Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN ' 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 JESUS RABBI, MESSIAH, MARTYR
 
 Rabbi, Messiah, Martyr 
 
 A Modern Picture of the 
 Story of Jesus 
 
 BY 
 HERBERT RIX, B.A. 
 
 Author of ' Tent qnd Testament'' 
 
 ILonDon 
 
 PHILIP GREEN, 5 ESSEX STREET, STRAND, W.C. 
 1907
 
 PRINTED BY ELSOM AND CO 
 MARKET PLAGE HULL
 
 NOTE 
 
 THE accomplished author of these short 
 sketches of the life of Jesus had long studied the 
 subject in the full light of modern research, and 
 his own observations in the land of the Gospel 
 story added in no small degree to his special 
 aptitude for the task here attempted. That 
 task was to set forth, as clearly and definitely 
 as possible, a picture of the great Life as it 
 emerges in our day, freed from the dust and 
 distortions of tradition. Mr. Rix's book, Tent 
 and Testament, referred to in his own note on 
 p. 2, was published at the close of last year, 
 shortly after his death.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Carpenter becomes a Rabbi . . i 
 
 II 
 
 The Rabbi becomes a Messiah ... 30 
 
 III 
 
 The Messiah becomes a Martyr. . . 55
 
 THE CARPENTER BECOMES 
 A RABBI 
 
 IN these three studies of the life of Jesus, 
 my object is to present in a very simple 
 manner an outline of that life as it emerges 
 into view after the critical process has 
 been applied to the Scriptural narrative 
 from which it is drawn. The reader is 
 doubtless aware that the life of Jesus 
 does not take the same shape to us as it 
 did to our fathers. We have nowadays 
 to make many deductions from the New 
 Testament story many allowances for the 
 superstitious age in which the story was 
 written. We have to allow also for the 
 strong doctrinal prepossessions of the 
 writers, and we have to use our better 
 understanding of the rise and growth of 
 religions and the connexions of Oriental
 
 2 JESUS AS RABBI 
 
 folk-lore. All this and much more has 
 to be taken into account ; so that Christ- 
 ianity historical Christianity has not 
 quite the same form and colour for us 
 as it had for our fathers. 
 
 With the critical process itself we have 
 little or nothing to do here. It is with 
 the product and that alone that I intend 
 to deal. I intend to give in briefest and 
 plainest form an outline of the main facts 
 of the life of Jesus as many of us now 
 conceive it. 
 
 And first, a word or two about the 
 externals of his youthful life. Tradition 
 says that Jesus was born at Bethlehem, 
 a small town to the south of Jerusalem. 
 But I believe there has been some confusion 
 here, and that he was actually born in 
 another Bethlehem, 1 a village in the north 
 of Palestine about seven miles from 
 Nazareth. If he was born in this northern 
 Bethlehem, it is probable that his parents 
 removed into the neighbouring town of 
 
 1 In the author's ' Tent and Testament ' this 
 view is given up, and Nazareth is held to be the 
 more probable birthplace.
 
 THE HOME OF JESUS 3 
 
 Nazara during his infancy, and that the 
 childhood of Jesus was spent in that town. 
 It is certain that throughout his life he 
 was known as Jesus of Nazara or to be 
 more precise, Jehoshua Nazerieh which 
 would be the Aramaic form of his name. 
 
 Nazara was a little cluster of cubical 
 houses built in an amphitheatre of rocky 
 hills. It was quite a small town very 
 little more than a village. The houses 
 were built in terraces, up the slope of the 
 hill. The streets were narrow, crooked, 
 and steep, and here and there a mountain 
 streamlet coursed down among the houses 
 and intersected the rocky terraces upon 
 which they were built. The little town 
 had its market-square, its public fountain, 
 and its synagogue just as many a small 
 country town in England has its market, 
 its town pump, and its church. 
 
 Here, then, Jesus was probably brought 
 up, and we may assume that his life was 
 much like that of other Jewish boys of 
 his time and class that he helped in the 
 house-work, went out on the hill to gather 
 sticks for the oven, did his part in the
 
 4 JESUS AS RABBI 
 
 olive and grape gathering, just as the 
 child of the English peasant does in the 
 hop-picking to-day ; went to school at the 
 synagogue, and played games in the little 
 market-place. Indoors, I am afraid, the 
 family was rather crowded, for Joseph 
 and Mary had seven children at least five 
 sons and two or three daughters ; and it 
 is likely enough that the whole family of 
 nine people lived, cooked, ate, and slept 
 in one room. This was the usual custom : 
 but if Joseph was a well-to-do man (and 
 there is some evidence that he was) he 
 may perhaps have had two or even three 
 rooms. In summer of course they slept 
 on the roof in the open air, according to 
 Eastern habit. 
 
 Their furniture consisted of a carpenter's 
 bench and tools, a kitchen fire-place, a 
 sheet of iron for baking bread, a few skin- 
 bottles, an earthen pitcher or two, some 
 cups, some thin mattresses which were 
 spread on the ground at night and rolled 
 up and put away on a shelf in the morning, 
 some mats upon which they squatted 
 cross-legged in the daytime, and a large
 
 THE FAMILY MEAL 5 
 
 chest holding rugs and blankets. There 
 were an oil lamp made of clay, a bushel, 
 a broom, and a mill. The bushel turned 
 topsy-turvy served as a table. That is 
 about all the furniture that Joseph and 
 Mary possessed ; and the inventory will 
 enable one, perhaps, to infer the sort of 
 life they led. 
 
 Every morning Mary and her daughters 
 ground some corn in the hand-mill, and 
 went to the spring for water ; and on the 
 proper days they would sweep the house, 
 bake the bread, and mend the clothes. 
 
 At noon the family met together for 
 dinner. The father returned thanks, the 
 eldest son repeated a prayer, and the meal 
 was served. They had no plates, but each 
 one had a large round biscuit which served 
 the same purpose. On the bottom of the 
 upturned bushel a dish was placed full of 
 curds or of wheatmeal porridge, into 
 which they all dipped their bread. There 
 were butter, cheese, eggs, and honey, and 
 in summer grapes and figs, and a curious 
 sort of cake made of the dried and pounded 
 bodies of locusts. There was no flesh
 
 6 JESUS AS RABBI 
 
 except on feast days. Their drink was 
 generally a thin home-made beer, brewed 
 from wheat and fruits, and called shechar. 
 
 After dinner they all went back to their 
 work till the evening, when they met again 
 for supper, which, however, was a much 
 simpler meal than dinner. 
 
 But now (more important than all this) 
 let us glance at the religious life of Joseph's 
 family. They were certainly pious, and 
 there is some evidence that their con- 
 nexions and associations were pharisaic : 
 that is to say, they belonged to the 
 Puritans of their time. Yakob, one of 
 Jesus' brothers, was noted in later life 
 for his narrow and minute piety : he was 
 a rigid and austere Jew, careful to omit 
 no rite and to observe all the purifications, 
 even after he had joined the Christian 
 movement. 
 
 When Jesus was six years old he was 
 sent to school. The classes were held in 
 the synagogue, and the schoolmaster was 
 the person who had charge of the building 
 and of the manuscripts. By the time 
 that he was ten or twelve years old he
 
 JESUS THE BUILDER 7 
 
 knew how to read, write, and reckon ; 
 and he was then initiated as a ' Son of 
 the Commandment,' which corresponds in 
 some sort to the church ceremony of 
 confirmation. From that time he had 
 to say a piece of Scripture called the 
 ' Shema ' every morning and every even- 
 ing. And I suppose that on Saturdays 
 he would now go to the men's service at 
 the synagogue instead of to the children's 
 catechizing to which Mary had hitherto 
 sent him. 
 
 Of his life from this time until he was 
 about thirty years of age we know nothing, 
 except that he worked with his own hands 
 as a carpenter or builder ; of this fact 
 we have satisfactory proof. We are, 
 indeed, as the result of certain textual 
 evidence, much more sure that Jesus 
 was a carpenter (or rather builder, for 
 that is the strict meaning of the term 
 used) than that his father was one. 
 Beyond this, we know nothing of his 
 early manhood. 
 
 When we next meet him he is in his 
 third decade.
 
 8 JESUS AS RABBI 
 
 With these brief glimpses of the early 
 home-life we must content ourselves. 
 These are, of course, little more than the 
 external details of the daily life, but they 
 will help us to realize the gulf between 
 the class to which Jesus belonged and 
 the aristocratic Sadducees of Jerusalem, 
 with whom Jesus had scarcely any rela- 
 tions at all till quite the end of his life ; 
 the immense gulf also between him and 
 the Roman military chiefs, who were 
 naturally profoundly ignorant of his exist- 
 ence till long afterwards. Jesus was, in 
 fact, at this time one of the most 
 insignificant people in the empire. 
 
 When he was about thirty years old 
 there came news of the advent of a young 
 prophet one who was recognized to be of 
 altogether larger calibre than the general 
 run of Rabbis, or than the Essenian 
 mystics and magicians. We must re- 
 member that Palestine was only about as 
 large as Wales, and that there was a pretty 
 constant traffic between the Galilean 
 villages and the Judean capital, so that 
 news of any such movement as this of
 
 JOHN THE NEW PROPHET 9 
 
 John the Baptist's would very soon reach 
 Nazara. And so it came about that the 
 young carpenter went up to Judea to see 
 and hear this new prophet. 
 
 The story of John's preaching is told 
 with some fulness in the Gospel of Luke, 
 and may be accepted pretty much as it 
 stands, so far as the character and sub- 
 stance of his teaching is concerned the 
 teaching of repentance and good works. 
 The account tallies substantially with that 
 given by Josephus in his famous history. 
 But Luke's theory that John was the 
 predestined and conscious forerunner of 
 Jesus is quite another matter. It is in 
 all probability quite a mythical idea an 
 afterthought of a subsequent generation 
 evolved from certain theological consid- 
 erations. 
 
 What the relations of John to Jesus 
 actually were is rather difficult to deter- 
 mine. But I will state briefly how I 
 believe that the matter really stood. 
 
 In the first place, it must be understood 
 that John was in his time a vastly more 
 important person than Jesus. The very
 
 10 JESUS AS RABBI 
 
 fact that Josephus writes as he does about 
 him shows that John the Baptist was a 
 person to take account of. He makes 
 only one bare mention of Jesus, and even 
 that bare mention is of doubtful authen- 
 ticity ; but of John he gives some 
 considerable particulars. Jesus, in fact, 
 until quite near the end of his career, was 
 a person of merely local celebrity. He 
 was, moreover, provincial speaking with 
 a rustic accent in a provincial dialect, as 
 the few original words of his speech which 
 are recorded, plainly show ; while John, 
 on the other hand, was of national celebrity, 
 was the son of a priest, was of Judean 
 birth, and met with very considerable 
 support even among the better class. 
 He was also much more in line with the 
 orthodox Judaism, from which Jesus very 
 soon began to break away. This being 
 so, we may, I think, put aside the idea 
 that John already recognized Jesus as 
 the coming Messiah and himself as the 
 Messiah's forerunner. With even greater 
 certainty we may put aside the idea that 
 Jesus and John were blood-relations a
 
 BAPTISM OF JESUS II 
 
 notion entertained by Luke, but incon- 
 sistent with the rest of the gospel history 
 In short, their personal relationships at 
 this time probably resolve themselves into 
 the simple one of prophet and disciple. 
 
 John's mission was strange, and appar- 
 ently new. His theory was that Israel 
 was hopelessly defiled, and that God 
 would never deliver it from foreign bondage 
 until it was purified. Therefore he set 
 himself to form a new and purified Israel 
 an Israel within Israel ; and he chose 
 baptism as the sign of admission to this 
 new Israel. Jesus the carpenter resolved 
 that he too would be consecrated and 
 become a member of the new Israel, and 
 he therefore underwent at John's hands 
 the ceremony of baptism. There is much 
 that is doubtful about this part of the 
 story, but this, at any rate, is historical 
 Jesus left his home, travelled to Judea, 
 heard the preaching of John, and was 
 baptized at his hands. 
 
 After his baptism Jesus lingered in the 
 South for some considerable time. There 
 is a credible tradition that he spent a
 
 12 JESUS AS RABBI 
 
 part of that time in the neighbouring 
 wilderness of Judea, living as a hermit 
 in Oriental fashion and meditating upon 
 John's doctrine. The story of the Temp- 
 tation in the wilderness is perhaps a 
 figurative account of his experiences at 
 this time given by Jesus himself to his 
 disciples at a later day. It is susceptible 
 of different interpretations, but the inter- 
 pretation which to myself seems best to 
 fit into the general outline of his life is 
 that he was tempted to lay claim to the 
 Messiahship (the Jewish Messiahship) and 
 that he withstood the temptation. He 
 was tempted, that is to say, once again 
 to raise the banner of Jewish revolt, and 
 he put the temptation aside because he 
 saw that such revolt would involve the 
 adoption of evil and devilish instruments 
 and means. I believe that he therefore 
 at this time put aside all idea of claiming 
 Messiahship, and that it was not till long 
 afterwards that he reconsidered that idea 
 and finally adopted it in a wholly different 
 and, indeed, novel sense. 
 
 The spiritual principles which emerged
 
 JESUS' CALL TO WORK 13 
 
 in his mind as the result of this inward 
 conflict will be considered later. Let us 
 hasten on to the next event which in- 
 fluenced the course of his life. 
 
 This event was the apprehension and 
 imprisonment of John. It was a tre- 
 mendous blow to John's disciples and to 
 the great cause which they had at heart, 
 and no one seemed to emerge who could 
 lead the movement and carry it forward. 
 Then it was that Jesus felt his own call 
 to the work. But he also felt that he 
 must do the work in his own way, and 
 must develop it along those lines which 
 he had marked out for himself in the 
 retirement of the wilderness. His first 
 step, therefore, was to return to Galilee, 
 where he was at home, and where he 
 understood the character of the people, 
 the social forces at work, and the means 
 which were at his disposal. 
 
 Almost immediately after his return 
 he removed from Nazareth to the lake-side 
 town of Caphar-Nahum (the Village of 
 Nahum). Caphar-Nahum, or as we pro- 
 nounce it, Capernaum, was a busy place
 
 14 JESUS AS RABBI 
 
 situated on the chief commercial road 
 from Syria, to the Mediterranean Sea and 
 Egypt a port also, which had the carrying 
 trade to and from the opposite shore of 
 the lake altogether an important centre 
 not so important, of course, as Tiberias, 
 but Tiberias was inhabited by foreigners 
 and pagans and was loathed by the Jew, 
 especially by the pharisaic Jew. Caper- 
 naum answered the purpose of Jesus better 
 in everyway. 
 
 As soon as Jesus had taken up his 
 quarters here, he invited four young men 
 of his acquaintance to join him in his 
 enterprise, and together they occupied a 
 house, which they made their head-quarters. 
 At first Jesus confined his operations to 
 teaching in the synagogues of Capernaum 
 and the neighbouring villages, taking up 
 the burden of John's message, ' Repent, 
 for the kingdom of God is at hand.' There 
 was nothing offensive to the Jews in this 
 message ; in fact he was at this tune 
 distinctly popular ' He taught in their 
 synagogues, being glorified of all.' 
 
 To put the matter briefly iljesus appeared
 
 BEGINNING OF MINISTRY 15 
 
 to his neighbours at this time to be simply 
 a young Rabbi who was becoming rather 
 prominent in that country-side. The busi- 
 ness of a Rabbi was to give advice to people 
 who consulted him about the law, to heal 
 the sick both by medicines and charms, 
 and to pronounce edifying aphorisms and 
 maxims ; and this answers to the picture 
 which we have of Jesus at the commence- 
 ment of his Galilean ministry. He had 
 not, it is true, attended the great schools 
 at Jerusalem, but he had undergone some 
 training in the traditional law ; we know 
 from his quotations many of the books 
 which he had studied ; and we know of 
 one or two occasions on which he used the 
 formulae for exorcizing demons which other 
 Rabbis used. In fact Rabbi Jehoshua 
 Nazerieh, as he was now called, held the 
 recognized status of a Jewish Rabbi, and 
 was so addressed throughout his ministry 
 until he himself abjured the title. // 
 
 The next event of any significance which 
 we read of was a tour which he made in 
 the neighbouring villages. Here we have 
 the first departure from the normal life of
 
 16 JESUS AS RABBI 
 
 the Rabbi. The Rabbi was not usually 
 a missionary, but Jesus evidently felt that 
 this was the most effectual way of carrying 
 forward John's work of establishing the 
 new Israel. 
 
 In the course of this tour occurred the 
 incident of the leper, an incident which 
 showed that, up to this point, however un- 
 conventional however original he might 
 be, he had by no means broken with the 
 established order. For on this occasion he 
 followed the prescribed rules to an even 
 greater extent than he need have done. 
 
 According 'to the Levitical law only the 
 priest could pronounce a man clean from 
 his leprosy, but it had long been the practice 
 for any scribe or Rabbi to provisionally 
 pronounce a man clean, which verdict had 
 afterwards (as soon as convenient) to be 
 confirmed by a priest at Jerusalem. Now 
 in the time of Jesus there was considerable 
 laxity in this matter, and in places distant 
 from Jerusalem the Rabbis had come to 
 usurp entirely the place of the priest, and 
 pronounce on their own authority the de- 
 cisive and final declaration of cleanness.
 
 HEALING THE LEPER 17 
 
 It is interesting therefore to find that when 
 such a man came to Jesus to have himself 
 pronounced clean, Jesus touches him and 
 says (using the recognized formula) ' Be 
 thou clean ' ; but immediately tells him 
 to go to the priest and have the declaration 
 confirmed. In other words, Jesus does not 
 even take the full licence which custom 
 allowed, but kept well within the limits of 
 the Levitical law. I may add, by the 
 way, that there is no sufficient reason 
 for thinking that Jesus healed the man, 
 though a legend grew up to that effect, 
 and by and by went so far as to multiply 
 the man by ten. 
 
 The whole picture, indeed, of the ministry 
 of Jesus in these first weeks is one of success 
 and approval. There is no suspicion of 
 heterodoxy, no coldness on the part of the 
 authorities, no lack of enthusiasm on the 
 part of the people. He returns from his 
 missionary tour ; takes up his quarters 
 again in the house which he occupied at 
 Capernaum, and admits all comers to hear 
 his teaching, till ' there was no longer room, 
 no, not even about the door.' 
 
 c
 
 l8 JESUS AS RABBI 
 
 The next stage in the story, taking it in 
 its natural order (the order which Mark 
 gives us) exhibits the first beginnings of 
 heterodoxy the little rift within the lute. 
 The trouble began by his doing what every 
 respectable Rabbi, indeed every decent 
 Jew must have felt to be a most injudicious 
 act. He invited Levi, a tax-gatherer a 
 man who, by his very profession, was of 
 necessity an unpatriotic, and therefore, 
 from the Jewish point of view, an irreligious 
 man, to come home to dinner with him. 
 /"Up to this time Jesus had been well 
 /within the bounds of Jewish decorum, but 
 
 / this act transgressed those limits, bespoke 
 a certain vein of indiscretion and social 
 
 I rebellion which is so often the first step 
 
 Vtowards religious heterodoxy. 
 
 It is sometimes represented that Jesus 
 went to Levi's house, and that Levi was 
 the same as Matthew. This confusion is 
 caused by a misunderstanding on the part 
 of the editor of Matthew's Gospel. I 
 cannot now enter into the matter, but 
 I have no doubt at all that Professor 
 Kuenen is right ; Levi and Matthew were
 
 EATING WITH SINNERS IQ 
 
 two different people ; the ' call ' (as it is 
 translated) was not a call to discipleship, 
 but a simple invitation to dinner ; and the 
 ' house ' was not the house of Levi, but the 
 house of Jesus. 
 
 Well, this feast at Jesus' house made a 
 ' stir, for he not only invited Levi, but a 
 number of other ceremonially unclean per- 
 sons. All kinds of outcasts and unclean 
 people people who made no sort of 
 attempt to keep the ceremonial law 
 'publicans and sinners,' whose very touch 
 defiled the Jew that suffered it were 
 invited to sit down to table with Jesus. 
 Another thing which caused equal 
 astonishment was that Jesus never ex- 
 horted his associates or his hearers to fast. 
 This would not have been so remarkable, 
 perhaps, were it not that Jesus himself 
 came of a pharisaic family, that he himself, 
 up to this time had always been reckoned 
 as belonging by religious zeal and Messianic 
 hope to the pharisaic connexion. That one 
 of ' the pious ' (as they were called), nay, 
 that one who actually pretended to take 
 up the prophet John's own cry of ' the
 
 20 JESUS AS RABBI 
 
 coming kingdom,' should give up fasting 
 and never enjoin fasting upon others, was 
 an outrage on the religious customs, the 
 religious sense, the whole fitness of things. 
 It was as if a quaker should take to wearing 
 gay garments, an old-fashioned dissenter 
 take to dancing nay, more, it was as if a 
 minister, and an eminent minister, should 
 put on worldly airs and neglect the 
 practices of religion. The whole attitude 
 which Jesus began to take up came as 
 a shock to his old religious associates. 
 
 One day, at about this time, he was 
 going through the cornfields on the 
 sabbath I need not narrate the incident : 
 it was to the Jews a clear case of sabbath- 
 breaking, and a man who broke the sabbath 
 deliberately, and actually led his hearers 
 to do the same, was as black as any blas- 
 phemer in the eyes of the pious Jews. On 
 another sabbath-day he healed a man, 
 and actually healed him in the synagogue. 
 And on this occasion he not only justified 
 himself, but poured scorn on the sabbath- 
 keepers as if it were they, and not he, who 
 were in fault.
 
 REPLIES TO CRITICS 21 
 
 Indeed, it was the way in which he justi- 
 fied himself which made it so hard to bear 
 on these and other such occasions. He 
 never deigned to appeal to Scripture, un- 
 less it was to give it a perverse and half- 
 humorous turn, as for instance when he 
 declared that the priests broke the sabbath 
 in the temple, and that David ate the 
 sacred bread and was none the worse. 
 The answers which this young man gave 
 to the reproaches of the elders were such 
 as showed that he was in a state of religious 
 and social rebellion. If he was reproached 
 for eating with sinners, he said sarcastically 
 that he did not come to call the righteous. 
 If he was criticized for pursuing his new 
 mission without even so necessary an 
 observance as fasting, he said his new 
 mission was like new wine and must go 
 into a new bottle as much as to say that 
 their old customs were worn-out old wine- 
 skins, which would not hold a drop of the 
 strong wine of youth. If he was reproved 
 for sabbath-breaking, he said that the 
 sabbath was made for man not man for 
 the sabbath.
 
 22 JESUS AS RABBI 
 
 It was this sabbath question which proved 
 the last straw. The Pharisees completely 
 broke with him over that question. He 
 was a dangerous man, for he was not only 
 rebellious but successful. They were de- 
 termined that he should be put down. 
 ' They took counsel against him how they 
 might destroy him.' 
 
 The next stage is, The response of 
 Jesus to the action of the Respectabilities. 
 They had cast him out. They had cast 
 him off from the established order. Very 
 well, he would do without them : he would 
 establish a new order. The people were 
 with him, and that was all that mattered 
 it was for the people he lived, and if the 
 religious respectabilities could not receive 
 his vision the people could. The religious 
 folk would not have him in the synagogue. 
 It did not matter : a boat would do for 
 a pulpit, and the free heavens were as 
 good as any synagogue. ' Jesus with his 
 disciples withdrew to the sea : and a great 
 multitude followed. And he spake to 
 his disciples that a little boat should wait 
 on him because of the crowd, lest they
 
 THE MISSION OF JOHN 23 
 
 should throng him.' \^As so often happens 
 indeed, as nearly always happens the 
 escape from the routine of the established 
 order, the deliverance from the trammels 
 of unreasonable custom, led almost im- 
 mediately to wider activities. The vision 
 of Jesus began to grow. Since he was to 
 work outside the established agencies, he 
 began to organize an agency of his own. 
 His mind was still set on extending the 
 mission of John, so he chose twelve men 
 from among the crowd of his habitual 
 followers and gave them special instruction, 
 keeping them by him and explaining to 
 them his doctrine, in order that he might 
 afterwards send them out with John's cry 
 upon their lips, that the kingdom of God 
 was at hand an intention which was 
 afterwards carried into effect.// 
 
 How these activities of his might have 
 been regarded if he had remained within 
 the pale of religious custom and decorum 
 it is impossible to say. Perhaps he would 
 have been a second John the Baptist, 
 universally regarded as a prophet by the 
 populace, looked upon with some suspicion
 
 24 JESUS AS RABBI 
 
 by the ruling powers, but not openly 
 denounced by them ' for fear of the people.' 
 This possibility, however, was negatived 
 by the false steps, the social rebellion, the 
 defiant heterodoxy to which he had 
 already committed himself. To go out 
 into the wild country and prophesy in 
 the open air, to sit upon a mountain and 
 there on the serene heights to organize an 
 unheard of mission might, but for this, 
 have been passed by as eccentricity ; but 
 his antecedents converted this eccentricity 
 into sheer madness. 
 
 To this stage of rebellion belongs rather 
 a touching little incident. Jesus' old 
 master and tutor, John the Baptizer, sent 
 a deputation to ask him to explain himself. 
 Jesus had a profound reverence for John. 
 John was, indeed, a man of altogether 
 larger mould than the provincial Pharisees 
 with whom Jesus had come into conflict. 
 Still, he belonged to the orthodox. He 
 seems to have entertained great hopes 
 about Jesus. It is even said that he had 
 come to think that he might be the very 
 Messiah himself. At any rate, it is certain
 
 THE COMING MAN 25 
 
 that he had hope he was some sort of 
 coming man who should help in preparing 
 the way of Jehovah. Then he hears about 
 his inviting all kinds of tax-gatherers, 
 Gentiles, and the like to his house ; he 
 hears, too, that he has given up fasting 
 and he is profoundly disappointed. So he 
 sends this deputation ; and Jesus is ap- 
 parently placed in this strait either he 
 must defy the orthodoxy of John as he 
 has defied that of the Rabbis, or he must 
 prevaricate. He does neither. He sends 
 a gentle answer but a true one asks only 
 that John (that man of large mind) will 
 not judge him by external rules, but will 
 look beneath the surface look at his work 
 among the people, ' the poor have good 
 tidings preached to them.' 
 
 But you see that the situation was 
 becoming rather painful. To fight the 
 narrow, exclusive ceremonialists may have 
 been exhilarating, but to pain an old friend 
 and teacher there one feels the rub! 
 
 There was a still harder trial approach- 
 ing. It came to the ears of his brethren in 
 the carpenter's shop at Nazara that their
 
 26 JESUS AS RABBI 
 
 Jeshua their brother Jesus had turned 
 out a glutton and wine-bibber, and a 
 sabbath-breaker, that he did not keep the 
 fasts, that the synagogue did not recognize 
 him, and now that he was organizing some 
 wild mission among his irreligious followers 
 and there was but one conclusion which 
 could possibly be drawn ' He is beside 
 himself.' 
 
 So they came down, they and their heart- 
 broken mother, from their little mountain 
 town to the busy port of Capernaum. 
 When they arrived, Jesus had just come 
 back ; he had ventured once more into 
 Capernaum with his twelve missionary 
 students and a host of nondescript disciples 
 women among them a certain harlot 
 whom he had saved, besides one or two 
 well-to-do women who ought to have 
 known better, ' Joanna, the wife of 
 Herod's steward, Susanna, and many 
 others.' 
 
 They came to his house, but could not 
 get in because of the crowd, for ' a multi- 
 tude was sitting about him ; and they say 
 unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy
 
 BREAKING WITH HIS FAMILY 27 
 
 brethren without seek for thee.' Already 
 he has had to pain his old master, now he 
 knows that he has pained his family, and 
 he has to choose. He must break away 
 from his mission or break away from his 
 family. He must forsake his disciples or 
 forsake his brethren. There was of course 
 no room for hesitation, but still it must 
 have cost him a pang to utter those words 
 in which he told his disciples that hence- 
 forth they would have to be mother and 
 brethren to him for he must lose his own : 
 ' He answereth them and saith, Who is 
 my mother and my brethren ? And look- 
 ing round on them which sat round about 
 him, he saith, Behold, my mother and my 
 brethren ! /, 
 
 The same rumour which had reached to 
 Nazareth reached also as far as Jerusalem. 
 There was a pretty brisk traffic between 
 Capernaum and Jerusalem, and the cara- 
 vans which were always passing to and fro 
 took the news. Forthwith some of the 
 Jerusalem scribes came down to see with 
 their own eyes. They could not deny that 
 the young Rabbi was successful as a healer,
 
 28 JESUS AS RABBI 
 
 but his eccentric teaching and his irreligious 
 ways sufficiently proved that it was by no 
 divine help that he healed. They declared 
 that the Devil himself aided him to cast 
 out devils. 
 
 And then, once more this fiery prophet 
 took a fatal step once more he set himself 
 to defy the constituted authorities. He 
 had already put himself wrong with 
 Capernaum, now he set himself wrong with 
 Jerusalem. He began by laughing at them 
 pouring scorn upon the idea of a division 
 in Satan's household ' Satan casting out 
 Satan.' He went on to ask them how 
 their own sons, the other Rabbis, cast the 
 devils out. And finally he warned them 
 in scathing tones of the unpardonable 
 wickedness of calling good ' evil.' They 
 had touched, indeed, the very centre of his 
 belief the very point for which he con- 
 tended the one thing for which he lived 
 and for which he was ready to die. ^They 
 had declared that the quality of a man's 
 work was to be judged by his observance 
 of traditional religion, while he ever more 
 and more strenuously was coming to
 
 HIS CENTRAL DOCTRINE 2Q 
 
 insist that traditional religion did not 
 matter, that what did matter was the 
 heart, and that the heart could read the 
 heart. If they had a good heart they 
 would know that his work was good. 
 But if they looked upon goodness and 
 called it evil they were maligning the 
 Indwelling God himself /'' Verily I say unto 
 you, All their sins shall be forgiven unto 
 the sons of men and their blasphemies 
 wherewith soever they shall blaspheme : 
 but whosoever shall blaspheme against the 
 Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is 
 guilty of an eternal sin.' 
 
 Of this central doctrine of Jesus we have 
 scarcely yet caught a glimpse. We have 
 been looking at the life principally as it 
 appeared to others. In our next study 
 we shall have occasion to look at it more 
 from within ; for at this point the gospels 
 give us some account of his teaching and 
 his method, without which, indeed, his 
 subsequent history and fate could not be 
 understood.
 
 II 
 
 THE RABBI BECOMES A MESSIAH 
 
 WE come now to a period of mission- 
 ary energy of undetermined dura- 
 tion. The geography of this period is 
 vague and the chronology still vaguer. If 
 there is any truth at all in the theory of a 
 three years' ministry, it is at this part of 
 the story that the extra time involved 
 must be -inserted. 
 
 But while the externals of the story are 
 just here particularly vague, the inner 
 history becomes more distinct. Jesus goes 
 upon a missionary tour taking his twelve 
 disciples with him. He performs many 
 miracles the miracle of the Gadarene 
 demoniac, of the woman with an issue of 
 blood, and of the raising of Jairus's 
 daughter are narrated. But I do not dwell 
 upon them, because, while I do not doubt 
 that in each of these three miracles a real
 
 THE METHOD OF HIS TEACHING 3! 
 
 event lies behind the story, I do not think 
 they are of nearly such significance as is 
 generally supposed. What is really sig- 
 nificant for the understanding of the life is 
 the character of Jesus' teaching at this time. 
 // Like every teacher in every age Jesus 
 was partly dominated by the ideas of his 
 time, but like every great teacher he partly 
 emancipated himself from those ideas. 
 With Jesus the emancipation was quite 
 marvellous a wonder for all time ! And 
 to carry that same emancipation into the 
 hearts and intellects of his countrymen 
 was his aim, as it has been the aim of all 
 the good and great who have worked in 
 the sphere of mind and morals. 
 
 Now, there is no possible way of carrying 
 on such a revolution in the popular mind 
 but that of seizing upon the existing ideas 
 and transforming or expanding them. 
 And this was rather specially the case with 
 the Jewish mind, because the Jew had no 
 natural aptitude for philosophic thought. 
 His language was a very concrete language, 
 and his thought always laboured through 
 a series of concrete images. It would have
 
 32 JESUS AS MESSIAH 
 
 been useless for Jesus to approach the 
 populace with a scheme of thought ex- 
 pressed in abstract terms ; he could only 
 reach them by taking one of their own 
 symbols and reclothing it. // 
 
 We are all familiar with that governing 
 idea of Jewish belief ' the coming king- 
 dom.' t It began with the prophets as a 
 truly poetic figure lived on through the 
 apocalyptic literature, varying both in 
 form and intensity with the fortunes of 
 the nation always blazing up into renewed 
 vigour when those fortunes were depressed 
 until in the time of Jesus it died out in 
 despair in the hearts of the cultivated 
 Sadducees, but was passionately main- 
 tained with a desperate and even fanatical 
 enthusiasm by a great part of the populace. // 
 
 Upon this notion, then, of the coming 
 kingdom, Jesus seized, and upon this he 
 worked. Perhaps he was himself partly 
 dominated by the idea. But at any rate 
 he very plainly saw that the sort of 
 kingdom his countrymen desired was not 
 only impossible, but bad. And at this 
 beginning of his missionary work he threw
 
 COMING KINGDOM 33 
 
 his whole energy into supplanting it by a 
 better and truer notion. 
 
 We have in the gospels the parable of 
 the sower ; the parable of the mustard 
 seed ; and the parable of the seed springing 
 up we know not how, first the blade, then 
 the ear, and then the full corn in the ear. 
 All of them are narrated to explain the 
 nature of the coming kingdom ; all of 
 them insist that it does not come with 
 observation that it comes by growth, 
 not by catastrophe. Jesus has in fact a 
 new conception of the kingdom, and it 
 is upon this that he insists and again and 
 again insists ; it is this which he ' privately 
 expounds to his own disciples.' 
 
 His whole heart is set upon revolutioniz- 
 ing the Jewish idea of the Messianic 
 kingdom. So full is he of this purpose, 
 that like every enthusiast he expects 
 success to be rapid and certain. When, 
 in the course of one of his circuits of the 
 country, he comes to his native town, it 
 apparently does not occur to him (what 
 seems so natural to us) that the very famili- 
 arity of the townsmen with his name and
 
 34 JESUS AS MESSIAH 
 
 early history will lessen his influence. 
 When he preached and was rejected, we 
 read that ' he marvelled because of their 
 unbelief.' In most cases, however, he 
 attains the success which he expects, and 
 so far his rupture with the Rabbis has not 
 done his cause much harm. '/ 
 
 It now appears to him that the time has 
 come to carry out his project of extended 
 missionary effort by means of his twelve 
 companions. Accordingly he calls them 
 to him, gives them instructions, and sends 
 them out two by two. His instructions 
 are exceedingly interesting, for they are 
 almost identical with the instructions 
 which were given to travelling Essenes. 
 (The Essenes, as is well known, were 
 Jewish monks who lived in the Wilderness 
 of Judea). These instructions were-^-to 
 stay only at the houses of those who were 
 in accord with their aims and teaching, 
 who would be recognized by their reception 
 vf - of the Selam. or greeting of peace to carry 
 no provisions, no wallet, no money, and 
 no clothes but those they were wearing 
 a single pair of sandals and a single tunic
 
 THE ESSENES 35 
 
 to receive no pay for their good works 
 except food and shelter for the time of 
 their sojourn and not to visit about from 
 house to house, but stay in the one house 
 in each town or village where the} 7 first 
 put up until they departed thence. 
 
 These instructions show how much in 
 sympathy Jesus was with many of the 
 Essenian practices ; but they do not in the 
 least prove him to be an Essene. The 
 Essene was even stricter than the Pharisee 
 in ceremonial matters. To sit down to 
 table with an unclean person, as Jesus 
 now very often did, was utterly abhorrent 
 to the Essene. Neither did Jesus practise 
 the elaborate occultism of the Essenes. 
 He was, in fact, a wholly unsectarian per- 
 son in his manners an itinerant Essene, 
 in his ideas a heterodox Pharisee but 
 neither Pharisee, Sadducee, nor Essene in 
 exclusiveness. 
 
 So these twelve missionaries went out 
 two by two ' and preached that men 
 should repent, and they cast out many 
 devils, and anointed with oil many that 
 were sick.'
 
 36 JESUS AS MESSIAH 
 
 And here you will notice how naturally 
 all this follows upon previous events. 
 First you have the choosing of the twelve ; 
 then you have the statement that Jesus 
 took them with him upon his own mis- 
 sionary tour ; next you have the fact, two 
 or three times repeated, that he privately 
 explained his parables to them ; and 
 finally you have them sent out two by two 
 in different directions. It is evident that 
 Jesus deliberately put them through a 
 course of training, for the express purpose 
 of fitting them for this organized effort to 
 extend his teaching. It was the plan 
 which he adopted to spread his new views 
 about the nature of the kingdom through- 
 out the land of Israel. Was their mission 
 a success ? Well, the gospels say that 
 it was. Mark tells us that ' they cast out 
 many devils, and anointed with oil many 
 that were sick, and healed them.' (Mark 
 always makes a good deal of the miracles, 
 far more than Jesus made of them). There 
 are indications, however, that in reality 
 the success was very partial, and that as a 
 matter of fact the disciples only half-
 
 POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE 37 
 
 understood the doctrine they were sent 
 to teach. The external and immediate 
 effect the unpremeditated effect of the 
 enterprise was that Jesus' ' name became 
 known/ and that Herod himself heard of 
 him. For the first time in his life he came 
 to be a person of political significance 
 a fact which contributed, according to 
 Mark's account, to hasten the tragic end. 
 
 As soon as the apostles returned from 
 their expedition Jesus tenderly took them 
 out into the wild country that they might 
 be alone and rest, ' for there were many 
 coming and going, and they had no leisure 
 so much as to eat.' But the people came 
 flocking after them, and we read that ' he 
 began to teach them many things,' out of 
 which teaching there afterwards grew up 
 the story of his having ' fed ' the multitude 
 in the wilderness. 
 
 It was on this occasion that the Pharisees 
 appeared again upon the scene, asking 
 for a sign, which Jesus sternly refused to 
 give them. It is plain that he loathed these 
 theological controversies, for we read in this 
 connexion that he ' sighed deeply in his
 
 38 JESUS AS MESSIAH 
 
 spirit,' and as soon as he could escape from 
 them he crossed over the lake to Bethsaida, 
 that he might have a little peace. After 
 a short time he returned again, but 
 endeavoured to avoid the controversialists 
 by staying outside Capernaum, on the 
 little lake-side plain of Gennesaret. 
 
 If you know anything at all of the ways 
 of theological disputants, you will not be 
 surprised to hear that this precaution 
 availed him nothing. The Pharisees sallied 
 out as soon as they heard his where- 
 abouts, and this time they brought with 
 them scribes from Jerusalem. They 
 attacked him on the subject of the cere- 
 monial washing of hands, and after a sharp 
 passage of arms and a stern invective, he 
 closed the incident with a memorable 
 utterance : 
 
 ' He called to him the multitude, and 
 said unto them, Hear and understand, 
 every one of you : Not that which entereth 
 into the mouth defileth the man ; but 
 that which proceedeth out of the mouth, 
 this defileth the man.' 
 
 This incident marks a crisis. Of course
 
 BREACH WITH THE PHARISEES 39 
 
 we do not possess it in its entirety. But 
 certainly Jesus must on this occasion have 
 gone much further in heterodoxy than he 
 had ever gone before. The breach with 
 the Pharisees was complete. From this 
 time they were mad against him. His 
 disciples thought he could hardly know 
 the deep offence that he had given. Per- 
 haps they were a little staggered them- 
 selves at this logical conclusion this 
 sweeping principle which seemed to go 
 dead against all ceremonialism all doc- 
 trines of clean and unclean whatever ! They 
 came and said unto him 'Knowest thou that 
 the Pharisees were offended when they 
 heard this saying ? ' But he, still wrought 
 to high tension, and throbbing with intense 
 opposition to the externalism which every- 
 where enslaved the people, answered with 
 a stern and scornful indifference ' Let 
 them alone: they are blind guides. And 
 if the blind guide the blind, both shall 
 fall into a pit.' 
 
 In all probability it was not the scribes 
 alone, nor even the leading Pharisees who 
 were offended. The Johannine narrative
 
 40 JESUS AS MESSIAH 
 
 says that after this incident many of the 
 people left him. Indeed, it seems to have 
 been generally felt that in thus throwing 
 over all externals whatever he had been 
 going too far. Hitherto he had been 
 opposed by the strict Pharisees and the 
 official scribes, but the people had been 
 with him. Now, the whole body of the 
 Pharisees, and, in alliance with them, the 
 supporters of Herod also, were combined 
 against him, and, what was more serious 
 and far more fatal to his cause, even the 
 people were, as a whole, no longer with him. 
 From this time forward his life was 
 believed to be in danger. He resolved, 
 therefore, to absent himself for a time 
 from the Galilean scene of action : 
 wandered far away into the borders of 
 Tyre and Sidon, and even there he hid 
 himself, and tried to prevent its being 
 known that he was in the neighbourhood. 
 Then he came down through Decapolis 
 again, near to the Sea of Galilee, but on 
 the farther shore ; and then he wandered 
 off again north-eastward towards Caesarea 
 Philippi ; where he was safe because the
 
 ' THOU ART THE CHRIST ' 4! 
 
 district was outside Herod's jurisdiction. 
 The geography of these wanderings is 
 exceedingly uncertain, but the general 
 impression we receive is that he was moving 
 about in distant regions in danger of his 
 life. The tide had ebbed. He was un- 
 popular. 
 
 And now comes the central crisis of his 
 life. He was on the road from one village 
 to another in the neighbourhood of 
 Caesarea Philippi. He had been walking, 
 perhaps, in meditation a little in advance 
 of his disciples. Suddenly he paused and 
 turned to them. ' Who do men say that 
 I am ? ' And they told him ' John the 
 Baptist : others, Elijah : others, one of 
 the prophets.' Again he pauses; and 
 then with penetrating glance he asks, 
 ' But who say ye that I am ? ' Peter 
 answers on behalf of all ' Thou art the 
 Christ.' And Jesus does not deny it. 
 
 What, then, had been passing in his 
 mind ? What had been passing in the 
 minds of his disciples ? What had been 
 passing in the minds of the people ? 
 
 Well, it is clear that to the people
 
 42 JESUS AS MESSIAH 
 
 generally it had not occurred that he might 
 be the expected Messiah. Once or twice 
 madmen had shouted out this extravagant 
 idea, but Jesus had sternly silenced them. 
 Here and there an Israelite, more spirit- 
 ually minded than the mob, might have 
 entertained the idea (some of the women, 
 perhaps, who were so enthusiastically 
 attached to his teaching). But in general 
 it is evident that he did not in any great 
 degree fulfil the popular idea of the 
 Messiah. The Messiah was to cast all 
 demons into the abyss, was to rebuild the 
 temple and restore the full and free temple 
 service, and was to place Israel at the 
 head of all the nations of the earth. 
 Now, it was true that Jesus was exceedingly 
 successful in casting out demons more 
 successful than any ordinary Rabbi. But 
 there the resemblance to the Messiah 
 ended. He had not taken the first step 
 towards restoring Israel or Israel's worship. 
 The temple was still largely controlled by 
 the Romans. The high-priest's ephod was 
 kept locked in the Roman proconsul's 
 chest except when he chose to give it out.
 
 WHAT THE CROWD THOUGHT 43 
 
 It was only by means of an alliance be- 
 tween the Sadducees and the heathen 
 power that the temple service was carried 
 on at all. 
 
 Then, as to the supremacy of Israel, 
 Jesus never took any part at all in politics ; 
 never joined the zealots ; paid tribute 
 like any other Jew ; and showed no sign 
 of raising a revolt. In fact, the central 
 principle of his teaching was clean against 
 all attempt at domination. 
 
 It was plain, then, that to the crowd 
 Jesus might seem something very great 
 perhaps Elijah, whose return was popularly 
 believed to precede the advent of Messiah, 
 perhaps simply a prophet doing a prophet's 
 work but it could scarcely occur to them 
 that he was the Messiah himself. 
 
 But, how about the disciples ? That 
 is a more difficult question. Still if we 
 remember that Jesus had, of late, been 
 more and more insisting upon the spiritual 
 nature of the kingdom, and that he had 
 declared that the kingdom was imminent 
 and had even said that it was actually 
 here, though hidden ; if we consider how
 
 44 JESUS AS MESSIAH 
 
 probable it is that words may have dropped 
 from Jesus' lips indicating the nature of 
 that kingdom's head a spiritual Messiah 
 as well as a spiritual kingdom, we shall 
 see how possible it is that this thought 
 (that Jesus was this new kind of Messiah) 
 may have gradually grown up in the 
 disciples' mind, and how this question 
 which Jesus thus suddenly put to them 
 acted as the determining touch the 
 shock the spark causing that slowly 
 forming idea to crystallize so that Peter 
 exclaimed (half-wondering perhaps at his 
 own audacity) ' Thou art the Christ.' 
 
 And now, finally, what was passing in 
 the mind of Jesus ? Upon the answer 
 to this question the whole of the sub- 
 sequent history depends. 
 
 We must remember, then, in the first 
 place, that in allowing this title of 
 ' Messiah ' to be attributed to him Jesus 
 was only one of many. From Judah of 
 Gaulonitis who, in the generation before 
 Jesus, had claimed to be Messiah, down 
 to Bar-Cochba, who made the same claim 
 a century later, more than fifty Messiahs
 
 MANY CLAIMANTS 45 
 
 arose more than fifty leaders of rebellion 
 claiming the Messianic office and each 
 one of these fifty had a considerable 
 popular following. I do not know that all 
 these were Galileans by birth, but Galilee 
 was nearly always the fountain-head of 
 these insurrectionary movements. It was 
 in Galilee that Judah of Gaulonitis found 
 his followers. Like Jesus he claimed to 
 be the Messiah, and like Jesus he was 
 crucified. His descendant, John of Giscala, 
 was another Galilean Messiah. He too 
 was crucified. Theudas, who is mentioned 
 in the Acts of the Apostles, was a third 
 Galilean Christ : he also was crucified. 
 The names of some others are known : and 
 it is recorded that there were at least fifty 
 such ' Christs.' 
 
 Now, if we give due weight to this fact, 
 we shall perceive what a different colour 
 it puts upon the claim of Jesus. So long 
 as we are tied to the idea that the Jews 
 expected One Christ one supernatural 
 Christ that none had yet made that 
 claim and that suddenly Jesus arises 
 and proclaims, ' I am that supernatural
 
 46 JESUS AS MESSIAH 
 
 Christ,' there is from the human point 
 of view something almost shocking in 
 the claim. Of course if Jesus came from 
 a conscious life in heaven directly com- 
 missioned by God to work miracles, be 
 crucified, and save the world, then it is 
 quite in order that he should permit this 
 title ; but if he was a human being like 
 ourselves, growing from infancy through a 
 succession of purely human experiences, 
 discovering by slow steps the presence of 
 God in human life, and depending, like 
 ourselves, upon the heavenly Father for 
 daily help then, however great he may 
 have been, however vast his genius, how- 
 ever supreme his gift of spiritual insight 
 and prophetic power, there would, never- 
 theless, be something immodest, something 
 unnatural, something, I should say, fan- 
 atical, in claiming to be the One for whom 
 all the ages had till then been looking. 
 
 But that is not a true conception of the 
 facts. The case is otherwise. This Jesus 
 is a Galilean ; he belongs to a race of men 
 who are being continually deluded by hot- 
 headed patriots, by fanatical zealots, by
 
 A SPIRITUAL MESSIAH 47 
 
 revolutionists thirsting for the blood of 
 Rome. One after the other they arise, 
 each taking upon himself the name of 
 Messiah. One after the other they lead 
 their countrymen to death and disaster, 
 only riveting more firmly about the necks 
 of their unhappy countrymen the yoke 
 of Rome. 
 
 This is the people that Jesus lives among ; 
 and all the claim he makes is this : ^ You 
 have followed many Christs, let me now 
 be your Christ. Your Christ must be a 
 patriot ? I will show you a new and 
 spiritual patriotism. He must be a revo- 
 lutionist ? I will teach you a new revolu- 
 tion a social revolution, based upon 
 spiritual principles, and better than any 
 political revolt. He must be a zealot ? I 
 will show you a new outlet for your zeal 
 and one which will call for all your courage, 
 all your devotion to Israel's cause. I will 
 be a new kind of Messiah to you a 
 spiritual Messiah.' ^ 
 
 Imagine, by way of a rough and ready 
 parallel, that a Mahdi (a Mohammedan 
 Christ) had arisen in Africa ; some man of
 
 48 JESUS AS MESSIAH 
 
 insight and foresight who had pondered 
 deeply upon life and life's meaning ; and 
 suppose the burden of his harangues were 
 this : ' You have had many Mahdis : 
 they have led you in vain against the 
 British guns. Now forget all this. Let 
 me be your Mahdi. I will show you a 
 better way than this vain thirst for the 
 blood of your enemies ; a better strife 
 than this strife for dominion. Let us not 
 resist our enemies, let us love them.' 
 
 Such a man might be put down for a 
 visionary, might be blamed for a deficient 
 sense of the value of liberty ; he might be 
 torn in pieces by the frantic warriors of 
 his own nation for his want of patriotism ; 
 or more likely he might be wholly mis- 
 understood by the blundering British 
 and blown from their guns on the sup- 
 position that he was only another of these 
 troublesome rebels ; but with one thing 
 he could not be justly charged : he could 
 not be charged with fanatical ambition. 
 
 Thus it was with Jesus and his claim to 
 be the Messiah. Jesus was greater than 
 the idea. In a sense he played with the
 
 THE TIME TOO SHORT 49 
 
 idea he used it or more accurately, 
 fulfilled it. It did represent a reality, but 
 the reality was greater than the symbol, 
 and he resolved, through the symbol, to 
 lead his countrymen to the reality. 
 /. And the attempt, one would say, might 
 well have succeeded, only his hand was 
 forced. The people were not ripe for the 
 claim ; and yet he was obliged to make 
 it. Could he have continued his Galilean 
 mission for a few years instead of a few 
 months ; could he have gathered round him 
 all the most spiritual Israelites and opened 
 their eyes to the true nature of the 
 kingdom and the king's anointed ; could 
 he, in short, have educated his Galilean 
 brethren up to his own poetic standpoint, 
 it is possible (is it not ?) that so great a 
 teacher as Jesus might have brought about 
 the peaceful revolution which he sought. 
 Or is this to drink too deeply of his own 
 optimism ? Were the Galileans too gross ? 
 Is human nature altogether too prosaic to 
 stand the strain of this high poetry in 
 real life ? 
 
 However this may be, Jesus had no such
 
 5O JESUS AS MESSIAH 
 
 opportunity. The opposition of the 
 Pharisees had become so virulent, that 
 he was forced to hasten his work if it 
 was to be done at all. Already he had been 
 hunted about from place to place. Galilee 
 was virtually closed to him, and that meant 
 that he must leave Israel to its fate or 
 else go to Judea. He had hoped for a 
 much stronger following in Galilee before 
 he attacked Jewish formalism in its head- 
 quarters ; but it could not now be. He 
 knew that it would be a dangerous mission 
 under present circumstances, and therefore 
 he was bound to show his disciples the 
 whole programme. He had taught them 
 of the kingdom, now he must teach them 
 of the Messiah.^ 
 
 Thus it was that he was led to the point 
 at which we have now arrived. He asks 
 them the great question and Peter gives 
 the memorable answer ' Thou art the 
 Christ.' Matthew tells us of a glad 
 outburst of thankfulness on the part of 
 Jesus at this answer. With his inimitable 
 optimism, he supposes that the disciples 
 have really grasped his great thought.
 
 A SUFFERING MESSIAH 51 
 
 But they had not grasped it ; they had 
 merely had a momentary vision of it. 
 And scarcely had the words left Peter's 
 lips before he fell back to his old level. 
 A very familiar human experience ! How 
 often have we seen a man enter into a 
 great but unfamiliar idea, and then lose 
 sight of it again ! How often have we 
 seen him embrace a notion with enthusiasm, 
 fascinated by its beauty and morality 
 and then, when it comes to the practical 
 application of the beautiful idea, shrink 
 from it with dismay ! ' Far be it from thee, 
 Lord : this shall never be unto thee.' 
 ' But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get 
 thee behind me, Satan : thou art a 
 stumbling-block unto me : for thou 
 mindest not the things of God, but the 
 things of men.' 
 
 From this time Jesus, whose eyes were 
 now fully open to the fate which probably 
 awaited him, set himself to the double task 
 of convincing his disciples that the only 
 true Messiah must be a spiritual Messiah, 
 and also that he must needs be a suffering 
 Messiah. ' If any man would come after
 
 52 JESUS AS MESSIAH 
 
 me, he must deny himself.' ' Whosoever 
 would save his life shall lose it : and who- 
 soever shall lose his life for my sake shall 
 find it.' ' What shall a man be profited, 
 if he shall gain the whole world, and forfeit 
 his life ? ' These and other such pregnant 
 sayings fell from his lips as they passed 
 on from village to village. His disciples, 
 after the first flash of discovery, were 
 debating and doubting. They accepted 
 his claim, they even accepted an utterance 
 which he delivered at this time that some 
 of them should not taste of death till they 
 saw the kingdom of God come. But one 
 thing perplexed them : ' Elijah had not 
 come ! ' If Jesus was the Messiah, where 
 was Elijah ? They ventured to put the 
 question to him and he told them that 
 Elijah had come already, and they had 
 done unto him whatsoever they listed. 
 Thus he taught them of a spiritual and 
 suffering Elijah, as well as a spiritual and 
 suffering Messiah. 
 
 So they reached again the borders of 
 Galilee, passing slowly southward. He 
 travelled secretly, lingering in the wild
 
 ' THEY UNDERSTOOD NOT ' 53 
 
 country by day, and entering the villages 
 at nightfall ; intent always on his one task 
 of preparing his disciples for what was 
 coming. Public teaching, healing, every- 
 thing must be set aside for this and he 
 must have quiet ; he must have time to 
 thoroughly imbue his disciples' minds 
 with this new view of the kingdom. He 
 had reckoned upon years of preparation ; 
 and now he saw that there might be only 
 weeks. And so, over and over again, in 
 one form or another he repeated this 
 refrain ' The Son of man is delivered up 
 into the hands of men ; and they shall kill 
 him.' ' But they understood not the 
 saying, and were afraid to ask him.' 
 
 ' They understood not the saying ! ' it 
 was pathetic. Nothing that he could say 
 to them, nothing that he could teach them, 
 could bring these -poor peasant learners 
 to his own high poetic point of view. 
 Even now, after these days of careful, quiet, 
 deliberate instruction, they showed by 
 one notable incident how grossly they 
 failed to conceive him. That he was the 
 Messiah, they no longer doubted ; that he
 
 54 JESUS AS MESSIAH 
 
 should suffer, they had not begun to 
 understand. And so, as they travelled by 
 quiet mountain paths toward Capernaum, 
 they fell to talking of the kingdom 
 the Messiah's kingdom the kingdom at 
 Jerusalem, where he who walked there in 
 front of them (now in deep meditation) 
 should reign over Israel. They talked of 
 the kingdom and their own places in it, 
 and which of them should be the nearest 
 and the greatest. 
 
 Jesus heard them, as they raised their 
 voices in hot dispute but he said no word. 
 So they came to Capernaum : and when 
 he was in the house he asked them, ' What 
 were ye reasoning in the way ? But 
 they held their peace : And he sat down 
 and called the twelve ; and he saith unto 
 them, If any man would be first, he shall 
 be last of all. And he took a little child, 
 and set him in the midst of them : and 
 taking him in his arms he said unto them 
 Whosoever shall humble himself as this 
 little child, the same is the greatest in the 
 kingdom.'
 
 Ill 
 
 THE MESSIAH BECOMES A MARTYR 
 
 WE have, now reached the point 
 where, after Jesus had accepted 
 the declaration of his Messiahship, he re- 
 turned with his disciples to Capernaum. It 
 was his farewell to the beloved town and 
 his home there. We do not know how long 
 he stayed. His persecutors would probably 
 not allow him to remain there many days, 
 neither is it likely, now that the confession 
 of his Messiahship was made, that he would 
 long delay the next inevitable step. 
 
 This inevitable step was quite clear to 
 his own mind. The confession which had 
 been whispered into the ears of his disciples 
 at Caesarea must be proclaimed aloud in 
 Jerusalem. In no other way could the 
 movement be prevented from becoming 
 purely local. ' Just as previously Judas 
 the Galilean had led his troops from
 
 56 JESUS AS MARTYR 
 
 Gamala southwards, just as the Egyptian 
 of the year 59 occupied the mount of Olives, 
 as all the later Messiahs stretched forth 
 their hands towards the temple on which 
 the guidance of the people depended, so 
 now we behold Jesus starting forth for 
 Jerusalem.' 1 ' He arose from thence, and 
 cometh into the borders of Judea and 
 beyond Jordan.' 
 
 There near about the scene of his 
 baptism he seems to have lingered for 
 awhile : but it was a different baptism 
 which awaited him now a baptism which 
 he had little expected in those first sanguine 
 days. Now it was, and here, that he spoke 
 those words of foreboding to which the 
 scene of their utterance gives a tragic 
 significance, ' I have a baptism to be bap- 
 tized with, and how am I straitened till 
 it be accomplished ! ' 
 
 I suppose his intention was, while linger- 
 ing in the borders of Jordan, within easy 
 reach of the capital, to allow his doctrine 
 and especially his new Messianic claim 
 to filter into the minds of the people, 
 i Hausrath, II, p. 232.
 
 REVIVING POPULARITY 57 
 
 He wished them to work gradually like 
 leaven, not to descend like a thunderbolt 
 upon unprepared minds. This was cer- 
 tainly the wise course to pursue : the only 
 possible course, indeed, if his career was 
 not to be cut suddenly short before ever 
 he had time to make his teaching known 
 or give the people so much as a chance of 
 accepting it. 
 
 And it was a course which was justified 
 apparently by the first results. ' Multi- 
 tudes come together unto him again ; and, 
 as he was wont, he taught them.' Mothers 
 came to have their children blessed by 
 the Messiah. Men came to ask advice 
 on several points some worldly, some 
 spiritual. A rich young man came to ask 
 what he should do to inherit the blessings 
 of the coming Messianic kingdom. Nearly 
 all the incidents belonging to this time 
 have reference to the claim of Messiahship 
 which Jesus has now set up. 
 
 Among others were the religious leaders 
 from Jerusalem. They heard of the new 
 movement and came to test it. The 
 Pharisees came with their catch-question,
 
 58 JESUS AS MARTYR 
 
 ' Is it lawful for a man to put away his 
 wife ? ' And to their surprise his answer 
 savoured of the school of Shammai, whereas 
 so much of his teaching seemed hitherto to 
 savour of the more liberal school of Hillel ! 
 Truly, this man could not be classified ! 
 '/ At length the time came when Jesus 
 must enter the capital. The great question 
 which had been haunting his mind must 
 be answered. His teaching must be put 
 to the test. His claims must be accepted 
 or rej ected. His whole being hung passion- 
 ately on the issue of the venture. Would 
 they accept him ? Would they be content 
 with a spiritual Messiah ? Would they 
 follow his lead ? Would they purify their 
 worship ? Would they kindle to his ideal 
 of brotherly love and neighbourly help- 
 fulness ? of just dealing, and simple living, 
 and the conquest even of the oppressor 
 by kindness ? Was there fire enough yet 
 in the ashes of the old faith- to break into 
 so heavenly a flame ? *4!e knew the risks ; 
 he knew that the idea was almost desperate, 
 but still he hoped. His own soul burnt 
 with such a fire of conviction, that he
 
 THE CRISIS APPROACHING 59 
 
 felt that the souls of others must surely 
 kindle. His aspect, as he went upon his 
 life-and-death mission, was almost awful. 
 ' They were in the way, going up to Jeru- 
 salem ; and Jesus was going before them : 
 and they were amazed ; and they that 
 followed were afraid.' 
 
 Their fear must have been the fear 
 the awe of sympathetic but half-in- 
 structed natures for a sublime and intense 
 experience which they observe but only 
 dimly apprehend. They perfectly well 
 understood that the crisis was approaching. 
 But apparently they had no apprehension 
 of the result : fear in this sense they had 
 none. On the contrary, they seem to 
 have been full of eager expectation. They 
 had great confidence in Jesus, and they 
 fully believed that he would soon be the 
 head of the nation. 
 
 So much was this the case that two of 
 his disciples two of those whom he most 
 trusted who had been with him from the 
 very first, must needs choose this un- 
 utterable moment to lay before him a little 
 petition which they had agreed upon a
 
 60 JESUS AS MARTYR 
 
 favour, which they thought, as some of 
 his oldest adherents, they were quite en- 
 titled to ask the favour, namely, of 
 sitting the one on his right hand and the 
 other on his left in the coming kingdom ! 
 
 Truly the patience of Jesus is marvellous 
 as he once more tells them what he has 
 again and again insisted upon, that the 
 very nature of the coming kingdom the 
 very meaning of the new social order which 
 it was his whole object to establish, was 
 that the great among them should be the 
 servant, and the first among them the 
 slave of all ! 
 
 And so they came down the farther 
 bank of Jordan, crossed the ford opposite 
 to Jericho, and entered that town. Here 
 Jesus stayed the night, and here he illus- 
 trated that saying to which he had just 
 given utterance. He who seemed so great, 
 and yet sometimes seemed so perverse in 
 his actions, must needs, after his own 
 inscrutable manner, choose the house of a 
 Publican to stay at ! Of course such a 
 proceeding caused great murmuring and 
 discontent. He, a Jew he, a prophet
 
 UP TOWARDS JERUSALEM 6l 
 
 nay, he, the Messiah (as he now gave him- 
 self out to be), must needs put up with an 
 unclean tax-gatherer employed by heathen 
 rulers to fleece and rob the chosen people. 
 How could he expect to have his claims 
 acknowledged ! Truly this Jesus had no 
 worldly ' tact ' at all. He did not go the 
 way to work to succeed. It looked almost 
 as if he really meant what he was so fond 
 of saying that the new order was to be 
 a topsy-turvy arrangement with the first 
 last and the last first. 
 
 However, the night passed, and they 
 resumed their journey, and the dissatis- 
 faction died down. There was a blind 
 man sitting by the wayside as they left the 
 town. He had heard of this new Messiah ; 
 and called after him by the recognized 
 Messianic title ' Son of David/ and Jesus 
 healed him. This, they thought, was as 
 it should be it accorded with the tra- 
 ditional idea. 
 
 So they journeyed on towards the barren 
 rocky mountains. By a steep bridle-path 
 they ascended the ridge which hid Jeru- 
 salem from them. There were with him
 
 62 JESUS AS MARTYR 
 
 a number of Galileans besides his twelve 
 disciples. At length they came to a spot 
 where on an eastern spur of the mount of 
 Olives the villages of Bethany and Beth- 
 phage emerged Jerusalem still hidden by 
 the mountain. Here Jesus sent two of 
 his disciples to fetch an ass which he 
 had previously arranged should be ready 
 for him. It seemed but a humble steed 
 to carry the Messiah into his capital, but 
 doubtless the multitude remembered the 
 words of Zechariah, which were universally 
 accepted as Messianic in their intention 
 ' Behold, thy king cometh unto thee : 
 lowly, and sitting upon an ass.' Doubt- 
 less, too, Jesus performed this act with 
 reference to this very prophecy, and pre- 
 cisely because he knew that the people 
 would so understand it. It both claimed 
 the Messiahship, and claimed it in just that 
 sense in which he himself understood it. 
 And then came the entry into Jerusalem 
 of which we know the story so well. The 
 cries of ' Hosanna to the son of David ' 
 receive their significance, of course, from 
 the fact that he now permitted this
 
 PURIFICATION OF THE TEMPLE 63 
 
 Messianic title to be ascribed to him. The 
 priests and scribes were indignant at the 
 whole proceeding, and this day's work was, 
 in fact, the first step down to the sepulchre. 
 The second step was the purification of 
 the temple, which happened on the follow- 
 ing day, which is also too familiar to need 
 description. The result of it was what 
 might be expected, ' The chief priests and 
 scribes heard of it, and sought how they 
 might destroy him.' 
 
 The people, however, who had wavered 
 in Galilee, were with him again now that 
 he was proclaimed Messiah ; and for this 
 reason the authorities delayed taking any 
 decisive measures. ' They feared him, for 
 all the multitude was astonished at his 
 teaching.' Whether Jesus had hoped to 
 win the very scribes and priests to his 
 more spiritual view of Israel's kingdom I 
 am not sure. If he had, he was soon un- 
 deceived, for he presently found himself 
 involved in a deadly warfare with them. 
 They commenced by challenging his 
 authority to interfere with the proceedings 
 in the temple-courts, and we know his
 
 64 JESUS AS MARTYR 
 
 answer. They then proceeded to collect 
 evidence against him by various devices : 
 the question of the tribute money : the 
 question of divorce : the question of his 
 own Messianic claims in the light of his 
 Galilean descent. 
 
 He on his part was driven to speak fierce 
 parables against these cunning religionists 
 in particular the parable of the vineyard 
 and the wicked husbandmen who killed 
 the heir (for he began to see how it would 
 end), a parable which drove his opponents 
 to exasperation ' for they perceived that 
 he spake the parable against them.' Then 
 he began openly to warn the people to 
 beware of these scribes. In fact he did, 
 here, as he had done in Galilee : he com- 
 pletely broke with the authorities. 
 
 At this point it is important to under- 
 stand the situation. Jesus had broken 
 with the temple-authorities ; so that if 
 he was to carry out his great reform, it 
 could not be by their help. On the other 
 hand, he found that he could not carry 
 it out over their heads. The priests and 
 scribes were against him, and the people 
 were not strong enough.
 
 DEPRESSION AND DOUBT 65 
 
 The result was that the hope of an ideal 
 kingdom in any near future vanished from 
 his heart, and an intense depression began 
 to sink down upon him. This depression 
 communicated itself to his disciples. They 
 began to doubt. They had never really com- 
 prehended his poetic programme. They 
 still had visions of a great Jerusalem success 
 a revolution, and then, Jesus on a throne 
 and they on twelve other thrones ; and 
 they did not see much sign yet of any such 
 event. Peasants as they were, they were 
 naturally overawed by the great men of 
 Jerusalem, and it could not escape them 
 that these great men were one and all in 
 deadly opposition to their Master./' ^\ 
 
 It was at this time, when Jesus saw well 
 that the ' husbandmen would kill the 
 heir/ when he saw equally clearly that 
 the kingdom could not come yet, and that 
 none, not even the angels, could tell 
 when come it would when the disciples 
 had begun to waver, and one of them had 
 already begun to turn over in his mind 
 how he could best secure his own retreat 
 it was at this time that one of the most
 
 66 JESUS AS MARTYR 
 
 touching incidents in the Bible story 
 occurred. 
 
 It was two days before the passover. 
 Jesus had returned from his daily visit 
 to Jerusalem, had climbed the mount of 
 Olives and dropped down into the little 
 village of Bethany, and was sitting at 
 supper with his twelve disciples in the 
 house of Simon the leper, where he had 
 characteristically taken up his quarters. 
 A profound melancholy brooded over the 
 company. The disciples began to see 
 things with open eyes. Here was this 
 young Rabbi whom they greatly loved 
 and of whom they had hoped so much 
 this teacher, who had grown before their 
 eyes from teacher to prophet, from 
 prophet to Messiah who had been, as 
 it were, transfigured in their imaginations, 
 from the peasant Rabbi to the heavenly 
 Messenger of Light this Christ, whom 
 they had brought into the holy city with 
 shouts of triumph here he was sitting in 
 the leper's house, a sorrowful and un- 
 successful man. 
 
 The great people had looked on at first
 
 ONE WOMAN'S HEART 67 
 
 with supercilious scorn, afterwards with 
 anger. The mo b, at first inclined to 
 respond, had soon been overawed by the 
 authorities. In fact, the whole thing had 
 fallen flat. Their prophet began to look to 
 them like a common man. The rays of his 
 transfiguration-light began to fade away, 
 and they felt that their dream was breaking. 
 Perhaps he was not the Messiah after all. 
 
 At this critical moment there stole 
 through the open doorway a woman 
 one of those few women who had followed 
 hkn from Galilee (would that we knew so 
 much as her name !). This woman, well 
 knowing the sadness and doubt which had 
 wrapped themselves round the Master 
 did a deed which none but a woman could 
 do, which none but a woman's heart could 
 have conceived. 
 
 What ! Did they begin to doubt that he 
 was the Anointed of God ! Was there 
 none to proclaim his Messiahship ? Had 
 the great people at Jerusalem no visible 
 anointing for him, and did his very dis- 
 ciples begin to waver ? Then she, a mere 
 woman, an Oriental woman to boot con-
 
 68 JESUS AS MARTYR 
 
 demned for ever to take the lower place 
 she, woman as she was, would make bold 
 to do what none other seemed ready to 
 perform to assert his Messiahship, and 
 to proclaim him the Christ of God. She 
 drew from her robe a little alabaster flask 
 of sweet spikenard : a precious unguent 
 upon which she had spent her little all. 
 Holding it above his head as he reclined 
 upon the divan, she broke it in two, and 
 the nard as it flowed down his locks filled 
 the whole chamber with its breath. 
 
 Thus, in perfect modesty, without a 
 word, she, the nameless Galilean woman, 
 anointed Jesus as Messiah, and that, save 
 the witness of heaven, was the only 
 anointing that he ever had. 
 
 It was an act of transcendent beauty, 
 and Jesus was very deeply touched. That 
 the disciples did not rise to the poetry of 
 it, shows how deeply they were plunged 
 in gloom and doubt. To them, or at least 
 to some of them, it seemed a foolish act 
 a mere waste of good ointment. This 
 woman, what did she know of the matter, 
 that she should take upon herself this
 
 JUDAS OF KERIOTH 69 
 
 office, that she should venture to assert 
 that the moment for anointing had come, 
 or that it would ever come at all ? She 
 had better have given her gold to feed the 
 poor, and purchased for herself some 
 consideration from heaven, to set over 
 against the shame of her having been born 
 a daughter of Eve. 
 
 Jesus, full of the poetry of the act, yet 
 still labouring under the foreboding of 
 his fate, rebuked them and gave to the 
 incident this most pathetic turn : Let her 
 alone, why do ye trouble her ? She thinks 
 she has anointed me for the kingdom. 
 She could not do that. But she hath done 
 what she could. She hath anointed my 
 body for the burying. 
 
 /The disappointment which was felt 
 by the disciples was allowed by one of 
 them to deepen into bitterness. Judas of 
 Kerioth, a Judean by birth, looked, like 
 the rest, for a material kingdom ; but 
 unlike them he did not hold, side by side 
 with this vain hope, the deep reverence 
 and affection which could survive its 
 dissipation and defeat. He had been an
 
 70 JESUS AS MARTYR 
 
 enthusiast, he had hailed with delight the 
 hope of a Jewish kingdom, with a place 
 in it for himself, and now nothing that he 
 was expecting had taken place. Nay, 
 not only were his hoped-for rewards denied 
 him, but he found himself in actual peril. 
 He saw how things would end for his 
 master, and where the master was in 
 danger, it could not be very safe for the 
 disciples. He determined, therefore, to 
 make the best terms he could with the 
 Sanhedrin, and save his own skin. He 
 asked and received a bribe equal in value 
 to about 20 of our money. // 
 
 It was Wednesday, the day before the 
 passover must be eaten, and Jesus made 
 arrangements for the paschal meal, which 
 must necessarily be eaten in Jerusalem. 
 The difficulty was that the meal could not 
 be over before ten or eleven o'clock at 
 night, so that Jesus would not be able to 
 leave the city by daylight as he had 
 hitherto done. He knew that by day 
 there was little danger of his being appre- 
 hended, but that it would be dangerous 
 for him to stay in the city at night. He
 
 THE TREACHERY OF JUDAS 71 
 
 therefore took special precautions. He 
 suspected the treachery of Judas, and 
 resolved to tell none of the disciples where 
 the passover was to be eaten, so that the 
 place might not become known to Judas. 
 He then made arrangements with a friend 
 whom the apostles themselves did not know. 
 The arrangement was that at a certain 
 hour in the course of Thursday this friend 
 would send a man to a place agreed upon, 
 and that, as a means of recognition, the man 
 should carry a pitcher of water. 
 
 ' Two of the apostles, sent by Jesus, 
 were to recognize him by this sign, and to 
 follow him without speaking. Following 
 him, they were to enter the house which 
 he entered, and there, safe from indiscreet 
 observers, they would be brought before 
 the master of the house, to whom they were 
 to say : " The Rabbi says, ' Where is my 
 chamber, where I may eat the passover 
 with my disciples ? ' " The master would 
 then show them a large chamber, a dining- 
 room furnished with rugs, couches, and 
 all that was necessary for a meal.' 1 
 1 Stapfer, III, p. 88.
 
 72 JESUS AS MARTYR 
 
 Everything took place as had been 
 foreseen. The two appointed disciples 
 entered the city in the afternoon and found 
 the room prepared. They took the lamb, 
 which they had purchased four days before, 
 to the temple, and had it inspected by 
 the priests. It was passed as ' without 
 blemish,' and was immediately slain and 
 flayed, and the supper prepared. 
 
 At sunset the priests sounded the silver 
 trumpets from the temple-hill, and then, 
 throughout Jerusalem the passover supper 
 began. Jesus and his disciples were 
 assembled in their guest-chamber, extended 
 in Oriental fashion upon cushions and rugs. 
 Jesus broke the great flat cakes of un- 
 leavened bread, and piled the broken 
 pieces one upon another. Before him was 
 the lamb cut into equal pieces ; and beside 
 this dish of meat was a dish of lettuce or 
 wild chicory, and another containing a 
 sauce of a reddish colour, into which each 
 in turn dipped his piece of unleavened 
 bread. 
 
 I need not enter further into the details 
 of that ever memorable passover, nor of
 
 GETHSEMANE 73 
 
 that still more memorable rite of the broken 
 body and the shed blood which Jesus 
 associated with it. It was eaten on the 
 evening of Thursday, 6 April, A.D. 30 a 
 night never to be forgotten. 
 
 While they were at supper Jesus hinted 
 at the defection which he had detected 
 among them. Judas was present, but the 
 appeal brought no repentance. He was 
 with them when they sang their psalm and 
 went out to the mount of Olives. He was 
 with them probably when they reached 
 the gate of the olive-yard known to us as 
 Gethsemane ; and then, when Jesus had 
 passed in with three of them, leaving the 
 rest at the entrance, he slipped away in 
 the darkness, and hurried to the temple 
 (only a few minutes distant), to fetch the 
 high-priest's guard. 
 
 I need not tell again the story of the 
 agony in Gethsemane, the story of the 
 taking of Jesus and the flight of his 
 disciples, nor the touching story of Peter's 
 denial. As to the trial, the account of it 
 is very perplexed, but what seems to have 
 taken place is this :
 
 74 JESUS AS MARTYR 
 
 Jesus having been secured, the Sanhe- 
 drin were hastily summoned, although it 
 was still night. Either on this account, 
 or because they did not obtain a quorum, 
 the night-trial was only regarded as a 
 preliminary investigation of the case. 
 The very wide charge of ' blasphemy,' 
 which appears to have meant much what 
 ' heresy ' does with us, seemed sufficiently 
 attested, and the Sanhedrin separated, 
 leaving Jesus in the hands of a guard of 
 soldiers. 
 
 In the morning the whole Sanhedrin 
 came together, the case was laid before 
 them, and they voted upon it, confirming 
 the proceedings of the night-council, and 
 thus making it regular and legal. 
 
 It is a matter of dispute whether the 
 Sanhedrin had, at this time, the power of 
 inflicting capital punishment. Either be- 
 cause they had not this power, or because 
 they wished in the eyes of the populace to 
 shift the blame off their own shoulders to 
 those of the Roman governor, they decided 
 to take him to Pilate and there accuse him 
 of treason.
 
 BEFORE PILATE 75 
 
 Pilate cared nothing about the charge 
 of ' blasphemy,' so they accused him of 
 civil offences such as laying claim to 
 royalty, forbidding to give tribute to 
 Caesar, and stirring the people up to 
 tumult. Pilate saw their animus very 
 plainly and perceived that there was no 
 danger to the State to be apprehended 
 from Jesus, and he tried to get out of the 
 difficulty by releasing him in accordance 
 with the custom by which a prisoner was 
 always liberated at each passover. He had 
 in custody at that time a certain felon 
 named Jesus Bar Abbas (for such we learn 
 was the full name of the well-known 
 criminal) ; and he put it to the Jews 
 whether he should release to them Jesus 
 Bar Abbas or Jesus Bar Joseph. With 
 one accord they chose Barabbas for release 
 and Jesus of Nazareth for death. So 
 ' Pilate, wishing to content the multitude, 
 released unto them Barabbas, and delivered 
 Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be 
 crucified.' 
 
 While the preparations for the cruci- 
 fixion were being made, Jesus, still bleeding
 
 76 JESUS AS MARTYR 
 
 from the scourge, was thrust into the guard- 
 room, and there the ignorant and brutal 
 soldiers, who saw in him only an absurd 
 rival to Caesar, threw an old purple mantle 
 round him, thrust a reed into his hand for 
 sceptre, and wove a crown of brambles 
 for his brow. Thus they jeered at his 
 supposed pretensions to royalty and 
 satisfied their own lust for cruelty. A 
 sickening scene ! 
 
 It was nine o'clock on Friday morning. 
 The procurator had a whole battalion at 
 the palace ready for any riot that the 
 turbulent Jews who were now assembled 
 in their thousands for the feast, might 
 suddenly create, as they had often done 
 before. The whole battalion of five 
 hundred was under arms in the court, 
 and a company of sixty was now told off 
 to keep order during the execution. 
 
 The procession set out through the palace 
 gate and passed through the most fre- 
 quented quarters of the city. A herald 
 went first, proclaiming the nature of the 
 offence, and a soldier carrying a white 
 board with a statement of the crime
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION 77 
 
 printed on it. Then came the three 
 victims, Jesus and the others, each carry- 
 ing the cross-beam which was afterwards 
 to be fixed to the upright stake. At the 
 city gate Jesus, exhausted by the suspense 
 and agony of the last few days, and fainting 
 from loss of blood, could hold up no longer, 
 and in spite of the blows which were rained 
 upon him, he could not stir ; so, to prevent 
 delay, they compelled a foreign Jew, who 
 happened to be just entering the city, to 
 carry the cross-beam. Then the proces- 
 sion again moved forward. 
 
 When they arrived at the place of execu- 
 tion (a low cliff just beyond the city wall), 
 they found the three stakes ready prepared. 
 It remained to nail the hands to the cross- 
 beam and then raise the beam (with the 
 body suspended) by means of ropes and 
 ladders to the top of the stake, where it was 
 inserted in a groove and tied with cords. 
 
 Before this was done, there was offered 
 to Jesus, as to all victims of this cruel 
 Roman mode of execution, a drink of 
 strong wine and frankincense, which the 
 ladies of Jerusalem prepared at their own
 
 78 JESUS AS MARTYR 
 
 expense, in order to numb the pain of 
 those about to suffer. But Jesus refused it. 
 He wished to preserve his full conscious- 
 ness to the end. So they stripped him, laid 
 him on the ground, nailed his hands to the 
 beam, and raised it to the top of the 
 stake. Then the board which had been 
 carried in the procession was fastened 
 above his head ' The King of the Jews.' 
 
 Jesus hung upon the cross for about six 
 hours before he died. He breathed his 
 last soon after three in the afternoon. 
 His body was obtained from Pilate by 
 Joseph of Arimathaea, a member of the 
 Sanhedrin, and laid in a tomb ' and Mary 
 Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses 
 beheld where he was laid.' The account 
 of the resurrection is very puzzling, and 
 the evidence conflicting. The facts which 
 seem certain are (i) that the tomb was 
 found empty, and (2) that many disciples 
 saw apparitions of Jesus after his death. 
 
 As to the first fact there are several 
 hypotheses to account for it. For many a 
 year the belief remained among the Jews 
 that the body had been removed at night
 
 APPARITIONS OF JESUS 79 
 
 by some of his disciples taken perhaps 
 to the old Galilean home. But the matter 
 must necessarily be one of pure conjecture. 
 
 As to the second fact, a hypothesis 
 widely held by some critics, is that the 
 apparitions were the sign and consequence 
 of a spiritual but real individual presence 
 of Jesus that the apparitions were sub- 
 jective in the sense that the revelation 
 was to the mind and affection the spirit 
 of the disciple working out from the 
 spirit upon the bodily organs and in par- 
 ticular upon the optic centres, and so pro- 
 jecting an apparition of bodily form ; but 
 that they were not subjective in the sense 
 of being unreal, or morbid hallucinations. 
 
 One thing, however, seems clear, the 
 apparitions of Jesus were very numerous. 
 And this does at least prove how profound 
 was the impression which he created. If 
 we cannot be content with this, let us 
 cherish it as that which at least is certain. 
 There is life for us in the thought that 
 so humble and obscure a soul could leave 
 behind so vast an influence : there is bread 
 for the heart in the knowledge that such
 
 80 JESUS AS MARTYR 
 
 a life was lived and that so great a spirit, 
 crossed this earth we tread. 
 
 What Jesus has been to us what he 
 has been to the world that, after all, is 
 the supreme fact. He has been in the most 
 real sense a revelation of God. You may 
 say that he has been so by means of 
 mere poetic fancy. But these poems, these 
 ideals do not spring from the air : the god- 
 man of any age or race has always sprung 
 from real human life, and before he was 
 embodied in legend he moved among men 
 as one who had himself found God. 
 
 And it was so with Jesus. When we 
 pierce through the veil of fancy and get a 
 glimpse of the real Jesus, we do not lose, 
 we gain : for we see one there who had 
 indeed found God one who by utter 
 faithfulness to the inward vision had risen 
 to that level of being at which the vain 
 ambitions of this world fade into thin air ; 
 the maxims and customs and rigid rules of 
 time-serving prudence are a vain lie ; and 
 in whom death itself is vanquished by the 
 burning presence of the God within.
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 Box 951388 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 
 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. 
 
 1 2004
 
 m * *^ "''* *"ii ill II III II III!! II 1 1| mil IK Jin