. W. : A Roman Lawyer in Jerusalem. 1 vol. Strauss, D. F. : New Life of Jesus. 2 vols. Stroud, Dr. W. : Physical Causes of the Death of Christ. 1 vol. Tacitus : Annals. 1 vol. Taylor, Bp. Jeremy : History of Life and Death of Jesus Christ, i voL Taylor, Charles : The Gospel in the Law. 1 vol. Tertullian : Works. 3 vols. Tischendorf, C. : Nov. Test. Greece, ex Sinaitico Cod. 1 vol. " Origin of the Four Gospels. 1 vol. Tholuck, Aug. : The Sermon on the Mount. 1 vol. " The Gospel of John. 1 vol. Thomson, W. M. : The Land and the Book. 2 vols. Thrupp, J. F. Ancient Jerusalem. 1 voL Thucydides : Goeller's Edition. 2 vols. Townsend, G. : New Testament arranged in Chronological Order. 1 voL Trench : Studies in the Gospel. 1 vol. " On the Miracles. 1 vol. 4 ' On the Parables. 1 vol. Turpie, D. M. : The Old Testament in the New. 1 vol. Uhlhorn, Dr. G. : Modern Representations of the Life of Jesus. 1 vol. Van Dyke, Rev. Dr. H. T. : The Lord's Prayer. 1 vol. Veith, J. E. : Life Pictures of Passion of Christ. 1 vol. West, Dr. N. : Complete Analysis of the Bible. 1 vol. Whately, Arehbishop : The Kingdom of Christ. 1 vol. " " Scripture Revelation of a Future State. 1 voL Young, John, LL.D. : The Christ of History. 1 voL LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. DESIGNED BY ALBERT LEIGHTOJST RAWSOK ENGRAVED BY LINTON, FILMER, AND OTHERS. Ideal Head op Jesus (opposite the first chap.), after the celebrated painting by Paul Delaroche, and is a photo-engraving from a steel-plate. This picture by Delaroche is, of course, open to criticism, as are all others, but the expression certainly combines in a remarkable degree those qualities of dignity, force, and gentleness for which Jesus was distinguished, and thus more nearly accords with an enlightened conception of the Son of God. All of the so-called heads of Jesus are ideals of the artists, made to supply the demands of certain believers in the several ages, and they are of every possible variety of character and expression, as they were designed to represent the teach- ing, laboring, healing, suffering, or triumphant Christ. The most ancient of these that have been preserved, that are worthy of the name of fine-art works, are engraved on precious stones, and must be assigned to quite a recent age, when the Italian revival of art found it necessary to supply the multitude of worshipers with some visible image of the divine man. The best of these is called, " The Emerald of the Vatican," and is a copy of the head of Jesus in Rafaelle's cartoon of the Miraculous Draught of Fishes. The heads engraved by Albert Diirer are very artistic ideals of the notion that the Messiah must have been repulsive and unlovely in appearance. The Italians (Leonardo da Vinci, Rafaelle, Guido, Guercino, Titian, etc.) made their ideals weak and womanish, without intellectual force or manly vigor, and have in nearly every instance lowered their hero beneath the average appearance of men in active life. The recent attempts of Europeans and Americans have served only to show that the artist is incapable of painting any ideal above or beyond his own char- acter; and if that falls below the pure and lofty ideal which is universally given to the conception of the character of Jesus, then the work must reflect upon the subject to its disadvantage. The all-healing Messiah could only be represented faithfully as the merciful physician and restorer to spiritual and physical health by an artist who was qualified, first, by having the almost divine attribute of a soul that is willing, for the sake of relieving a suffering brother, to 730 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. take his disease upon himself, or his criminal shame as his own ; and, second, the ability to reproduce the expression of countenance which will convey that will- ingness to self -sacrifice. The artist who would not so sacrifice himself is less than the ideal of Jesus which every believer holds sacred, and is, therefore, inca- pable of conceiving the proper character of the divine physician. And this ia also true of any other aspect of the many-sided character of the Great Teacher. That such an artist lives we cannot determine ; but that any such picture has been produced we are certain, and can only wait. It seems to many persons that this subject in all its aspects, whether representing Jesus as teacher, healer, or the divine man, is above and beyond the possible achievement of art. The early fathers were influenced by the Jewish habits of thought, which regarded every representation of the human form, and more especially any at- tempts at imaging the divine, with horror, and therefore the only devices used were such as the dove, the fish, the lyre, the anchor, the ship under sail, etc. The very earliest date that can be assigned to any head of Jesus engraved on a gem (and there are hundreds known) is to the age when the emperors sustained a school of engraving as an appendage to the court, as is mentioned in a law of the Emperor Leo, A. D. 886-911. The most popular pictures representing Jesus are those of the passion, includ- ing trial, incidents on the way to Calvary and the crucifixion. These pictures are fourteen in number, and are known to Roman Catholics as the "Fourteen Stations of the Cross." The Catholic Church has added very much to their pop- ularity by the devotional custom that has obtained in all parts of the world wherever this church is to be found. These fourteen pictures adorn the walls of every Catholic church, and during the Lenten season great devotion is paid to them by the faithful in the exercise of what is called the "forty hours devo- tion " when in commemoration of the passion and death of Jesus the faithful linger in the churches, going from one picture to another, in proper order, de- voutly prostrating themselves and repeating a different and stated prayer before each ' ' station. " The demand for these pictures has thus been stimulated to such an extent that the portrayal of these scenes has commanded the attention of the best talent, both of painters and sculptors. They are generally executed in vivid, life-like colors. If we must have pictures of Jesus, it seems a pity that they cannot be the work of artists who are as free as possible from the monkish traditions of the Romish Church, and of the effete whims concerning Greek art, and who will take the time and do the work of informing themselves on the manners and customs of the Syrians, and especially of the Jews in the first century A. D. , and who would endeavor to present the man Jesus, the native of Palestine, in such a character that we should find it natural to respect and love him as a powerful and good person. So far every attempt to represent the person or character of Jesus has been a vote for Rome, the head, the drapery, and often the accessories, carrying the mind of the beholder to Rome instead of to Jerusalem. Map of Palestine m the Time op Christ (p. 15). — This map gives only the most important places, the hundreds of small villages having been omit- ted to avoid crowding. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 731 Shepherds' Field, Bethlehem (p. 23). — The side hill and fields east of the convent and village of Bethlehem bear the name of The Shepherds' Field, and have been used as a pasture, as they are now, from the most .ancient time. The soil is kept from washing down the steep by stone walls, forming terraces, on which there are a few trees, the remains of orchards of olives and figs. The shepherds watch their flocks day and night, very few having a fold, sleeping near them under a tent of coarse cloth, or of leaves and grass. It was in one of these fields, east from the terraced hillside, that the beauti- ful idyl of Ruth, Boaz, and Naomi occurred, forever sanctifying the toils of common life, and shedding a glory over the harvest-field. The scene is also associated with David, first as the shepherd boy, tending his father's flocks, then as the brave leader and chief, contending with his enemies, and singing the praises of the great Leader who assists all who contend against evil ; and after that as the king twice crowned as ruler over the Jews. A well is pointed out there as the one whose waters David thirsted for with a resistless longing, which was suddenly changed into regret when he learned that its water had been brought to him at the risk of good men's lives. The village on the hill is not very ancient, although it may be on the site of the original town. It is not again mentioned in Scripture after the birth of Jesus, which occurred not in the village, but, as Justin Martyr says (a.d. 150), "in a certain cave very close to the village." The village is built on a low hill, which is west of, and separated a little by a shallow depression, from the convent ; it is triangular, walled in, and contains three thousand people, who are nearly all makers of beads, crucifixes, boxes, models of the holy places, &c. , for sale to pUgrims. The manufacture of relics is also carried on to an extent which is alarming to the true antiquarian, although very profitable to those concerned. The imitations can always be detected by a little care and scrutiny. Husks (p. 22). — The Carob tree, a species of locust, bears the long, sweet- ish pods (ten inches), somewhat like the Lima bean pods, which are called husks in Luke xv. 16, and St. John's bread by pilgrims. The tree grows everywhere in Palestine, and the Levant as far south as Hebron, and is a large and hand- some object, with its deep green dense foliage of round glossy leaves, more especially in the dry season, for it is an evergreen. The Greeks call it keratia (horn), from the horn shape of the pods. The pods (just before they are ripe) are steeped in water, forming a pleasant acid drink. They are also sold in all Oriental bazaars for food, more commonly for pigs, cattle, and horses, but they are only eaten by the very poorest of the people. They furnish, by boiling, a poor quality of molasses (dibs). Nazareth (p. 24) is first mentioned in Matthew ii. 23, or if taken in the order of time, in Luke i. 26, as the scene of the annunciation to Mary of the birth and character of Jesus. This place was unknown, or unmentioned in his- tory, before the birth of Jesus, but since that event its name has become a 732 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. household word throughout the Christian world. The city is now built on a Bide hill, overlooking a plain, and probably not far from the ancient site, a little lower on the same hill, and has about 5,000 inhabitants. It is very well built, nearly every house being of stone, flat roofed, and of two stories or more. The Maronite convent is built close under the steep place which is shown as the one down which the people were determined to cast Jesus. There are many other ob- jects and localities pointed out to visitors as remnants of antiquity, but which have little claim to such honor, because the stone of the district is a soft white marl, easily crumbled and soon falling to pieces ; and therefore it is not probable that any house there is more than one or two hundred years old. The fountain, the valley, and the fourteen hills around the city have not changed, and must pre- sent the same general appearance as when the son of the carpenter grew up there. The valley runs nearly east and west, and is about a mile long by a quarter wide. The hills are from 500 to 100 feet high above the valley ; the highest, called Naby Ismail, being 1,800 feet above the ocean, and 500 above the valley. The soil is rich, and sustains a great variety of trees, flowers, vines, and produces fruit, vegetables, and grain in abundance. The view from the summit of Naby Ismail, behind Nazareth, to the north- west, is most extensive, and includes many well-known and interesting Scripture sites, some of which are noted also in later history. South-east the long brown crest of Carmel juts out below the Bay of Acre, with the blue sea beyond ; on its east end there are memories of Elijah and Baal's priests, Ahab, the "fifties," and on its western end, near the sea, is a convent dating from the Crusades, and the plain of Esdraelon, level and green at its base ; the hills of Samaria, inclosing the city of Samaria, and the mountain Ebal (and Cerizim behind it) by Shechem, Gilboa, Little Hermon, and its speck of the village of Nam, and Shunem not far off ; the Kishon river, the village of Jezreel : Mount Tabor, with memories of Deborah and Barak, and later of Napoleon ; Gilead, purple and tremulous in the east, rising into the high plateau of Jaulan, over which, to the north-east, the shining crest of Hermon above the clouds, lifting up so many ruined pagan temples on its sides and summits. The Mount of Beatitudes (Hattin) just hides Capernaum at the north end of the Sea of Galilee ; the heights of Saf ed, Jebel Jermuk, and the hill on which Hazor once stood, are to the north, and over them appears, like a still blue cloud, the range of Lebanon. Jebel Kaukab marks the site of Cana, lying at its foot ; and there is the sea over Acre again ; St. John of Acre, full of mediagval history, full of dust and ruins, of Crusading times and later ages of war. Nazareth (p. 35). See page 731. Bethlehem (p. 36). See Shepherd's Field, page 23. Hebron (p. 82).— There has been a "city" on or near the site of the present place, which is called Khulil, The Friend (of God), meaning Abraham, ever since the time of the earliest records in history. The whole district is favor- able to an agricultural life, and is noted for its good soil and the great variety of its products, especially the vine, figs, olives, and is as well watered as any part of the LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 733 country south of Jerusalem. In its days of prosperity, under David and Solomon, rvery foot of land was carefully dressed ; the hill-sides, which are now stony and barren, were terraced, and supported a dense population. The crops are stiU excellent, and are rotated in the most scientific manner (from tradition), grain and vegetables giving place to melons and cucumbers. The most interesting antiquity in the village is the Haram, or Mosque of Hebron, which is the successor of some more ancient structure built over the Cave of Machpelah, in which were buried Sarah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is possible that some part of this building, the beveled (or rebated) stones, are the remains of some work of Solomon or David, the only point against this sup- position being the silence of Josephus, who would probably have noticed such a work and given it prominence in his Antiquities. It may then have been, as it is claimed by some critics, the work of some one since the time of the Eomans. Or, more probable than any theory, the Haram is a relic of several ages, put into its present shape some time during or after the Crusades. The successor of the Oak of Mamre is a terebinth-tree, nearly two miles from Hebron, in the opposite direction from the real site. It measures twenty-two feet in circumference, and shades a space of about ninety feet diameter. The church of Constantine was built near this tree, a few of the stones of which are still to be seen, some large ones measuring fourteen feet in length. King David lived there seven years and a half, as king of Judah, and was crowned there king of all the tribes. Class is the chief manufacture at present, which is made up into a great variety of articles for domestic use, and ornaments for women's wear, such as rings, ear-rings, bracelets, anklets, which are of every possible tint and pattern. Many women are so poor as to be unable to get any better jewelry than this cheap glass. Iisnsr, or Khan (p. 40). — The only public-house offered by the Orientals is a two-story structure, with a large inclosed space for animals and goods. The lower story is used for storage and for feeding and housing animals, and the upper for the travelers. In some of the great khans, as at Damascus, the court is roofed over, and the building is three or four stories high, and has a great number of rooms. No furniture or bedding is ever provided by the innkeeper, and every needed article must be supplied by the lodger. This makes it neces- sary to have camels for baggage besides for riding, and so every party of half a dozen forms a little caravan of ten to fifteen camels, or camels, horses, and don- keys. The inn of Chimham is the first mentioned in the Scriptures, and .vas at Bethlehem, on the road to Egypt, as alluded to by Jeremiah (xli. 17) ; and it ia not improbable that it was the same public-house in which Jesus was born. Its site is now occupied by a convent, which dates from the Crusades, if not from the time of the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, and is the oldest Chris- tian church in the world. It was repaired by King Edward IV. of England ; Baldwin, the famous Crusader and king of Jerusalem, was crowned in it. The building is venerable and majestic, and interesting from its material his- tory. Tts roof is made of the cedar of Lebanon, and its marble column? were 734 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. gathered from many countries, the gifts of princes and devout persons. Some of the Byzantine pillars are painted with curious devices, which are almost obliterated, being very much time-worn and weather-stained. The history and tradition of the " Cave of the Nativity," which is under the church, being reached by a number of steps cut down in the solid rock, and in which it is asserted that Jesus was born, extends back almost to the death of John the Evangelist and Revelator. Caves and recesses in the rock are now used, and probably always have been, as a refuge for cattle, and also for people, as is often noticed in the Scriptures. But still there is very little to be said in favor of the cave having been a part of the original inn. Jerome translated the Bible in a grotto at Bethlehem, which may have been in this same cave (where a grotto is shown as his studio), although it has been very much enlarged in later times, and is now a very showy, if not actually a splendid room, filled with gilt ornaments of religious interest, the gifts of the pious pilgrims of many ages. Marble pavement, marble columns, panels, silver, brass, and copper lamps, with gold ornaments, and massive metal candlesticks, highly enriched with engraving and gilding, and inscriptions sculptured and gilded ; and more showy, and ap- parently more valuable, than all the rest, a radiated star around the inscription recording the birth of the Saviour, made of colored glass, in imitation of precious stones, and placed over the grotto which is pointed out as the very spot on which Jesus was born. There was formerly a star composed of real gold and precious stones, including many valuable diamonds, emeralds, &c., which was removed by some avaricious and unworthy custodian, and the present cheap imitation substituted. The walls, and in many places the roof also, are covered with richly dyed silk hangings. Sinai (p. 48). — The Sinai of tradition and of many modern investigators is shown in the view, which was taken from the plain Er Rahah, a little west of the convent. The whole group of peaks is named Jebel Miisa, Mount Moses, and the peak nearest to the convent is called Ras Sufsafa, Head of the Willow, from a single willow tree which grows on it. The summit is about 2,000 feet above the plain, and has on it a chapel and the ruins of a mosque, which may be reached by a few minutes of hard climb- ing. The whole mountain stands out against the sky like a huge altar, being separated by valleys on all sides from the mountains around. The plain of Er Rahah is two miles long, half a mile wide, and slopes gently towards the mountain, forming a natural amphitheatre on which many thou- sands could camp and distinctly view the mountain from its base to its summit. Succoth (the Booths) (p. 84). — It is still called by its ancient name, pro- nounced by the Arabs Sakut, and is believed to mark the place where Jacob crossed the Jordan river, a few miles below Bethshan. The booths must have been on the east side of the river, but the name has been transferred across, for Sakut is now on the west side. Other names have passed over Jordan in the LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 735 same manner, as " Jebel Musa," near Jericho, Moses' Mountain, meaning the one from which he viewed the promised land, which was on the east side. The vessels for Solomon's Temple were cast in the clay ground on the Jordan banks, between Succoth and Zartan, and there are very fine and deep clay beds there now, the clay from which is hard, almost slaty, easily softened and moulded, and the best known for casting metals in to this day. The whole vicinity of Succoth abounds in springs and brooks, and there is " much water" now, as there was in the time of John's ministry (John iii. 22). The " ford" (so called, for there is no passable place as a ford there) opposite Jericho, near the Jews' castle, is one of the ' ' localities " of the monks. Ford op the Jordan (p. 58). The view is of a place near Nimrim (the Panthers), where there is a rather difficult ford in the season of low water, but none at all in the winter. There are several fords, in the summer time, which are used by travelers and the natives, as opposite Bethshan, near Succoth, just north of Wady Yabes (Jabesh), which is supposed to be the same as the Betha- bara (Beth-bara) of Judges vii. 24. There are several others north of the mouth of the Jabbok. Ten miles south of that river there is a good one on the road from Nablus (Shechem) to Es Salt (Ramoth in Gilead), and there are ruins of a Roman bridge there also. There are also fords both above and below the Pilgrim's Bathing Place (Latin), opposite Jericho; the upper one is supposed to be the one crossed by Joshua. The river below the " bathing place" is swift and deep, and cannot be forded. Cartel (p. 90).— The mountain is 1,800 feet at the east, and 500 feet high at the west end, and is nearly eighteen miles long from the site of the sacrifice of Baal's prophets to the convent overlooking the sea. It is the most picturesque region in Palestine, in variety of hill-sides, mountain slopes, covered with the most luxuriant vegetation, and carpeted with countless flowers. The forests abound in wild game, such as partridge, quail, woodcock, hare, jackal, wolf, hyena, boar, and bear. The mountain has been famous from remote antiquity as a holy place, having had among the visitors to its shrines the ancient philosopher Pythagoras and the Emperor Vespasian. The present building, standing on the west end near the sea, was erected in 1830, over the ancient ruins of the convent originally standing there, which was founded by St. Louis of France, who named the order " The Barefoot Carmelite Friars." Capernaum (p. 112), which had been so utterly destroyed as to leave scarcely any trace of its site, has been restored to history, beyond a doubt, by the researches and discoveries of W. M. Thomson {Land and Book), and the Palestine Exploration (Jerusalem Recovered). The ruins lie scattered over a hill called Tell Hum, which rises from the water edge of the Sea of Galilee, and which is an excellent site for a city, being high, commanding a wide prospect across the sea south, over the plains and hills east, the plain of Gennesaret and 736 LIST OF ILLTJSTKATIONS. the hills of Galilee west, and the mountains around Safed, while snow-capped Hermon is in view north-east. There is a ruin of the synagogue, which may have been built or improved by the centurion mentioned in Matthew, who was in command of Roman troops stationed there. The building was made of lime- stone, brought from a distance, and there are a few pieces of sculptured orna- ments, columns, cornices, lintels left, which indicate that the structure was mag- nificent in size and workmanship. One of the lintels had sculptured on it a pot of manna, as an ornament, among scrolls and other figures, which proves that the building "was a religious edifice built by Jews. There was also a cemetery, with graves and regular tombs cut in the rock or built above the surface. The ruins cover a space nearly as large as the town of Tiberias, and the place may have contained, in its greatest prosperity, fifty thou- sand inhabitants. The materials may have been carried away during the. last thousand years, to reappear in other cities, or have been burnt into lime, as has been done at other places. The other claimants to the site of Capernaum do not present ruins which answer the demand of the text, and Tell Hum does. The Evangelists did not give topographical indications directly, for they were not writing a geography ; while Josephus, as a soldier and engineer, was careful to notice localities, and his description of Capernaum and other places is very complete. The miracle of the feeding five thousand persons with food created for the purpose, was considered by all the Evangelists of very great importance, and as they have all mentioned Capernaum and Bethsaida in connection with the ac- count, geographers have been so perplexed as to attempt to invent a second Beth- saida at the head of the lake, west of Capernaum. The preaching by the sea may be located somewhere along the coast between Tell Hum and Tabigah, where there are several creeks and inlets in which the boat (ship in the Gospel) could ride in safety only a few feet from the shore, and where the multitude could be seated on the dry shore, where there are many boulders of basalt, smooth and convenient for seats. The first four of the Apostles were fishermen, and there are no more favorable places for carrying on their business than this very shore, where their boats could be kept in safety, and their nets mended on the hard shell-paved beach. (See Tell Hum.) Cana (p. 120). — There is a division of opinion among scholars on the question of the site of the ancient Cana, one party holding that Kefr Kenna, a village three miles north-west of Nazareth, is the true site, and another that what is now called Kana-el-Jelil (Cana of Galilee), is the site of the village in whijh the marriage -feast was held, at which it is said that the wine was created from water. Kana-el-Jelil was selected as the more beautiful of the two in a pictorial sense, and besides the evidence seems to be greatly in its favor. It lies on the end of a ridge, at the foot of Jebel Kaukab, just at the border of the plain of Buttauf (plain of Issachar), eight miles north of Nazareth. The site is very favorable for fine views, overlooking the plain, and including distant glimpses of LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 737 Beveral mountains well known in Bible narrative, as Hermon, Tabor, Gilboa, Carmel, and Lebanon. The ancient writers (Antoninus Martyr, a.d. 590; St. Willibald, a.d. 780; Saswulf, A.D. 1103; Maurice Sanutus, A.D. 1321; Breydenbach. a.d. 1483; Anselm, a.d. 1507; Adrichomis, a.d. 1575) unite in describing the site, as be- lieved to have been correctly located in their day, at the foot of a high round mountain on the north, a plain, broad and fertile on the south, and with Sep- phoris between it and Nazareth, all of which particulars are found at Kana-el- JeliL These writers also described six water-pots and a triclinium where the feast was held, the whole being in a cavern or grotto, underground, like that of the Nativity at Bethlehem, and also of the Annunciation at Nazareth. The water-pots shown there are not reliable as antiquities, because they are a common article of domestic use, and are made when wanted, in every age, in every year, and a few broken jars can always be had to lend their appearance in aid of a popular tradition. It is therefore not surprising that water-pots are shown at both sites of Cana, and both claimed as veritable antiquities. The general truth of the event, the Galilean village, the custom of the people keeping water and wine in jars of pottery, can be proven beyond question ; but the house in which the feast was held, and the jars that held the water made wine, have passed away into their original dust. John's Prison, Macilerus (p. 148). — Herod the Great built a palace and a prison, and probably bath-houses also, at the hot springs of Callirrhoe, on the river Main, about eight miles from the Dead Sea. Josephus describes it t, Wars, vi., c. 1) as "a very rocky hill, elevated to a great height, ditched about with valleys on all sides to such a depth that the eye cannot reach their bottoms, that on the west reaching to the Lake Asphaltitis ; and on that same side the castle had the tallest top of its hill." The cliffs are 200 feet high, about 150 apart, and the stream from the hot springs is six to ten inches deep, 50 to 100 feet wide, and runs four or five miles an hour. The ruins of the castle or palace, and per- haps other houses, are scattered over several acres of the ridge, nearly half a mile from the ravine. The finest view is had by moonlight, when the almost daylight of the full moon gives a wild and strange character to the scene. There has as yet been no exploration on the east of the Dead Sea, except at a few points, and it is believed that the richest results would follow from the examina- tion of certain well-known ruins, such as these at Machagrus, and at Heshbon, Eabbath-Ammon, by scientific men, properly provided with instruments and assistants. Shechem (p. 149). —The village lies between two hills, Ebal and Gerizim, which are on the great dividing ridge between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. It is now called Nablus, a corruption of Neapolis, the Greek name given to it by Vespasian. John speaks of it as Sychar, and Pliny called it Mabortha. The valley is about 1,500 feet wide, between the two mountains, and its general level is 1,800 above the sea. The valley is full of springs of good wat*~, the people counting as many as eighty. Some of these springs send the waters 47 738 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. into the Jordan, and others into the Mediterranean. The soil is rich, and very productive in orchards, gardens, and fields, and is not equalled in Palestine for its glory of fruit and verdure, running brooks, and singing birds. Abraham pitched his tent under the oak of Moreh, and there first set up the worship of the living God, near to Shechem. In this vicinity was also most probably the residence of Melchizedek, the King of Salem, in or near that little modern village of Salim. The Samaritans also claim that the Moriah on which Abraham laid out Isaac ready for the sacrifice was Mount G-erizim. Shechem also was the residence of the grandson of Abraham, Jacob, who bought a field and dug a well. (See Jacob's Well.) It is probably on account of these well-known facts in the history of the place that Moses regarded it as the most sacred spot in Canaan, and the only one con- secrated to the worship of the living God, and that accordingly he ordered the great assembly of the people there. The experiment has been made of two readers stationed on opposite sides of the valley, on Ebal and Gerizim, who read the blessings and the curses in a loud voice, and were distinctly heard by each other. The bones of Joseph were also brought from Egypt by the children of Israel, and buried, as tradition says, in the level spot close under the foot of Mount Ebal. Jacob's Well (p. 153). — The remarkable work called Jacob's Well is in the plain of Mukna, a mile and a half from the village of Nablus (Shechem). Joseph's Tomb is in plain view, nearer Mount Ebal. There are none who dispute the identity of this well as having been the work of Jacob and his servants. The most surprising thing about it is that a well should have been dug at all in a place which abounds in natural springs of bright, sweet water, and sufficient in quantity to supply several brooks. The visitor now first descends into a chamber about ten feet, in the floor of which is the mouth of the well, only large enough to admit the body of a man. This opening is broken through an arch which has been not very long ago built over the well. The shaft is seven feet six inches in diameter, and seventy-five feet deep down to the rubbish, which is supposed to be fifty to seventy-five feet deeper. It is lined with rough masonry, having been dug through alluvial soil. There are ruins of the church, which once stood over the well, scattered about, but no signs of any curb or inclosing wall of any kind around the mouth (John iv. 1). This is one of the few places in Palestine that is not "honored" by some edifice or monument ' ' locating " the Bible narrative ; but it is said that the Greeks (Russians) have lately bought the place, with the intention of building » church over the well The valley of Mukna, the ancient Moreh, is one of the richest in the produc- tion of grain, fruit, and vegetables in all the land ; — vines, figs, oranges, lemons, pomegranates, in short, every fruitful tree, and all growing beside never-failing streams of pure water. The valley extends for about seven miles, and is the fairest expanse of cultivated soil in all the land. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 739 Samaritan priest (p. 159). The Assyrians carried away to the Euphrates the Jews of Samaria, and sent their own people to occupy the cities and the land. From these emigrants the modern Samaritans are descended. They have kept a copy of the law as it was on their day, 500 B. C. , and still celebrate the ancient form of worship, although there are only about one hundred of them left. The dress of the priest may be, and probably is, a correct following of the ancient style, and its description answers the requirements of the text in Exodus very closely. The enmity between the Jews and Samaritans began when they were refused to have a share in rebuilding the Temple at Jerusalem, after the return from the captivity in Babylon, when they built a temple for themselves on Mount G-erizim, at She- chem, in the time of Alexander. This was destroyed by John Hyrcanus, b. c. 129. In the fifth century a.d. there was a Christian Church on Gerizim, but only a few stones of the foundation are left. Tell Hum (p. 168). — In determining the antiquity of a name which is found attached to a certain locality, it is sometimes needful to follow it through several changes it may have undergone in passing from one language to another. In this archaeological skill Dr. Robinson was especially noted and successful, hav- ing recovered hundreds of Bible names from the modern Arabic titles to places noted in the Scriptures. W. M. Thomson was the first to discover the name of Capernaum in the Arabic Tell Hum. He says: "Hum is the last syllable of Kefr-na-hum, as it was anciently spelled, and it is a very common mode of cur- tailing old names to retain only the final syllable. Thus we have Zib for Ach- zib, and Fik for Aphcah, etc. In this instance Kefr has been changed to Tell — why ? A deserted site is generally named Tell, but not Kef?' (which is applied to a village) ; and when Capernaum became a heap of rubbish it would be quite natural for the Arabs to drop the Kefr, and call it simply Tell Hum." (See Capernaum. ) Scribes and books (p. 180). Cedars (p. 181). — There are few remains of the ancient forests on the moun- tains of Syria, and the cedars are the most noble specimens now standing. On the slopes of the Lebanon range there are several groves of the ancient cedars, one of which is near the Beirut-Damascus carriage road, and is quite easy of access to travelers, who have brought away thousands of the cones, which are nearly three inches long by two inches diameter, and one especially, Robert Mor- ris, LL.D., in 1868, distributed several thousands among Sunday-school scholars as incentives to a study of the natural history of Palestine. The largest cedars are found near the highest summit of Lebanon (Dhor el Khodib), close to the limit of perpetual snow. Bottles (p. 194). — There are several kinds of bottles used in the East, made of skins, earth, glass, and of metal. The skins are of various sizes, as they are taken from rabbits, kids, sheep, cows, holding from one gallon to thirty or forty. These are usually prepared with the hair turned inside, and so are likely to give the water or wine a peculiar flavor. These skin-bottles are the kind alluded to in the Scriptures, where new bottles are recommended for strength ; and they are also used in Spain now as well as in Palestine and other eastern countries. 740 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. The bottles of glass do not differ from ours, except that they are x>f very sin gular forms. Those found in tombs and in ancient ruins are, without doubt^ veritable antiquities, and have the well-known appearance of old, time-worn, decayed glass. Earthen bottles, or jars and pitchers, are always finely formed, and often elegantly ornamented with figures and colors. They are in constant use, as pails are with us, and are seen in the hands or on the heads of the women, morning and evening, at the wells, or on the way to and from. Metals, especially copper and bronze, were used for bottles and cups, and most of the smaller vessels, such as are made of tin or tinned iron with us, in the East are made of copper or brass. The ancients did not make brass, but bronze. The ancient pieces of money are bronze, as also many articles, such as knives, swords, handles, dishes, bowls, etc., and this compound was of copper and tin, the union of copper and zinc forming brass being a modern invention. Ancient Bottles (p. 197). Pool op Hezekiah (p. 199). — This pool is cut in the solid rock, and is oi great antiquity, and is the work of Hezekiah, King of Judah, who "made a pool, and a conduit, and brought water into the city ; " and also " stopped the upper watercourse of Gihon, and brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David." Jerusalem is chiefly dependent on the rains for its supply of water, and every house has under it one or more cisterns. The Hezekiah pool is 250 feet long, 150 wide, and capable of holding millions of gallons of water, which is used to supply several bath-houses. The pool is inclosed by houses on every side, one of which is a large hotel, kept by Europeans. The question of where the pool of Bethesda was, and which ruin or present pool is the true site, if any now remains, is one of the unsettled problems in the map of Jerusalem. Among the sites offered is the great pool or reservoir north of the Temple site, and now called the Pool of Bethesda, near the St Stephen Gate, and which has been lined with masonry and cemented for holding water, although it is now dry ; 360 feet long, 130 wide, 75 deep. Another, called by Eusebius and the Bordeaux Pilgrim the twin pools, which has been lately found at the north-west angle of the Temple area, a large reser- voir, 165 feet long by 48 wide (with a dividing wall running lengthwise, and both sides arched over, and now built over). The water is used by the Convent of the Sisters of Sion. The Arch of Ecce Homo is near the place. Mr. Williams {Holy City, p. 484) thinks the Bethesda pool was near the St. Ann Church, and now almost completely destroyed. Chancellor Crosby selects the Virgin Fountain, which is now outside of the city walls, as the true Bethesda. Our text offers the Hezekiah pool, which answers many, if not all, of th« requirements of the case. Sea of Galilee (p. 241). — The sea is pear-shaped, the large end at the north, six and three-quarters mile wide, and twelve and a quarter long. The LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 74:1 surface is between 600 and 700 feet below the ocean level. The shores are on all sides quite regular in outline, but the hills are indented into many little bays or hollows, some of which are small plains, filled with vegetation, and very beautiful. The hills are almost always gently sloping, and might be cultivated from bottom to top. The soil is rich, being formed on limestone. Basalt has flowed over the tops of the hills from three sources, Kurun Hattin, El-Jish, beyond Safed, and in the Jaulan. The beach is paved with minute white broken shells, and skirted in many places with oleanders and other flowering shrubs. The hills have a general tint of purplish brown, broken in some places by gray rocks, or lines of foliage. The east shore is 2,000 feet high, quite uniform in height along the summit of the ridge, but cut down by several deep ravines, with very few scattering trees, and no forests. On the west the banks are about the same height, but the uniform level is relieved by the outlines of Tabor and Hattin, which rise into the sky in the distance. Northward the outline is still more varied by the heights of Safed, the plain of Gennesaret, and the snow-capped Hermon. Towards the south the view is lost in the dim hazy heat of the Ghor, with Mount Gilboa and Little Hermon on the west side of the Jordan, and Gilead on the east. The locality of the Dead Sea can be made out by the level haze in the distant horizon, in the morning or near sunset. The Jordan river enters near the western shore of the north end, and colors the water for nearly a mile with its muddy current, and passes out at the south end, a pure bright stream. The water of the sea is in some places 250 feet deep, and is clear, bright, and sweet to the taste, except near salt springs. The climate is almost tropical, ice or frost never appearing. Palms and all kinds of trees and vegetables grow in luxuriance, and indigo is cultivated. The summer heat is high, but the cool breezes of the morning and evening relieve its oppressiveness. The waters are well stocked with many kinds of fish, some of which are much prized for their flavor. Several warm springs pour their waters into the sea, which were increased in volume and temperature by the earthquake of 1837. The most noted of the hot springs are those near Tiberias, where there are bath-houses of stone, quite well built. Josephus speaks of this place as Emmaus, near Tiberias. It was an ancient and fortified town of Naphtali, as mentioned in the book of Joshua (xix. 35). In the time of Jesus there were nine cities, or cities and villages, around the shores of this lake, only one or two of which now remain — Tiberias and Magdala. All the others are in ruins, and even so far destroyed as to be almost entirely lost. The sea has had several names, as Galilee, from the district in the Roman period ; Chinnereth, from a city which stood at or near the present Tiberias ; Tiberias, from the city which was named in honor of Tiberius, Emperor of Rome ; and Gennesaret, from the plain of that name on its north-west border. 742 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Lamp- STAND (p. 240). — The recent exploration in Palestine has found manj articles of domestic use, such as bottles, jugs, lamps of pottery, and some articles of copper, as rings and ornaments, daggers, heads of gods and serpents, and this lamp-stand, which was found in a chamber south of the Haram Area. Some of these articles were finely wrought, beautifully enamelled, or delicately inlaid. There were also a few articles of shell, ivory, and wood carvings, such as boxes and cases for the toilet, and objects of luxury. Mount op Beatitudes, Kurun Hattin (p. 242).— Almost unanimous con- sent locates the Sermon on the Mount on this mountain, which rises high abova the plain of Buttauf (Issachar), a little more than half way between Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee. Its Arabic name, Kurun Hattin, Horns of Hattin, de- scribes its appearance from a distance, for it is marked by sharp peaks at each end, especially as seen from the south. The view given in the engraving is from the opposite side of the plain, on the north, where the horns, or peaks, are not so apparent. The Hebrew word for horn, keren, is almost identical. It is the most prominent height on the west of the Sea of Galilee, and the plain at its northern foot is very easily reached from the coast towns, while from the plain to the summit it is but a few minutes' walk. There is a level place on the top, as described in the text, and also a higher standing-place on the horns. It is distinctly "the mountain" of the whole region, no other being comparable to it in prominence. The last great battle between the Crusaders and the Saracens took place on and around this mountain. On the 5th July, 1187, the noble army of Knights Templars, numbering 2,000, with 8,000 squires, men-at-arms, &c, formed their line of battle against the army of Saladin. The contest was carried on through several days, until the remnant of the Knights and their followers, then led by King Guy of Lusignan, Raynald of Chatillon, the Grand Master, the Bishop of Lydda, bearing the relic of the true cross, and Humphrey of Turon, were either killed or made prisoners. There has been no Christian power or ruler in Pales- tine from that day to this. Nain and Little Hekmon (p. 310). — The village of Nain is poorly built, of about twenty huts, on a rocky ridge, a spur from Little Hermon (Hill Moreh), and near the water-shed between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. The ruins of an ancient city lie around the village, and there are cave sepulchres in the steep side hill east of the site, and also on the west. The expedition of Gideon and his 300 men, with lamps in pitchers, and trumpets, is associated with this vicinity, for the plain in front of Nain is that on which the Midianites were camped. Tyre (p. 316) was built both on an island and on the mainland opposite, the island being very strongly fortified. Alexander found it necessary to build a causeway out to the island during his siege of the city, and the work still re- mains, joining the island to the shore. The population in the time of Christ was LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 743 nearly equal to that of Jerusalem. Cassius, a Christian bishop of Tyre, was at the Council of Csesarea. " William of Tyre " was archbishop in the time of th« Crusades (a.d. 1124), and wrote, in his history, an account of the wealth, strength, and manufactures of the city, among- which glass and sugar are men- tioned as articles of great value in trade. The Christian army abandoned the place on the eve of June 17, 1194, the Saracens took possession the next morn- ing, and have held it ever since. The ancient strength and wealth have disap- peared, and its present condition of silence and desolation, as compared to its former activity and magnificence, is a most complete fulfilment of prophecy. One stone alone of its great sea wall is left in its original position, near the north end of the island city. It measures 6^- feet thick by 17 feet long. The ruins have been used as a quarry, furnishing columns, capitals, panels, and wrought stones for buildings in Joppa, Acre, and Beirut, besides many fine works carried to Rome and Constantinople. The ruins of the Christian cathedral, in the south- eastern quarter of the modern village, are still imposing, and are visited by every passing pilgrim. It was about 250 by 150 feet in extent. Some of its main columns were red syenite, and now lie where they fell. The most interesting objects next to the cathedral ruin are the immense fountain and the remains of the aqueduct for supplying the city with water. A few days' work would repair the fountain as good as new. The water is bright and clear, and flows in a large stream, which is only used to turn some small mills built against the ancient walls. The largest pool or cistern is 80 feet across, octagonal, and 20 feet deep. Another is 52 by 47, and 12 deep ; and the third is 52 by 36, and 16 deep. Tell Hum (p. 319).— See Tell Hum, p. 168. GrERSA (p. 366). — The ruins of this place are on the east side of the Sea of Galilee, on the left bank of Wady Semakh, just at the foot of the hills, having a little plain half a mile to three-quarters of a mile in width between the site and the water. The city was enclosed with a wall about three feet thick. The largest ruin is of a rectangular building, which was built east and west, but which cannot now be identified either as a temple, synagogue, or church. Near the water there are a few ruined foundations and walls, which were the port of the ancient city. There is a hot spring in the hills a mile south of the site, where the hills come close to the sea, leaving only a roadway and a little beach, and forming a steep, even slope, which may have been the ' ' steep place " mentioned in Matthew viii. 28. There are no rock-hewn tombs (as far as has been examined), and the two demoniacs must have lived in one that was built above ground, similar to those described at Capernaum. Herod's Mite (p. 380). — The farthing was the smallest coin of Herod, unless perhaps the mite or lepton was still smaller. There are mites extant of Herod 744 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. (p. 589) of brass or bronze or copper. There is also a well-known mite of Tibe rius and Julius Cassar. The best idea of the value of the money that was in use in Palestine in the time of Jesus will be had from tables of Greek Coins. Lepton (mite) 2 mills. Drachma. 16 cts. Didrachm 32 " Stater 64 " Mina (pound) 16 dolls. Talent 960 " Hebrew — Copper or Bronze. Weight. G-erah ( ^t,-) ... 20 grains. 2 mills. One-sixth.... 88 " 3 " Zuzah (i) . . .132 " 4 " Bekah (■*)... 264 " 8 " Shekel 528 " 1 ct. 6 " Talent (1,500 shekels) 25 dolls. Roman Coins. As (farthing) 15 mills. Quadrans 3f cts. Denarius (penny) 15 " Aureus (stater) 3 dolls. Talent ...961 " Hebrew — Silver. Gerah (bean) 25 mills. Bekah (divided) 25 cts. Shekel (weight) 50 " Maneh (talent) 25 dolls. Kikkar (round) 1,500 " Talent (p. 446). — The Attic talent of Antiochus III. was valued about sixty- four cents, being equal to four drachms (tetradrachm). Stater (p. 437). — Tribute-money. The stater was equal to the shekel in the New Testament time, and therefore one stater was the sum required for the tribute for two persons. The image on it was of some Greek king or emperor, and an emblematical figure with an inscription telling whose money it was — as money of Alexander. Judas Money (p. 414). — The shekel coined by Simon or Eleazar. Map of Galilee (Central and South) (p. 378). — The numerous villages and cities, and the many unnamed ruins of ancient towns, give some idea of the dense population that inhabited Palestine in its prosperous days. Many of these sites are without names, and there are quite a number of Scrip- tural names not yet identified with their sites. There are not many roads now, and prc"bably never were more than a few great lines, connected with the smaller towns by bridle-paths, as is the case now, the traveller needing a guide for a jour- ney of a few miles. Tyre (p. 402).— See page 316. Sedon (p. 427). — The Great Zidon of Phoenicia was built on the northern slope of a promontory which juts north-west into the Mediterranean Sea, and is LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 745 the most ancient of the country. Homer says the large silver bowl given as tha prize to the swiftest runner by Achilles was made at Sidon (Iliad, xxiii. 743). Id the Odyssey (iv. 614) there is also an account of " a divine work," a bowl of silver with a gold rim, the work of Hephaestus, and a gift from King Phaedimus of Sidon. He mentions the beautifully embroidered robes that were brought from there for Andromache ; and it is also noticed in the Book of Kings (1 Ki. v. 6) that skilled workmen and not traders were their special pride. While under the Persian rule the city rose to great wealth and importance, and to live carelessly, after the manner of the Sidonians, became a proverb (Judges xviii. 7). The prize in a boat-race, witnessed by Xerxes at Abydos, was won by Sidonians ; and in reviewing his fleet he sat under a golden canopy in a Sidonian galley, and, at the grand assembly of his officers, the King of Sidon sat in the first seat. Strabo said there was the best opportunity for acquiring a knowledge of the sciences of arithmetic and astronomy, and of all other branches of philosophy. It is now called Saide. The vicinity is one great garden, filled with every kind of fruit-bearing trees, nourished by streams from Lebanon. Its chief ex- ports are silk, cotton, and nutgalls. A mission station of Americans are working among 5,000 people. There are many sepulchres in the rocks at the base of the mountain east of Sidon, and also in the plain. One of the most beautiful and interesting Phoeni- cian monuments in existence was discovered in a cave in 1855. It is a sarco- phagus of black syenite, with a lid carved in human form, bandaged like a mummy, the face being bare. There is an inscription in the Phoenician lan- guage on the body, and another on the head. In them the king of the Sidonians is mentioned, and it is said that his mother's name was Ashtoreth. The date of the inscription is assigned to the 11th century B.C. Gad aha (p. 407). — This was a Greek city, celebrated for the hot baths near it, and for its temples and theatres, the ruins of which may still be traced. It is five miles south of the Sea of Galilee, and nearly three from the river Hiero- max, which some think was called the Jabbok. Some of the ruined tombs have rooms ten to twenty feet square, and even larger, with many small recesses in their side walls for receiving bodies. The doors are of stone, turning on stone hinges, and some still in use by the people, who occupy the tombs as dwellings. There was a straight street from end to end of the city, nearly two miles long, with a colonnade on each side. Not a house or a column of the whole city is standing except the western theatre. The hot springs are in a natural basin near the river, a beautiful spot, and average 110° F., smelling strongly of sulphur, and they are now used by quite a number of invalids who believe in their curative properties. The ruins of baths and houses are so many and important as to indicate that there must have been at some time a population of at least a thousand invalids and attendants at the baths. The eastern theatre is still quite perfect in its ground plan, although the are covered with rubbish and loose stones. 746 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. The western theatre was much larger, and was only about a thousand feei from the eastern, and is in quite a good state of preservation, having been verj strongly built. The seats are of stone, well designed, finely finished, and scarcely show the effect of so many centuries of neglect. The entrance was by a grand stairway leading from the main street, having Corinthian columns on each side. The basalt pavement of the streets shows here and there the marks of wagon wheels, which had worn quite deep ruts in the hard stone. The Jordan valley, Sea of G-alilee, and the mountains beyond, are in plain view from the brow of the hill near the city. Bethsaida (p. 414). — This interesting place was on the Jordan, just above its entrance into the Sea of Galilee, and there was no second Bethsaida, as has been supposed, west of Capernaum. The arguments for and against are given with much detail by W. M. Thomson {Land and Book), and by the Palestine Explo- ration {Jerusalem Recovered). A misunderstanding of the text made it seem necessary to find a second place of the name on the shore of the sea. The re- cent discovery of the Sinaitic copy of the gospels, which gives a more correct version of the passage, has settled the question in favor of one city of the name located on the Jordan river It may have been on both sides of the river, and so have been one part "in Galilee" and the other "beyond Jordan." The ruins, although they are found on both sides of the river, do not appear equal to the requirements of the text of Josephus, in which it is described as an impor- tant city, raised to the first rank, and named Julias, in honor of Julia, tht- daughter of the Emperor Titus. Herod Philip, the Tetrarch, was buried there in a magnificent tomb, which has not yet been found. The place where the five thousand were fed has been located in the Plain of Butiha by some, and at Ain Ba- rideh, near Tiberias, by others. If the correction * of the reading derived from the Sinaitic MS. is the more ancient and reliable, then Ain Barideh, or more cor- rectly, Ain el Fuliyeh (Warm Springs), was the place. C^/SAREA Philippi (p. 416). — The ancient Paneas (Pan's city) was named in honor of Tiberius Caesar by Herod Philip, who added his own name to that of the emperor. It was a place of idolatrous worship from the most ancient times, and there are shrines near the Jordan source now. This fountain is one of the largest in Syria. The ruins of the town are on a hill a little east of the fountain. The ruins of the castle are on the hill above the fountain, and among them are some bevelled stones which indicate a Phoenician origin. "Mount Hermon" (p. 428), said Dr. Vandyke, of Beirut, Syria, "is a beautiful sight from every side, wherever visible, near or afar off." Its summit is crowned with perpetual snow, and its lower slopes are clothed with forests. The summer sun melts the snow from the crests of the ridges, leaving it in the * The corrected text reads: "When therefore the boats came from Tiberias (which was), nigh nnto where they did also eat bread." The most ancient writers record the tradition that the locality was at Ain Barideh. (John vi. 23. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 747 deep ravines, where it appears like long white lines at a distance, and has been compared to the white locks of an old man. The name Jebel-esh-Shekh nieana the chief mountain, a title which every traveller gives it spontaneously. It may be seen from the hills a few miles north of Jerusalem, and from any part of the country north of that, and also from the heights of Moab. Its height is a little less than ten thousand feet ; but as it stands alone and separated by several miles firom any other high range, it appears even more majestic and lofty than Leb- anon itself, which is higher. Whether this mountain or its slope near Paneas (Caesarea Philippi) was the scene of the Transfiguration of Jesus, has not been determined ; but the common consent of many writers on the subject has con- nected its name with that event, and the only other locality (Mount Tabor) which at one time was thought to have been the scene is now almost entirely rejected, partly because Josephus gives an account of a Roman fort on its summit, the foundations of which are still traceable. Joppa (p. 444). — This was the only port of Judea, and from the earliest times has been subject to danger, having been taken by armies, sacked, burnt, and rebuilt many times. Nearly every ancient nation of Europe and Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, has had a hand in making the history of Joppa. The present city is but little more than 125 years old — some of the residents remem- bering the time when there were not more than a dozen houses in the town — and the present number of people is about 16,000. Soap is the leading manufac- ture. Fruit and silk are exported in large quantities. The landing of shipping is made very dangerous by rocks, especially in windy weather, and even steamers are often compelled to go on to Haiffa, nearly sixty miles away to the north. The rocks which lie just outside of the inner harbor are famous in the works of the ancient historians and poets as the monster which devoured Andromeda and was killed by Perseus. They still devour many boats, and even large ships, with all their cargoes, and sometimes also their passen- gers. The gardens around Joppa are famous for most excellent fruits, probably be- cause the whole plain is percolated by the waters from the hills, which may be drawn up in every garden from a few feet deep. The followers of tradition show a "grave" of Dorcas and a "house" of Simon the Tanner. The tanneries are a little south of the city, where they pro- bably have been from the earliest, and were in Peter's time. The route for a railroad from Joppa to Jerusalem has been surveyed, following very closely the ancient, summer road of Solomon's time. It will seem almost a sacrilege to ask for "tickets for Jerusalem," and "through tickets for Bethle- hem," after the ages of weary climbing of pilgrims, mostly on foot, over the steep rocky hills. Siloam (p. 454) . — This pool is one of the very few localities in and around Jerusalem that is not disputed, and its Arabic name, Silwan, is almost identical with the Hebrew Shiloach, or Siloah. It is near the junction of the Tyro- 748 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. poeon valley with the Kidron. The reservoir is fifty-three feet long by eighteen wide, and nineteen deep. The water flows from the Virgin Fountain (and did formerly from other city pools), underground, to Siloam, with an ebb and flow de- pendent on the supply of water, being more freqent in the rainy season. There is another pool a short distance below this, which is nearly five times the size of Siloam, and is called the Birket el Hamra, and may be the Solomon's Pool of Josephus, and the King's Pool of Nehemiah (ii. 14). Jewish tradition makes Gihon and Siloam one and the same pool., The village of Siloam, seen in the view of the Kidron valley, page 629, is apparently a number of tomb dwellings Sanhedrln (p. 455). — The supreme council of the Jews, composed of seven- ty-one members, who represented the twelve tribes, consisting of chief priests (the heads of the twenty -four classes of priests), the elders (men of age, experi- ence, and honor), the scribes, and the doctors (an order of men learned in the sacred law). The president (Nasi, chief) was generally the high-priest, although chosen by vote (lot), and sat in the centre of the semicircle on an elevated divan, with the vice-president at his right hand. Two scribes acted as secre- taries. The room in which they met was called G-azzith, and was at one time in the south-east corner of the group of buildings around the Temple. It also met, according to Matthew (xxvi. 3), in the residence of the high-priest. They sat every day, from the morning sacrifice to the evening sacrifice, except Sabbath, when they instructed the people by lectures. The Sanhedrin, after the destruc- tion of Jerusalem (A.D. 68 to 80), met at Jabne (Jamneel), under the rabbi Zak- kai ; and after being transferred back and forth two or three times between Jabne and Usha, was finally located at Tiberias (A.D. 193), where it retained its name until about the year A.D. 300, when it lost its peculiar hold on the Jewish mind and became a consistory only, and in A.D. 425 finally closed its sittings. The seventy appointed by Jesus took the place in the new church of the San- hedrin in the old economy, as the twelve apostles answered to the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. xix. 28; Luke xxii. 30). If Moses was the real founder of the Sanhedrin, it had a continuous history for nineteen centuries. The only legal modes of punishing by death allowed to the Sanhedrin by the law of Moses were by stoning, burning, beheading, and strangling. The Romans took away this privilege, and no one could be put to death without their sanc- tion. The Small Sanhedrin was a judicial court appointed by the Great Sanhe- drin, and had twenty -three members and a president (excellency). Their time of meeting was on Monday and Thursday, which were stated market-days. A smaller court of three judges tried petty offences against the person or property. Denarius (p. 464). —The value of the denarius (penny) was fifteen cents, which, being the price of a day's labor, and also of a Roman soldier, would vary en. value from time to time. When first coined in Rome, B.C. 269, it was worth fifteen cents, but it was reduced by Nero to twelve cents. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 749 Way to Jericho (p. 466). — About eight miles from Bethany, on the road tc Jericho, which passes through what was probably the ancient valley of the brook Cherith, now Wady Kelt, there are ruins of a monastery or inn, on the right-hand side of the road, now called the Khan of the Good Samaritan, and on the oppo- site side of the brook, or Wady, there are other ruins not named. From the road, a few rods east of the ruins, there is a glimpse of the Jordan valley, the course of the river, the Dead Sea, and the Moab mountains. The place has always been noted as very unsafe to travellers, and is so now, and it is likely that on this account it was selected as the locality of the parable of the Good Samaritan. The region is called desert or wilderness, and is without dwellings, except the huts or tents of the shepherds who watch the flocks and herds, which find excellent pasture on the rocky hills and in the winding ravines a great part of the year. There are very few trees, many small shrubs, and in the winter an abundance of flowers. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho is very steep, descending nearly 4,000 feet in fifteen miles, and abounds in smooth rock and loose stones, both unsafe to the foot both of man and beast. Sometimes, as in the way below the ruin, the gorge is narrow, and walled in on both sides by almost perpendicular rocka 500 feet high, in the bottom of which the stream flows, or rather rushes in a continuous cascade or foaming rapids for miles together. The holes or caves of the hermits of the Middle Ages begin a few miles above Jericho, and are now occupied by birds only. Some of them have been examined and found to contain dust and bones ankle deep. No books or inscriptions of any kind, except a few names and extracts from the Scriptures, have been noticed. Here and there, as the way approaches the plain of Jericho, there are ruins of chapels on the heights, where the monks met for public services. The plain of Jericho appears from the road very level, and dotted in many places by green clumps of vegetation marking springs, and lines of trees also following the brooks, the broadest being along the course of the Jordan. Bethany (p. 466) is on the Mount of Olives, a mile and a half from Jerusalem east, and is now called El Lazariyeh (Lazarus' village). It is in a hollow, and the few tumble-down huts are on a slope, around and below an old tower, which is called after Lazarus, of course. There is also a tomb of Lazarus, into which you descend by twenty-six steps. The orchards near the village grow olives, almonds, pomegranates, figs, and carobs, while there are a few oaks. The people who live there are busy with their orchards or flocks, and also in the manufacture of articles of curiosity and slight use, including a number of anti- quities which they sell to travellers. Fountain in Per^ea (p. 480). — The east side of Jordan is almost unknown, scarcely one place in ten that were known in Bible times being now identified. There are few inhabited villages, but many tribes of Bedawins, living in black tents, whose numbers must be very great, yet far below the multitudes who filled the cities in the time of the Greeks and the Ptomans. The book on the ' 'Giant Cities 750 LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS. of Bashan " gives a glimpse of the many wonderful ruins which are found in every part of the land, from the Jordan to the desert. Captain Burton (of the Mecca pilgrimage fame) lately visited the Leja, the Trachon of the Romans, where he found many ruined cities, in which were many fine houses cut in the solid rock, and he gives a description of an extensive cave, one of those men- tioned by Josephus. The fountain drawn here is near the ancient Heshbon. Drachma (p. 487). — The value of the drachm varied from fourteen to seven- teen cents, with the kind of talent of which it was a division, and there were three varieties of talent : Attic, Phoenician, Ptolemaic. High-Priest (p. 507). — The dress of the Jewish high-priest, and the breast- plate, have been the subject of much inquiry, critical examination of the Hebrew text, and investigation into the manners, customs, and costume of the ancients, but without as yet determining beyond a doubt any one particular. The breast- plate was symbolical of the twelve tribes, and the placing of the twelve engraved gems in their several positions was a sign of the presence of the twelve tribes before Jehovah. Josephus gives a detailed description of the garments and their sym- bolical meanings in Ant. iii. 7, § 7. The " holy garments " were peculiar to and worn only by the high-priest, and certain pieces were put on only on the great day of atonement, when he went into the Holy of Holies to appear before the presence of Jehovah for the people. Ephraim (p. 508), now called Et Taiyibeh. The village is built on a conical hill, and completely walled in, about twelve miles north-east of Jerusalem. There are some ruins of antiquity, and the site is very favorable for fine pros- pects, and it is mentioned in both the Old and New Testaments (Joshua xviii. 23; Judges vi. 11 ; Micah i. 10; John xi. 54). Arch of Wilson, at Jerusalem (p. 528). — This is an arch on the west of the temple area wall, opposite the Double Gate of the Chain. It is an arched room which has been lined with cement or plaster, and used as a cistern, in some age later than that of its first construction. Exploration shows that the stones of the walls of this room, which were traced to a depth of forty -four feet below the spring of the arch, are of stones similar to those in the upper part of the wall of the Harem at the "Jews' wailing-place. " The chamber is now filled up with stones and rubbish nearly forty feet, on the top of which the cement is laid. There are several other smaller arched chambers in the same vicinity, which were used in their day for stores or for water. Jericho (p. 536). — There are three distinct localities at Jericho which claim our attention as the sites referred to in ancient history. The village of Er Riha is of least interest among the three, and can scarcely date before the Crusades, unless it may be one of the places mentioned in the book of Joshua, perhaps Gil- gal. Jericho of Joshua's time would then have been at the Elisha Fountain, LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 751 now called Ain es Sultan ; and the Jericho of the New Testament time at the foot of the hills where the brook Cherith, now WadyKelt, enters the plain. The name in the Hebrew means a fragrant place, and the abundance of flowering shrubs in the rainy season even now gives some color to the title. Josephus de- scribes it as surrounded by gardens, orchards, and palm-groves in his day, and says that it is not easy to light on any climate equal to it. The Romans held it as an important town, and Herod fortified it, naming the fort Cyprus, after his mother, and a town after his brother Phasaelus. He is also said to have built a new town a little north, in the same plain, which was also named Phasselis. Vespasian made it the head of a toparchy. It was destroyed during the siege of Jerusalem. The ruins are mostly foundations and heaps of rubbish, which have been quite extensively examined lately without yielding any valuable antiquity. Six miles across the plain, on the west bank of the Jordan, are the ruins of what is now called u The Jews' Castle," an old monastery of the time of the Cru- sades. It was once a grand pile of well-built cloisters and chapel, and is now quite an interesting ruin. The vaults are large and roomy, and would make ex- cellent store-houses, if there was anything there to store. What little grain that is raised in the plain is carried away by the farmers, who live among the hills, where the climate is cooler, as soon as it is harvested. Jerusalem (p. 544). — The view of the city from Olivet looking over the " Garden of G-ethsemane" is the finest, showing the city to its best advantage. At that distance it is a beautiful sight, with its domes, towers, walls, well- built convents, and English church. A nearer inspection reveals the utter neglect of streets and of the walls of houses fronting on the streets. The only pleasant places in the city are in the court-yards of houses, or in the square be- fore the English consulate and church, and in the Temple area. The streets are all narrow, and in many places arched over or shaded with awnings or mats, and are very badly paved or not paved at all. The rain makes a torrent in the mid- dle of the way, and no one takes the trouble to clean the street, street-sweeping being unheard of. The city is small, measuring a mile and a half by three-quarters, but there is scarcely a place in the world which has given scholars and investigators so much severe labor with so little result. It is almost completely an enigma, after so many years of the most careful exploration. The descriptions of the Old Testa- ment writers were not very minute, but those of Josephus were very exact and particular, while of many points there are accounts by other writers of antiquity, so that it seems almost marvellous that there should have been any difficulty, until we are reminded that during the Crusades, as well as in the earlier ages succeeding the destruction of the city by Titus, Jerusalem was regarded as a peculiarly sacred city, and the Christian residents desired to have every event that is mentioned in the Bible, as having happened in or near it, located and hon- ored with some appropriate memorial of tomb, chapel, or church, and therefore, when the exact location had been lost another was adopted and consecrated, and 752 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. among the multitude of "sacred localities" it is just a little surprising to find not only every trifling as well as important event preserved, but also the inci- dents and personages of parables embodied, and provided with a habitation and history, such as the rich man and his house. Stater (p. 553). Augustus Com (p. 571). — The imperial coin of the first Roman emperoi (Caesar) who assumed the title of Augustus, which means the venerable. This title was adopted by all the Caesars until near the downfall of Rome. Jerusalem (p. 582). See page 544. — The beautiful location of the city is given in this view, which shows the depression of the valley of Kidron (Jehosha- phat) and the height of Zion, with the very conspicuous site of the temple, so placed as to be visible from every direction. The dome of the work now standing over the famous Rock (said to have been Araunah's threshing-floor) can be seen from Kerak, beyond the Dead Sea, by good eyes without a glass, a distance of forty miles in a straight line. It is also visible from the summit of Cibeah, north- east of the city. Beautiful for situation the temple on Zion certainly was, as Bung by the " sweet singer of Israel." Farthing (p. 589.)— See Herod's Mite, page 380. Robinson's Arch (p. 596). — Edward Robinson, D.D., of New York, has done more to revive a study of the Bible in our day than any other man. His researches in Palestine are the most important work during the last century, if not since the Crusades, since they have been the direct means of restoring to our knowledge several hundred sites of cities named in the Bible, which had been lost for centu- ries. He also minutely examined many ruins, and rarely failed to bring out some point of historical interest. This "Arch" is the one destroyed by Titus in the destruction of Jerusalem, and the only remains visible above ground are the few jutting fragments in the wall to the right, as shown in the picture. The stones which formed the arch are lying on the rock or soil, more than forty feet below the present surface, the valley having been filled up, in some age since a.d. 70, to its present level. Half Shekel. — The shekel (p. 603) was first coined by Simon the Macca bee, under the authority of Antiochus VII., 139 B.C., and the inscription recorded this and other privileges that the Jews had received from their rulers, dating from the first year of Simon's rule : "In the first year of Simon the Benefactor of the Jews, High-Priest." The shekel was struck in silver and in bronze. There are a number of specimens still existing in the museums or in private collections of the coins of the Jews in nearly every age, from the first of Simon to the last of Barkokab, a.d. 130. The half shekel (p. 612) was the regular yearly Temple dues from each adult Jew. Those who lived in foreign lands, Greece, Egypt, etc., changed their money into Jewish coin before paying, because sacred money only could be received into the treasury. The devices on Hebrew coins had reference to the productions of the country. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 753 and also to their religious history. The bunch of grapes, palm-tree, palm branch, with leaves braided and called lulab, ears of wheat, cup of manna, vase or jar of oil, baskets of fruit, horns of plenty, the throne or chair of State, the State umbrella, anchor, wreath of olive leaves, Temple portico, are all well known on coins now in existence. Table (p. 615). — The oriental table is what we should call a tea-tray, is generally circular, five or six feet across, and is used on stool about sixteen inches high. The party sits on the divan on one side, and on cushions laid on the floor on the other sides, all around it. The servants (or the host's wife or daughter) serve the dishes, usually one at a time. There is a large copper table (or tray) at Salahiyeh, near Damascus, which has on it the revenue stamp of several Roman emperors, and has been an heir-loom in the same tribe, or it may be the same family, for nearly two thousand years. Nearly every traveller who goes there pays an extra price for a dinner served on this antique table. G-ethsemane (p. 628). — The so-called Garden of G-ethsemane is a "locality " of the Christian monks of Jerusalem, which is placed more for convenience near the city than for any desire to meet the demands of the text and of his- toric accuracy. The old olive-trees are its chief attraction, and are certainly great curiosities, being, without doubt, many centuries old, and, it may be, the descendants of some planted in the time of the Crusades. Titus de- stroyed all trees around Jerusalem during his siege, so that not one that was then growing, even if it could have lived so long, is now standing. The "garden," or " olive-press," as some read the original, was probably in some more retired part of Olivet, away from the public road, and, it may be, nearer Bethany. The most ancient Christian writers (Eusebius, Adamnanus) mention some such locality as "a place of prayer for the faithful" (Jerome), having a church built in it. The Empress Helena may have selected this spot, as she did many others, as convenient and appropriate for her special honors, and named it Gethsemane in memory of the place mentioned in the Gospel nar- rative. The eight old trees inside of the stone wall are supposed to have an addi- tional proof of antiquity in the fact that the Turkish government have always levied upon them, as they did on all fruit-trees which were standing at the time of their conquest, a tax of one medina ; those planted after that time being rated differently. This would date them before a.d. 634, when Omar took the city, or, if the Turkish conquest is meant, before A.D. 1087. The " garden" is filled with flowers of many kinds, which are carefully tended by the monks, and are pressed on little pieces of paper and sold to pilgrims. The walls of the city near the Stephen Gate are in plain view, only 850 feet distant. A little farther up the Kidron valley there are some "gardens" or shady places under olive-trees, where many resort for cool shade and quiet, away from the bustle of the city and distant from the public roads. Kedron Valley, from Akeldama (p. 629).— The valley of the brook Kid- ron below Jerusalem is full of gardens, which are supplied with water from Si- 48 754: LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. loam, and in the rainy season it is really a beautiful spot ; but in the hot, dry, and dusty summer it is almost a desert. In the view the Mount of Olives rises to the right, and the village of Siloam is at its foot, bordering the edge of the Kidron. Scopus is seen in the distance, and the corner of the Temple wall rises high over Ophel, which falls steep down on the west side of the Kidron. Both of these slopes are covered with tombstones, every one of which indicates a dozen graves below, or it may be a hundred bodies to each, for this has been a vast cemetery for all devout persons, both Christian and Mohammedan, and especially Jew, for many ages, and never in greater request than now. It is thought by some that Solomon's idol shrines were built on the site of Siloam, or on the summit behind it to the _ __ .t, while others think the pagan high place was more probably on the summit of Olivet. There were also shrines to Moloch in the valley of Tophet or Hinnom, where children were offered to the god in burnt sacrifice. This valley, with its horrid associations, has become the poetic type of hell. The Aksa mosque (originally the chapel built by the Knights Templars) is in plain view on the Temple site, and Zion rises high to the east, with its long slope terraced, dotted with orchards and scattering trees, and crowned with the ancient church and mosque called the Tomb of David. Everywhere the surface is carpeted with a bright green in the rainy season. The Tyropoeon Valley joins the Kidron at Siloam Pool, and the Hinnom valley at En Rogel, when the three become the Wady en Nar (Valley of Fire), and flow by the old convent of Santa Saba to the Dead Sea. (See page 662.) Map of Jerusalem (p. 636). — The various sites named, except Golgotha, are located according to tradition, or the selection of the monks at Jerusalem. Ecce Homo Arch (p. 671), over the Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem. This is called the Ecce Homo Arch because of the legend that Pilate exposed Jesus to the multitude at the middle window in the wall over the arch, and said, ' ' Be- hold the man." Pilate's palace may have been near, but there is no proof, either of ruin or record, as to where it actually was. Nor is there any reason to believe that the street called Via Dolorosa, "Way of Grief," is even on the line of the street through which Jesus was led "out" to Golgotha, and it certainly is not, if the true site of Golgotha has been found at the Jeremiah Grotto, north- west of the Damascus gate. The streets of the holy city are almost always fre- quented by pilgrims from every Christian country, habited in an endless variety of costume. The narrow way is often perilous from the rush of eager, hurry- ing, loaded men and animals, and is very unsafe after dark from the loose pave- ment, steep, crooked ways, and the numbers of half wild dogs, whose ' ' tooth " is against every eatable thing. Very few of the streets are named, although the Christians are beginning to apply names to some of the principal ways, for their own convenience of description. (See Jerusalem.) Calvary (p. 665). — The question as to the true site of the crucifixion has very much depended on the theories respecting the location of the two more / LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 755 ancient walls of Jerusalem. No one can be quite sure as to the precise location of those walls, and no recent discovery of what are supposed to be those remains can be used to strengthen the claim of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to be located &a the site of Calvary. It may argue that the Mary church built by Helena was on the same site, but cannot determine that the site selected by Helena was not adopted for convenience rather than fixed by actual knowledge of the ground. It would seem to be a very strange thing that the site of the crucifixion of their Master and His burial place should not have been carefully kept known to man- kind by his followers. We can scarcely imagine Americans of any generation losing knowledge of the grave of Washington. But we must recollect that the followers of Jesus were not superstitious, and that the departure of Jesus from the world was followed by the destruction of Jerusalem, that the Christians as well as the Jews were dispersed, and that succeeding centuries so changed the appearance of Jerusa- lem that now not a spot there is visible which was visible to the eyes of Jesus and his followers. If we take the Evangelists as guides, we must be sure that it was not the Church of Sepulchre, but probably was the hill of the Grotto of Jeremiah. The points in favor of our site as the true Golgotha (Hebrew for skull, as Kranion is Greek for skull, and Calvary is from the Latin for skull), are — 1. The place was out of the city, as this must have been then, and is now. 2. It was also " nigh unto the city," as this is about five hundred feet from the nearest part of the city wall. 3. The hill is shaped like the upper part of a skull. 4. The place was near a main road to and from the city, as this is. 5. The spot was very conspicuous, and this is also. 6. There were gardens and sepulchres near, and now (and probably also there were anciently) there are rock tombs of great extent and magnificence of design tjnd finish, which give an idea of the wealth and splendor of the ancient Jews. 7. And, finally, there is no other spot that claims equal attention or respect. Capernaum (p. 709). See page 168.— The ruin at Tell Hum, which stands near the water edge, is evidently a building of a later age than the synagogue, whose ruins are on the hill higher up. The view from near this spot is very fine. There are a great many thorns and thistles here, which make it almost impossible to move about, where once there were streets full of a busy, proud population. Restored view op Jerusalem (p. 704). Urpa Coin (p. 709). — This bronze coin, or medal, was found at Urfa, Syria, and may possibly date as early as the fourth or fifth century a.d. The inscrip- tion indicates a Christian origin, " Jesus Christ, king of kings." The specimen here engraved was loaned to the designer by Rev. G. B. Nutting, missionary of the A. B. C. F. M. at Urfa. Olivet (p. 710). — The mountain on the east of Jerusalem is between two and three hundred feet higher than the city, is more than a mile long from north to Bouth, and is divided into four summits, which are named, beginning at the 756 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. north, 1. Mount of the Men of Galilee (Viri Galilei); 2. Ascension Mount; 3. Mount of the Prophets ; 4. Mount of Offence. During the middle ages the mount was dotted all over with chapels or monu- ments of some kind, marking the localities selected as the sites of interesting events recorded in Scripture, and these are now still in use, or their former lo- cation is known and pointed out. The "ascension" is commemorated by a chapel on the summit, nearly opposite to the Temple site ; but this is merely a monkish tradition, and the true site of the ascension cannot be determined beyond the one important allusion in the text, which says that it was " as far as to Bethany" (Luke xxiv. 50), and therefore must have been somewhere on the eastern slope of Olivet. The view includes all that can be seen of the mountain from a point near the road to Mar Saba, north-east of the Arab village Beit' Sa- hur. The south-east corner of the Temple site just appears in the left side of the picture, to mark the position of the city of Jerusalem, and the site of Beth- any is but a short distance to the right of the large tree, hidden behind a ridge. Christian Thought, Edited by CHARLES F. DEEMS, LL.D. " Christian Thought " is the title of a Bi-Monthly Magazine, each num- ber containing 80 pages, handsomely printed on good paper. 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