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THE LIFE AND TEACHING
OF JESUS
e Oc
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK - BOSTON : CHICAGO + DALLAS
ATLANTA * SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., Liurtrep
LONDON * BOMBAY + CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Lop.
TORONTO
THE LIFE AND
TEACHING OF JESUS
According to the First Three Gospels
BY
EDWARD INCREASE BOSWORTH
NEW TESTAMENT PROFESSOR IN THE OBERLIN
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY
jew Pork
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1926
Ali righta reserved
CopyricHt, 1924,
Br THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and printed.
Published March, 1924.
Reprinted November, 1924.
Reissued September, 1926.
Printed in the United States of America by
WYNKOOP HALLENBECK CRAWFORD CO., NEW YORK
BS DTM LA,
Gerorat 23 Yo 27 "iat eean.
To tHE Memory or
MY MOTHER
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FOREWORD
At the center of the Christian religion stands a person,
whose name is more and more on the lips of all men
either in cursing or blessing. If the religious motive
is to press with new power on the huge masses of men
now crowded so closely, and sometimes so fiercely, upon
each other, there must be many attempts made to gain
a fresh view of this central figure. As each of these
various attempts is followed by some measure of success,
a new measure of the energy of the underlying, vitaliz-
ing will of God will rise in the hearts of men for this
day of their great endeavor. It has been so before in
the history of the Christian centuries: “(Wherever Chris-
tianity has struck out a new path in her journey it has
been because the personality of Jesus had again become
living and a ray from its Being had once more illumined
the world.”
It is for this reason that the present book is added
to the many “Lives” of Jesus that have been written and
that ought in still larger numbers to be written. It will
endeavor to present the life of Jesus in the terms of a
real religious experience. The author just quoted has
also said that “in no other religion has a personality ever
won a significance in any way approaching that of Christ’s
in the Christian religion.”1 This unique significance
seems to be due to Jesus’ profound religious experience.
This personal experience of Jesus, with all that it in-
* Bousset, What is Religion, pp. 237, 238.
ns |
Vill FoREWORD
volves, is the world’s most valuable asset. It furnishes
ground for the kind of authority that modern men most
readily recognize, authority based on experience, the au-
thority of “the man who knows” because he has had
experience. Jesus seemed conscious of possessing such
authority. It will become evident that a part of his
religious experience consisted in the feeling that he was
being made by God personally responsible for leadership
in the religious life of man, that he could and must “‘save”
men by leading them to share his own religious experi-
ence.
It was inevitable that Jesus’ religious experience should
be described in the various terms available for this pur-
pose in his day. This necessity must have been felt not
only by the followers of Jesus but by Jesus himself. He
had to give an account of himself to himself in the terms
of his own thought world. It is only as we in some
measure penetrate the real religious experience back of
these terms that we shall feel the power of Jesus’ per-
sonality in this day of the world’s great need. When
this is done men have a chance to decide whether they
really care to follow his leadership and share his experi-
ence.
In the providence of God at this time of the world’s
great need of the religion of Jesus Christ, there are avail-
able for a study of his life the results of more than a
century of devout critical scholarship. This book,
planned by the editor of the series for college students,
but written also for all of similar outlook on life, should
show a teacher’s familiarity with these results although
technical discussions will not often appear.
The presentation is based chiefly upon the first three
Gospels, with only occasional references to the Fourth
Gospel, because the constant use of that Gospel would
ForEworpD ix
involve a discussion of critical questions impossible
within the scope of this book. The author has been will-
ing to make this limitation because the conclusions reached
on the basis of the first three Gospels do not seem to him
vitally different from those presented in the Gospel of
John. |
Discussions regarding dates, contemporary history and ©
geography are not introduced inasmuch as they will ap-
pear in another volume belonging to the series to which
this book belongs.
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CONTENTS
OHAPTER
I Tue Sources: THe Earuiest GospEL MAKERS
AND LE RIR LIMES Oy) Wer Gatien te lee! "bigtiile
Il Tue Sources (Concluded): Tue Four
CRORPEES Tmsnitia toe heey a heiwaas tedhive ih Gunes
III Revicion my PAestine as Jesus Founp It;
Bumprnes anp Sects... ... .~
IV Reticton In PALESTINE Aas JESUS Founp It
(Concluded): THe Kincpom or Gop anp
THe Messianic Hope... ..« « e
WES SESUSSIN CRIVATE LIFE.) ce 6 ee ee
VI Jesus’ Intropuction to Pusuic Lire. . .
VII Tue Periop oF Dirricutt Decision .. .
VIII Jesus THE GREATER SUCCESSOR OF THE
PrRopHET JOHN: Famous PROPHET AND
HEALER THROUGHOUT GALILEE .. .
IX Jesus THE GREATER SUCCESSOR OF THE
Propoet JoHN (Concluded): TEACHER
AND PrRopHET RATHER THAN HEALER . .
X JxEsus’ CoNFLICT WITH THE Scripes: THE
FORGIVENESS OF Sins AND INTIMACY WITH
SINNERS e e e ° e se e . e
XI Jesus’ ConFiicr witH THE Scrispes (Con-
tinued): Fasts aND THE SABBATH. . .
XII Jesus’ Conruict with THE Scripes (Con-
cluded): VERDICT OF THE JERUSALEM
Scripes AND JESUS’ ATTACK ON TRADITION
... xi
PAGE
10
23
38
49
60
70
81
91
98
107
116
ConTENTS
Four WonpDerFUL Works:
Farrn.
THe Power or
e e e e e e e
EXTENSION OF THE MovVEMENT IN GALILEE
THROUGH TRAINED ASSISTANTS
Jesus’ TEACHING ABOUT READINESS FOR THE
Comine Kinepom
JESUS’ TEACHING ABOUT READINESS FOR THE
Cominc Kirncpom (Continued) . .. .
Jesus’ TEACHING ABOUT READINESS FOR THE
Cominc Kinepom (Concluded) . . . ©
Jesus’ Estimate or His Work IN GALILEE:
PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM
Tue GALILEAN PROPHET AND THE PEOPLE Eat
ToGETHER BrerorE THE HEAVENLY FATHER
MISCELLANEOUS REMINISCENCES OF JESUS IN
THE Reaion NortH anp East or GALILEE
THE MEsSIANIO SECRET
e e e e
THE Prospective SUFFERING OF THE SON OF
Man e e ° s e e e
How anp WHEN JEsus EXPECTED THE KING-
pom or Gop to CoME
BEGINNING TO WALK ALONE IN THE WAY OF
Paw .
Secret JourNEY TurouGcH GALILEE; Poritics
AMONG THE TWELVE
In THE BorDERLAND OF JUDAEA AND PERAEA;
Jesus Resumes Pusiic TEACHING
°
In THE BorDERLAND OF JUDAEA AND PERAEA
(Concluded): STARTING FoR JERUSALEM
Wuat Dp MessiansHip Mean To JESUS? .
289
CHAPTER
XXIX
xxx
XXXI
XXXII
XX XIII
XXXIV
XXXV
XXXVI
XXXVII
XXXVITTI
ConTENTS
Jesus IN COLLISION WITH THE FRIEsTs:
Priests AND Sorrses CoMBINE
ConTINUED CONFLICT WITH THE JERUSALEM
PRIESTS AND SCRIBES .
JESUS DENOUNCES THE JERUSALEM SCRIBES
Jesus’ Private TrEAcHtInc ABOUT THE Dkr-
STRUCTION OF JEHOVAH’s HovusE AND THE
SDV OR vTHe AE scl ur eee Ohman eg
Tue TREACHERY OF A TABLE COMPANION. .
Jesus’ Last SUPPER WITH THE TWELVE ‘.
JESUS ARRESTED IN THE Ori Press GARDEN .
CHESLRIAT, OF eh ESUS aie eu is PA eee
Tue Execution or Jesus . . . . . -
THE RESURRECTION UF JESUS . ....
Xili
PAaGR
308
320
329
837
849
355
865
374
384
395
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THE LIFE AND TEACHING
OF JESUS
THE LIFE AND
TEACHING OF JESUS.
CHAPTER I
THE SOURCES; THE EARLIEST GOSPEL
MAKERS AND THEIR TIMES
HE earliest writings in which the name of Jesus
appears are those of the most famous missionary
propagator of the Christian movement, the Jewish
Rabbi Saul of Tarsus and Jerusalem, who soon after the
death of Jesus became the Christian apostle Paul. He
was a homeless traveler on land and sea who wished only
at. any sacrifice of personal comfort to win converts to
the movement and in God’s good time to be “at home
with the Lord.” + Paul’s letters to Christian churches
and leaders during a period of less than twenty years,
beginning about 48 A.D., contain a few casual allusions
to details in the life and teaching of Jesus? but afford
no important biographical information not contained in
the Gospels. The letters do give valuable information
regarding the dominant ideas under the influence of which
the Gospel material was gathered and shaped into its
present form.
The main source of information is the four ‘“Gospels,”
*II Cor. XI:23-28, V:6-7.
7£.g., Rom. 1:3, I Cor. VII:10-11, XI:23-25, II Cor. VIII:9.
1
2 Tur Lire AND TEACHING oF JESUS
the survivors of many other attempts at Gospel making
during the decades immediately following the death of
Jesus.2 These documents came in the course of time
to be called “Gospels” because they were presentations
of “The Gospel’; that is, “The Evangel,” or “The Good
News” regarding God’s purpose to bring in a new era
for man through Jesus. There were various versions of
this message “according to” one or another of those who
undertook to make Gospels; e.g., ‘“The Gospel according
to Mark.”
Jesus himself, like the great Greek teacher in the Uni-
versity of the Streets of Athens, left no written word
behind him. “The Gospels,” though not “The Gospel,”
were the product of the wonderful life that throbbed in
the hearts of the followers of Jesus after his death. For
more than a century scholars have been trying to repro-
duce the situation in which the Gospels were made, and
especially to account for the perplexing combination of
similarity and dissimilarity which characterizes the three
Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This
is the “synoptic problem.” * These Gospels contain nar-
rative matter, anecdotes briefly told but possessed of the
wonderful interest which the oriental story teller knows
how to impart to a brief narrative. They also contain
compact, terse, vivid presentations of the “teaching” of
Jesus, for Jesus, as will be seen, had exercised the func-
tion of a teaching rabbi, although without the conven-
tional preparation for it. A rabbi was accustomed to
“sit down” in the midst of his “disciples” and “teach,”
or lecture to them: Jesus “went up into the mountain
* Lk. I:1-4.
*The first three Gospels have long been called the “Synoptic Gos-
pels,” perhaps because they yield practically the same synopsis, or
general view, of the life of Jesus when their contents are arranged
for the purpose of comparison.
Gospzt Makers aNnp Tuerr Times 3
and when he had sat down his disciples came unto him
and he opened his mouth and taught them.” ° The teach-
ing matter and the narrative matter may be considered
separately in discussing the Gospel making process.
The teaching matter was subject to two general ten-
dencies during this process, one calculated to preserve
the exact form in which it had come from Jesus’ lips and
the other calculated to modify it. The disciple of a
teaching rabbi was trained to remember the exact words
of his teacher with reference to passing them on to
others. A successful, clear-headed rabbi would put his
teaching in such compact, vivid, concrete form that the
disciples could “hold it fast.”® Rabbi Johanan, a con-
temporary of Jesus, said of one of his best disciples,
Eliezer, that he was “a plastered cistern which loseth not
a drop.”7 The Jewish Talmud was long preserved in
the powerful memories of generations of disciples. Its
earlier portions were not put in written form until the
third century A.D. Possibly some disciples made tem-
porary use of written notes taken at the time of the
lecture, but this evidence of weakness may well have
been considered with the same disfavor that Elspeth
Macfadyen, the “sermon taster” of Drumtochty, felt for
note taking in sermon time. The teaching of Jesus that
has come down to us shows him to have been a most skill-
ful teacher. Many of his teachings were so terse, para-
doxical, vividly pictorial and concrete that when once
heard they could never be forgotten. In addition to this
fact his disciples had unusual incentive and opportunity
to fix his teaching firmly in mind. As will be seen later
the main subject of his teaching was peculiarly exciting,
*Mt. V:1-2.
* Lk. VIII: 15.
*Pirke Aboth 2:10.
4 Tue Lire anp Traonine or JESUS
“the Kingdom of Heaven at hand” which meant to many,
“the end of the world near’; the disciples were sent out
by him to reproduce his teaching as apprentice rabbis;
they came back to him with reports of what they had
done and taught ® to have any misapprehensions corrected
by him; and especially the growing conviction that their
rabbi was to be the Messianic leader sent by God made
their minds alert. After his death, during the short
period which they expected would intervene before his
return from heaven, they had strong incentive to recall and
teach his words. In his teaching he had showed men
how to live in order to be ready for “the Coming King-
dom.” His disciples now felt it to be their urgent duty
to continue this work and pass on to all who would listen
Jesus’ teaching about the way to get ready for the Great
Event. All this tended to fix the exact form of the teach-
ing in their memory.
On the other hand there were certain influences oper-
ative in the Gospel making period which tended to modify
this well set, inherited body of teaching. There were
“prophets and teachers” among the early Christian
leaders. These Christian prophets and teachers were
men of independence, considered to be acting under the
direct inspiration of the Spirit of God, and to be directly
acquainted with the mind of Jesus after he had been
taken into the heavens. ‘Their conception of their rela-
tion to Jesus appears in the words attributed to Peter
when he was speaking as a “prophet”: ‘‘Being therefore
by the right hand of God exalted and having received of
the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit he (Jesus)
hath poured forth this which ye do see and hear.” 1°
®*Mk. VI:7, 30.
* Acts XIII:1.
* Acts I1:17, 33.
GosPpEL Maxers AND TxHErrr TIMES 5
That a “prophet” in his “spiritual”? independence would
not hesitate to put words on the lips of Jesus in heaven
appears in the Book of the Revelation of the Prophet John.
There John the “prophet’’ repeatedly ventures to put on
the lips of Jesus words that have always appealed power-
fully to the Christian heart, for instance: “Behold I stand
at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice and
open the door I will come in to him and will sup with
him and he with me. He that overcometh, I will give to
him to sit down with me in my throne as I also overcame
and sat down with my Father in his throne.” 14
While the inherited words of Jesus would always have
been a norm in the Gospel making period, the independent
spirit of the Christian prophets and teachers would have
felt authorized to make consistent additions to, or explana-
tions of, the words of Jesus. These additions would
naturally have become part of the authoritative words of
Jesus. They would have been regarded as Jesus’ con-
tinuation of his teaching through his prophets and
teachers. ‘This would especially have been true in the
earliest period when the speedy return of Jesus was a
constant expectation and no idea of arbitrary limits was
connected with the teachings remembered by his various
disciples. |
There were certain features of the Gospel making
period that specially incited the prophets and teachers to
use their authority. The period was one of controversy
with non-Christian Jews. Jesus appeared to many such
to have been an outrageous blasphemer whom God’s hot
wrath had cursed with death by crucifixion. Whenever
in this bitter controversy it was found that words of
Jesus were being misunderstood and used to his discredit
it would have seemed plain duty so to modify his words
Rev. XXII:8-9, III:20-21,
6 Tuer Lire anp Traonine or JrEsus
as to bring out their true meaning and prevent their
misuse.
The prophets and teachers felt the influence of an-
other incentive to modify the teaching in order to increase
its usefulness. It will be shown later that for a con-
siderable time Jesus did not make known his sense of
mission in its full dimensions. His Messianic conscious-
ness was a secret.1* Some of his words, therefore, took
on a new meaning afterward when they were remembered
with full realization of who it was that had spoken them.
In such cases it sometimes seemed necessary so to re-phrase
the statements as to make their real significance clear.
Furthermore, as the teachers and prophets taught the
words of Jesus to evangelists or to those being prepared
to enter the organization that in the course of no long
time began to be called “the church,” various helpful
homiletical explanations of the words of Jesus would be-
come fixed in form and incorporated into the body of his
teaching.
The situation in regard to narrative matter was some-
what different. No original disciple of Jesus would have
definitely set himself to fasten on his mind a picture of
Jesus in action. It was the business of a disciple to
remember the words of his rabbi but not to photograph
his actions. The narrative portions of the Gospels are
miscellaneous anecdotes long current among Jesus’ fol-
lowers, used, as often in ancient biographies of distin-
euishéd men, to reveal the true character of the subject
of the gueyaiee In the case of great men there is
always a tendency to mix legendary matter with fact.
It is not due to conscious effort to deceive or exaggerate.
It is due to the respectful or reverent feeling that such
things are what we should expect from so great a person.
™ Mk. VIII:29-30.
GosrpEL Maxers anp Turin Timzs 7
Devout conjecture naturally passes into conviction. It is
the mind’s instinctive tribute to greatness. Some matter
that appears to us unhistorical is found in the Gospel
narrative; for instance, the statement that a good many
graves in the vicinity of Jerusalem were opened, and that
resurrected bodies in large numbers were seen walking
the Jerusalem streets at the time when Jesus died and
rose again.1®
The ease with which the various modifying influences
might operate to a certain extent on the Gospel making
process in the case of both teaching and narrative matter
is clearer when we realize that the process was probably
a far more democratic one than we have sometimes
thought. Many nameless prophets, teachers and evangel-
ists had a part init. The Spirit of God would have been
expected to work in democratic ways, especially in a period
when it was understood that the Spirit of God was being
poured out in democratic fashion on all flesh.1* That
this democratic tendency was felt by many earnest people -
in the later stages of the Gospel making process has always
been evident from the prologue to the third Gospel: “For-
asmuch as many have taken in hand to draw up a narra-
tive concerning those matters which have been fulfilled
among us... it seemed good to me also... to
write.” 15
The process by which the Gospels were formed, shows
that they were not intended to be an expression of sheer
authority, calculated to overawe the soul of man and bring
it to unquestioning submission to dogmas and rules of
life. This would be detrimental to the formation of char-
acter. They were intended to beget a certain disposition
4Mt. XXVIII: 52-53.
% Acts II:17.
¥ Lk, I:1-3.
8 Tue Lirz anp TEACHING oF JESUS
toward life, to start men out on a sincere adventure into
the telisiows experience of Jesus.
So far we have considered only certain general influ-
ences operating both to preserve and to modify the Gospel
material in the Gospel making period. There was one
other important and more specific feature in the situation.
Palestine was at this time a bi-lingual country, like parts
of Bohemia before the war. Both Aramaic, a language —
akin to Hebrew, and Greek were in use among the people.
Greek life and language had penetrated Palestine, espe-
cially in the northern. part, Galilee. Even in Jerusalem,
in the south, there had been a circus and theatre in which
Greek games and gladiatorial contests were witnessed
from time to time. As is generally the case in a bi-
lingual country many preferred one language to the other,
and some knew only one. Many Jews came back from
Jewish colonies in foreign parts knowing only Greek and
plenty of home born Jews probably knew only Aramaic.
All through the Gospel making period, therefore, the Gos-
pel matter must have existed in both languages. After it
had become necessary to put this matter into written form
it would have been circulating in three and perhaps four
forms: oral Aramaic and Greek, written Greek and per-
haps written Aramaic. There would also have been
variety in each of these fornis. |
What forms of the Gospel material lay immediately
behind our first three Gospels? It is possible here only to
state the main conclusions now quite generally accepted. —
Our Greek Gospel according to Mark is the oldest of the
three. Perhaps behind it was an earlier form of it only
slightly different. This Gospel, in its earlier or later
form, was used by the compilers of our Matthew and
Luke. They both used also another main written source,
which afterward disappeared as an independent docu-
Gosprt Makers and Tuerr Tims 9
ment, namely, a collection of the teachings of Jesus com-
monly referred to as Q (“Quelle,” “source’”’). They used
Mark, which is composed largely of narrative matter, as
a narrative framework. If they used Mark in its
present form, they occasionally changed its order of
events. Into this framework of narrative they inserted
at intervals sections from Q, the collection of teachings.
A minimum reconstruction of Q, therefore, would consist
of those teachings of Jesus found in both Matthew and
Luke, but not in Mark. However, some of Q may be also
in Mark. It may be, also, that neither the compiler of
our Matthew nor of our Luke used all of Q. There may
be some teaching found in Matthew only or in Luke only
which nevertheless came from Q. It is sometimes imag-
ined that Q (in this case used only as a symbol for teach-
ing in general) existed in several different collections and
that our Matthew and our Luke represent different forms
of Q. The compilers of the Matthew and Luke Gospel
both used other sources written or oral in addition to
Mark and Q. They have divergent narratives about the
birth and infancy of Jesus. In the Matthew Gospel a
great many references to Old Testament prophecies appear,
probably taken from a very early collection of “‘testi-
monia,” that is, Old Testament passages to be used for
defending the Messiahship of Jesus in controversies with
the Jews. Luke seems to have had access to a somewhat
extensive source containing some very beautiful teaching
and interesting narrative not found in any other of our
Gospels, for instance, the good Samaritan, Mary and
Martha entertaining Jesus, the prodigal son, the rich man
and Lazarus, the Pharisee and the Publican at prayer,
the ten lepers, Jesus in the home of Zacchaeus, the peni-
tent brigand on the cross, the two disciples meeting Jesus
‘on the way to Emmaus, etc.
CHAPTER II
THE SOURCES (Concluded) :
THE FOUR GOSPELS
T remains to describe briefly each of our four Gospels.
Each of them in its purpose and characteristics shows
the influence of the section of the church in which it
was compiled. This is what we should expect for each
Gospel was an earnest, practical attempt to bring the
influence of the memorable deeds and words of Jesus to
bear upon local or class needs until the time, not far
distant, when the Lord himself should come back from
heaven to earth.
The Gospel according to Mark was apparently intended
for non-Jewish readers, “Gentiles.” It contains explana-
tions of Jewish customs that would not have been neces-
sary for Jews. For instance: ‘Some of his disciples ate
their bread with defiled, that is, unwashed, hands. For
the Pharisees and all the Jews, except they wash their
hands diligently, eat not, holding the tradition of the
elders, and when they come from the market place except
they bathe themselves they eat not; and many other things
there are which they have received to hold, washing of
cups and pots and brasen vessels.” ?
The Gospel compiler had in mind Gentiles who had not
yet become Christians, for he makes very slight reference
to the Jewish scriptures. Gentiles who had become Chris-
* Mk. VII:2-4.,
10
Tus Four Gosrexts 11
tians would thereafter be much interested in the sacred
Jewish scriptures with their impressive predictions. The
orthodox Gentile Christians, in spite of their prejudice
against the Jews, appropriated the Jewish scriptures
without any scruples as modern Christians have done.
_ The Gospel according to Mark shows evangelists how to
meet three outstanding Gentile objections to the Christian
presentation of Jesus. The first objection is this: If
Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, why did his own country-
- men not at once accept him? The answer is that he did
not let them know that he was the Messiah. He concealed
the fact until the very end of his life.2 The second objec-
tion is this: If Jesus really had the character of a kingly
gracious Messiah, even though he concealed his rank, how
could his countrymen have turned against him and cruci-
fied him? The answer is that they did not turn against
him; he was a popular hero from beginning to end. It
was the ecclesiastical machine that killed him, because
envious of his great popularity, as the Roman procurator
very well knew.® The third is this: If he was God’s all-
powerful Messiah why did he allow his envious enemies to
put him to death? The answer is that he felt it to be
God’s will that he should be killed; only by such a death
could he accomplish his Messianic purpose.* Incidentally
also pains are taken in this Gospel to show that Jesus did
not share one Jewish prejudice which made the Jews very
ridiculous and unpopular among Gentiles. When a Roman
Emperor a few years after the death of Jesus was hurry-
ing through his palace and gardens to inspect improve-
ments that were being made and a dignified delegation of
Alexandrian Jews was racing after him to get a chance
7 Mk. VIII:27-30, XIV:55, 61-62.
> Mk. 1:45, III:7-8, XIV:1-2, XV:9-10.
*Mk. VIII:31, 1X:12, 31, X:45.
12 Tue Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
to present their case piecemeal, he suddenly turned upon
them and raised a great laugh among his obsequious
attendants by asking why they did not eat pork.° The
laugh probably went all over Rome. Mark’s Gospel ex-
pressly represents Jesus by implication to have abolished
this unpopular requirement in the law of Moses.®° No
Gentile need hesitate to become a follower of the Jewish
Messiah for fear of having to give up eating pork, oysters
or rabbits. | |
A tradition of the early church connects this Gospel
with Rome. A still earlier tradition ascribes the Gospel
to Mark, whom it represents to have been the reporter
(‘anterpreter’’) of the apostle Peter. Papias, a Bishop in
Asia Minor about 125 or 135 A.D., quotes an earlier man
“The Elder”: “And the Elder said this also: Mark having
become the interpreter of Peter wrote down accurately
everything that he remembered, without, however, record-
ing in order what was either said or done by Christ.
’ (What follows may be the words of Papias himself.) For
neither did he hear the Lord nor did he follow him; but
afterwards as I said (attended) Peter who adapted his
instructions to the needs (of his hearers?) but had no
design of giving an account of the Lord’s oracles (variant
reading, ‘words’). So then Mark made no mistake while
he thus wrote some things as he remembered them, for
- he made it his one care not to omit anything that he heard
or to set down any false statement therein.”7 This
language indicates that Mark’s Gospel, which we consider
very valuable because of its priority to the others, was at
first not so highly esteemed. The Elder or Papias seems
to be defending it against criticism. It seemed a dis-
* Philo, On the Virtues of Ambassadors, 45; of. Juvenal Sat. XIV.
Mk. VII:19.
* Quoted in Eusebius, Church History, III:39.
Tuer Four Gosprrts 13
orderly Gospel, miscellaneous and ill arranged, especially,
perhaps, as compared with the careful chronological refer-
ence to feasts, days and even hours to be found in the
Fourth Gospel. It had no such fine body of oracles, or
words of Jesus, as were contained in Matthew and Luke.
Its literary style seemed crude (its rough details are often
smoothed off by Matthew and particularly Luke in their
use of it). It evidently seemed to many Christians an
inadequate, incomplete Gospel. It had no infancy stories
at the beginning and, perhaps, even then ended abruptly
at what is now verse eight of the last chapter with no
account of Jesus’ appearances after his resurrection.®
In the personalities of Peter and Mark, Galilee and
Jerusalem -were represented, for Peter’s home was in
Galilee ® and John Mark was the son of an influential,
well to do family whose house in the earliest days was
headquarters for a circle of Jerusalem Christians.1° The
Gospel presents the picture of Jesus which was current
among the early Christians of Palestine and which is well
summarized in the words attributed to Peter in the Book
of Acts: “God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and
with power, who went about doing good and healing all
that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him.” ?!
This Gospel with its old Palestinian subject matter
was compiled in Rome for the use of Italian Christians
probably sometime in the decade 60 to 70. Exact dates
are impossible.
The Gospel according to Matthew seems to have been
compiled in a section of the church whose attitude toward
the Law of Moses was quite different from that of the
*XVI:9-20, seems to be an ending added later.
*Mk. 1:21, 29, III:16.
* Acts XIT:12.
4 Acts X:38,
14 Tue Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
Gentile Christians in Italy. Jesus is represented as
teaching that not the slightest commandment of the Law
of Moses should be neglected until everything shall have
happened,?” that is, apparently, until the end of the age
when an entirely new order will begin.1* Certain Chris-
tian preachers known to the compiler are evidently de-
claring that some commandments of the law are insignifi-
cant and need not be observed. He makes Jesus say that
such careless preachers will be regarded as insignificant
in the coming Kingdom of the Heavens: ‘Whosoever
therefore shall break one of these least commandments and
shall teach men so shall be called least in the kingdom of
heaven.” 14 Jesus’ teaching about clean and unclean foods
which the Christians about Rome under Mark’s (and
Peter’s?) influence regarded as annulling the law of
Moses, Matthew’s Gospel, in using Mark, carefully re
stricts to a rebuke of scribal teaching about eating with
unwashed hands. A parable is added which represents
Jesus to have attacked only the tradition of the scribes.®
Jesus is represented as saying that the teaching even of
the reprobate scribes should be regarded with reverence
in so far as they follow Moses.1® Men ought to give a
tenth of even the smallest garden herbs, mint, anise and
cummin, as well as to be scrupulous about the weightier
matters.17 In the parable of the vineyard which is to
be taken away from unworthy owners, the vineyard is not
™Mt. V:18.
“This may have been the position of Stephen, who apparently
was loyal to Moses in the present age but thought that true religion
in the new age would dispense with the temple and the temple
ritual prescribed by Moses. Acts VI:14, VII:48-50.
*Mt. V:19.
* Mk, VII:19, Mt. XV:12-13, 20.
*Mt. XXIII: 2-3.
"Mt. XXTII:23.
Tur Four Gosprrrs 15
merely represented, as in Mark, to be given io “‘others,”
which might mean Gentiles, but a sentence is added to
the effect that “others” means “a nation bringing forth
the fruits thereof,” }® that is, a reformed Jewish nation.
In this nation the old twelve tribe divisions of the people
will be re-established, and each apostle will be the ruling
judge of a tribe: “In the regeneration when the Son of
Man shall sit on the throne of his glory ye also shall sit
upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of
Israel.” 1® As the Christians look forward to the time
_when they will have to flee from Jerusalem, they are to
pray that it may not be necessary to do so “on a Sab-
bath” °° either because such a journey would break the
Sabbath, or because of the difficulty of hiring workmen
and animals on the Sabbath in preparation for the jour-
ney. To the great commission to make disciples of all
nations is added the conservative clause, “teaching them
to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you,” 74
which means obedience to all the details of the Mosaic
law so thoroughly emphasized in the body of the Gospel.
That is, Matthew’s Gospel was compiled in a section of
the church which believed that all Christians ought to
keep the law of Moses. They did not go so far as to say,
with the extremely conservative Christian Pharisees, that
those who did not keep all the law of Moses could not be
saved, for they allowed an obscure corner in the New Age
for preachers who neglected some of the less important
commandments.** But they felt that normal, hearty,
first class Christians ought to keep all the law of Moses.
It was men of this type who went from Jerusalem to
Mk. XII:9; Mt. XXI:43
Mt. XIX :28.
™>Mt. XXIV:20.
™Mt. XXVIII:20.
= Acts XV:1, 5, Mt. V:19.
16 Tur Lirz anp TEACHING OF JESUS
South Galatia in the fifties and tried to persuade Paul’s
converts there to become “first class” Christians.
At the same time this section of the church, so zealous ©
for the Jewish law of Moses, was vigorously opposed to
the Jewish leaders who had condemned Jesus and were
doubtless now opposing the Christian movement. The
Matthew Gospel exceeds the others in its denunciation of
these men. Its various thrusts at them ?* culminate in
the terrific polemic of chapter twenty-three. They and
the Jerusalem mob which they have excited are pictured
asking that the blood of Jesus may be upon them and
their children.7* They are represented to be a set of
rascals who bribed the Roman soldiers to give a false
account of what happened at the grave of Jesus, a lie
still in circulation at the time when this Gospel was
compiled.*5
We have here then a Gospel produced in a circle of
conservative Jewish Christians feeling two antagonisms.
They were antagonistic to a type of liberal Christianity,
whether Jewish or Gentile, somewhat like that represented
by Paul, and also to orthodox, non-Christian Judaism.
Both of these are treated with a vividness indicating their
immediate presence and activity. One locality where such
a situation existed in the Gospel-making period was
Syrian Antioch. We know from Gal. II: 11-14 that a
serious rupture of relationship occurred there between
Peter and Paul over questions of social conduct involving
the law of Moses. This rupture divided the Christians of
the region and doubtless continued after Paul and Peter
had left, perhaps with more intensity of feeling than had
originally characterized the leaders themselves. In such
2 Hg. II1:7-10, V:20, VI:1-18.
* X XVII :20-25.
* XXVIII: 11-15.
Tur Four Gosrrts 17
a situation the special exaltation of Peter as an authori-
tative teacher, peculiar to this Gospel,?® would be natural.
The narrowly Jewish presupposition characteristic of
this Gospel, while distinct and unmistakable, appears only
occasionally. The great body of the teaching of Jesus
presented in it is concerned with other things than the
relation of Christians to the Mosaic law. It is the precious
treasure of the church, and of all those who earnestly seek
religious experience.
The name of the apostle Matthew has been connected
with this Gospel since the end of the second century. It
has seemed to many modern scholars that an original
apostle of Jesus, acquainted at first hand with the deeds
and words of Jesus, would not have followed written docu-
ments so closely as the compiler of the Matthew Gospel has
followed Mark and Q. A clue to another theory is found
in a fragment from Papias, the Bishop of Hierapolis in
Asia Minor already referred to, who says that ““Matthew
in the Hebrew (Aramaic?) dialect compiled the oracles
(logia) and each one interpreted them as he was able.”
It has been natural to infer from this statement that the
apostle Matthew was the compiler of the teaching of
Jesus, that is, of that form of Q which constitutes (with
modifications) so large a part of this Gospel and which
has, therefore, given his name to the Gospel.?"
The date of the Gospel may be soon after the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem in the year 70. The coming of the
Son of Man is expected to be very soon after that event:
*XVI:19, of. XIV:28-29, XV:15, XVII:24, XVIII:21.
“Whether Papias himself interpreted in this way the tradition
which had come down to him is another question. He may have
understood that Matthew was the author of our Gospel which he
called “logia” and yet the fact still be that the apostle Matthew
had really been connected with an earlier stage of the Gospel’s
development.
18 Tus Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days...
they shall see the Son of Man coming.” ?* This expecta-
tion would hardly have been allowed to stand without
some explanatory modification if any considerable time
had passed without its fulfilment. The use of the bap-
tismal formula, “into the name of the Father and the Son
and the Holy Spirit,” 2° is sometimes said to be evidence
of a date later than the year 70, but this is not a necessary
inference. A similar combination of names appears in
Paul’s writings fifteen years before the destruction of
J erusalem.*°
The Gospel according to Luke is quite different in its
spirit from either Mark or Matthew. It is entirely free
from the Jewish exclusiveness which characterizes the
Matthew Gospel. Its genealogy runs back to Adam in-
stead of stopping with Abraham as the Matthew genealogy
does. A Samaritan twice appears as an illustration of
true religion.®! God’s favor to other foreigners is empha-
sized in Jesus’ inaugural message with its reference to
the widow of Sidon and Naaman the Syrian.®?. There is
no such emphasis on the necessity of obeying all the details
of the Mosaic law as appears in the Matthew Gospel.**
There is a certain Greek beauty about the Gospel. Jesus’
beautiful compassion for the poor and the outcast classes
is emphasized and Jesus himself, “the Lord,” moves
about in a kind of golden haze, “glorified” and ‘“wel-
comed’”? by those to whom he brings his beautiful mes-
7 XXIV :29.
» XXVIII:19.
»* II Cor. XIII:14.
X :25-37, XVII:11-19; cf. Mt. X:5, “Go not into any way of
the Gentiles and enter not into any city of the Samaritans.”
* IV :26-27.
"The brief, somewhat ambiguous logion in Lk. XVI:17 may be
the form of Q which is expanded in Mt. V:18-19.
Tue Four Gosprrits 19
sage.** In its use of the Mark Gospel verbal alterations
are noticeable that make it presentable to Greek ears. It
omits sections that were probably brought from Q into the
Matthew Gospel but were too strongly Jewish in character
and color to interest Greeks.** It lifts the narrative out
of the narrow bounds of Palestine and connects it with
world personages and events, Tiberius Cesar and the
Augustan census. *®
Evidence regarding the location of the Greek clientage
for which it was compiled is furnished by the Book of
Acts, written later by the same author and dedicated to
the same man, Theophilus. The hero of Acts is Paul and
that book was apparently intended to circulate among
churches either at the time personally acquainted with
Paul or having a fresh tradition of his earlier connection
with them. The Gospel therefore was probably also in-
tended for circulation among Pauline churches in the
provinces of Galatia, Asia, Macedonia, Achaia, perhaps
also northern Syria and Cilicia. Paul conceived Jesus
Christ as one who was crucified, went up to God in the
heavens and from that point of vantage operated power-
fully in the lives of those who received the heavenly Spirit
of God. The compiler of the Luke Gospel adjusts his
Gospel material to this scheme. Early in the Gospel
Jesus starts for Jerusalem, the slaughter city of
prophets,** in order that he may be received up into
heaven: “And it came to pass when the days were well
nigh come that he should be received up he steadfastly set
his face to go to Jerusalem.” #8 From this point on every-
thing that follows is thought of as happening on the way
“IV:22, VIII:1, 40, XV, XXI:38.
= H.g., Mt. V:22, 33-37, VI:1-7, 16-18, VII:6, XXIII:8-10, 16-22.
*17:1-2, TIT:1-2.
* XIII :33.
*1X:51.
20 Tue Lirze anp Tracuine or JESUS
to Jerusalem *® and the Gospel ends with his ascension
into heaven.*® All through the Book of Acts, Jesus in
heaven works upon his disciples on earth.**
While neither Gospel nor Acts mentions “Luke” tradi-
tion ascribes both books to him and identifies him with
Paul’s medical friend mentioned in the letter to the
Colossians IV:14. The place where the Gospel was
compiled is uncertain. Luke was a traveler who probably
collected his matter, oral and written, in various places.
On the supposition that he was with Paul wherever the
pronoun “we” occurs in the last half of Acts, he spent
two years in Palestine in the late fifties,*? and in this
period would have had excellent opportunity for inves-
tigation and compilation. This might make the date of
the Gospel to be very early (and the date of the Mark
Gospel still earlier, since Luke used Mark). It is often
thought that the date must be later, a considerable time
after the destruction of Jerusalem, when it had become
evident that the Coming of the Son of Man was not to be
“immediately” after that event, as in Matthew, nor “in
those days” as in Mark, but that Jerusalem must “be
trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gen-
tiles be fulfilled.” ** However, this statement does not
necessarily indicate a late date, for Paul in the fifties was
writing about a Jewish apostacy to last until the times
of the Gentiles should be fulfilled ** and was thinking that
all this might happen in his own lifetime. A date as late
1X :57, X:1, 38, XVIT:11.
“XXIV:51. "Riven if the clause “and was taken up into heaven”
is not textually secure, Acts I:11 makes it certain that this is what
the author meant by “parted from them.”
“1 F.9., 11:33, I1I1:16, 1X:34, XVI:7, XVIII:9, XXIII: 11,
XXIV :27; cf. XXI: 17, XXVII: i
“ Mt. XXIV: 29, Mk. XIII:24, Lk, XXI:24.
“Rom. XI.
Tar Four Gosrrts 21
as the year 100 is possible and one as early as the late
_ fifties or sixties not absolutely impossible.
The Gospel according to John is an entirely new type
of Gospel. Its subject matter does not fit into the “synop-
sis’ common to the first three Gospels. The scene of
Jesus’ activity is generally Judea rather than Galilee.
The first seventeen chapters present a series of discourses
many of them attached to a narrative incident which
serves as a text. The literary style of these discourses is
entirely different from that used by Jesus in the other
Gospels. This style characterizes the discourse with which
the author himself introduces the Gospel and re-appears
in the First Epistle of John. The subject matter of these
discourses is quite different from that found in the other
Gospels. Jesus talks about himself, his nature, the sig-
nificance of his life in a somewhat theological way and
generally in controversy with “the Jews,” not the Scribes
or Pharisees of the Synoptic Gospels. The Kingdom of
God or the Heavens which is the frequent theme of Jesus
in the other Gospels is mentioned here on only one occa-
sion.*® The structure of the sentences is Hebrew in its
simplicity but the introductory sentences make it at once
evident that the Gospel was produced for a Greek or
Greco-Jewish thought world where the presentation of
Jesus must be adjusted to the “Logos” idea: “In the
beginning was the word (Logos)”; “the Logos became
flesh and dwelt among us.” *¢
The book is a semi-theological interpretation of the ~
personality of Jesus put into the popular “Gospel” form.
The “prophet John” in the Book of Revelation, written
for Christians in the Province of Asia, did not hesitate to
put on the lips of Jesus in heaven messages addressed
“III:3-5.
nf} Oe Poe Fo
22 Tue Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
directly to them.47 So this author, writing as is generally
believed to the same churches, may not have hesitated to
put whole discourses on the lips of Jesus in Palestine.
The Gospel may have been long in the process of form-
ing. Just as Paul probably preached the substance of
the Letter to the Romans for many years and slowly |
wrought out certain ways of putting things which now
appear in hat letter, so the various discourses in this
Gospel may have grown up separately and been finally
combined into the present Gospel form. As in the case
of the Synoptic Gospels, various preachers may have been
concerned in this process. The question then would be
whether the main witness endorsed by the sponsors at the
end of the Gospel *® could be an apostle.
In any case the interpretation of the personality of
Jesus made in this Gospel is a revelation of the experience
that men were having as they sought, like Paul, for direct
spiritual acquaintance with Jesus glorified in the heavens.
It is a challenge and guide to a certain type of sanely
mystical Christian experience which always has been, and
apparently always will be, very dear to the heart of the
Christian church, though not in high degree the posses-
sion of all earnest souls.
* Rev. II, III.
“XXI:24.,
CHAPTER III
RELIGION IN PALESTINE AS JESUS FOUND IT:
BUILDINGS AND SECTS
/ VHE religious life of a nation is a complex phenom-
enon, hard to describe even when it can be studied
at first hand. What is the religious life of America
or England? In presenting the religious life of a past
age it is necessary to be cautious in at least two particu-
lars. The surviving religious literature of the period may
represent only one section of the life of the people; the
most vital religion of the time, especially in a non-literary
age, may not have expressed itself in literature at all.
Furthermore such literature as has survived may present
only the theory of religion, an inherited ideal that may
not at all represent the real life of the people at the
time.!
*The literature of Jesus’ day available for the study of the re-
ligious conditions under which he grew up, includes first of all such
information ag the Gospels themselves contain, and next the writings
of a Jew, Flavius Josephus, who was himself a product of the
religious life of Palestine soon after the time of Jesus. He made
his peace with the Romans before the end of the war in which they
destroyed Jerusalem (70 A.D.) and lived in Rome for many years.
Under the patronage of the Flavian Emperors (in whose honor he
adopted his first name) he wrote a history of his people and a history
of their last great war by which he hoped to lessen their unpopu-
larity in the Greco-Roman world.
Little, if any, of the Jewish Talmud, or Teaching of the rabbis,
was put into writing until perhaps the third century A.D. The
great Rabbi Judah, who died about 219 A.D., was the leader in the
23
24 Tun Lire anp TERAcHING oF JESUS
The religious life of the Jewish people found expression
for itself in two types of buildings, the temple and the
synagogue. There was but one temple, Jehovah’s House,
standing on a sacred historic elevation in the southeastern
part of the walled city, Jerusalem. King Herod the
Great, an Idumean half Jew maintained in office by
Roman authority, who built much in many places, natu-
rally wished to do his best in his own capital, and per-
suaded the Jewish religious authorities to let him rebuild
their temple. The result, almost completed in Jesus’ day,
was a beautiful building made of white stone quarried
under the city and trimmed with gold. “This temple
appeared to strangers when they were at a distance like
a mountain covered with snow, for as to those parts of it
that were not gilt they were exceeding white.”? The
building was the pride of the Jew, the object that he
longed to see wherever in the wide world he lived. In the
extensive courts and colonnades about the temple itself
Jews from all parts of the Roman Empire could be found,
walking about with devout curiosity or standing in prayer.
At certain times in the year hundreds of thousands of
work of compilation. The development of rabbinic teaching has
continued through all the centuries. The earliest part of the Tal-
mud contains material that can be used for a reconstruction of ideas
that prevailed in Jesus’ day.
In addition to these sources is a body of literature not found in
our Bible, although produced between 200 B.C. and 100 A.D., much
of it “apocalypse,” or “revelation” of what is going on in the un-
seen world and of what will happen when the forces of the unseen
world finally break into, and transform or displace, our present
visible world. He could not be found at his place of busi-
ness on that day, nor among other workmen, however
much his employer might need his services. But more
important than this social isolation secured by Sabbath
keeping was the fact that a whole day was secured each
week for the study of the law in the synagogue and at
home. This most of all tended to keep the Jews’ reli-
gious life free from all the evil foreign influences about it.
It is not strange, therefore, that the scribes exerted them-
selves to the utmost to imagine all sorts of situations that
might arise in the life of the people and to explain, with
what seems to us absurd attention to detail, exactly how
the Sabbath law applied to each. It was sometimes felt
that if only two successive Sabbaths were kept by the
nation, just as the scribes directed, it would bring national
redemption.® Therefore, when Jesus was discovered to
be out of sympathy with the effort:of the scribes to en-
force Sabbath keeping, he naturally seemed to them to
be a most serious menace to religion.
In the oldest Gospel two cases of conflict over this point
5 Juvenal, Sat. XIV.
* Weber, Die Lehren des Talmud, p. 334, quoting Sabbath Tract.
Fasts AND THE SABBATH 111
are described’? which resulted in the determination of
the Pharisees to bring formal charges against Jesus in
the proper court and, if possible, to secure a death sen-
tence.®
Before considering these two cases in detail, the exact
point at issue between Jesus and the scribes should be
noted. The scribes held that only what was absolutely
necessary for the preservation of life, or the prevention
of great suffering, or the avoidance of extreme inconven-
ience, should be done on the Sabbath. Whatever could be
done on some other day should be put off. Jesus on the
other hand held that whatever contributed to the real wel-
fare of men might be done on the Sabbath and need not
be postponed until the next day. This exact issue comes
out clearly in a scene described by Luke.® A woman who
for eighteen years had not been able to stand erect ap-
peared in the synagogue on the Sabbath and was cured
by Jesus. The ruler of the synagogue became very in-
dignant because Jesus had not waited a day. He stated
his case with great force to the audience: “The ruler of
the synagogue being moved with indignation because Jesus
had healed on the Sabbath answered and said to the multi-
tude. There are six days in which men ought to work;
in them, therefore, come and be healed and not on the
day of the Sabbath.” Jesus’ retort was that they were
more merciful to their live stock than they were to human
beings. They did not make a thirsty ox wait for water
until the Sabbath was over; why should they make this
“daughter of Abraham” wait for healing?
This is the point at issue in the two typical cases cited
™Mk, II:23-II1:6.
® Mk. III:6.
°Lk. XIII:10-17. See I. Abrahams, Studies in Pharisaism and
the Gospels, pp. 129-135.
112 Tus Lire anp TracuHina or JESUS
by Mark. In the first one while Jesus and a group cf
his disciples were passing by a grain field, some of his
disciples, who were hungry, “‘harvested” and “threshed” a
few handfuls of grain which Jesus and his disciples ate.
This seemed to certain Pharisees, who either saw it or
heard of it, to be a clear case of Sabbath breaking. When
they called Jesus to account for letting his disciples set
such an example to the people, he defended himself by
citing what David had allowed his young men to do when
they were hungry, namely break the law regarding the
use of holy tabernacle bread. A company of them under
his leadership, setting out suddenly on an expedition that
need not be described here, appeared at the tabernacle
and asked the high priest for bread. He had only Je
hovah’s sacred bread—priests’ food according to the law—
but he gave it to them at David’s request. Neither David’s
young men nor Jesus’ disciples were in desperate need.
Both groups were hungry but they could have gone hungry
for hours without running any serious risk, and could
presumably have secured food in some other way within
a short time. Jesus’ point seems to be that David in-
terpreted the priests’ bread law in a rather common sense
way, which made it justifiable to use the bread for other
persons when to do so would help a worthy cause. Jesus
assumed that the situation in which he was leading a com-
pany of young men about, authoritatively proclaiming the
nearness of the Kingdom of God, was, to say the least,
as important as that in which David found himself. This
comparison of the two situations made it natural later
for the Gospel makers to see here a covert comparison
between David, who was to be the Lord’s anointed King,
and Jesus, the Messianic Lord’s Anointed. The Matthew
Gospel attributes to Jesus another comparison, particu-
larly effective with Palestinian Jews. The priests carry
Fasts AND THE SABBATH 113
burdens and do other work on the Sabbath which it would
be unlawful for other men to do, but which is lawful for
them because done in the service of the temple. Then
follows the statement that “something !° greater than the
temple is here.” This means that the situation created by
Jesus, in which his disciples were employed, was greater
than the temple. The sentence added in all three Gospels,
“and so Lord is the Son of Man even of the Sabbath,”
may be an explanatory sentence that originated with the
early expounders of Jesus’ teaching. If it came from
Jesus himself it is not in its original form, for, at a time
when he was careful not to express a Messianic conscious-
ness, he would not have publicly called himself by the Mes-
sianic title “Son of Man.” As was said (p. 102) regarding
the occurrence of this title in Mk. I1:12, the phrase in
Aramaic might have meant “man,” in which case the
meaning would be that man, enlightened and spiritualized
man in the New Age, would have authority to use the
Sabbath as he should see fit. This accords well with the
sentence just preceding it, found in Mark only, which
says that “the Sabbath was made for man.” This latter
‘sentence is also found in the early tradition of the
scribes,41 although their extreme exaltation of the law
made it also easy to think of the creation of man as a
result of God’s desire to have someone to obey his Sab-
bath law.
_ The second case cited by Mark is a synagogue scene.
A workman with a “withered” hand, and so in danger
of becoming a pauper, was present. Mt. V:8.
READINESS FOR THE Kinapom 153
» open, abandoning all efforts longer to conceal the inner
state. His “woe, woe” was pronounced over the persistent
“hypocrite.” “Hungering and thirsting for righteous-
ness” is an exercise of the honest heart. It is hungering
and thirsting for character and not for reputation. Its
simple “Yes” and “No” unsupported by any oath will be
absolutely reliable! 4
All through the nation this bed-rock sincerity was
needed, all men needed to repent of their varying degrees
of insincerity. The Galilean brigands or revolutionists
whom the Procurator Pilate had his soldiers kill at the
very time when they were offering sacrifices at the temple
were not specially in need of repentance. And the eighteen
men in the Jerusalem suburb, Siloam, who were killed by
the collapse of a tower which they were perhaps repairing,
were not worse than other men. “Except ye repent ye
shall all likewise perish.” > The whole nation must come
out into the light and lay its life bare before the face
of God. |
Still more explicitly righteousness consists in having
a heart that is sincere and unreserved im its “love.” We
may anticipate here the teaching of Jesus during the last
week of his life by citing the compact statement explicitly
made then but implicit in all his teaching. Both Luke
and Matthew take it from Mark. (Luke assigns it to an
earlier period.) One of the seribes asked him, “What
commandment is the first of all? Jesus answered, The first
is, Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord, is one,
and thou shalt love the Lord Thy God with all thy heart
and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with
all thy strength. The second is this, Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment
*Mt. V:33-37.
*Lk. XTII:1-5.
154 Tue Lirk anp TEACHING OF JESUS
greater than these.”® In the Matthew Gospel Jesus
prefaces the second commandment by the statement that
it is “like unto the first.”” The fundamental significance
of these two commandments in Jesus’ idea of righteous-"
ness becomes evident when we see what he meant by “God”
and what he meant by “love.” The meaning of these
words will appear in the detailed explication of them
found in the further examination of the teaching of
Jesus, but before proceeding to note these details the
general viewpoint which they will reveal may be briefly
described here. In general “love,” as Jesus used the
word, seems to be a warm active desire to see a person
become all that his nature indicates he ought to be, and
to work with him, so far as it is feasible to do so, in
the execution of every good purpose to which he sets his
will. God, in Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God, had
set his will toward the producing of a wise, powerful, hon-
est and friendly race of men. ‘The unseen energy of his
living will was rising in every man’s heart to claim it for
the wise, honest and friendly life. His will was pushing
all men on, in ways that sometimes seemed gentle and
sometimes rough, to desire and produce an honest and
friendly civilization, like that which was supposed to pre-
vail in heaven: “Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.”?’ When, where and how this
was to take place will be considered later. The point now
is that sometime, somewhere there was to be a righteous
race of men whose righteousness would consist in hon-
esty, friendliness, wisdom and power manifested in each
individual life and in all social customs, laws and insti-
tutions. Since God had set his will toward securing such
a result, to “love God” was to work with him to the utmost
in securing this result. To fail to love God, that is, to
* Mk, XII:29-30, Mt. XXII:36-37, Lk. X:27-28.
READINESS FOR THE KINGDOM 155
oppose him, whether actively or passively by the dead
weight of indifference, was also necessarily to fail to
love men, because God had set himself to do a great good
thing for men. To “sin” against God in this way was
also necessarily to sin against society, for God had set
himself to produce a great and good social result. From
Jesus’ standpoint religion and ethics are inseparable.
Each in its very nature involves the other. The second
great commandment is “like unto the first.” It is the
sense of loving relationship to the Heavenly Father that is
to serve as motive for the life of invincible good will to
men. Because one remembers who his Father is and what ~
the high traditions of his family are he succeeds in loving
even his enemies. ‘Love your enemies and pray for those
who persecute you that you may become sons of your
Father who is in heaven; because he makes his sun rise
on bad and good and he rains on righteous and unrighteous.
... Do you therefore be perfect as your Heavenly
Father is perfect,” ™ that is, perfectly impartial in the
outgoing love of your hearts.
Sometimes in the teaching of Jesus emphasis is laid
on the phase of love that looks Godward and sometimes
on the phase of the same love that is turned toward men.
We may look first at the places where various phases of
loving God appear. Underlying all Jesus’ teaching about
God is the thought of his Fatherhood, which appears in the
passage just cited. While the idea is found earlier in
Jewish thought and also outside of Jewish thought alto-
gether, it appears in Jesus’ teaching as fundamental and
with all the warmth and large dimensions of the personal
experience of the one who felt himself to be “the Son
™Mt. V:44-45, 48.
156 Tue Lire anp Tracuina or JESUS
of God, The Beloved.” The hearts of men should turn
to God spontaneously as the hearts of children turn to
a good father. He is responsive reality and they will
surely find him. They should ask him freely for what
they need. He is a generous Father, always holding out
some good thing for his children to take. They should
knock at his door. There igs a Father on the other side
of the door, a Father never too busy to open the door and
let his children in. All this Jesus repeats with a convic-
tion born of his own personal experience. “Ask and it
shall be given to you; seek and ye shall find; knock and
it shall be opened unto you; for everyone that asketh re-
ceiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that
knocketh it shall be opened.” “If ye, then, being evil
know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much
more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things
to them that ask him?’ §
In the experience of Jesus, as we have seen, this loving
approach to the Heavenly Father in prayer often brought
instantaneous response. He found that what he was pray-
ing for was happening (see p. 85). But there were situa-
tions in which the thing prayed for could not immediately
happen. Jesus found, too, among his disciples many who
were not yet sufficiently developed in character to be able
to pray as he prayed. To such Jesus said that men should
never. cease praying, no matter how much the ills of life
might tend to make their prayer grow faint and fitful
and finally cease. “Men ought always to pray and not
to faint.” In the terrible times that would precede the
Judgment Day men would be tempted to think that the
Heavenly Father had abandoned his children to their per-
secutors. This they must never think. Even a judge
who is a grafter and has no fear of God or men will in
*Mt. VII:7-8, 11.
READINESS FOR THE KinapomM 157
mere self-defense yield to unwearied petition. How much
more is it true that God will heed the prayer of his
elect ! °
This loving approach to God in trustful prayer involved
thankfulness for answered prayer. Men must not appeal
to God for help and forget him when they have received
it. Ten men with leprous spots, shut out from community
life, recognized Jesus at a distance, and shouted to him
an appeal for help. He called back to them the command
to report to the priests in Jerusalem for a clean bill of
health. Either immediately, or more probably later on
their way to Jerusalem, they found that the leprous spots
had disappeared. Only one of them, and he a Samaritan,
made his way back to Jesus, fell at his feet and thanked
God with exultant outcry. Jesus’ comment was: “Were
there none found that returned to give glory to God save
this alien %” 7°
When men who have been bad begin to love God and
_ therefore to work obediently with him for the honest and
_ friendly world which his will is set to produce, they are
said to “repent.” Their “love” mvolves “repentance.”
Such repentance is eagerly watched for in heaven and
causes great rejoicing among all God’s angels.14 God is
like a watchful father always expecting the return of a
wayward son. He finally sees him far down the road
coming home ragged and barefoot, but with loving peni-
tence expressed in every homeward step. He runs down
the road to meet him, takes him in his arms, kisses him
repeatedly and makes all the home glow with joyful wel-
°Lk. XVIII: 1-8, cf. also Lk. XI:5-9,
Lk. XVII:11-19.
™ Lk. XV:7, 10.
158 THe Lire AND TEACHING oF JESUS
come.’ The publican, whose soul was bowed down with
a sense of guilt which could express the beginnings of its
love only in a penitential sob, went home from prayer in
the temple pronounced righteous by a sympathizing God.*8
The relation between the forgiven penitent and the gra-
cious God is one that develops to the utmost the love that
began in repentance. It was evident from the overflow-
ing love in her soul that the despised wayward woman,
who slipped into the Pharisee’s house to wet the feet of
Jesus with her tears, had been forgiven.1*
Love for the Heavenly Father mvolves trusting him
to supply what his children need.’® Those who live so
close up against the honest friendly will of God must not
be nervously anxious, always worrying about the food
and clothing that will soon be needed. The Father who
is the source of man’s marvelous life can surely be trusted
to see that his child has food enough to sustain it. The
Father who has produced the wonderful body will surely
provide opportunity to get a little simple clothing to put
on it. The greater gift implies the lesser. ‘Is not the life
more than the food and the body than the clothing?’
Even the birds are provided with an environment in which
they can find food. Surely man who is so much more.
valuable than birds will find his environment affording
him opportunity to get food. Anyway nervous worry
accomplishes nothing. It cannot prolong the course of
one’s life by even so little as a single cubit. In the midst
of cheap sparrows chirping and flying all about him, sold
™@Lk. XV:11-24.
Lk. XVIII:13-14.
4% Lk. VII:47.
* Mt. VI:25-34, Lk. XIT:22-31.
READINESS FOR THE KINGDOM 159
in the market at two for a penny or five for two pence,
yet cared for by God, how can a son of God walk about
in danger of nervous breakdown from fear that his Father
has forgotten him! ‘Behold the birds of the heaven, that
they sow not neither do they reap, nor gather into barns;
and your Heavenly Father feedeth them.” In the midst
of cheap weeds, used as fuel to cook the poor man’s meal,
and yet clothed with beauty by God, how can the Heavenly
Father’s child fear that God has forgotten him! To do
so is to behave like Godless Gentiles. ‘If God so clothe
the grass of the field which to-day is and to-morrow is cast
into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of
little faith?’ Men must set their hearts on God, his King-
dom and its righteousness. With the coming of his King-
dom and its’ civilization of wise, honest, friendly men,
will come also all the food and clothing that men need.
“But seek ye first his Kingdom and its righteousness; and
all these things shall be added unto you.”
This trust in God’s providence is one aspect of the faith
which ts involved wn loving God. Those who lack the
unworrying trust described in the preceding paragraph
are said to have “little faith.” *® The word is used here
as we have found it used before, to designate the devout
obedient reaching up of the soul to work together with
God for the accomplishment of his great purpose. It
is a word involving vigorous action of the entire being.
In the passage just discussed it does not imply that food
and clothing come without effort into the lap of him who
simply sits still and “trusts.” The birds are busy most
of the time searching for food. When a man in the faith
that involves the utmost use of all his powers lays hold
on the will of God to work with it in love for the creation
of an honest and friendly world, almost inconceivable re-
* Mt. VI:30.
160 Tuer Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
sults may be expected. Faith is like an explosive of such
tremendous power that a minute fragment of it would
produce something astounding. In picturesque oriental
speech Jesus said that a bit of it no larger than a minute
mustard seed would move a mountain, or uproot a tree
and plant it in the ocean bed.‘ In the context of both
these utterances Jesus was trying to shock the disciples
out of an unsatisfactory, faithless frame of mind. In the
Matthew context they had just failed in an attempted
exorcism; in the Luke context they were piously asking,
apparently with ambitious desire for spectacular power,
to have their faith increased: “Lord, increase our faith!”
Jesus rather brusquely informed them that they had none
of the genuine article to start with, that no increase of
anything they yet had would produce any result!
On the negative side Jesus specifies one great source
of disobedience to God, of paralyzing unfaith, of calami-
tous unrighteousness, namely, money.?® . It stands over
against God as his great rival, the Anti-God. Between
these two man must make choice of a master. ‘No man
can serve two masters.” “Ye cannot serve God and Mam-
mon.” Jesus had probably found in his experience with
men that it was generally their absorption in the accumu-
lation of property that kept them from doing what he
represented the will of God to be requiring of them.
God was requiring them to work with his will for honesty
and friendliness in their own hearts and in all the world.
Jesus regarded the acquiring of property as a menace to
the development of the friendly heart, and the complete
devotion of one’s self to money making as absolutely de-
Mt. XVII:20, Lk. XVII:6.
* Mt. VI:19-24, Lk, XII:33-36, XVI:13.
READINESS FOR THE KINGDOM 161
structive of the friendly disposition. This will appear
more clearly later when love for other men as an essential
element of righteousness is discussed. In the passages
under discussion now emphasis is laid on the fact that
property is a phenomenon of the present age and one that
does not last. If it is in the form of certain metals it
will rust away, if in the form of rich clothing and rugs
moths will eat it, and thieves are always liable to dig
through the wall and steal it, whatever be its form. If
one makes this his “treasure” it will get his heart. “Where
your treasure is there will your heart be also.” The
single heart is the undivided attention, and “what gets
your attention gets you.” The money-making man has
given his attention to something that will not last. He
outlasts it and is finally left without the only thing he
has trained himself to care for. He is therefore like a
man in the dark, groping about after that which has dis-
appeared, and not seeing anything that he wants. He
should have been storing up “treasures in heaven,” that
is, in the permanent world, the world that does not dis-
appear. “Treasure not up for yourselves treasures on
the earth where moth and rust disfigure, and where thieves
dig through and steal. But treasure up for yourselves
treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust dis-
figures and where thieves do not dig through and steal.
For where your treasure is, there also will be your heart.”
As will appear later, these treasures in heaven are friend-
ships. They endure: man does not outlast them. He
may therefore with entire security give himself to them
and let them get him. But he who sets his heart on acquir-
ing property incapacitates himself for friendship and for
working together in “faith” with the will of God for the
creation at any cost of an honest and friendly world.
He has not the “righteousness,” or rightness of character,
162 Tue Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
requisite for a place in the great Empire of Friendly
Men. |
A man cursed with the love of money is like a body with
a diseased eye. A healthy eye is like a lamp giving light
to all the other members of the body so that they can do
their work. A diseased eye leaves hands and feet in dark-
ness. In the case of the man who loves money some faculty
of the spiritual nature becomes diseased, fails to function
properly and leaves a person in the dark. He cannot
wisely decide what course to take. The faculty by which
he discriminates between right and wrong has become
unreliable. Such darkness is terrible; it means the ruin
of life, the wreckage of personality. ‘The lamp of the
body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single (clear),
thy whole body will be full of light. But if thine eye be
bad thy whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore
the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the
darkness !”
It is not the rich alone that are threatened by this peril.
The context in both Matthew and Luke ’® pictures the
poor who worry about food and clothing as in equal dan-
ger. They may become so absorbed in the anxious struggle
for the necessities of life that they become incapacitated
for friendship. Their disposition easily becomes essen-
tially the same as that of the rich. The rich may be
satisfied because they have money; the poor dissatisfied
because they do not have it. The poor may be bent on
getting money; the rich bent on keeping it.
A passage found only in the Matthew Gospel emphasizes
the fact that in the case of the truly righteous all outer
religious activities spring from love for God and are
* Mt. VI:25-34, Lk. XII:22-34.
READINESS FOR TIE KINapomM 163
engaged in with no desire for public applause, but only
for the approval that the loving Father will make his chil-
dren feel in the secrecy of their hearts.2® There are those
who with pretentious, though spurious, righteousness give
alms to the needy in such a way as to secure public notice.
They get the publicity that they seek, but they lose the
invaluable sense of God’s approval in their hearts. The
true children of God slip their alms into the hands of
their needy brothers so unobtrusively that the donor’s left
hand does not see what the right hand is doing. Jesus
had himself probably often given alms in this way and
had felt the incomparable joy of the Heavenly Father’s
approval. “Take heed that ye do not your righteousness
before men, to be seen of them: else ye have no reward
with your Father who is in heaven. When therefore thou
doest. alms, sound not a trumpet before thee, as the hypo-
erites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they
may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have
received their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not
thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.” ??
There were those who took pains to have the prayer
hour overtake them in some public place, on a busy street
corner or at the synagegue which was a kind of community
Mt. VI:1-8, 16-18.
™Mt. VI:1-3. This passage and VI:5-8, 16-18 are very likely
parts of Q that Luke did not use. They have probably been modi-
fied by the compiler of the Matthew Gospel. In ch. XXIII the term
“hypocrite” is, as here, freely applied to the scribes, but in Luke’s
parallel report the word does not appear. The Matthew Gospel
was produced in an environment in which there was great hostility
between the church and the synagogue (p. 16). The shaping hand
of the compiler may not have stopped with the introduction of the
word “hypocrite.” The underlying teaching of the paragraph, how-
ever, is thoroughly in accord with the general tenor of Jesus’ teach-
ing. If Jesus had the scribes in mind here it was, as has been noted
before, because it was, presuinably, the worst element in Pharisaism
that arrayed itself against him.
164 Tue Lire anp TEACHING oF JESUS
house, where there would often be a group of susceptible
people. The loving child of God seeks his Father in the
inmost chamber behind the shut door and experiences there
the deep satisfaction of his Father’s presence.?* Jesus in
his Nazareth days may have seemed less prayerful than
some others often found at the synagogue, but his praying
heart had found some secluded place for prayer. There
were those who, when they fasted, distorted their faces
with pious gloom and went impressively about among the
admiring crowds with the uncombed hair and unwashed
face of the habitual ascetic. The loving child of God,
as Jesus half humorously pictures him, when he has occa-
sion for penitential fasting, uses hair oil, washes his face,
and goes along the street as cheerfully as if going to or
from a feast! The Heavenly Father gives him as inner
reward the tender sense of forgiven sin.?? The funda-
mental fault in these spurious specialists in righteousness
was that they ignored the chief factor in the situation,
the living God. It was as if a farmer, exhibiting his stock
at the fair, should ignore the presence of the committee on
awards and be swollen with pride over the attention he
attracts from a crowd of small boys.
The best picture of men turning in righteous love to
God, looking with the full energy of penitent faith for the
Coming Kingdon, is found in the prayer of the righteous
men taught by Jesus to his disciples. They stand together,
one in spirit, all hearts turned intently toward their com-
mon Father in the unseen heavenly world. They wish
all men and angels to bow in reverence when his Holy
Name is heard. With the full energy of active faith they
™Mt. VI:5-8.
*= Mt. VI:16-18.
READINESS FOR THE KiINGpoM 165
wish to see the earth filled with the honest and friendly
men of his Kingdom, finally doing his will on earth as
perfectly as it is being done in heaven. They trustfully
look to him as the source of food and the life that food
sustains. They have forgiven their enemies as the chil-
dren of a Heavenly Father ought to do, and so ask confi-
dently for the inner sense of his forgiveness. In these
last days before the Kingdom comes, while the dominion
of the Evil One on earth is not yet ended, they pray, with
humble self-distrust, not to be treated as stronger than
they are, not to be made to test their powers in conflict
with the Evil One (Jesus remembered his own fierce
conflict), but rather to be rescued from his ruinous
designs. ”4
*The “Lord’s Prayer” is found in two forms: Mt. VI:9-13, Lk.
XI:2-4. Probably Luke gives, as often, the form more nearly like
that found in Q. It is a brief list of prayer topics given, according
to Luke, in response to the request of a disciple for such forms of
prayer as John the Baptist had composed for his disciples (Lk. XI:1,
V:33).
CHAPTER XVI
JESUS’ TEACHING ABOUT READINESS FOR
THE COMING KINGDOM (Continued)
Coming Kingdom is comprehensively described by
Jesus as consisting in a sincerely loving heart.
We have seen what Jesus taught about the different re-
actions of such a heart when turned Godward. How
ought such a heart to manifest itself in the circle of human
relations? As the will of God is allowed to rise freely
in the souls of men to express itself in the honest and
friendly life, what sort of actions will result? The gen-
eral principle ts that a man’s love for his neighbor shall
be as strong and reliable as his love for himself: “Thou
shali love thy neighbor as thyself.” To love a person is to
have a warm active desire to see him develop into all that
his nature indicates he ought to become, and to have, so
far as is consistent with the common good, whatever will
conduce to this end. To ignore the common good in wish-
ing him well would be to fail to “love” the rest of the
neighbors. To love one’s neighbor as himself does not
involve coddling the other man, making things over-easy
for him, doing things for him that he ought to do for
himself, because one would not coddle himself. Such
treatment would not be conducive to the development of
character either in one’s self or in another. Neither does
loving one’s neighbor as himself mean ignoring one’s own
interests in the effort to safeguard similar interests in the
166
. S we have seen, the righteousness that fits for the
READINESS FOR THE KINGDOM 167
life of another man. If I allowed another man to sacrifice
his interest in order to advance mine, I should lose my
self-respect. I must, therefore, not treat another man in
such a way as to inflict on him the loss of his self-respect.
The requirement evidently means coming to the other man
on the level, a pooling of interests, a true “brotherhood,”
in which each man is as solicitous for the other man’s
welfare as he is for his own. Or, more fundamentally,
since in Jesus’ teaching the Kingdom is always in view,
and a kingdom is always a civilization, a social order,
Jesus’ principle means that men shall work together in
reciprocal good will, in mutual sacrifice, for the common
good. It does often happen that one individual makes a
particular sacrifice for the common good that another in-
dividual does not make, though both are ready to make
it if called upon to do so. It does often happen also that
one man makes absolute sacrifice of his own lower in-
terest for the sake of securing a higher interest in the life
of another. He lays down his life in the defense of an-
other’s honor or for the sake of developing the character
of others, as a missionary martyr does. But this he would
do in his own case; he would die in defence of his own
honor or for the development of his own character in
loyalty to his highest ideals. It does not mean that all
men are to be treated alike. The common good will deter-
mine the treatment accorded each. The man preparing to
be a physician must be given special educational advan-
tages that would not be given to another. Special safe-
guards must be thrown around one who is the only physi-
clan in a community during a dangerous epidemic.
Another presentation of general principle is found in
Jesus’ statement that if anyone wished to be a great man
168 Tue Lire anp Tracuine or JESUS
in the group of those waiting for the Kingdom of God,
he must be the “servant” of the others, and that whoever
wished to be “first” must be “everybody’s bondslave.” 4
This is an impressive way of emphasizing what Jesus had
just been saying, namely, that in the empire of honesty
and friendliness men would not delight in the sort of
primacy that would enable them to “lord it over” others.
“Ye know that those who are accounted to rule (in esteem
for ruling?) over the Gentiles lord it over them and their
great ones exercise authority over them. But it is not so
among you.” The limit set for one’s “service” to another
is determined by the object of the service, which is to
arouse in the other responsive good will and wholesome
action. The fundamental elements in character are friend-
ship and work; any kind of “service” that weakens either
element is harmful. The mother who becomes her chil-
dren’s “bondservant” in any way that impairs their char-
acter is not acting in accordance with this principle.
It is also said by Jesus that one must “deny himself
and take up his cross.” * To deny one’s self is to deny to
one’s self the right to supreme consideration. It means
bringing the interests of others up abreast of one’s own,
loving one’s neighbor as himself. To “take up his cross”
is to carry his “self-denial” to the point of* preparing
for execution by crucifixion as Jesus at the time was doing.
Whoever shrinks from this, and ‘‘would save his life, shall
lose it.” That is, whoever concentrates attention simply
on saving his own life, thereby fails to deny to himself
the right to supreme consideration, fails to love his neigh-
bor as himself. This makes friendship an impossibility
and so occasions the loss of life in the Coming Kingdom
where life consists in growing friendships.
1Mk. X:43-44.
?Mk. VIII:34-35,
READINESS FOR THE Kinqpom 169
Jesus’ general principle is presented in another form:
“As ye would that men should do to you do ye also to them
likewise.” * This means that a man should treat his
fellowman as he would feel that he himself ought to be
treated tf he were in the other man’s place. It does not
mean that an officer should yield to a man in the ranks
the obedience that is an officer’s due; but that he should
treat a private as he would feel that he ought to be treated
by an officer if he were a private. It is an appeal for
the square deal, for such conduct in any transaction as
will make each one who participates in it feel that all the
others were as considerate of his interests as they were
of their own. No one wished any special privileges for
himself in the deal unless possibly they were essential to
the common good. To desire special privileges for the
sake of enjoying them degrades their possessor: ‘For
everyone that exalteth himself shall be humbled and he
that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” + The one who
“exalts himself” is “humbled,” or degraded, not by any
arbitrary act of God but as a natural consequence of his
self-exalting disposition. Such a disposition necessarily
stunts his growth, blights his being, makes him less than
he would otherwise be. To wish for special privileges
simply for the sake of enjoying them is to transgress the
deepest law of his being. The man who “does his
righteousness before men to be seen of them” ® is guilty
not only of the sinful blunder of ignoring God (p. 164)
but also of the great sin of wishing certain of his fellow-
men to be less than himself. If all others should make as
good an appearance as he does in his spectacular fasting,
alms giving and praying, his own pre-eminence would be
*Mt. VII:12, Lk. VI:31.
‘Lk, XIV:11, Mt. XXIII:12.
‘Mt. VI:1.
170 Tue Lirz anp TErAcHING or JESUS
gone. He must have others less than himself to serve as
background against which to display his own superiority.
On the other hand the man who humbles himself, that is,
who either surrenders special privileges or, more probably,
does his utmost to share them with others and make them
commonplace, thereby develops a disposition that “exalts”
him, lifts him up to the heights of friendly life and char-
acter. It was this disposition that Jesus found in the
normal child.®
It is not easy to be always giving the same generous
consideration to the interests of others that one gives to
his own, to be always working for the common good, to
be always eager to share one’s special distinction. It is
simple, but not easy. Yet it is the essential element in
the righteous civilization of the Kingdom of the friendly
sons of God. Jesus probably had this in mind when he
said that the gateway into “life,” that is, into the King-
dom, was “narrow” and that he found few passing through
it,*
The teaching of Jesus about the righteousness that con-
sists in sincere regard for other men appears not only
in the general statements just discussed but in the specifica-
tion of certain details. The “Sermon on the Mount,”
especially in the form preserved in the Matthew Gospel,
contains a number of such.? Among the “blessed,” ® that
is, those who are to be congratulated as prospective citizens
*Mt. XVIII: 1-4.
*Mt. VII:13-14, Lk. XIII:24.
*Some of them, probably parts of Q which Luke omitted; others
parts of Q which Luke reports in a more nearly original form, e.g.,
“Blessed are ye poor” (Lk.), “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Mt.) ;
some perhaps taken from some other source than Q.
°Mt. V:3-12.
READINESS FOR THE KinapoM 171
of the Kingdom of Heaven, are those who are “poor in
spirit.’ They are those who in spirit feel like poor men,
those who are full of sympathy for the men who lack
what they themselves perhaps have in abundance. They
may be rich (the Matthew Gospel does not commend pov-
erty as Luke seems to do), but they have not forgotten
how it feels to be poor; they may be successful, but they
have not forgotten how it feels to fail; they may be saints,
but they have not forgotten how it feels to be a sinner.
They are those who know how to comfort mourners with
such beautiful friendliness as to make the mourning blessed
because it called out such comfort. They are the “meek,”
that is, those who with due consciousness of their own
limitations, with no over-emphasis of their own excellen-
cies, hold themselves ready to contribute to the common
good; they wish for no special privileges. Such persons
will possess the earth in the New Age of the Coming
Kingdom. In another passage peculiar to Matthew prob-
ably taken from Q ?° it is said that they will find “rest,”
that is, contentment, enlargement of life, assurance re-
garding the future. Jesus had found it in this way.
“Learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye
shall find rest unto your souls.” They are the merciful,
quick to relieve need, not holding a grudge, hearty and
dependable in their forgiveness of those who repent. They
are the “peace makers’ ; they do all they can to produce
real peace, to produce a situation in which men work
together in good will for the common good. These quali-
ties make them the “salt of the earth,” ** that which pre-
serves civilization from decay.1” They keep men bound
Mt. XI:28-30.
Mt. V213:
4 Salt here is not thought of in the small quantities used for sea-
soning food, but rather in the large quantities used for the preserva-
172 Tue Lire ann Tracuine or JESUS
together in the wholesome friendly relations that make
community life of a high order possible. They are “the
light of the world” ; ** they create an atmosphere in which
the work of the world can be successfully done. By virtue
of what they are they bring light to the dark spots of life.
At their approach sorrows seem. less oppressive, burdens
grow lighter, temptations to evil lose something of their
power. :
In this context strong emphasis is further laid on the
necessity of a kindly feeling for others wn the heart. It is
not simply necessary to refrain from killing a fellow-
man, but to refrain from the ill will in the heart that
develops into the murder. Jesus expressed hot indigna-
tion at those who could speak of another man in terms of
contempt. He apparently caught up certain current
epithets expressive of contempt, “raca,” “good for noth-
ing,” “moreh,” “insignificant fellow.” ‘4 They do not ex-
press honest dignified moral criticism like the term “hypo-
crite,” which was evidently sometimes on the lips of Jesus,
even if the Matthew Gospel exaggerated the frequency of
its use (p. 163), but rather a supercilious sense of glad
superiority which sees no moral potentiality in another
and does not desire to see it. It was useless for a man
to attempt to worship God with a gift so long as he had
failed to right a wrong done to some neighbor. He might
be in the very act of sacrifice, when he remembered what
he had done, but must lay his offering down by the altar
tion of fish. Such “salt,” when nothing but its impurities remained
(popularly still called “salt”), could only be “cast out to be trodden
underfoot of men,” that is, to make foothpaths.
oMt. V:14-16.
4 Mt. V:21-22. Perhaps they were terms freely applied by the
synagogue to Christians in the environment of the Matthew Gospel.
The gradations of punishment mentioned seem to reflect local usage
of Jesus’ own day or later.
READINESS FOR THE KINGDOM 173
and let the priest wait for him to have an interview with
his injured neighbor, even though this might involve re-
tracing his steps over a long expensive journey by land
and sea.?° There must be no such ill will in the heart
as is expressed by the refusal to pay one’s debts, the re-
fusal to give to another what belongs to him. Some
of the early Christians, perhaps because expecting the
world soon to end, seem to have thought it unnecessary to
pay their debts, especially debts owed to persons who would
be destroyed in the Judgment anyway (cf. Rom. XIIT:
8-10, I Thess. [V: 11-12)! Jesus, speaking as a business
man with a keen sense of honor, said dishonest debtors
ought not to be let out of jail until they had “paid the
last farthing.” 1® There must be no such ill will toward
a woman as would tolerate lust in the heart. The glance
or gesture that invited to such an act should be fiercely
repressed ; the offending eye be plucked out, the offend-
ing hand cut off. There must be such kindly considera-
tion for a wife as would never divorce her except for one
most serious reason (cf. p. 278). A man must not feel
that he had done his duty by an offending wife when he
had given her a written statement of his reasons for
divorcing her, a statement that would often give her
standing in the community as a marriageable woman.}”
There must be such regard for a fellow man as would
not simply keep one faithful to an oath but faithful to his
simple word unsupported by any oath.*® There must be
- such regard for the other man as would not simply limit
revenge—confining it to an eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth—but as would refrain from revenge altogether.
* Mt. V:23.
*Mt. V:25-26.
"Mt. V:28-32, cf. Mt. XIX:9. In Lk, XVI:18 and Mk. X:11-12
the prohibition of divorce seems subject to no exception.
* Mt. V:33-37.
174 Tue Lire anp TEAcHine oF JESUS
There must be such love for the other man as would be
ready to let him have more than he might try to get,
either by violence or request. The outflow of good will
from the heart of a man into the life of his fellow man
‘is to be so strong and steady that no injury done to
either property or person can stop it.*® It is easy to
conceive cases in which literal obedience to some of these
teachings would defeat their spirit, but the spirit of re-
gard for the other man that they aim to produce is unmis-
takable. This spirit is to do away with all censorious
criticism, all eager delight in diagnosing and operating on
the faults of other men.”° In all this teaching Jesus was
“fulfilling,” “filling out,” the law of Moses (Mt. v:17),
going all the way where the law went only part way.
The spirit of good will to the other man finds concrete
expression in an unwearying readiness to forgive.
Forgiveness implies three things: a wrong done; the wrong
repented and made right; and then the change from dis-
approving love to approving love on the part of the one
who suffered the wrong. Jesus urges the one who has
suffered the wrong to be aggressive in forgiveness. Since
he has not been guilty of the wrong doing he is presum-
ably more amenable to high moral considerations than the
offender. Evidently there can be no forgiveness until
there has been repentance. This is distinctly asserted in
Luke’s report of the teaching: “If thy brother sin rebuke
him: if he repent forgive him.” 7? The offended party
2 Mt. V:38-42.
* Mt. VII:1-5.
™ Mt. XVIII:15, 21-22, Lk. XVII:3-4.
™Lk, XVII:3.
READINESS FOR THE KINGDOM 175
could not honestly and righteously look with approving
love on a person who was persisting in wrong doing. God
- looks upon such a person with disapproval and so must
every right-minded man. But the offended party must do
everything in his power to produce the repentance that
is the essential condition of forgiveness. The obligation
to forgive involves the obligation to do all that can be done
to make forgiveness possible. Rebuke becomes a duty.
The Matthew Gospel adds some matter here which assumes
the existence of a “church” and church relationships and
is, therefore, probably an amplification of the teaching of
Jesus made by the early Christian prophets or evan-
gelists.22. The object of the rebuke which makes forgive-
ness possible is said to be to “gain a brother’; “if he hear
thee thou hast gained thy brother.” Therefore it is neces-
sary to go to him alone and not humiliate him by publicly
taxing him with his fault. If this does not produce re-
pentance the moral force of two or three others must be
brought to bear upon him. If this persuasive committee
of brothers does not move him, the moral force of the
public sentiment of the whole brotherhood must be called
out. If this does not awaken within him the spirit of
penitent brotherliness, he cannot be allowed to remain
in the group of disciples, for the essential. characteristic
of the group is brotherly regard for each other. The
group will look upon him as the synagogue looks on
publicans and sinners, namely, as a perverse outsider.
If the Matthew Gospel was formed in an environment
where church and synagogue were in frequent collision
(p. 16), to fall out of the church often meant to go to
the synagogue. There would, therefore, be considerable
pungency in designating such a convert, or re-convert,
to the synagogue as like a “publican and a sinner”! The
* Mt. XVIII:16-17.
176 Tue Lire anp Tracuing or JEsus
Matthew Gospel adds a parable 2* which emphasizes the
necessity of having the forgiving spirit if one would be
righteous before God. It presents the wicked absurdity of
refusing to forgive a fellow man after having one’s self
been forgiven by God. A man who had been forgiven
a debt of twelve million dollars, which he could not pos-
sibly pay, went instantly out, grabbed by the throat a
man who owed him seventeen dollars and mercilessly com-
mitted him to the debtor’s prison. The parable is intro-
duced by the statement that the forgiving disposition must
be fastened upon one as a fixed habit. Seven times a day,
day after day, month after month, it must continue.
There must be an eternally enduring eagerness to “gain a
brother.” 5
*Mt. XVIII:23-34.
* Mt. XVIII:22, Lk. XVII:4.
CHAPTER XVII
JESUS’ TEACHING ABOUT READINESS FOR
THE COMING KINGDOM (Concluded)
UKE’S Gospel contains a great deal of teaching
peculiar to itself, regarding the righteousness that
consists in the kindly treatment of other men. At
the forefront of the Gospel stands Jesus’ proclamation of
his great program stated in terms of human sympathy
and relief of human need. Poor people are to have good
news preached to them; captives are to be released; the
blind are to receive their sight; the heavily handicapped,
the bruised and the crippled, are to be given liberty.*
Jesus illustrates his great principle that neighbor love
leads to the life of the New Age by the story of the kindly
Samaritan traveller whose heart was full of sympathy
for the half dead victim of brigands. He gave him pains-
taking personal attention on the spot and provided for
his future need by an adequate gift of money. Jesus
contrasted this practical illustration of true righteousness,
true fitness for the New Age, with the conduct of those
who were supposed to be unquestionably and conspicu-
ously ready for it, the priest and the Levite.* In the
immortal story of the Lost Son Found Again, the point
of emphasis, as indicated by the context, is the unbrotherly
conduct of the older son. Instead of saying “This my
*Lk. IV:18-19.
*Lk. X :28-42.
177
178 Tus Lire ann Txacurne or Jzsus
brother was lost and is found,” he was angered by the
father’s welcome and would not go in to see his brother.®
Luke represents Jesus to have conceived of prayer as a
species of spiritual activity by which a man might get
something for a friend in need. It is as if a man at mid-
night should find standing at his door a friend on a journey
tired and hungry in the midnight darkness. He has
nothing to set before the needy traveller. He goes, there-
fore, to a well supplied home near at hand and says:
“Friend, lend me three loaves for a friend of mine is
come to me from a journey and I have nothing to set be-
for him.” * The praying man stands between the friendly
God and the friendly neighbor in need. Many interesting
questions arise in connection with this subject. The point
just now is that the praying man who is fit for the New
Age is the man who wishes to share with his neighbor the
supplies of feeling and thought that can be drawn by
prayer in accordance with psychic laws from the environ-
ing will of God. It will appear in a moment that Jesus
in Luke’s picture of him required men who would be
righteous to share with their neighbors whatever wealth
they could draw from their physical environment. So
must they also, to be righteous, share with others what-
ever they draw from their spiritual environment by the
expenditure of spiritual energy in prayer.
This righteous good will toward fellowmen is to show
itself in social courtestes.© Home and hospitality were
*Lk. XV:11-32,
*Lk. XI:5-8.
SLk. XIV:7-14.
READINESS FOR THE KinapomM 179
great values to be shared with the homeless and needy
in the community, and not to be used with a view to se-
curing return invitations into thé so-called upper circles
of society. “When thou makest a dinner or a supper call
not thy friends nor thy brethren, nor thy kinsmen, nor
rich neighbors, lest haply they also bid thee again and a
recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast
bid the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind; and thou
shalt be blessed . . . thou shalt be recompensed in the
resurrection of the righteous.” This latter statement
seems at first glance to keep the whole matter still on a
commercial basis. Whether this is really so depends upon
the nature of life in the New Age, Jesus’ view of which
will appear later. In the same connection (vs. 7-10)
Jesus openly commented with genial humor on the quiet
rivalries going on among his fellow guests as they ma-
neuvred for the best places at the dinner party of a
Pharisee. The unfriendly desire to see another guest in
an inferior position seemed to Jesus 'to be utterly out of
harmony with the simple spirit of good will that would
prevail in the Kingdom of God. At the Messianic banquet
in the Kingdom of God there would be no such social
climbing. With a quiet humor, tinged perhaps with a
trace of sarcasm, he pointed out a shrewd way to secure
the social glorification that each seemed bent on getting
for himself: “When thou art bidden go and sit down in
the lowest place; that when he that hath bidden thee
cometh, he may say to thee, Friend, go up higher; then
shalt thou have glory of all that sit at meat with thee!”
The purpose of all social occasions is to stimulate friend-
liness. Therefore friendly conversation and not an ex-
travagant menu ought to be their chief characteristic. In
a collection of miscellaneous teachings and incidents re-
ported by Luke in connection with Jesus’ leisurely jour-
180 Tue Lire anp Tracuina or JEsus
ney to Jerusalem an incident is cited to illustrate this.®
Jesus apears as a guest in the home of a woman named
Martha. This woman, with the spirit of oriental hospi-
tality strong within her, set about providing a large num-
ber of things to eat. Her sister Mary, on the contrary,
gave herself wholly up to listening to Jesus’ conversation.
When Martha resented this, Jesus protested against her
strenuous effort to provide so many things to eat and
said that a few things, or even only one thing, would be
enough. Mary had been wiser and should be let alone.
Jesus’ teaching that righteousness involves invincible
good will toward fellowmen appears in the prominence
given by Luke to his discussion of the proper use of money.
In matter common to both Luke and Matthew, on this
point, the Lukan picture seems almost ascetic. In the
Sermon on the Mount blessing is pronounced on the poor
and the hungry instead of on the poor in spirit and those
that hunger after righteousness. A woe upon the rich
and well fed is added.?. The renouncing of all possessions
seems twice to be required of all disciples,’ rather than of
the one individual to whom according to Mark a special
place in the inner circle of disciples was offered. Where
Luke says, “Sell your possessions and give alms,” the
Matthew Gospel reports: “Do not treasure up for your
selves treasures on earth,” a protest against accumulating
riches.® This statement in Luke is not limited to the
Twelve when Jesus is given an opportunity to make such
limitation.?°
*Lk. X:38-42.
™Lk, VI:20-25, Mt. V:3, 6.
*Lk. XII:33, XIV:33.
*°Lk. XII:33, Mt. VI:19.
* Lk. XII:41.
READINESS FoR THE KINa@poM 181
Luke has very dramatic material on this point peculiar
to himself in chapters XII and XVI. A man in the crowd,
whose brother had cheated him out of his share of their
father’s estate, appealed to Jesus: “‘And one out of the
multitude said unto him, Teacher, bid my brother divide
the inheritance with me.” Jesus brusquely refused the
man’s request and proceeded to warn the crowd that life
does not consist in the abundance of the things that a
man owns. He then pictured for them the dramatic
career of a man whose philosophy of life was based on
the supposition that true life does consist in a growing
estate and luxurious living.*1 The prosperous Syrian
farmer kept building larger barns and encouraging his
soul to set to and have a good time. No one but himself
appears in the picture which is, therefore, in fatal con-
trast with the picture of the friendly Samaritan. He was
suddenly summoned from life by the angelic officials of
the great assize: “God said unto him, This night they are
asking for thy soul!’ He started on the solemn journey
friendless and alone, leaving his “things” to be anyone’s
plunder: “The things which thou hast prepared, whose
shall they be?’ Jesus said that God called him a blun-
dering fool. He had fooled away his life.
More explicit is Jesus’ teaching based on the illustra-
tion of the shrewd steward who knew how to make friends
by the use of his position against a day of reckoning
when he would need friends and home.” He was a true
“son of this age,” the age which the devil was supposed
to dominate, but nevertheless something could be learned —
from his disreputable career by the “sons of light,”
namely, that a man ought to use his money in a friendly
way, as for instance the friendly Samaritan did. ‘Make
™Lk. XIT:13-21.
37k. XVI:1-12.
182 Tur Lire anp Treacuina or JEsus
to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of un-
righteousness; that when it shall fail they may receive you
into the eternal tabernacles.” Men who use their money
righteously in the interest of others lay the foundations
of everlasting friendships. When the end comes and their
souls are asked for they will find friends on the other side
to welcome them into the everlasting homes of the Com-
ing Kingdom. One. shows whether or not he is really
righteous by the use he makes of his money. Money is
an insignificant thing; it is the straw that shows which
way the wind blows. “He that'is faithful in a very little
is faithful also in much” (v. 10). If one does not learn
how to use this low, superficial form of power in a friendly
way, how can God trust him with the real and higher
forms of power that will characterize life in the real and
higher world of the Coming Kingdom?. “If therefore ye
have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who
will commit to your trust the true riches?” (v. 11). Money
is a temporary power, coming to one often from another
by inheritance, certain to pass into the hands of another
at death. If one does not learn to use this transient form
of power in a friendly way, how can God trust him with
the permanent forms of power that will characterize the
permanent civilization of the Coming Kingdom? “And
if ye have not been faithful in that which is another’s,
who will give you that which is your own?” (v, 12).
Then follows the picture of a man who refused to use his
money in the friendly relief of the sick beggar at his
door.1 He and his banqueting friends passed the sick
beggar daily, less attentive to him than the dogs were!
In the other world the rich man went into the fiery sec-
tion of Hades where there were no friends to receive him
into blessed homes and where the accomplished banqueter
*Lk. XVI:19-31.
READINESS FOR THE KINGDOM 183
could find not even a drink of water. The poor beggar,
on the other hand, banqueted in heaven and as a new-
comer was given the place of honor next to Father
Abraham himself. A deep impassable gorge shut the
rich man off from the realm of friendship. The sub-
ject of Jesus’ teaching about riches will come up again
later (p. 284). It is in point here to show that it bulked
large in his Galilean teaching regarding the nature of the
righteousness that constituted readiness for the Coming
Kingdom.
We have so far seen that Jesus’ teaching about right-
eousness grew out of his own religious experience, that he
conceived it to be the output in action of a sincere and
overflowing heart, a heart full of love to God and, there-
fore, necessarily full of love to men. One other aspect of
righteousness appears in the Galilean preaching—loyalty
to the person of Jesus. At a later time, when the Gospels
were being made and Jesus was known to have been the
Messiah, this loyalty to his person naturally meant loyalty
to him as Messiah. But during the Galilean period now
under discussion Jesus was not thought by the public to
be the Messiah, perhaps not by his own disciples, nor, in
the specialized technical sense of the title, even by himself
(p. 77). Nevertheless, loyalty to him as the prophet
of the Kingdom-At-Hand necessarily became to a certain
extent an element in righteous readiness for the Kingdom.
His own personality became identified with his message.
The fact that his message was born out of his own ex-
perience, and, therefore, delivered with authority, and
also the fact that it was backed up by such manifestations
of power in direct exorcisms and healings emphasized his
own personality. Furthermore, the fact that he was a
184 Tue Lire anp TEACHING oF JESUS
teaching rabbi gathering disciples led to the formation of
a party about his person. After he had been declared by
the scribal leaders to be a product of hell bearing a message
from hell (p. 118), it became natural for all who believed
his message to champion his person and emphatically
assert their devotion to him as leader. Lines were sharply
drawn between those who were for and against Jesus, the
prophet, and loyalty to him would naturally be thought
of as involved in righteous readiness for the Kingdom.
At a later time, when he had begun to express the expecta-
tion of meeting a violent death, there appear strong
statements about the necessity of a loyalty that would not
shrink from dying with him. But also in the earlier
period it was perfectly natural to say that loyalty to him
might divide a family and that the one who deserted him,
the prophet of God, and his ideals of righteousness because
of opposition in his own family was unworthy of such a
leader and such a goal. The interests at stake were so
eternally vital that, in the tense language of Luke’s Gos-
pel, one might well “hate” the members of his family who
by opposition to Jesus were dragging him down with
themselves to ruin in the rapidly approaching Judgment —
Day.’* The most merciful way of arousing the family to
a sense of its impending doom would be to break abruptly
away from it and hurry off to the group gathered about
the Prophet of the Kingdom. The same urgent necessity
of being identified with the Prophet and his group appears
in another passage from Q.1° A man who had been inter-
ested in Jesus’ message and was either already among the
general group of Jesus’ larger circle of disciples (Mt.),
or seemed open to an invitation from Jesus (Lk.), said
that he must break away from the group long enough to
“Mt. X:34-37, Lk. XIV:26.
* Mt, VIII:21-22, Lk. TX :59-60,
oe en ee
ReapDINEss FOR THE KINGDOM 185
go home and bury his father. It seems hardly probable
that this referred to the few hours of absence necessary for
immediate burial, which usually occurred on the very
day of the death. The death of his father was probably
expected to occur soon and he wished to be on hand to
bury him when he died. Jesus insisted that those who
were spiritually dead to the nearness of the Judgment
Day could be left to bury the physically dead, and that
this man’s duty was to follow him as a member of the
group that with tense expectation waited for the King-
dom, and were busy in eagerly publishing their expecta-
tion. (‘‘Do thou go and proclaim the Kingdom of God,”
Lk.)
The Matthew Gospel pictures. one of the scribes, the
class usually antagonistic to Jesus (Lk., “a certain man”),
insisting that he would loyally follow Jesus wherever he
should go.'® Jesus with a touch of humor gives an
answer which implies that the scribe will find none of
the things ordinarily sought for by men of his class, chief
seats at dinner parties, and other forms of social prestige.?7
The wandering prophet of the Kingdom is more homeless
than beast or bird! “The foxes have holes and the birds
of the air have nests but the Son of Man hath not where
to lay his head.” The insertion of the Messianic title
“Son of Man” here was perfectly natural in the period
when the Gospels were forming and Jesus’ true character
was known, but cannot have been on the lips of Jesus dur-
ing the Galilean period (p. 102).
We have to think of all this rich Galilean section with
its busy cities, orchards and fields as thoroughly traversed
by Jesus and his assistants. The minds of men and women
were everywhere being turned to the Coming Kingdom.
%* Mt. VIII:19-20, Lk. IX :57-58.
* Of, Mk. XII:38-39.
186 Tue Lire AND TEACHING oF JESUS
They were confronted with the standards of righteousness
that the prophet Jesus said would be applied to the lives
of men in the rapidly approaching Judgment Day. What
was the effect on the life of the people? This Jesus pro-
ceeds to tell.
CHAPTER XVIII
JESUS’ ESTIMATE OF HIS WORK IN GALILEE;
PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM
about the righteousness that constitutes readiness
for the Coming Kingdom is found in certain
“parables.” + In Mark’s Gospel three which serve this
purpose are selected from a large number.” They were
spoken when Jesus had been teaching throughout Galilee
for a considerable time, just after the crisis in his con-
flict with the scribes occasioned by their publication of
_ the theory that he was in league with Beelzeboul and just
before he proceeded to intensify his teaching campaign
by sending out the Twelve. The intervening matter in
Mark (IV: 35-V: 43) occupied only a few hours, or in-
cluding the visit to Nazareth (VI: 1-6), only a few days.
There has been introduced at this point into Mark’s
Gospel, and carried over from Mark into Matthew and
Luke, a theory that prevailed in the Gospel making period
regarding the reason why Jesus ever used parables at all.
The theory was that he wished by this means to hide the
J ESU®S’ estimate of the significance of his teaching
*The parable was a way of presenting truth in common use
among Jewish teachers. The word was applied to a broad range
of illustration; the simple statement, “Physician, heal thyself,” is
called a parable (Lk, IV:23), and so also is the somewhat extended
allegory of the farmer who rented his vineyard to unscrupulous and
murderous tenants (Mk. XII:1-9).
*IV:1-34,
187
188 Tuer Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
truth because God had distinctly planned to exclude that
generation of Jews, especially its obdurate, scribal and
priestly leaders, from participation in the Jesus Messianic
movement. Paul held this view (in opposition to the
idea, prevalent among many Gentile Christians, that God
had permanently “cast off” all the Jewish nation) : “That
which Israel seeketh for, that he obtained not; but the
election obtained it and the rest were hardened, according
as it is written, ‘God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes —
that they should not see and ears that they should not
hear,’ unto this very day.” “A hardening in part hath
befallen Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come
in; and so all Israel shall be saved.””* This idea was
attributed by the Gospel makers to Jesus: “And when he
was alone they that were about him with the twelve asked
of him the parables. (Mt. ‘““‘Why speakest thou unto them
in parables?” ) And he said unto them, Unto you is given
the mystery of the Kingdom of God: but unto them that
are without all things are done in parables: that seeing
they may see and not perceive; and hearing they may
hear and not understand; lest haply they should turn
again, and it should be forgiven them.” * Mark, like Paul,
does not understand this to be the permanent destiny of
the Jewish nation; it is only a hiding of the truth from
one generation preliminary to a more effective proclama-
tion of it to the whole nation after this guilty generation
had passed away; God would certainly not conceal truth
permanently. Mark assembles at this point a number of
fragmentary utterances of Jesus to show this: “And he
said unto them, Is the lamp brought to be put under the
bushel, or under the bed, and not to be put on the stand ?
For there is nothing hid, save that it should be manifested,
*Rom. IX-XI; especially XI:1, 8-12, 25-27.
‘Mk. IV:10-12.
PaRABLES. OF THE KINGDOM 189
neither was anything made secret, but that it should come
to light.” ® ,
These hidden truths were called “mysteries,” a word
in common use in the religious circles of the Greco-
Roman world in which the early church lived and a word
suggestive of the “secrets” that were “revealed” in Jewish
apocalyptic, or revelation, literature, especially concerned
with the unseen world and the prospective break up of the
present age. Every religion would be expected to have
its “mysteries”; its secret truths revealed to the inner
circle of initiates. ‘They were not necessarily hard to
understand, but simply difficult to discover, like the secrets
of a secret society.
The idea that God was distinctly purposing to conceal
the truth from this generation of Jews connected itself
in the minds of the Gospel makers with the passage in
Isaiah, just quoted above, that described the desperate
apostacy of the nation in Isaiah’s day. How much of
this view was held by Jesus himself? It seems probable
that he did cite the Isaiah passage in discussing the
situation in which he found himself. The national lead-
ers from Jerusalem had just gone to the perilous extreme
of declaring the Spirit of God which Jesus felt within
him to be the hot breath of Beelzeboul, and were in danger
of eternal sin (p. 120). Whatever Jesus said about them
the early Christian preachers and prophets, who gathered
and shaped the Gospel material, naturally amplified and
* Mk. IV:2]-22.
*Is. VI:9-10. This passage appears in two forms in the Old
Testament, the stern form of the original Hebrew reproduced in
Mark, and the milder translation of the Hebrew in the Greek Old
Testament, reproduced in the Matthew Gospel, which tries to take
the responsibility for their hardening off from God and lay. it on
‘the people themselves. Luke, like Mark, uses the severer Hebrew
form but shrinks from the last clause: “lest they should repent and
be forgiven.”
190 Tuer Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
explained in the light of the conflict going on between
synagogue and church and the general rejection of Chris-
tianity by the Jewish nation in their day. -
Parables were well adapted to the tense situation in
which Jesus found himself, though not necessarily for the
reason given by the early Christian teachers. They
enabled him to present truth in a veiled way very provoca-
tive of thought in the case of those who were eager for
truth and yet not so exasperating as direct unveiled state-
ments in the case of hardened opponents of the truth.
They served to draw about Jesus a susceptible group of
inquirers very amenable to his desire and left the hard-
ened scribes to go: their way unable to challenge his
statements.
What is there in the three parables presented by Mark
at this point that indicates Jesus’ estimate of the siguifi-
cance of his Galilean campaign of preparation for the
Coming Kingdom? The first parable describes a small
farmer’s varied experience with the different parts of his
field:-. Within the extent of one small Galiledn field
varieties of soil might be found: the hardened footpath
running between two adjoining fields; the limestone rock
coming near the surface covered only with a thin coating
of soil; close by a pocket of soil made very rich by dis-
integrating limestone with its shells and animal remains,’
one such pocket full of thistle seeds, another clean and
ready for the sower’s seed. ‘Hearken: Behold, the sower
went forth to sow: and it came to pass, as he sowed, some
seed fell by the way side, and the birds came and devoured
it. And other fell on the rocky ground, where it had not
much earth: and when the sun was risen, it was scorched ;
and because it had no root, it withered away. And other
fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked
"Thompson, Parables by the Lake, pp. 16-17.
PARABLES OF THE Kinapom 191
it, and it yielded no fruit. And others fell into the good
ground, and yielded fruit, growing up and increasing;
and brought forth, thirtyfold, and sixtyfold, and a hun-
dredfold.” §
In the explanation of this story, given by Jesus pri-
vately to his disciples, it appears that he was meaning to
describe the different kinds of men and women that he
had found as he presented to them the life that they must
live in order to be ready for the Coming Kingdom. His
classification was based on the degree and kind of atten-
tion that they had given to the truths he had presented to
them. It was no merely academic classification. ‘The
activity of these months had enlisted all the power and
passion of his soul. God, the Coming Kingdom, the Judg-
ment Day, the unseen Heavenly World, the souls of men,
his own overpowering sense of leadership that would not
yet resolve itself into certainty of detail, were vivid real-
ities. Everything he saw in nature, in business life or
home life suggested some phase of these great realities
that were always in his thought. The farmer’s field, for
whose cultivation he had many times made the implements,
suggested the four classes of people found in the audiences
to which he had spoken with passionate eagerness. There
were those whose souls hardened against what he said
_ like the hard pathway baked by the sun, beaten by the
feet of men. ‘These were the scribes and their followers.
The words of Jesus made no impression upon them. Satan
was ever at hand, like the hungry sharp-eyed birds in the
footpath, eager to remove (Mt. ‘‘snatch away’’) every trace
of truth from their attention. It was the scribes, and not
Jesus, who were being operated on by Beelzeboul! “And
these are they by the way side, where the word is sown;
and when they have heard, straightway cometh Satan, and
*Mk. IV:3-8.
192 Tre Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
taketh away the word which hath been sown in them.”
He had found other men and women giving quick and
enthusiastic assent to his appeals to conscience. They
seemed to repent of their sins; they talked with him
repeatedly on the lake front; they followed him from town
to town. Yet he learned by inquiry that when they went
to their homes, found the local scribes against them and
members of their families bitterly complaining of them for
close association with the Prophet’s company, they yielded
and came no more to him. They could not endure the
sour looks and bitter words of the synagogue leaders. They
doubted whether the Kingdom was near or whether the
Prophet’s peculiar ideas about the way to prepare for it
were better than those of the scribes. ‘And these in like
manner are they that are sown upon the rocky places, who
when they have heard the word, straightway receive it
with joy; and they have no root in themselves, but endure
for a while; then when tribulation or persecution ariseth
because of the word straightway they stumble.”® He
had found others, of stronger nature, of large capacity for
attention and not easily moved by opposition. But they
were men engrossed in business, women distracted by
household anxieties, people of means absorbed in various
agreeable occupations. They could not give prolonged
attention to the things Jesus had to say. If they had
done so these things would have gripped them. If a man
were to bring his wavering attention repeatedly back to
the thought of God and eternity for a single hour these
ideas might grip him forever. “And others are they that
are sown among the thorns; these are they that have heard
°*Mk. IV:16-17. The word “persecutions” suggests the later time
when the synagogue was persecuting the Christians. But the origi-
nal situation in which leading scribes were ready to execute Jesus
and in which John the Baptist had been killed, would also have
yielded serious social persecutions.
ParaBLes oF THE Kinapom 193
the word, and the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness
of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke
the word, and it becometh unfruitful.” 1° Last of all
there were those who sturdily, candidly, using their capac-
ity for attention to the full, gave themselves to the great
ideas of Jesus. They set themselves to be ready for the
Kingdom. “Their loins were girded about, and their
lamps burning, like men looking for their Lord.” They
stopped caring so much about making money; they began
to comfort people in trouble; and to look out for the
interests of others as carefully as for their own. They
received the word into “an honest and good heart and
held it fast.” ‘“And that in the good ground, these are
such as in an honest and good heart, having heard the
word, hold it fast, and bring forth fruit with patience.” 14
In all this parable the importance of “hearing” is
emphasized. Everyone who is eager for truth will get it.
Truth will be measured out. to him in proportion to the
measure of his desire to know and do the truth. Therefore
everyone who finds himself having in any degree the
willing ear should attend with all his energy to what he
~ hears. He who refuses to do this will find his capacity
for seeing truth decreasing, his sense of its reality growing
dim and finally altogether gone. “If any man hath ears
to hear, let him hear: And he said unto them, Heed what
ye hear:1? with what measure ye mete it shall be
measured unto you; and more shall be given unto you.
For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath
not, from him shall be taken away even that which he
hath. AaaS
* Mk. IV:18-19.
“Lk. VITII:15.
™ Not “Be careful what you hear” but “Heed what you hear, give
honest attention to what you hear, act in mecordance with it.”
* Mk, IV :23-25.
194 Tue Lire AND TEACHING OF JESUS
_ The second parable in which Jesus expressed his esti-
mate of what he had been doing in Galilee is the parable
of the crop proceeding steadily toward harvest without
further attention from the sower.'* The farmer simply
scatters his seed on the field, then without further thought
about it goes his way, sleeps and rises night and day. In
the meantime the crop proceeds steadily toward the har-
vest, blade, head, grain in the head “while **> he himself
is not knowing it,” and suddenly on a given day the farmer
thrusts in the sickle! “And he said, So is the kingdom of
God, as if a man should cast seed upon the earth; and
should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should
spring up and grow, while he is not knowing it. The
earth bears fruit of itself; first a blade, then an ear, then
full grain inthe ear. But when the fruit is ripe, straight-
way he puts forth the sickle, because the harvest is come.”
The illustration expresses the confidence Jesus felt that
while he was passing from place to place, not waiting to
watch for the results of his preaching in one town before
going on to the next, God was preparing men for the
Judgment Day and the breaking in of the Kingdom. To
men like Judas and Saddouk (p. 35) or their successors,
holding secret meetings, conspiring for revolution, the
work of Jesus must have seemed vague, weak and futile.
But Jesus felt that God was with him. He was working .
with the same irresistible force that brought crops to
harvest. Underneath all of life in Galilee was the will
of God bearing all things on to the Great Crisis, After
nineteen hundred years millions of men and women all
over the earth are eager to learn every detail of what he
said and did in the little towns of Galilee!
“Mk. IV :26-29.
* Not “how” ag in the English translation, but “as” in the tem-
poral sense,—“As I was coming in, I saw him.”
PaRABLEs oF THE Kinapom 195
The third parable 7° is that of the mustard seed, small-
est of garden seeds but producing in the rich sulphurous
soil about the Sea of Galilee a vegetable the size of a small
tree, big enough for birds to build nests in. “And he
said, How shall we liken the kingdom of God? or in what
parable shall we set it forth? It is like a grain of mus-
tard seed, which, when it is sown upon the earth, though
it be less than all the seeds that are upon the earth, yet
when it is sown, groweth up, and becometh greater than
all the herbs, and putteth out great branches; so that the
birds of the heaven can lodge under the shadow thereof.”
The point lies in the contrast between the minute begin-
ning and the great ending. Here again from the stand-
point of such men as Judas and the revolutionists Jesus’
unorganized movement seemed only a futile talking out
into the empty air, wholly inadequate to the creation of a
forceful Empire. But Jesus was sure of God in hin,
sure that he was being impelled by God to proceed in this
way, and that what seemed so inadequate and insignificant
would lead to the breaking in of the Kingdom.
The Matthew Gospel (c. xiii) in its parallel to Mark
at this point has as usual assembled matter having some
general logical connection. It presents seven parables
which have in common only the general fact that they are
concerned with the Kingdom.** They appeal to different
classes of people, housewives, merchants, fishermen,
gardeners.
* Mk. IV:30-32.
**Two of them are taken from Mark, the parables of the sower,
and the mustard seed, and a third, the parable of the tares, is pos-
sibly based on Mark’s parable of the earth bearing crops of itself
or if not based on it, seemed to the compiler sufficiently like it to
warrant omitting the Mark parable from his favorite number seven.
A fourth parable, the leaven, appears also in Luke, while three
others, the hid treasure, the costly pearl and the drag net appear
only in Matthew.
196 Tuer Lire AND TEACHING OF JESUS
The parable of the small quantity of yeast hidden away
in three measures of meal is like the parable of the mus-
tard seed, which it immediately follows. The contrast is
between the small beginning and the surprisingly great
ending. Three measures of meal was a large baking, such
as a chieftain’s wife might prepare for her husband’s
distinguished guests.1® The little piece of yeast trans-
formed the whole. The apparently insignificant preach-
ing of Jesus and his assistants in the Galilean towns would
lead to the World Empire of God. The parable of the
man who sold everything he had in order to buy a field in
which he knew there was buried treasure, its unknown
owner probably long ago dead, and the parable of the
pearl merchant who sold all his stock of pearls in order
to buy one wondrous pearl, illustrate the wisdom of part-
ing with everything else if necessary in order to be sure
of a place in the blessed life of the Coming Kingdom. The ©
parable of the drag net, set all day and dragged to shore
in the evening, about which the fishermen gathered to
separate the good fish from the worthless ones, illustrated
the rapidly approaching Judgment Day when the angels
would gather about the human group to pick out the bad
ones for burning. The language used here is the con-
ventional description of the fate of the wicked, found else-
where in the literature of the day.
The parable to which the compiler gives most space,
even a little more than to that of the sower which he
took from Mark, is that of the poisonous weeds stealthily
sown by the vicious enemy in the darkness of the night
time on a field where good grain had already been sown
by the owner. As the time for harvesting the crop drew
near, the poisonous weeds, which until that time had
looked much like good grain, were discovered. The farm
*Gen. XVIII:6.
PARABLES OF THE KiINGpOM 197
hands wished to root them up at once but the farmer for-
bade it. He said that they would root up the good grain
at the same time, if they attempted it. Both were to be
left growing until the harvest and then, after both had
been cut down, the separation could be safely made. There
is a view of the Kingdom underlying this parable which
will come up for discussion later when we consider how
and when Jesus expected the Kingdom to come (pp. 243-
255). It is sufficient now to note in passing the presence
in the Matthew Gospel of matter not found elsewhere
indicating in the compiler a peculiar consciousness of the
presence of bad men in the Christian group. Here in
this parable they are found among the good. LEarlier in
the Gospel certain Christian preachers were mentioned,
scandalously liberal in their attitude toward the law of
Moses, who might barely get into the future Kingdom, but
with no hope of being highly esteemed there, while still
others, notable Christian preachers, successful exorcists
and healers, would not come into the Kingdom at all
because they were workers of “lawlessness.” 1® One such
bold man, who might be expected to force his arrogant way
into the banqueting hall at the time of the Messianic —
banquet, would find himself quickly tied hand and foot
and thrown into the outer darkness.”°
#V:19, VII:21-23.
* XXIT:11-13, cf. p. 319.
CHAPTER XIX
THE GALILEAN PROPHET AND THE PEOPLE
| EAT TOGETHER BEFORE THE
HEAVENLY FATHER
of the work that had been done by himself and his
assistants in Galilee. He was known later in Jeru-
salem as ‘“‘the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee” 4
and has passed into history as “the Galilean.” Near the
close of this immortal work in Galilee a remarkable meet-
ing was held in a retired spot somewhere near the Sea of
Galilee at which thousands of people were present.2 The
occasion was thrust unexpectedly upon Jesus in a way
that must have made it seem to him to be the result of
God’s arrangement. When the Twelve returned from their
campaign in the Galilean villages they were in need of
rest. The experience had been a difficult one for them.
They had probably not been accustomed to public speak-
ing; their attempts at exorcism of demons and healing of
the diseased, sometimes successful and probably sometimes
unsuccessful, must have been an exciting activity; the
opposition of scribes and their sympathizers had: often
been exasperating or alarming; and through it all, the
feeling that the Judgment Day was near must have kept
them constantly under strain. When they came back to
1Mt. XXT:11.
7Mk. VI:30-44,
| be the last chapter we have seen Jesus’ high estimate
198
Eatine ToaetHer Berors THE Heaventy Fatuer 199
Jesus with a detailed report of all their successes and
failures, when they “told him all things, whatsoever they
had done and whatsoever they had taught,” he saw their
need of rest, and said to them: “Come ye yourselves apart
into a desert (quiet, lonely) place and rest a while.”
There was no chance for rest where they were, “for there
were many coming and going and they had no leisure so
much as to eat.” So “they went away in a boat to a desert
place apart.” Jesus did not immediately accomplish his
purpose, however, for the crowds saw him starting out
with the Twelve, noticed the direction in which the boat
was headed and, while the boat with its tired occupants
moved slowly across the lake, hurried on foot along the
northern shore toward the general region where they saw
that the boat would land. The crowd constantly grew as
hundreds were gathered up from the lake towns through
which they passed. “And the people saw them going and ©
many knew them and they ran together there on foot from -
all the cities and outwent them.” As Jesus, looking across
the water, saw these thousands in the distance hurrying
along the roads, his sympathy was kindled. He said to
his disciples that they seemed to him like flocks of sheep
without a shepherd—a pitiable sight in a sheep raising
country. John the Baptist, to whom many of them had
looked for guidance, was now in prison or already dead.?
The scribes, their natural religious leaders, seemed to
Jesus to be utterly unequal to the great crisis of the “last
days.” There is some reason to suppose that the great
spring festival, the Passover at Jerusalem, was near and
that perhaps many of these people were Passover pilgrims
* Just before this point in the narrative, Mark inserts the account
of John the Baptist’s haphazard execution to gratify the spite of
Herod’s wife and step-daughter who had appealed to his lust and
pride (VI:14-29).
200 Tue Lire anp Tracuine or JESUS
coming down from the north and caught here in the lake
towns for a few hours on their way to Jerusalem.* Jesus
knew that the Jerusalem scribes who had recently come
north, bitterly attacking him and his ideas, could give the
Passover crowds no spiritual guidance. The priests and
profiteering bazaar men at the temple would do nothing
but exploit these plain people.® The people were drifting
about like flocks of unshepherded sheep in the last days
before the Judgment! Jesus gave up the rest of the day
to impassioned teaching, sometimes speaking to the thou-
sands, sometimes to smaller groups and individuals. “He
came forth (from the boat) and saw a great multitude,
and he had compassion on them because they were as
sheep not having a shepherd and he began to teach them
much.” He talked to them about the Coming Kingdom,
and the need of repentance; about the Heavenly Father’s
will; about forgiveness, trust and peace, about the life of
brotherhood that men must live together in order to be
ready for the New Order. As the day was drawing to a
close he proposed that they should eat together. To eat
together was to enter into the intimate friendship of table
companionship. What Jesus now proposed was that they
should eat together as brothers in the presence of God a
meal of solemn penitence and reconciliation. He, as their -
host, had them arrange themselves in orderly ranks be-
fitting a solemn religious occasion. He prayed in the
presence of them all and after the stillness of the prayer
the thousands of the poor and heavily burdened, the
phophondlese flocks, ate together before God a Re poor
man’s meal that was prophetic of the Messianic banquet
*Jn. VI:4 says it was the Passover, and the “green Set men-
tioned in Mk. VI:39 might indicate springtime.
Of. Mk. XI:15-18.
*The women and children by themselves according to Mt, XIV:21,
Eatine Toaeturer Berore THE Heaventy Fatuer 201
to which all looked forward in their dreams of the Coming
Kingdom. It made the Kingdom of Heaven seem at
hand. ,
The religious significance of this meal was felt by all
the early Christians. Long afterward, when the Fourth
Gospel was written, it seemed to the author to have been
the true paschal feast, presided over by the true Messianic
leader of the people.? More than this, it seemed to him
to have been the true institution of the Lord’s Supper
which historically was connected with the paschal supper,
for he gives no other account in his Gospel of its institu-
tion and to his account of this meal he attaches the
eucharistic discourse of Jesus upon the eating of his body
and the drinking of his blood.®
The narrative in its present form emphasizes another
feature of this occasion which assumed great significance
in the minds of the Gospel makers. It conveys the im-
pression that no other food was used on this occasion
besides the five thin cakes of bread and two dried fishes
that Jesus’ disciples happened to have with them in the
boat, and that nevertheless there was far more than enough
for 5,000 men besides probably as many more women and
children (Mt.). It is not certain from the narrative that no
other food was used and many of those present, especially
if Passover pilgrims, would have had bread and fish in
their wallets. Still Mk. (not followed by Mt. and Lk.)
says that Jesus divided the two fishes ‘among them all,”
and later Mt. and Mk. (not Lk.) report a similar meal
at which 4,000 (Mt., besides women and children) were
present, when seven loaves and ‘‘a few little fishes” were
used and seven hampers full were left over. Furthermore
both Mk. and Mt. (not Lk.) make Jesus later refer to these
‘Jn. VI:4, 14-15. »
*Jn. VI:25-59, especially vs. 52-58.
902 Tue Lire anp Tracuina or JEsus
two meals in such a way as to show that no other bread
was used (fish are not mentioned).® Just how the Gospel
writers conceived this to have taken place they do not
make clear. The narrative might indicate that as fast as
Jesus broke off a piece from a cake of bread another piece
immediately took its place so that the broken cake was no
smaller than it had been before. Or that when finally
the broken piece exhausted its capacity for enlargement
Jesus took another, and so used all five. In the same
way, as he pulled a fish apart the part removed was in-
stantly restored. Or did the increase occur in the baskets
of the distributing disciples? In that case each of the
twelve began his distribution with a few fragments of
the original five loaves and two fishes in his basket and as
fast as he took pieces out other pieces took their places so
that his basket never became empty—indeed was full at
the end. Or did the increase take place in the hands of
the eaters so that a piece was never entirely eaten up?
- What is to be said about such an account? Apparently
one of two things. We may possibly say that certain
forces were used by Jesus, either consciously or un-
consciously, the like of which we have never yet experi-
enced, but may sometime experience. We have no special
difficulty in accepting Jesus’ so-called miracles of healing
because we have begun to have at least rudimentary ex-
perience with psychic force in the healing of disease. But
we have as yet no evidence of any sort of force that could
be made available for doing such a thing as Jesus is re-
ported to have done in the case of these dried fishes.
Another and more probable theory is that this account
represents a devout legendary addition to, or exaggeration
of, what actually took place. Certain unhistorical' stories
tend always to gather about the name of a great man. No
°Mk. VIII:19-20, Mt. XVI:9-10.
Eatine ToaerHer Berors THE HEAVENLY FatueErR 203
one definitely starts them with intent to deceive. They
simply spring up in various ways. Someone suggests what
he thinks must have happened or misunderstands what an-
other has said. It would be strange if so great a person
as Jesus, afterwards recognized as Messiah, “Lord of all,”
should have been a complete exception to this general
tendency, especially in a credulous age in which the
marvelous was accepted as a matter of course. The early
Christian preachers in preaching about this wonderful
occasion, whose religious significance was so great, might
easily have thought of it in connection with the case of
the great prophet Elisha: “And there came a man from
Baal-shalishah, and brought the man of God bread of the
first fruits, twenty loaves of barley, and fresh ears of
grain in his sack. And he said, Give unto the people,
that they may eat. And his servant said, what, should I
set this before a hundred men? But he said, Give the
people, that they may eat; for thus saith Jehovah, They
shall eat, and shall leave thereof. So he set it before
them, and they did eat, and left thereof, according to the
word of Jehovah.” *° It is also probable that inasmuch
as the Messiah was thought of by many as a second and
greater Moses," the early preachers would naturally have
felt that Jesus here in the “desert place” (vs. 31, 32, 35)
must have been like his great prototype in giving the
people free bread in a wonderful way as Moses gave them
manna in “the desert.” Such a comparison between the
two as distributers of free bread is definitely made in the
Fourth Gospel.1? The people are made to say “What
doest thou for a sign?’ “Our fathers ate the manna in the
wilderness.” They ask for a daily distribution of free
*II Kings IV:42-44,
"Deut. XVIII:15, Acts III:21-23.
™Jn. VI.
204 Tue Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
bread like that of the preceding day: “Sir, evermore give
us this bread,” that is, “Let the endless era of Messianic
plenty at once begin.” When the presuppositions of the
Christian generation in which the Gospels were formed
are once understood it is seen to be very natural that such
an interpretative addition should have been made to the
account of what had really been an occasion of extraor-
dinary religious significance.*®
After the people, under the guidance of the Prophet of
the Coming Kingdom, had finished eating together before
the Heavenly Father, Jesus is represented by Mark to
have taken strenuous action. He at once vigorously hur-
ried (“‘constrained’’) his disciples into the boat before the
crowd dispersed and told them to go to a place called
Bethsaida, where he apparently expected to join them,
coming on foot after he had taken leave of the people. Then
he spoke some final words of dismissal to the people who
were to find their way back in the late evening to the places
from which they had come or were to sleep under the stars,
which would have been no great hardship, since probably
many Passover pilgrims did this on all the journey. Jesus
at some point on his way toward Bethsaida went aside in
the deepening darkness to some retired spot on a hill top
.for prayer. ‘And straightway he constrained his disciples
to enter into the boat and to go before him unto the other
side to Bethsaida, while he himself sendeth the multitude
away. And after he had taken leave of them he departed
into the mountain to pray.” ** No reason for this
strenuous action is given by Mark. The Fourth Gospel
says it was because a movement started in the crowd to
*It is not at all inconceivable that some such rumor should have
begun on the spot. The case of Elisha would have occurred to many
of these synagogue Bible students as they noted the fact that so
many people had eaten together without previous preparation.
“Mk. VI:45-46.
Eating ToGeTtHer BrerorE THE HEAVENLY FatHER 205
force a Messianic réle upon Jesus, to take him back to
Capernaum and on to Jerusalem as Messianic King. It
would be to avoid this that he at once got his disciples off
and slipped away himself. :
The Messianic surmise would naturally have arisen in
some minds on such an occasion. The Great Prophet of
the Coming Kingdom who had healed so many sick and
exorcised so many demons, who had pictured the Kingdom
of God so vividly, who had now gathered the great multi-
tude to eat in solemn consecration before God, might easily
seem to many to be “‘that prophet,” the Messianic Prophet
who should succeed Moses. This would have been a
natural surmise if there had been no actual increase of
the food supply, only the sharing of such food as many
had brought with them. There would have been still more
reason for this surmise if some on the spot had begun to
wonder how so many could have eaten without special
preparation for such an occasion and to suggest that this
was really the beginning of the marvelous plenty of the
Messianic Age. In any case Jesus’ action kept this sur-
mise from developing, for Mark later represents none of
Jesus’ great popular following in the nation to be thinking
of him as the Messiah. When Jesus asked who men said
that he was his disciples replied: “John the Baptist; and
- others Elijah; but others, One of the Prophets.” 1°
The nature of Jesus’ religious experience during this
night of prayer is perhaps to be inferred from his later
conduct, which will soon appear. The needs of the un-
shepherded sheep which had so profoundly stirred him that
day must have been uppermost in his mind. More and
more they must have forced him to inquire of God whether
the general sense of leadership as God’s Son, the Beloved,
established in his soul at the time of the baptism and the
* Mk. VIII:27-28.
206 Tuer Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
testing, involved the assumption of a Messianic role and
if so a Messianic réle of what type and with what ex-
pectations, for, as we have seen, the popular Messianic
idea was vague and varied (p. 40).
This inquiry may have been further necessitated by the
apparently providential way in which the situation had
been unexpectedly forced upon him. He had crossed the
lake with the purpose of securing rest for his disciples,
but instead of being able to carry out this plan, a most —
exciting critical situation had been thrust upon him. He
may have been in doubt as to whether this decisive inter-
ference with his plans came from God or Satan. He
sought the solution of the doubt through prayer. As we
shall see in the next chapter, this incident was followed
by a period in which he withdrew from public teaching
and visited out-of-the-way places. From this period of
retirement and reflection he emerged with the full, clear
conviction that he must assume the Messianic roéle.?® It
may well be, therefore, that this sacred meal with the
multitudes was an event of decisive significance in the
development of Jesus’ Messianic consciousness.
According to Mark the disciples in the boat, probably
- rowing leisurely along toward the place to which Jesus
was to come on foot, found the north or northwest wind
rising and were able to make little headway against it
even by hard rowing. If this was near Passover season
there was moonlight during some of the night. In the
early morning, between three and six o’clock, Jesus from
his position on the hill saw them and went out to them,
according to Mark (followed by Matthew), walking on
the water.17 When we ask what actually happened here
* Mk. VIII:27-30.
* The Matthew Gospel adds a paragraph peculiar to itself and in
accord with its general tendency to exalt Peter (p. 17). He too
Eatina TocETHER BEFoRE THE HEAVENLY FatuErR 207
we can only present the alternatives discussed above (p.
202). If it be regarded as the product of a devout
imagination it is probably best accounted for by. suppos-
ing that just as the story of Moses and the manna influ-
enced the Gospel account of Jesus, the second Moses, and
the loaves, so it was felt that. Moses’ power over the sea
must have had something corresponding to it in Jesus’
eareer. If both the increase of the food supply and this
walking on the water were actual occurrences and not the
product of the devout imagination of the early preachers,
it seems strange that the disciples in the boat should have
been so astounded and frightened. What they had ex-
perienced on the land a few hours before would have
prepared them for this wonder on the water. Mark feels
this incongruity and gives as his explanation the theory
that “their heart was hardened.” 18
Fortunately our faith in Jesus as the moral Redeemer
and immortal spiritual Leader of men does not rest on
his ability to walk on water or so to increase two dried
fishes and five bread cakes as to make them into a super-
abundant meal for thousands. Neither does it require
the supposition that the many men who were used by God
in the Gospel-making process were lifted out of the truly
religious spirit and habits of thought natural to men of
their day.
With this solemn meal Jesus’ work in Galilee was prac-
tically ended. According to Mark Jesus and his disciples
reached the region near Capernaum after the episode on
the water and found everywhere in country and city multi-
tudes of sick awaiting them.’® Then followed the break
could walk on the water, though not for so long a time as his Lord
and only in entire dependence on his Lord.
eV I-62,
*VI:53-56.
208 Tur Lire anp TEAcHING oF Jzsus
with the Jerusalem scribes over the tradition (pp. 121-
123), especially that which concerned hand washing
before eating, which logically belongs with the developing
scribal opposition traced in I1:1-II1:30. If it belongs
chronologically here in chapter seven it may be an inci-
dental outgrowth of the religious meal which Jesus had
allowed thousands to eat without the ceremony of hand-
washing. Such an omission would be a peculiarly flagrant
offense in the case of a religious meal. At this point
Jesus leaves Galilee never to return again for public work.
At a later time he passed through it secretly, presumably
traveling by night: they “passed through Galilee; and he
would not that any man should know it.” 2°
Mk. IX:30.
CHAPTER XxX
MISCELLANEOUS REMINISCENCES OF JESUS
IN THE REGION NORTH AND EAST
OF GALILEE
HE section in Mark’s Gospel following that which
records the termination of Jesus’ Galilean work is
made up of miscellaneous matter.1 It shows no
such continuity as is evident in the preceding section
which pictured the development in Galilee of scribal
hostility to, and of popular enthusiasm for, Jesus,
_ Prophet of the Coming Kingdom, healer and exorcist; nor
is there any such presentation of Jesus’ teaching as is to
be found in the section following. Points in Jesus’ itin-
erary, some of them distant from each other, are men-
tioned, Tyre, Sidon, Decapolis, Dalmanutha, Bethsaida,
Cesarea Philippi, without any apparent reason for going
from one to another. No preaching about the Kingdom
is mentioned in any of them. The paragraphs in the
section seem like miscellaneous reminiscences of Jesus,
preserved in various localities where they were later found
by the collectors of Gospel material.
We are left to conjecture Jesus’ reason for leaving
Galilee. He suddenly went north to the region of ancient
Tyre, a region which bordered on, and had commercial
connection with, Galilee? In a village of this Tyrian
*,VIT:24-VITI ;26.
* Acts XII:20.
209
210 Tus Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
territory he for some reason tried to conceal himself in
lodgings: “he entered into a house and would have no
man know it.” * Perhaps it was the home of some Jewish
friend, for people (certainly Jews) from “about Tyre —
and Sidon” had been with him on the Capernaum lake
front.* It is possible that he sought concealment here to
avoid Herod, who, after killing John the Baptist, had
begun to notice Jesus.® It is far more probable that the
opposition of the Galilean scribes, re-enforced from Jeru-
salem, had become so bitter that he wished by withdrawing
from Galilee to keep it from developing further at present.
Furthermore, if after the Great Supper there had really
been some incipient surmise that he was the Messiah
(pp. 204-206), he wished by all means to have it at once
disappear. His own mind may not have yet become
settled on that point and he wished no impulse in that
_ direction to come from any other source than the voice of
God in his own soul.
The first incident ® in this miscellaneous collection is
thé very significant exorcism of a demon from a little
“pagan” girl, accomplished without going into her pagan
home, which would have been scandalous for a Jew,’ and
without having her brought into his presence. Soon after
his arrival in the village it had become known, in spite of
his precautions, that the famous Galilean Prophet and
exorcist had come from Galilee. The mother of the little
girl at once sought him out and appealed for help. She
is described as a native of Syrian (not African) Pheenicia,
Greek in her education and general viewpoint, not a
Jewess either by race or religion. She gained entrance to
9Mk. VIT:24.
“Mk. III:8.
®*Mk. VI:14-16.
*Mk. VII:24-30.
* Acts X:25-28, XI:3.
Jesus Norrn anp East or Gatiter 911
the house, fell at Jesus’ feet and in her desperate sorrow
over the condition of her little daughter begged for help.
Jesus objected to helping her on the ground that God’s
time for helping foreigners had not yet come. With his
characteristic predilection for ‘‘parables,” he said the chil-
dren were now having their meal and that none of their
food must be thrown to the little dogs who were watching
them eat: “Let the children first be fed.” The woman’s
quick wit, sharpened by her intense desire for help, seized
upon the word “first.”” She said that small morsels some-
times fell to the little dogs under the table while the |
children were still eating! The spirit of the woman re-
vealed by this statement led Jesus to make an exception
to his general policy. He told her that the evil spirit had
left her daughter. She hurried home and found the little
girl thrown on the bed, probably exhausted after a final
convulsion,® but in her right mind. This is unlike the
cases recorded earlier in the Gospel in which Jesus worked
directly by his presence and words on the minds of the
demoniacs (pp. 87-89). The inference is that God gave
him inner assurance of the little girl’s cure as he made
prayerful inquiry about her (pp. 84-86). Jesus seems
to us to have dealt rather roughly with the woman in
likening her and her class to little house dogs, even if such
were often family pets. Perhaps he felt at first that he:
must not depart from the general policy that God had laid
down for his work; he had not just now left Galilee in
order to extend Jewish privileges to Gentiles and so still
further to increase bitter scribal prejudice against him. .
He, therefore, dealt brusquely with her. He was evidently
relieved to receive inner assurance from God that he might
gratify his instinctive desire to relieve distress by making
an exception to his general policy.
* Of. Mk. IX:26,
912 Tue Lire anp TRAcHING OF JESUS
The presentation of the matter made by Mark for his
Gentile Christian clientage in and about Rome is one that
would appeal to them. They had learned from Paul
that the Gospel was “to the Jew first and also to the
Greek.” ®
The incident is given a different treatment in the
Matthew Gospel,’ prepared for Jewish Christians who
were still devoted to the idea of Jewish pre-eminence and
to the law of Moses which they would have been glad to
see Christians obey (pp. 13-17). Jesus seems more
unwilling to act in the case. He refused even to speak to
her: “he answered her not a word.” His disciples are
represented as present and urging him to do what she
asked, but Jesus resisted even them with the definite state-
ment that he had been sent only to “the lost sheep,” the
neglected classes, among the Jews. There is no implica-
tion that Gentile dogs may eat after Jewish children have
“first” been fed. The children are called the “masters’’
of the dogs: it is Jews who will finally dominate the earth.
Furthermore, the woman for whom Jesus finally con-
sented to do the great favor is not an unmitigated Gentile.
Though not a Jewish proselyte, she is by implication a
Jehovah worshipper. She knows enough about Jewish
religion to be able to call Jesus by a Messianic title, “Son
of David,” and it is her “faith,” presumably in Jehovah
or in Jesus as Jehovah’s Messianic prophet, that furnishes
Jesus with a sufficient pretext for action.
Jesus now goes back to the Sea of Galilee, but to its
eastern shore which was not a part of Galilee. He reaches
the sea, however, by a very circuitous route. He first
goes a considerable distance directly away from it, north
from Tyre to Sidon (unless this be regarded as a textual
*Rom. 1:16.
Mt. XV:22-28.
Jesus NorruH anp East or Garimer 2138
error for Saidon, that is, Beth-saida) and then southeast
through the middle of the Ten City District, a region that
lay mainly to the east and southeast of the Sea of Galilee.
Nothing is said of what happened in these wide extra-
Galilean wanderings except in one instance. Somewhere
in the Decapolis a man was healed who had the two related
ailments, deafness and defective speech. We might be
inclined to think of this man as a foreigner like the
woman of Syrian Phenicia, and to suppose that Mark
in all this section is representing Jesus as working among
Gentiles. But on the other hand, if Mark was concerned
to give the impression that this man was a Gentile we
should surely expect him to mention the fact as he did in
the case of the Phenician woman. The whole Decapolis
district had plenty of Jews in it.
This cure of deafness and defective speech was accom-
plished in an unusual way. It was not simply by a word
or a touch, but by both and by the use of saliva. Further-
more, the prayer that we have assumed to be silently
made by Jesus whenever he cured the sick (p. 85) is
here open and evident. The reason for it may be found
in Jesus’ desire to develop in the man the “faith” that
he emphasized as so essential to a cure. The man had
had no opportunity to see Jesus perform cures and, being
deaf, had not heard much about them. To create in the
man a lively sense of expectation Jesus puts his fingers in
the man’s ears, as if to open them, touches his tongue with
the saliva that is supposed to have curative value, heaves
a deep sigh of sympathy, the motion of which the man
ean see, though he does not hear, and lifts his eyes to
heaven, as the source from which Jesus’ prayer is bringing
help. Then the cure followed as usual. The “bond” of
the man’s tongue was loosed, perhaps the bond by which
Satan had tied it as he was supposed to have tied down
914 Tue Lire anp Tracuine or JESUS
the woman so that she could not straighten up.1! If he
had always been entirely deaf and unintelligible in speech
it would seem that he would have had to learn gradually
to talk, but the description of the case indicates either that
he had always been able to hear and talk some, or else
that this was some nervous trouble that had come upon
him at an age when he had already learned to talk dis-
tinctly. Jesus took great pains to keep the cure secret.
He took the man out of the city alone into the country and
gave strict orders to the man’s friends not to talk about
it to anyone. Others would of course see that he was
cured, but they need not know by whom. Mark gives no
hint of Jesus’ reason for wishing his part in it to be con-
cealed. Perhaps he wished to have his reputation as a
healer of disease abate so that he could come back later to
his teaching with more hope of concentrating attention
upon his message. He had been embarrassed in Galilee
by his popularity as a healer. The man’s friends did not
follow Jesus’ instructions and the event set all the country
talking. It brought to mind all that they had heard about —
Jesus’ work as a healer in Galilee, which had at an earlier
time drawn many of them across the lake to Jesus in
Galilee.1* The popular verdict was a hearty dissent from —
that known to have been passed on Jesus’ work by the
Galilean scribes: “he hath done all things well; he maketh
even the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak.” 18 This
language suggests the Messianic picture in Isaiah XX XV:
5-6 and must have seemed very significant to the preachers
of the Gospel making period.
This private interview with the deaf man and his
“Lk. XIIT:11, 16; Deissmann Light from the Ancient East, p.
306. :
42 Mk. III:8.
Jesus Norru anp East or GALILEE 915
friends is followed, without any introductory explanation,
by an account of a, meal at which four thousand men
(“besides children and women,” Mt.) who have been for
three days with Jesus are abundantly fed with seven
bread cakes and a few fishes. This account may have
been found by the collectors of Gospel material in the
Decapolis. It is natural to suspect that this is simply
another account of the meal already described, sufficiently
different in the details which had been developed by the
early preachers to make the compilers wrongly consider it
the description of another occasion. It is sometimes said
that Mark wishes to show Jesus to be doing here for Gen-
tiles what he had previously done for Jews. But if this
were true Mark would certainly have brought the point
distinctly out. The mere fact that Jesus was at the time
on the east side of the Sea of Galilee would not have
made it evident to the Christians about Rome that the
crowds were necessarily Gentile. The reason given for
providing food is that after being with Jesus for three
days they are hungry and far from food. They had evi-
dently brought with them food enough of their own to last
a considerable time, which throws some possible light on
the amount of food available for the use of the people
when the five thousand were fed after having been to-
gether for only a few hours. In the present account seven
hampers ** are mentioned instead of twelve baskets. Per-
haps the fact that in the Jerusalem church later seven men
were appointed to take the places of the Twelve in serving
food at the Christian commons ?* led to the surmise that
there must have been seven distributors here in place of
the twelve who appeared in the earlier paragraph.
%The same word is used to describe the ‘‘basket” in which Paul
was let down from the wall of Damascus, Acts [X:25,
* Acts VI:3,
216 Tue Lire anp TrAcHING OF JESUS
There comes next in this series of miscellaneous inci-
dents a short tense interview with Pharisees regarding
which we should be glad to have more information.’®
These Pharisees appear at a place called “the parts of —
Dalmanutha” (“the borders of Magadan,” Mt.), to which
Jesus and his disciples had come by boat. Since they
had reached it by boat taken on the eastern, Decapolis
side of the lake, and since these Pharisees seem to know
Jesus, it is natural to assume that this otherwise unmen-
tioned place was on the western shore and that we here
have Jesus touching Galilean soil again for a few hours.
It is clear that Jesus was being inspected by these Phari-
sees and that he was deeply stirred by the interview: he
is said to have groaned, or sighed deeply in spirit. The
Pharisees, probably scribes of the Pharisees, had very
possibly been watching Jesus through spies and when he
landed at this obscure point they at once “came forth,”
presumably from Capernaum, and “put him to the test”
on some point; they came forth “tempting him.” They
asked him for “a sign from heaven,” apparently to serve
as corroboration of some innovation in teaching or action.
What new thing had Jesus said or done that should lead
the scribes to make this challenge? His last contact with
them before leaving Galilee had been when he took a public
stand against their sacred traditional interpretation of
the law (pp. 121-123). They perhaps feared now that
he would again try to corrupt the people by renewing his
public attack on the tradition. It may also be that they
saw the same danger that we found some reason for sus-
pecting Jesus to have seen, namely, that the people would
begin to think him to be some sort of Messiah. If so,
there was double reason for their challenge. If one so set
against the sacred tradition should be led by his popularity
* Mk. VI:11-13.
Jesus Norrn anp East or Gatien 217
to nurse a Messianic ambition the result would be calam-
itous. If he were coming back to Galilee to begin a cam-
paign along such lines they would meet him at its very
threshold with a defiant challenge. They would probably
have accepted as a “sign from heaven” that which the
rabbis often sought, a voice from heaven, or some startling
physical phenomenon. Jesus’ startling healings and exor-
cisms had been interpreted by them as a sign from hell! *”
If Jesus had really increased the supply of bread and fish
it would seem that this might have satisfied their desire.
But they might still have contended that this had not hap-
pened before their eyes, and not in response to an appeal
to heaven for endorsement of a definite point of teaching
or conduct. Whatever their idea of a sign may have been,
Jesus emphatically refused to give a sign.® His unusual
agitation—“‘he sighed deeply in his spirit’’—may have
been due to the fact that, as we have seen, he had once
been tempted to expect from God some spectacular physical
endorsement, preservation from harm in a leap from a
temple pinnacle to the pavement below. There may have
been some recurrence of this temptation now. Especially
would this be so if Jesus in these days of wandering in
the outland had been cousidering whether his profound
sense of call to leadership must not involve assuming a
a Mk. TIT :22.
“In Lk. X1I:29-32, Mt. XVI:4, XII:38-41, Jesus says that his
preaching of repentance is the only sign they will get. It is a sign
like that given to the citizens of Nineveh by Jonah’s preaching of
repentance, but greater, because “something greater than Jonah is
here.” In accord with the Mt. compiler’s general tendency to find
detailed fulfilments of prophecy, in one of his two references to
Jonah he cites Jonah’s being “three days and three nights” in the
whale’s belly as parallel to the Son of Man’s being “three days and
three nights in the heart of the earth,” that is, in Hades. Accord-
ing to the Mt. narrative of the burial and resurrection Jesus was
only two nights and a part of two days in the grave.
918 Tur Lire anp TEACHING oF JESUS
Messianic réle of some sort. It may also be true that
Jesus was always wishing men to adopt his ideals because
these ideals seemed to them morally attractive, because
they seemed to them to be per se right, and not because
these ideals had behind them some physical force or
arbitrary authority. X
In close connection with the account of this interview is
the record of a conversation between Jesus and his dis-
ciples in the boat as they were sailing away from the
Galilean shore.1® In this conversation Jesus showed great
concern for his disciples. They seemed to him to be in
serious danger. He solemnly warned them to “beware
of the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod.” The dis-
ciples missed the point and thought that Jesus was criticiz-
ing them for having forgotten, in the excitement of the
interview with the Pharisees, to lay in a stock of bread
while they were on the Galilean shore. They understood
him to be really saying: “You seem to have been afraid
of the leaven that is used by the Pharisees in Herod’s
territory!” Jesus indignantly reproached them for
stupidity. He asked them if they belonged to that hard-
ened element in the nation whom he had previously de-
scribed °° as looking at things without seeing them and
listening without hearing. ‘And they forgot to take
bread; and they had not in the boat with them more than
one loaf. And he charged them, saying, Take heed, be-
ware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of
Herod.” Then follows a conversation in which Jesus
draws out from them the statistics regarding the two recent
occasions when he had made a little bread suffice for
thousands. If the theory suggested above (p. 215) be
_ true then this conversation would be regarded as the
* Mk. VIIT:14-21.
* Mk. IV:10-12.
Jesus Nortu ANnp Fast or GALILEE 219
transformation of a popular homiletical explanation into
an utterance of Jesus. In any case the important ques-
tion to be raised here is this: What was there in the
situation of the twelve at this time that aroused the deep
concern of Jesus? Leaven, or yeast, spreads—it is some-
times thought of as “hidden” and spreading without being
seen—‘“‘leaven which a woman took and hid in three
measures of meal.’’ What was there about the Pharisees
and Herod that might spread into the lives of the Twelve
and in some hidden way contaminate their character ?
The compiler of the Matthew Gospel was perplexed by
the reference to Herod, and substituted “Sadducees” for
“Herod.” 74 He also explains that the contaminating
influence was something in the “teaching” of the Pharisees
and Sadducees but he does not explain what particular
point it was in their teaching that the disciples were in
danger of adopting. Luke in another connection quotes
the warning as against “the leaven of the Pharisees”
which he interprets as “hypocrisy.” 2 He leaves it un-
certain in what particular the disciples were in danger
of becoming insincere. This passage in Mark is not the
first one that has classed the Pharisees and Herod together.
It has been previously said that “the Pharisees went out
and straightway with the Herodians took counsel against
him (Jesus) to destroy him.” 2% They did not at that
time openly proceed against Jesus. Both parties seem
to have had in their hearts a spirit of desperate antagonism
to him that for reasons of expediency they did not express
in action. Something of this insincerity had perhaps ap-
peared in the interview with the Pharisees that had just
taken place on the seashore. ‘They had appeared asking
"Mt. XVI:6.
#Lk. XII:1.
* Mk. III:6.
220 Tue Lire anp Tracuine or Jzrsus
for a sign from heaven as if open to conviction. Herod,
too, is described in Luke’s Gospel as a tricky, insincere
man. When certain Pharisees tried to drive Jesus out of
Galilee on the ground that Herod was trying to kill him
Jesus referred to him as a “fox”: “There came to him
certain Pharisees saying to him, Get thee out and go
hence, for Herod would fain kill thee. And he said unto
them, Go and say unto that fox,” that Jerusalem has a
monopoly of prophet killing.** In this view of the situa-
tion we should infer from Jesus’ solemn warning that he
detected among the Twelve a spirit of growing opposition
to, or at least discontent with, himself although it was
kept by ‘them from any open expression. The grounds
for such discontent are not hard to discover: he had failed
to carry the religious leaders, scribes of the Pharisees;
he had failed to organize his popular Galilean following
in any effective form; he had run away from an incipient
readiness to see in him a Messianic possibility (p. 204 £)
and was now wandering about in the outland taking no
decisive step, apparently afraid to face the Galilean scribes
again; he had just now sailed away from them after a
helplessly ineffective interview; there were no signs of.
the coming of the Kingdom. It i ts not strange that there
should have been in the inner circle at this time the begin-
ning of the discontent that finally fully possessed Judas’
and carried him over at a critical moment into the camp
of the Pharisees, and of the priests who in Judea corre-
sponded politically to the Herodians of Galilee. Jesus
soon took measures to bring this unsatisfactory situation
to a head, to bring secret dissatisfaction out into the open
- where he could deal with it vigorously.
Before. this action is described one other paragraph
appears in these miscellaneous reminiscences of Jesus in
“Lk, XIII:31-32.
Jesus Norto anp East or Gatiter PARA |
the northern and eastern outland. It describes the cure
of a blind man, a cure accomplished with unusual diffi-
culty, and by stages.*° The gradualness of the cure may
have corresponded to the gradual development of the man’s
faith. Here again, as in the case of the deaf man, the
utmost pains were taken to keep the cure secret.
® Mk. VIIT:22-26.
CHAPTER XXI
THE MESSIANIC SECRET
' N J HILE Jesus was still in the outland and avoiding
large cities—“‘in the villages of Philip’s
Ceesarea”—he asked his disciples what seems
to have been an unusual question, namely, who people in
-general were saying that he was.’ It. is not certain that
all the disciples had been with him during all of this
period of semi-concealment and comparative inactivity.
Some of them from time to time may have visited their
homes in Galilee and therefore been able to bring him a
report of what had taken place in Galilee during his weeks
or months of absence. They reported that he was still in
faver- with the people. The people believed his message
about the nearness of the Kingdom. They felt that these
were the “last days” of the present age, when ancient
prophets would return to their people to prepare them
for Jehovah’s Great Day of Judgment. They regarded
Jesus as the re-incarnation of some one of the old prophets.
Some were saying that he was Jeremiah, others that he
was Elijah, still others that the spirit of John the Baptist,
recently executed, had entered his body and was using his
lips and tongue for the continuation of the proclamation
that Herod had interrupted. No one thought him to be
the Messiah. If some had earlier surmised that he might
turn out to be the Messiah, their surmise had subsided
Mk. VIII:27-30, Mt. XVI:13-16.
222
ee Messranic SECRET 223
below the Messianic level and he seemed to them only a
great prophet of the last days: ““And Jesus went forth,
and his disciples, into the villages of Ceesarea Philippi:
and on the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them,
Who do men say that Iam? And they told him, saying,
John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but others, One of
the prophets.”
Then Jesus, probing after any festering insincerity
that he had recently suspected might be underneath the
surface (p. 220), asked ‘them the direct question, “Who
do you say that I am?” One man, Peter, spoke out and
said, “You are the Christ.” Probably few of the others
could have said it as heartily, and some could not have
said it at all. Jesus did not deny what Peter had said but
told them not to express this opinion to anyone outside the
inner circle: “‘And he charged them that they should tell
no man of him.” ?
At this point a number of important questions arise.
Did Peter reach this conclusion for the first time now? If
not, how long had he held it? Which one of the various
types of current Messianic expectation did Peter have in
mind when he declared his belief that Jesus was the
Messiah? Did Jesus really think himself to be the Mes-
siah and, if so, how long had he thought so; what type of
- Messiahship had he in mind; and to what extent did he
foresee the details of his Messianic career? Have the
Gospel data on these points been shaped by the experi-
*This is the natural meaning of the words. The compiler of the
Gospel so understood them, as is evident from his subsequent nar-
rative which constantly assumes that Jesus and his disciples agree
in thinking him to be the Messiah (e.g., Mk. X:35-40). If the
words naturally meant “Jesus rebuked them for saying (that is,
thinking) such a thing,” the compiler would not have let them
stand, but would have so altered them as to make them say what
his narrative shows he felt they must have meant. Cf, Mt. XVI:13-
20, Lk. IX:18-21.
924 Tue Lirgz anp TEACHING oF JESUS
ences and convictions of Christians who lived in the Gospel
making period? ‘That is, did the preachers and compilers
of the Gospel present the history at this point as they
felt, in view of subsequent occurrences, that it must have
been, or did they simply reproduce unaltered very early
sources that presented the situation as it really was? The
answers to some at least of these questions are not un-
mistakably given in the sources. All that can be done is
to attempt a reconstruction of the situation that shall
account as satisfactorily as possible for such data as do
appear in the Gospels and in the early history of the
Christian movement. It will always be possible, of course,
to challenge any such reconstruction at various points.
The Christ in popular thought was a personality be
longing to the future, with a future career. Evidently
nothing that Jesus had yet done seemed certainly Messi-
anic; the popular verdict that he was Elijah or Jeremiah
proves this. God was to choose and “anoint” his “Mes-
siah,” or‘‘Anointed One.” God might choose him from
among men and thrust him out in some spectacular way
at the proper time. Or God might choose him from among
heavenly beings and introduce him among men in any one
of various forms or even disguises.* Peter was evidently
convinced that God had chosen Jesus for the Messianic
career and would make the choice evident in the near
future, at the time when the Kingdom should come. How
he thought that God would do this does not appear—
probably in some sudden spectacular way, perhaps by the
arrival of an angelic host. It does not seem probable that
Peter now for the first time reached the conclusion that
Jesus was the Messiah elect. He would in the nature of
the case have reached such a conclusion only after a good
deal of thought, and there was less to encourage such
* Ascension of Isaigh X-XI.
THE Mass1anic SrcrET 225
thought now, than there had been earlier. This rather
aimless and semi-fugitive wandering in the outland was
not so well calculated to produce a Messianic surmise as
the vigorous earlier activity in Galilee had been. The
question of a possible Messianic career had never been
openly discussed with Jesus. He was known to have
peremptorily discouraged the surmise when demoniacs
had shouted out a eid proclamation of it. Now here in
the outland in spite of all in the external situation that
was adverse to a Messianic surmise Peter was still holding
fast to an earlier opinion.
The probable working of Jesus’ own mind is of course
difficult to imagine. We have assumed that at the time
of his baptism he felt laid upon him as “God’s Son, the
Beloved” the responsibility of leadership in a movement
toward and into the Coming Kingdom of God; and that
in the so-called “temptation” he decided upon certain gen-
eral principles, acceptable to God, to be followed in the
discharge of this responsibility; but that in these experi-
~ ences it was not made clear to him that the acceptance
of this responsibility involved adopting a ‘Messianic
career” in any of the various forms in which that career
was currently conceived, nor even in any new form orig-
*The Matthew Gospel, which largely ignores chronological move-
ment and conceives the original situation less vividly than Mark,
represents the disciples at an earlier time to have called Jesus to
his face “God’s Son” (XIV:33). It might possibly be contended
that this meant simply an ethical sonship, but here in the Cesarean
conversation the Matthew Gospel makes Jesus assume that they
already have recognized in him the Messianic Son of Man. “Who
do men say that I the Son of Man am?” (or “that the Son of Man
is’). The compiler of the Matthew Gospel works inte matter from
Q an earlier declaration of Messiahship by Jesus than Q as pre-
served in Lk. originally contained. The later, Fourth Gospel, pro-
ceeds still further than the Matthew Gospel in this direction and
represents Peter to have known that Jesus was the Messiah before
he ever met him (Jn. I:41).
926 Tue Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
inating in his own thought at the time. In the great
humility of soul that had brought him into the Jordan
waters with the multitude of John’s penitents he was
content to leave the Messianic career an open question to
be answered for him by God in God’s own time. In refus-
ing at the time of the temptation to go to Jerusalem and
call upon God for a spectacular Messianic endorsement of
him at the temple, he laid aside Messianic ambition and
proposed to wait for light from God—he would not ‘tempt
the Lord his God.’ He had suppressed the outcry of
demoniacs when they called him the Messiah; it was a
recurrence of the temptation with which Satan, their
master, had met him in the beginning. When John the
Baptist in prison had sent messengers asking Jesus
whether he felt himself to be the Messiah, Jesus had given
an enigmatic reply which probably expressed his own
uncertainty. He reported to John that he found himself
able to do wonderful deeds such as were predicted in
Isaiah’s picture of the New Age, and he was probably
conscious that they were done through the power of God.
John must not be “stumbled” by them and attribute them
to the power of Satan as the scribes had done. But he
could not say that God meant him to be the Messiah.®
But now in the vicinity of Caesarea he appears with
a Messianic conviction and with a readiness to bring the
question definitely up in the minds of the disciples. He
has reached the conclusion that such sense of mission as
God is sustaining within him can express itself in no
other way than in some form of Messianic career. In no
other way can the nation be made to understand what God
would do through him. The concept “prophet,” which
meant much to the Jewish mind, was of too small dimen-
sions to suit the growing sense of enlarging mission that
*Mt. XI:2-6, Lk, VII:18-23.
Tue Maesstanitc Srecrer ON.
was more and more filling his soul. He must himself step
forward to be in the New Age more than the loving son of
God that he had learned to be in the Nazareth years, and
more than that into which the Nazareth consciousness
enlarged at baptism, the specially loved Son of God.
“The Son of God, the Beloved” must accept a Messianic
career.
The kind of prospective Messianic career toward which
Jesus’ mind turned found room for itself in the title
“Son of Man.” He began to speak of himself at once as
“the Son of Man” in the Cesarean conversation.® It was
a title not unfamiliar to Jewish ears either in this form
or in the related forms, the Man from Heaven, the Hidden
Man, the Man from the Sea.’ The career of the Mes-
sianic “Son of Man” was less definitely conceived than
that of the “Son of David” (pp. 40-2). There was more -
room in it for unexpected and original Messianic experi-
ence. ‘'here is reason for supposing that the Son of Man
type of Messiahship as it was conceived in Jewish thought
appealed to Jesus before he felt sure that he must himself
accept a Messianic career. He had perhaps sometimes
spoken of the coming of the Son of Man without meaning
at the time to designate himself by that title. It was an
attractive conception of Messiahship because, as pre-
sented in the Book of Enoch, the Son of Man performed no
military achievements, such as would be expected from
the Son of David, the old warrior king. Instead he exalted
righteousness, championed the poor, put down tyrants from
their thrones, all by the power of God’s Judgment Day
glory, and thereafter shepherded the people in peaceful
pursuits. The acceptance of this rdle marked an enlarge
ment of Jesus’ consciousness. It meant recognition of
*Mk. VIII:31.
‘Of. I Cor. XV:47, 4 Esd. XIII.
228 Tue Lire anp Tracuine or JxEsus
the fact that he would be the Judge of men, as well as the
Leader under God of a World empire.
But at this point difficulty begins. The Son of Man
from heaven was a being who, after having been long con-
cealed with God, was to come suddenly with angels to the
earth on Jehovah’s great Judgment Day. He had no
career on earth before the Judgment Day. How then
could Jesus begin now before the Judgment Day to think
of himself on earth as the Son of Man? Did he suddenly
begin to remember an earlier life in heaven? If so how
could his earthly life present the uncertainties and prob-
lems essential to the development of a real human char-
acter? If it be assumed that everything in Jesus’ life was
seen by him against the background of a distinctly remem-
bered heaven, the logical conclusion would be the unreality
of his earthly life, a popular heresy among the early
Christians against which our Gospels were considered to
be a vigorous protest. And how could the disciples at this
time understand Jesus to be the Son of Man, since the Son
of Man had no career on earth before the Judgment Day ?
It is possible of course to solve this problem by simply
saying that Jesus never.did call himself the Son of Man.
It was his disciples who after his death reached the con-
clusion that he had been the Son of Man. The develop-
ment of their thought would have proceeded in this way:
Jesus in his lifetime had finally felt and declared himself
to be the Messiah. He had, however, died and ascended
into the heavens without doing what the Messiah was
expected to do. He would, therefore, come from heaven
to do it later. The kind of Messiah who comes from
heaven is the Son of Man. Therefore, contrary to all
expectation the Son of Man in the person of Jesus had
appeared on the earth before the Judgment Day. In
creating the Gospel narrative, therefore, the Gospel mak-
Tus Merssranic SEcrEtT 929
ers would naturally refer to Jesus as the Son of Man, and
would necessarily assume that in declaring himself to be
the Messiah he had known himself to be the Son of Man.
Before resorting to this theory an effort ought to be made
to work out the supposition that Jesus did think himself to |
be the Son of Man as the Gospels represent. If this
supposition should be found unworkable the other is avail-
able as an alternative.
So far as the disciples are concerned a natural enough
supposition would be that when they heard him call him-
self the Son of Man, they conceived the Son of Man to
have entered the body of Jesus before the Judgment Day,
just as the spirit of John the Baptist after his death was
thought by Herod to have entered the body of Jesus. It
might perhaps seem that the disciples would have felt
such awe in the supposed presence of the Spirit of the
Heavenly Son of Man as to make intercourse with Jesus
constrained and artificial, but those to whom devils and
angels were a matter of course and a subject of daily
conversation probably found devils less fearsome and
angelic beings less awesome than we moderns would sup-
pose. Even modern Christians find themselves able to
associate unconstrainedly with persons whose bodies are
thought to be the “temples” of so august a being as the
Holy Ghost is theologically considered to be.
It may be that Jesus himself by a logical process reached
the conclusion that the Spirit of the Son of Man had
taken possession of him. We have discovered him feeling
a profound sense of reverence for the Holy Spirit within
him, through whose power he found himself able to expel
demons from men (p. 86). He might in the same way
have found the most rational interpretation of his own
high sense of mission and responsibility in connection
with the Kingdom of God, finally conceived as Messianic,
230 Tue Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
to be the assumption that tlie Spirit of the Son of Man
was within him. Such an assumption would not have
involved any personal remembrance of a previous exist-
ence in heaven. The modern mind does not work easily
under the presuppositions of the ancient Jewish thought
world, but we must be ready to let Jesus think as a Jew
of the first century would be expected to think, using
the modes of thought and the pre-suppositions character-
istic of the world in which he lived. To try to make
him think in the terms and modes of thought natural
to the twentieth century could result only in making his
life in his own day an unreal human life, and this would
be simply to repeat in modern form the great heresy that
the early ‘church with such difficulty cast off. As will be
seen later, Jewish presuppositions were merely the inci-
dents of his religious experience, not its essential features.
The Matthew Gospel at this point contains a paragraph
peculiar to itself in which Jesus expresses enthusiastic
appreciation of Peter for the recognition of his Messi-
ahship.? Peter’s insight and loyalty, Jesus says, can be
due to nothing less than the touch of God upon his soul.
No man, “flesh and blood,” could have given him such
true vision in these dark days. With a play upon the word
“Peter” Jesus says that he has found in Peter (Petros)
solid rock (petra) on which to build his new “congrega-
tion.” The Greek word “ekklesia,” translated “church,”
might better be translated “congregation,” meaning the
nation conceived as a religious body. The Jewish people
led by God through the Sinaitic wilderness constituted the
“ekklesia,” “church,” or “congregation,” in the wilder-
ness.° It is the word found in the Greek translation of the
*Mt. XVI:17-19.
* Acts VII:38. The word was later adopted by the Christians as
the name of their organization. The compiler of Matthew was prob-
ably conscious of its double meaning here,—“nation” and “church.”
Tue Messtanic Secret 931
Old Testament Messianic passage, much used by the early
Christians, Deut. X VIII: 15 ff., where it describes the as-
sembly of the nation at the foot of Mt. Sinai promising
to do the will of God. What Jesus now says is that he
has discovered a foundation man on whom to build the
new nation, the true Israel, of which he himself will be
the Messianic head in the New Age of the Coming King-
dom: “upon this rock I will build my Israel.” In the ©
development of the American colonies when George Wash-
ington appeared, there was a foundation on which to
build the new nation. The words present the concep-
tion congenial to the section of the church in which the
Matthew Gospel was compiled, a reformed, Christian
Jewish nation gathering into itself proselytes from all
other nations (XXVIII: 19-20) and dominating the
world. Of this nation Jesus will be the Messianic King
and Peter his first subordinate official. All of the Twelve
will hold high offices, acting as chieftains over the twelve
tribes of the New Israel,?° but Peter will be above the
others. To him will be given the “keys” of the Kingdom
as a general symbol of authority,'? and particularly of au-
thority to admit men into the Kingdom. In the next
sentence Jesus goes on to emphasize this latter species of
authority. Peter will be the authoritative religious
teacher, setting up proper standards of admission, de
termining how the commandments of the Mosaic law are
to be applied to Gentile converts who will seek admission
into the Jewish Messianic world empire. Whenever
Peter shall make anyone of these commandments “bind,”
that is, apply to a given situation, his verdict will be
final; whenever he “looses,” that is, pronounces a com-
mandment inapplicable, there will be liberty to disregard
Mt. XIX :28.
™ Of. Is. XXII:22.
232 Tur Lire anp TEACHING oF JESUS
it. The scribes now presume to exercise this function.
They gather about the gateway into the Kingdom of God,
keys in hand, and shut it before men.’* But Jesus, the
Messianic head of the Kingdom, has given this power —
to his apostle Peter. The authority to “bind” and “loose”
the commandments of the Mosaic law is later conferred
by Jesus upon the Twelve in exactly the same language
used here in conferring it upon Peter.’% Probably
in the source used by the compiler of the Gospel the sen-
tence occurred only as a commission to all the apostles.’4
It was repeated by the compiler in reference to Peter
alone perhaps because he wished to emphasize for his
readers the fact that Peter rather than Paul was the true
authority on this point.1> In any case there was no
thought of any “successors” of Peter or of any of the other
aMt. XXIII:13. “Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypo-
crites, because ye shut the Kingdom of Heaven before men.” The
verb translated “shut” means to lock with a key, “kleis,” keys,
“kleio,”’ to shut.
1%®Mt. XVIII:18. With emphasis upon the power to admit into,
or exclude from, the “church,” a power logically involved in the
power to interpret God’s commandments.
* Perhaps it was a part of Q omitted by Lk. because “binding”
and “loosing” were terms unfamiliar to Gentile readers.
‘* The passage seems like a reminiscence of the situation in Syrian
Antioch, where Peter and Paul had been in sharp conflict over the
question of how much liberty Christians might exercise in their
relation to the Mosaic food laws. We know from Gal. II:11-14
that the feeling was very tense. Paul and Peter contended in an
open meeting and party lines were sharply drawn between the parti-
sans of each. It is probable that these parties continued for some
decades, and with more hard feeling than had originally existed
among the leaders. The Jewish Christians of this region, among
whom the Matthew Gospel was very possibly compiled (p. 16),
would be glad to seize upon any appreciation of Peter expressed by
Jesus and would have felt justified in so shaping it as to make it
support their contention that Peter and not Paul was the true
authority in determining the proper application of the Mosaic law
to the conduct of Christians. They felt perfectly sure that this
would have been the verdict of Jesus,
Tue Messranio Srcrer 233
apostles. The whole conception embodied in the passage
rests upon the pre-supposition that the Kingdom of God,
the New Israel, will soon come in the form of the New
Age, and in this New Age there will be no death and
consequently no need of “apostolic successors.”” The God
of the present age, Satan, is against the Kingdom but
he and his officials, sitting in the gates of Hades,*® will
not prevail against it. They will not be able to swallow
it up in their dark realm of death or oblivion.
The reason why Jesus wished to conceal from the public
his new consciousness of being the Messianic Son of Man
was the fact, soon to be considered, that he had developed
a conception of the Messianic career very unlike that
commonly held by the people. He did not wish to be
thought of as Messiah until his conception of Messiahship
should be understood. If so popular a prophet had pub-
licly anounced himself as the Messiah, crowds would have
flocked to him expecting from him the various things that
they naturally expected from the Messiah. His inevitable
failure to meet this expectation would have produced bitter
disappointment and a feeling of resentment that would
have shut their minds against his religious teaching.
Furthermore such a proclamation by such a prophet would
have created a popular excitement that would have brought
Roman soldiers at once into action. Their presence would
have roused the fighting spirit among a people always
ready for revolt. It was uncompromising disapproval of
such a program that had kept Jesus out of the Judas
revolutionary movement. The only possible way for him
to proceed was to keep his Messianic consciousness the
secret of the inner circle until God should act in some
notable way. |
** Oriental officials held court in the gates of the city; the Turk-
ish government has been “The Sublime Porte.”
CHAPTER XXII
THE PROSPECTIVE SUFFERING OF THE
SON OF MAN
HILE the disciples, excited by Peter’s bold dec-
\ \ laration of belief that Jesus would turn out to
be God’s Messiah, were some of them wondering
whether they could agree with him, Jesus introduced a
new and utterly disconcerting idea. He said that it was
necessary in the plan of God for him, as Messianic Son
of Man, to be condemned and executed by the supreme
court of the nation, an action in which there would be
agreement on the part of the often discordant elements
constituting the court, Sadducean high priests, Pharisaic
scribes and other dignitaries. His execution would be
followed after three days (on the third day, Mt., Lk.) by
his resurrection.*
The idea of a violent Messianic death seems to have
been unknown in Jewish theology. There were those who
expected the Messiah to die a natural death after a long
reign, but none expected him to be killed by enemies,
much less by enemies among his own people. The fifty- _
third chapter of Isaiah which has seemed to Christian
theology to be filled with the idea of a Messianic death
seemed to Jewish theologians to teach that for the Mes-
siah’s sake and in response to his entreaties God for-
gives Israel. Not the Messiah but Israel, in exile, was
*Mk. VIIT:31-38.
234
SUFFERING OF THE Son or Man 935
referred to in the eighth verse: “By oppression and
judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation
who among them considered that he was cut off out of
the land of the living for the transgression of my people
to whom the stroke was due.” ‘The Messiah’s work of re-
deeming Israel from foreign rule, restoring Israel as the
people of God, and establishing Isrdel’s dominion over the
nations is accomplished, according to old Palestinian the-
ology, without the expiating sufferings and death of the
Messiah.?:. Justin Martyr in the second century A.D.
represents a Jew as recognising that the Christ must suf-
- fer, though not the shameful death of crucifixion, but this
admission may have been produced by Justin’s promi
with him or by the influence of Christianity on the
synagogue. ly |
Jesus is said to have presented the idea ‘ ‘openly,” “with-
out reserve,” that is, not in the veiled parable form that
. he so often used. Peter at once, in private or semi- —
private conversation remonstrated with him. Peter knew
the doubtful mood of his fellow disciples. They were not
all in agreement with his own great conviction. The
misgivings that Jesus had suspected to be concealed in
their hearts (p. 220) had perhaps been openly expressed
by them to Peter. He was certain that the effect of such
an announcement by Jesus would be disastrous. -Peter’s
readiness to remonstrate with one whom he recognized as
the Messiah elect shows that his conception of Messiah-
ship did not eliminate the possibility of a Messianic blun-
der. To him the Messiah was a king and he himeelf,
according to the Matthew Gospel, was prime minister. A
capable prime minister might be able to set his royal
master right in an error of judgment. This might be
* Weber, Die Lehren des Talmud, p. 346.
* Dialogue with Trypho a Jew, 68, 89, 90.
236 Tue Lire anp TERACHING oF JESUS
Peter’s view of the case even if he thought that the
Spirit of the heavenly Son of Man was in Jesus. To the
Jewish mind angelic beings, like the Son of Man, were
amenable to reason. Even a man whose body is the
“temple” of so august a being as the Holy Spirit of God
would be subject to advice and remonstrance. Jesus vig-
orously resented Peter’s interference. He had reached his
conviction, as we shall soon see, in a way that made it
seem to him the voice of God in his soul. Peter was think-
ing as low level men think, and not in the high and wise
way of God’s eternal counsel. Jesus had evidently reached
his conclusion after painful inner conflict, in which Satan
had perhaps seemed to stand in his way as at the be-
ginning. And now in his usual réle of deceiver, Satan
is again on the field making subtle use of Peter. “And
Peter took him and began to rebuke him. But he turning
about and seeing his disciples rebuked Peter and says,
Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou thinkest not the
thoughts of God but the thoughts of men.”
In order to enter as fully as possible into the situation
presented here it is necessary to try to discover exactly
what Jesus said to his disciples and what they understood
by it. The prediction of death and resurrection is very
compact and explicit. It is twice repeated later as an
almost stereotyped formula.* The details specified in the
last prediction—mocking, spitting on him, scourging—
sound as if they were inserted in the prediction because
the narrator knew that as a matter of fact they had been
features of the trial. When the Gospel makers gave lit-
erary form to the prediction Jesus was known to have
made, they naturally made the prediction conform as
nearly as possible to these actual facts. There is also in-
dication that in a more significant matter they shaped the
*Mk. IX:31, X:32-34,
SUFFERING OF THE SON OF Mix 237
prediction to the actual occurrence, namely, a personal
resurrection three days after his execution. If Jesus had
really predicted his personal resurrection at the end of
such a literal three-day period, it is hard to see why his
disciples after his execution were not eagerly expecting
it instead of refusing to believe it when it was reported
to them. This suggests that what Jesus really told his
disciples was that he was to be executed in Jerusalem but
that soon after his execution he would re-appear in some
connection with the general resurrection, which in the
thought of many was connected with the inauguration of
the New Age, or the Coming Kingdom. Jesus presumably
talked at some length with his disciples about his death and
resurrection and in the course of such conversation per-
haps referred to a passage in the prophecy of Hosea that
fitted the times in which they were living. It described a
decadent Israel, like that to be found at this time in the
religious leadership of the people, such a decadent Israel
as an Isaiah passage had been earlier used by Jesus to
describe (p. 189). In this Hosea passage, after a dramatic
description of national decadence, occurs the prediction
of a national resurrection, or revival, on the third day,
evidently not the third of three literal week days, but
the third day considered as the close of a brief appropriate
time decided upon by God:® “Come let us return unto
Jehovah; for he hath torn and he will heal us; he hath
smitten and he will bind us up. After two days he will
revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, and we
shall live before him.” ® On this supposition the reason
* Jesus elsewhere used the expression in this sense: “Behold I cast
out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow and the third
day I am perfected. Nevertheless I must go on my way today
and tomorrow and the day following,” Lk. XIII:32-33.
*Hos. VI:1-2. It is evident from I Cor. XV:4, “raised on the
third day according to the scriptures,” that the early Christians
238 Tue Lire ann TEACHING OF JESUS
for the incredulity of the disciples when Jesus’ resur-
rection was reported to them is clear enough. They had
not expected anything to happen on the third of three
twenty-four hour days. If they had thought of a literal
resurrection they had probably thought of it as to occur
in some spectacular form just precedent to, or as a part of,
the glorious general resurrection. The mere report of an
empty grave, which appears in the oldest source, would
not have been sufficiently impressive to appeal to the
apocalyptic expectation. Furthermore, the whole idea of
the glorious Son of Man experiencing a resurrection from
the dead was incredible. ‘This accounts for their “ques-
tioning among themselves what the rising again from the
dead should mean,” on one occasion when Jesus referred
to the resurrection of the Son of Man.? There was noth-
ing particularly mysterious to the Jewish mind either in
the resurrection of an individual or in the general resur-
rection. But it seemed inconceivable to them that the
Son of Man, who belonged in heaven and was expected to
come to earth from heaven, should ever descend into the
realm of the dead and come up from that dark abode either
in an isolated personal resurrection or in the general
resurrection.
It may also be that when Jesus began to talk about’his
prospective death and resurrection in Jerusalem, Péter
and any other of the ‘['welve who agreed with him in think-
ing Jesus to be the Messiah, did not understand Jesus to
mean that he really would be killed. They may have
thought that this was another “parable,” some obscure
reference to a withdrawal from public life to be followed
by a sudden emergence from retirement, at which time
found evidence in the scriptures for believing that Jesus was raised
on the third day.
™Mk. IX:9-10.
SUFFERING OF THE Son or Man 239
the general resurrection and inauguration of the Kingdom
would occur. In that case Peter’s strong desire to stop
such talk was because he feared that some of the Twelve
might not realize that it was only a parable. Any such
who did not believe him to be the Messiah, but only more
or less of a prophet, would then consider his newly dis-
closed Messianic consciousness to be a pure illusion that
utterly discredited him—another indication that his fam-
ily were right in thinking him to be one who sometimes
lost his mental balance (p. 119).
How did Jesus reach the conclusion that a violent death
was an inevitable feature of the Messianic career of the
Son of Man? We might be inclined to say that Jesus’ nat-
ural insight into the situation enabled him to see that the
enmity of the scribes and priests would inevitably re-
sult in his execution. But on the other hand he might
more naturally have reasoned that the all powerful God
would certainly protect his Christ and defeat every pos-
sible combination of human enemies. The very idea of a
Messianic Judgment involved the overthrow of all the
enemies of God and his Christ. A clue to the working
of Jesus’ mind is found in his reference to the scriptures:
“How is it written of the Son of Man that he should
suffer much and be set at nought?’ ® The idea of suffer-
ing and being set at nought suggests the fifty-third chap-
ter of Isaiah. It may be, as is often said, that Jesus
had combined the picture of the Suffering Servant of
Jehovah in Isaiah with the Son of Man idea. We may
infer that Jesus had also studied the twenty-second Psalm,
a Messianic Psalm which in vs. 27-28 almost uses the
phrase “Kingdom of God,” and the first half of which
describes a victim undergoing torture. The first sentence
of this Psalm is said to have been heard from Jesus’ lips
®Mk. IX:12,
240 Tue Lire anp TEACHING oF JESUS
during the crucifixion: “My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me.”’® But what led Jesus to make such an
unprecedented exegesis of the scriptures? _ It seems prob-
able that the impetus was found in his own inner experi-
ence. We have seen that the dominant feature of his
inner life was conscious contact with the living will of
God. He felt the will of God rising within him for the
healing of disease, for the forgiveness of sin, for friendly
social relations with publicans and sinners. It is to be
supposed also that he felt the undercurrent of pain that
runs through the will of God in its close contact with the
selfishness of man. As the consciousness of God pressed
upward within his own consciousness he felt as God felt
about the unreadiness of men for the unselfish life of the
Kingdom. This was a heavy burden that rested upon
him as it rested upon God. God wrought in him the deep-
ening conviction that such unselfish ideals as he presented
to the nation could be realized only as the Messianic
Leader entered into the suffering of God. The reaching
of this conclusion must have been a profound religious
experience that stirred Jesus to the depths of his great
nature. In some circles of Jewish thought, contempo-
rary or nearly contemporary with Jesus, the suffering of
righteous individuals was believed to bring good to the
nation. It had introduced the glorious Maccabean age.'°
°Mk. XV:34.
*It is said in IV Maccabees (1I:7-12), produced in the Alexan-
drian ghetto, that the notable martyr death of Eleazar, the old
scribe, the seven brothers and their mother in the Maccabean period,
served to purify the country. Their death cleansed the fatherland
and was a “ransom” (“anti-psuchon”) for the nation’s sin. Through
the “propitiation” (“hilasterion”) of their death divine providence
saved the people (XVII:21-22). When Eleazar was being burned
to death he prayed: “Thou, O God, knowest that though I might
save myself, I am dying by fiery torments for thy law. Be merci-
ful unto thy people and let our punishment be a satisfaction in their
SUFFERING OF THE Son or Man 241
Jesus too felt that it was not only the suffering of the
Son of Man but the suffering of many of his followers
that was required for the inauguration of the Kingdom
of God. Every follower must shoulder his cross and
stand in procession behind the Leader in the line of those
proceeding to the place of execution. This last statement
was made, according to Mark, not to the inner circle of
disciples only, but to the people at large. “And he called
unto him the multitude with his disciples and said, If
any man would come after me let him deny himself and
take up his cross and follow me.”+! If Jesus was. in-
fluenced by the thought of the Suffering Servant of
Jehovah found in Isaiah, he may have considered the
Servant to be that element in the nation that brought
redemption to others by its suffering. In accordance with
such an idea he would naturally call upon all willing
ones in the nation to join him, the Leader, in redemptive
suffering for others, not only for other Jews but for other
nations, for the Messianic idea in its best Jewish forms
assigned a place in the Kingdom to aliens (pp. 44 f).
Jesus’ statement to the multitudes was not a disclosure to
them of his Messianic consciousness. To them he was the
great prophet of the last days calling upon the willing
ones among the people to join him in a death that should
bring in the Coming Kingdom. Anyone who should shrink
from sacrificing his present physical life in martyrdom
for this great cause would lose the blessed life of the
behalf. Make my blood their purification and take my soul to
ransom (“anti-psuchon”) their souls” (VI:29). In an _ earlier
Alexandrian document (II Maccabees, first century B.C. 7?) one of
the seven martyr brothers is made to say that they are giving body
and soul for their fathers’ laws, calling on God to show favor to
the nation soon and to let his wrath, justly fallen on the whole
of the nation, end in their death (VII:37-38). This great sacrifice
was followed by the glorious period of Maccabean independence.
“Mk. VIII:34.
242 Tus Lire anp TEACHING oF JESUS
Kingdom in the New Age. This would be an incalcuable
loss, for what advantage would there be in gaining the
whole world in the present age and thereby losing a posi-
tion in the blessed life of the Coming Age. (Is Jesus
here thinking of the time when he was tempted to do
this, and did he describe his own: temptation to the
inner circle during these days?) Whoever among the
people shall be ashamed (like Peter?) of Jesus’ words
presenting the prospect of death, and ashamed to follow
Jesus the prophet to an apparently ignominious but really
glorious death will find in the Judgment Day that the
Messianic Son of Man will be ashamed of him.!? If Jesus
really used the title Son of Man here, he was not under-
stood by the public to be referring to himself as the Son
of Man. Only the members of the inner circle under-
stood that he meant himself, or himself already possessed
by the Spirit of the Son of Man.
_ At this point in Mark a new utterance is introduced
by the words “‘And he said unto them.” It is, therefore,
uncertain whether this utterance was made to “the multi-
tude” or to the inner circle alone: “And he said unto
them, Verily I say unto you, There are some here of
them that stand by, who shall in nowise taste of death
until they see the kingdom of God come with power.” ?8
This utterance raises a new question to be considered in
the next chapter.
™ Mk, VIII:35-38.
Mk. IX:1, “see the Kingdom present,’ or “arrived,” perfect
participle; Mt. XVI:28, “see the Son of Man coming in his King-
dom”; Lk. IX:27, “see the Kingdom of God.”
CHAPTER XXIII
HOW AND WHEN JESUS EXPECTED THE
KINGDOM OF GOD TO COME
HE saying of Jesus quoted at the end of the last
chapter is the first one found in the oldest Gospel
which definitely raises the double question, How
and when did Jesus expect the Kingdom of God to come?
Did he expect some sudden breaking in of the heavenly
world at a definite time, “the Son of Man coming in the
glory of his Father with the holy angels” at the end of
the present age to call all men before him in Judgment
and begin a New Age? And if so, how soon did he ex-
pect this “cataclysm,” or “eschatological” ? event to occur?
_ These two questions are of minor importance compared
with the great question, What is the Kingdom of God?
What is it that is to come? A person who looks forward
to entering “heaven” at death is not nearly so much con-
cerned to know the year and day of his death and the
nature of the experience called “death” as he is to have
at least some clear general idea of the essential character
of the life in heaven which he must be prepared to live.
The essential nature of that Kingdom which Jesus ex-
pected to come has been seen in the chapters on the
* Having to do with the “eschata,” or “last things,” that is, things
at the end of the “present age,” or “world,” but including things
now going on in the unseen heavenly world, the breaking in of
whose life into the earth will terminate the “present age.”
243
244 Tue Lire anp Tracuine or JEsus
righteousness of the Kingdom. By far the largest part
of his teaching is concerned with this subject and not
with these minor questions. The Kingdom was to be a
world civilization in which honesty and friendliness in
personal life and social institutions would be made uni-
versal and secure, a civilization in which all men as sons
of God, the Heavenly Father, would work together in
a powerful, true and faithful brotherhood at all the varied ©
tasks to be set for them by the unfolding will of God.
Jesus’ clear vision of what ought to be, and sometime
surely would be, was a general ideal the details of which
fortunately each generation has been left to work out for
itself in the terms peculiar to its own period in the evolu-
tion of human thought and life. It has provided the goal
toward which each generation of those to whom it has
come in the course of Christian history has been left to
press earnestly on in its own best way. The questions
how and when this goal is to be reached could largely
be left to answer themselves 1 in the course of developing
human life.
Is there any evidence as to the way in which Jesus in
his own day answered them? There is clear evidence
as to the way in which Jesus was supposed by the early
Christians to have answered the question, how the King-
dom of God would come. They supposed of course that
their own answer was in accord with the thought of Jesus;
otherwise they would not have given it. Their own answer
was twofold. In the first place they expected a sudden
breaking in of the New Age. This appears in Paul:
“Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot
inherit the Kingdom of God, neither doth corruption
inherit incorruption. Behold I tell you a mystery: we shall
not all sleep (die), but we shall all be changed, in a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump;
How ann Wuen THE Kinapom Wovutp Comr 245
for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” ?
It is clear that the Christians among whom the Synoptic
Gospels were compiled also looked for a sudden end of
the present age. In unmistakable terms they attributed
this view to Jesus. He is represented to have said: “But
in those days after that tribulation (the destruction of
Jerusalem), the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall
not give her light, and the stars shall be falling from
heaven, and the powers that are in the heavens shall be
shaken. And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in
clouds with great power and glory. And then shall he
send forth the angels, and shall gather together his elect
from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth
to the uttermost part of heaven.” ® It was almost in-
evitable that the early Christians should expect such a
sudden beginning of the New Age. The present age had
begun suddenly by the fiat of God, as they read their
Bibles. God had said, “Let there be light; and there was
light.” * So also heavenly light breaking instantaneously
in, “in the twinkling of an eye,” by the fiat of God would
constitute the beginning of the New Age. How else
could the New Age begin! The modern idea of transition
by development was not in the Palestinian Jewish mind,
however conceivable such an idea might perhaps have been
in certain spheres of Greek thought. It is sometimes said
that Jesus held no such view; it was simply attributed
to him as a matter of course by the early Christians. The
modern unreadiness to ascribe such a view to Jesus is
due to the fact that the view is supposed to involve the
impossible assumption that character can be the product
7T Cor. XV:50-52.
*>Mk. XIIT:24-27, Mt. XXIV:29-31, Lk. XXI:25-27.
*Gen. I:3.
946 Tue Lire AND TEACHING OF JESUS
of a fiat instead of a growth. Jesus, it is inferred, must
have realized this impossibility or else been lacking in
moral insight. However, the eschatological view is not at
all inconsistent with the idea of the development of in-
dividual character. It means simply a sudden change in
environment and the physical adaptation of personality to
the new environment. A child may be taken out of the
slums and established in a refined Christian home within
half an hour but this “cataclysmic” change in environ-
ment does not eliminate the need and possibilty of subse-
quent growth. Even if the eschatological idea should
involve some sudden change in character, such change need
not be thought to eliminate development. If there be such
a thing as instantaneous conversion, a sudden radical
change in character, it must be followed by a long period
of development. But did Jesus actually hold the escha-
tological view? The fact that it was possible for the early
Christians unhesitatingly to attribute it to him is proof
that at least he never denied it. If he held another view
he evidently did not think it worth while to make that
fact clear.
But the eschatological view of the manner in which
the Kingdom would come was not the whole of the early
Christian thought upon the subject. Although Paul be-
lieved that flesh and blood could not inherit the King-
dom of God and that the Kingdom would come in the
twinkling of an eye at some future time, still the presence
of the Spirit of God, or the Spirit of Christ, in the Chris-
tian cult meeting and in the hearts of believers, really
constituted the beginning of the life of the New Age
and might’on occasion be called the Kingdom of God:
“The Kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but
‘righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” °
*Rom. XIV:17.
How anp WHEN THE Kinepom Wou.tp Comer 247
A similar idea prevailed in the circles in which the Syn-
optic Gospels were compiled. In the teachings attributed
by them to Jesus, besides the considerable number of pas-
sages that speak of the Kingdom as introduced by a
future cataclysm, are some others that speak of it as a
present fact persisting in an uncataclysmic way. In these
passages it appears that wherever Jesus was experiencing
within him the mighty power of God, and especially later
the mighty power of the Spirit of the Heavenly Son of
Man, commissioned ‘to establish the future cataclysmic
Kingdom, and gathering disciples about him ready for its
future life, there he felt that in some sense the King-
dom had already come in a quiet inconspicuous way. This
idea is probably not to be found in certain parables often
cited as instances of it (p. 194) but rather in such a
passage as that reporting his view of John the Baptist’s
relation to the Kingdom. He speaks of John, greater
than any prophet and unsurpassed by any sort of man
of the past, as nevertheless not in the Kingdom of God:
“But wherefore went ye out? to see a prophet? Yea,
I say unto you, and much more than a prophet... .
Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of
women there hath not arisen a greater than John the
Baptist; yet he that is but little in the Kingdom of Heaven
is greater than he.” ® Jesus cannot have thought of John
the Baptist as excluded from the future Kingdom in
which all the righteous dead would participate.’ There-
_ fore it must have been in some present form of the King-
dom that John was not found. In this context he is
represented as not being among the disciples of Jesus. His
eyes had not been opened. He was simply able to say:
“Art thou he that cometh (prophet or Christ) or look
*Mt. XI:9-11, Lk. VII:26-28,
*Mt. VIII:11.
248 Tue Lire ann Tracnine or JEsus
we for another?” ® Or if possibly Jesus’ comment on John
was made after his death then John had been removed by
death from the present Kingdom. In another place Jesus
said to the scribes that his ability to exorcise demons
by the power of God’s Spirit (‘“finger’ Lk.) was proof
that the Kingdom of God had come upon them: “If I
by the Spirit of God am casting out demons, then the
Kingdom of God has come to you.” ® Driving the demons
back to the abyss was the first step in the Judgment that
would end this Satan-controlled age and bring in the King-
dom in its future cataclysmic form.
In a passage peculiar to Matthew, Jesus is represented
as recognizing an uncataclysmic form of the Kingdom in.
which good and bad live undisturbed together. Finally
in the future eschatological stage of the Kingdom, the
wicked will be collected by angels “out of the Kingdom.”
That is, the place where they had previously been was in
some sense the Kingdom: “The Son of Man shall send
forth his angels and they shall gather out of his Kingdom
all things that cause stumbling and them that do in-
iquity.” 1° In a passage, found in Luke only, Jesus is
represented as saying to a group of Pharisees (presumably
hostile as usual) that the Kingdom of God was “in their
midst.” They had asked him when the Kingdom of God
would come, apparently expecting from him some specifica-
tion of significant preliminary events, “signs of the King-
dom.” Jesus replied that the coming of the Kingdom
would not be detected by the careful observation of pre-
liminary signs, for it was already in their.midst. “And
being asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God
*Mt. X1:3, Lk. VIT:20.
*°Mt. XII:28, Lk. XI:20.
Mt. XIII:41. Is the Kingdom of the Son of Man here dis-
tinguished from the future “Kingdom of their Father” (v. 43) in
which the righteous shine after judgment? Cf. I Cor. XV.
How anp Wuen tHe Kinapom Wovutp Comer 249
cometh, he answered them and said, The Kingdom of God
cometh not with observation; neither shall they say, Lo,
here! or, There! for lo, the Kingdom of God is in your
midst.” 14 The presence of Jesus, filled with the inner
sense of being borne powerfully on by the will of God to
establish the New Order and surrounded by a group of
disciples, constituted an uncataclysmic presence of the
Kingdom of God. Luke in the same context represents
Jesus as proceeding to speak to his disciples of a future
time when they will look back, longing in vain for one
of these days when the Son of Man brought the King-
dom into their midst, and be obliged to comfort themselves
with expectation of the future Kingdom to be introduced
by a Judgment as catastrophic as the flood.'?
The question, when Jesus expected the Kingdom to
come, has been partly answered in discussing how he ex-
pected it to come. He carried the Kingdom with him,
as a present fact and he also looked forward to a future
manifestation of the Kingdom, sudden and glorious, at
“the consummation of the age.” When did he think that
this future manifestation of the Kingdom would be made?
It is evident that the first Christians expected it to be
soon. Paul saw a certain program of preliminary
events, described by him in two quite different ways,'*
but this program, according to the very epistles in
which it is presented, seemed to him one that might be
“Lk. XVII:3. The Greek might be translated “within you,” but
in this context that translation is less suitable. The Kingdom of
God was not within the Pharisees to whom Jesus was talking.
Furthermore “within you” would mean a state of heart at peace
with God, and that’ Jesus did not mean simply this by the phrase
is evident from the fact that he considered John the Baptist, whose
heart was certainly at peace with God, as outside the Kingdom.
4 XVII :22-37.
* Rom. [X-XI, II Thess. IT:1-12.
250 Tue Lire anp TEACHING oF JESUS
carried out in his own lifetime.’ This same’ sense of the
immediacy of the coming Kingdom seems to have pre-
vailed in the circles in which the Synoptic Gospels were
produced. In their report of the teaching of Jesus about
the Kingdom the urgent need of immediate action is
emphasized. Definite indications of time are few. In a
passage peculiar to Luke Jesus, just before his last ar-
rival in Jerusalem, is reported to have spoken a parable
teaching that the great demonstration would not be made
within the next few days as his disciples had apparently
supposed it might be: ‘He spake a parable because he
was nigh to Jerusalem and because they supposed that
the Kingdom of God was immediately to appear.” ?® In
an enigmatic utterance, found in the Matthew Gospel
only, he said to his disciples at the time when the Twelve
were sent out into Galilee to preach the nearness of the
Kingdom, that they would be compelled to flee from city
to city, but that the Son of Man would come before they
had exhausted all the possible places of refuge: ‘When
they persecute you in this city, flee into the next; for
verily I say unto you. Ye shall not have gone.through the
cities of Israel, till the Son of Man be come.” 7® This
whole discourse, as was said earlier, is apparently a com-
posite of teachings, some of them applicable to a situa-
tion that had not yet arisen. This particular sentence
seems to indicate a situation existing a little before and
after the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70, when
Christians were being persecuted in Palestine but had not
been driven from its borders. The Christian preachers
of that period, the period within which the Matthew Gos-
pel was compiled, found some utterance among the words
4 Rom. XIII:11-14, II Thess. 1:5-10.
® Lk, XIX:11,
Mt Xh8,
How anp WHEN THE Kinepom Woutp Comer 251
of Jesus which they interpreted as applying to their situa-
tion and perhaps somewhat modified into conformity with
their eager hope. In connection with the sending out
of the Twelve Jesus may have said something about the
nearness of the Messianic demonstration to be made by
the Son of Man (though not at that time openly designat-
ing himself by the title) which later took the form in which
we have it. There are really only two explicit designations
of time attributed to Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels and
the extent to which these have been shaped by the presup-
positions of the early Christians it is impossible to tell. In
the first, after picturing the destruction of Jerusalem, he
says that soon after (Mt. “immediately,” Mk. “in those
days’) the Son of Man will appear coming in clouds with
great power and glory. He then proceeds to say that the
present generation will certainly not pass away until all
these things have happened, although the exact day and
hour of the great event even he does not know; it is
God’s secret... “‘Verily I say unto you, This generation-
shall not pass away, until all these things be accomplished.
Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not
pass away. But of that day or that hour knoweth no one,
not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the
Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray; for ye know
not when the time is.” +7
Another apparently explicit designation of time is the
one referred to at the end of the last chapter. “And he
said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There are some of
them that stand by, who shall in nowise taste of death, till
they see the Kingdom of God come with power.” How,
™ Mk. XITII:30-33, Matt. XXIV:34-39, Lk. XXI:31-36. It is some-
times said that “all these things” which are to happen in this
generation designates only the destruction of Jerusalem, but against
this view is the word “immediately” and the phrase “in those days,”
Mt. XXIV:29, Mk. XIII:24.
252 Tue Lire anp Tracuina or Jzsus
ever, the context makes it possible to suppose that the
compiler saw in these words a reference to something
else than the coming of the Son of Man at the end of the
age.. Jesus had been saying that this coming of the King-
dom at the end of the age could be brought to pass only
after, and in consequence of, the death of the Son of
Man and his disciples.12 Now he seems to say that cer-
tain favored persons, before they take their share in this
Messianic death which is to bring in the Kingdom, will
in some special sense see the Kingdom of God present “in
power,” that is, in its ultimate radiant, eschatological form
(not in the quiet way in which he was beginning to feel
that he always carried it with him). That this is what
the words meant to the compilers of the Gospels is indi-
cated by what immediately follows. Jesus selects the three
disciples, Peter, James and John, who in the thought of
the early preachers would most certainly be the ones to
experience any such special favor, takes them up into
a mountain (for a night of prayer, Lk.), and there lets
them see the heavenly glory of the Son of Man shining
‘through his flesh and clothes. He is seen to have the Son
of Man’s power to draw men from the realm of the dead,1®
for two of the most notable men of the past, Moses and
Elijah, come from the realm of the dead to meet him. God
himself is present in the traditional cloud that veils his
glory and out of the cloud issues direct endorsement of
the pre-eminence of Jesus. It is essentially a temporary,
preliminary manifestation of what the early preachers con-
sidered “the Kingdom of God in power’’: the Son of Man
present in the glory of his Father, resurrecting the dead
and in the supreme place under God. “And he said unto
Mk. VIII:31, 34-35.
* Enoch LI:1-2. The Son of Man and the Elect One seem to be
the same.
How anp WHEN tHE Kinapom Woutp Come 253
them, Verily I say unto you, There are some of them that
stand by who shall in nowise taste of death till they see
the Kingdom of God come with power. And after six
days Jesus taketh with him Peter and James and John
and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart by
themselves (a special favor to “some of them that stand ©
by’) ; and he was transfigured before them and his gar-
ments became glistening, exceeding white, so as no fuller
on earth can whiten them. And there appeared unto them
Elijah with Moses. ... And there came a cloud over-
shadowing them; and there came a voice out of the cloud,
This is my beloved Son, hear ye him. And suddenly look-
ing round about, they saw no one any more, save Jesus
only with themselves.” 7°
A summary of the evidence then shows that the chief
feature of Jesus’ experience was his sense of the presence
of God within him, producing his clear vision of religious
and ethical values and making him feel the responsibility
of unique leadership in establishing these values in the
life of the nation and the world. The Jewish idea of “the
Kingdom of God,” a-Jewish world empire, was the mould
in which this unique experience was naturally cast. The
idea of a cataclysmic end of the present age was a
feature of this mould, and this idea Jesus accepted. He
had, however, such profound present experience of these
great religious and ethical realities that, as his conscious-
ness of unique Messianic leadership developed, he finally
*It is often said that the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost would
have been identified by the early Christians as the fulfillment of
the promise in IX:1. But no situation in which the Messiah was
not visibly present is likely to have seemed to the Christian Mes-
sianists who constituted the early Palestinian church as “the King-
dom of God present in power,” especially in a context which speaks
of the Son of Man coming in the glory of his Father with the holy
angels.
254 $Tue Jare ann Tracnine oF JEsts
felt himself to be carrying the Kingdom with him as an
unostentatious present fact as well as a future cataclysmic
expectation. ‘The time of this solemn future event he
did not find God revealing to him, but it seemed to him
so near as to call urgently for immediate action on the
part of his own generation. ‘This view of the situation
may have occasionally affected the application of his funda-
mental ethical principles to concrete situations, particu-
larly in the case of the use of property. His basal re-
ligious and ‘ethical principles, the Fatherhood of God. and
the brotherhood of man, are more and more clearly seen
to be eternally valid, im accord with the central trend of
the moral evolution of man. We constantly appeal to
these great principles, perfectly expressed in his own char-
acter and life, in our effort to secure proper industrial
relations, thrifty provision for the rainy day and old age,
the removal of the causes of poverty and disease, the
mastery of the physical world by scientific discovery and
invention for the common good, the maintenance of law,
order, courts, schools and all the other institutions of an
honést' and friendly world ctvilization. But such applica-
tions were not made in the teaching of Jesus. If they
had been his teaching would have seemed unreal and been
out of vital contact with the situation in which he lived.
It is hard to see how, under such circumstances, he and
his progressive movement could have gained an historical
footing in the life of the race. As the will of God has
unfolded a thought world has come into being in which
the idea of development has to a certain extent displaced
the idea of cataclysm (development may include cata-
elysm). Modern thinking in all its provision for the
long future counts on an evolution vitalized by the will of
God and not upon an end of the age near at hand. If the
immortal spirit of Jesus is in constant touch with the
How anp WueEn THe Ktnapom Wovtp Comr 255
life of each generation, he would certainly wish to see men
make new applications of his principles, however different
from his own, in order to be true to the unfolding will
of God in this new thought world.
CHAPTER XXIV
BEGINNING TO WALK ALONE IN THE
WAY OF PAIN
scene of his strenuous public life in Galilee, ex-
pressing conclusions that must have stirred his
nature to its depths. He had been driven by inner stress
of spirit to assume the Messianic role of the Son of Man
with all its vast responsibilities. The religious experi-
ence through which he passed in reaching this conclusion
we can only feebly imagine. He had also reached the con-
clusion that he as Son of Man, together with many of his
followers, must make a great sacrifice of life in the last
days before the New Age could come to birth. In all this
profound experience there must have been a certain ele-
ment of risk and moral adventure such as is involved in
all great character making experience.’ It is expressed
in the sentence “I have a baptism to be baptized with and
how am I straitened until it be accomplished!” * It ap-
peared like an advancing wave that would submerge him.
All the sinews of his moral nature tightened as he strained
tensely forward to meet it. He tried to carry his dis-
ciples along with him but found them unready. He had
to push forward, a lonely leader, into the great experience
of pain brought by the rising consciousness of God within
*Of. Heb. V:8, “learned obedience by the things which he suf-
fered.”
4Lk. XII:50.
W: have seen Jesus in the outland, away from the
256
ALONE IN THE Way oF Pain 257
him. In the oldest Gospel the unreadiness of the dis-
ciples for the profound experience of their Messianic
leader appears in a section following the account of his
challenge to them.* The challenge introducing an idea
so startling threw them into confusion. Even Peter,
perhaps the most discerning among them, resented it. —
For a week * there was probably much debate among
them as to whether they should continue with him or
abandon him. At the end of the week, when it. seemed
probable that most of them would go,° Jesus took the three
most influential men for a night of prayer on the moun-
tain, feeling sure that God would in some way hold them
and through them the others. The same sort of prophetic
assurance that was given him on the way to the home of
Jairus (p. 135) or, according to the Gospel of John, be-
fore he reached the home of Lazarus,® was given to him
here. What was supposed by the early Christians to have
happened on the mountain has just been discussed. The
modern mind, earnestly feeling after reality, cannot help
wondering whether the early preachers were wholly right
in their report of what happened on the mountain at this.
critical time. It seems easy to many to say that they
were right, that two men long dead were visibly present,
that a heavenly radiance did pour out from the spirit of
Jesus through flesh and clothing, and that the voice of.
God did speak words that might have been recorded by a
dictograph. Especially in these days when strange psychic
phenomena are the object of serious scientific investiga-
tion it may seem to many that the literal reality of such
a narrative need not be questioned. The problem for
*Mk. VIII:31-IX%:1,-IX:2-50.
*Mk. IX:2, Mt. XVII:1, Lk. IX:28.
* Of. Jn. V1:66-71.
©X1:4-11, 41-42.
258 Tue Lire anp TErAcuiIne of JESUS
those who do question it is to discover what gave rise
to the narrative in its present form, what did actually
happen that the devout imagination of the early preach-
ers could naturally reshape into this form. It was an
experience in which the three disciples slept and woke,
saw and heard something that suddenly vanished and left
them as they were before. “Peter and they that were
with him were heavy with sleep, but when they were fully
awake, they saw his glory, and the two men that stood
with him.” * “And suddenly looking round about, they
saw no one any more, save Jesus only with themselves.” ®
It is possible that a vision or dream, experienced by one
(presumably Peter) or more of these three men during a
night of prayer with Jesus, and reported by them as some-
thing profoundly influencing the lives of all of them dur-
ing this critical period, was later naturally transformed |
by others into a narrative of fact. The popular psychology
of the period may have assumed a certain sort of objec-
tive reality back of all impressive visions and dreams. The
material for such a vision or dream as this was present
in their minds during this period. There had been much
talk about Jesus as a possible Elijah (the vision made this
identification henceforth impossible, for both were pres-
ent), and about his alleged antagonism to Moses. Jesus
had perhaps recently told them, not only about his tempta-
tion, but also about his closely related experience at
baptism when he had heard a voice from heaven saying
what is here reported. He had profoundly stirred them
by talking about his death (which according to Luke,
Moses and Elijah were discussing with Jesus), about the
resurrection of the dead and about the Son of Man coming
in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. All these
‘Lk. IX:32.
® Mk. IX:8.
ALONE IN THE Way or PatIn 259
elements of a vision or dream were daily in their minds
and their minds were tense. That God should use a
vision or dream to influence the minds of men at a time
when men looked to visions and dreams for guidance
would not seem strange.®
On the way down from the mountain top (the next day,
Lk.) Jesus warned the three men that they must not
make this proof of his Messiahship public at present. The
reasons for this have already been suggested (p. 233).
It seemed to the disciples that since Jesus was now proven
to be the Son of Man on earth, there was no chance for
Elijah to precede him, as the scribes expected. On the
basis of Malachi IV :5-6 Elijah was expected to prepare
the people for the great day of the Lord by “restoring” all
things to what was imagined to have been a primitive state
of ideal order. This restoration would secure ideal fam-
ily relationships, “turn the hearts of fathers and sons to
each other,” bring the young men and the old men into
accord. Jesus explained to them that Elijah had come,
been roughly handled, and gone. This is said to have been
predicted in scriptures, though where is not evident. This
seems an allusion to John the Baptist and the Matthew
Gospel so explains it.° In connection with this explana-
tion Jesus according to Mark discussed with them state-
ments in the scriptures that predicted the suffering of the
Son of Man.”?
When they reached the village which they had left the
day before, they found the nine disciples in the midst of
a humiliating experience. A Jewish father from some
neighboring village had brought to them his unfortunate
*Cf. influential visions at a critical time in the history of the
early church, e.g., Acts IX:10, X:1-3, 10-16, XVI:9-10, XVIII:9.
1 Mk. IX:11-13, Mt. XVIT:10-13..
= 1X3 12.
260 Tue Lire ann TEACHING oF JESUS
son, now almost or quite grown to young manhood, afflicted
since childhood by a demon which had produced a ter-
rible combination of ailments. He was epileptic, deaf
and dumb. This had prevented any sort of intellectual
development. He was violent and hard to care for. The
destructive demon had often thrown the boy into the fire
to burn him up or into the water to drown him. He was
an only child (Lk.) and the happiness of the home had
been pitifully blighted through the years by this great
sorrow and constant anxiety. The father had heard of
Jesus and his company as famous exorcists and had hoped
to get help from them. One after another of the nine had
tried their usual formula of exorcism but without pro-
ducing any effect. The three leading disciples, who might
have had better success, were away with Jesus and the -
rest had so lost confidence in Jesus during this critical
week that they could not pronounce his name in the ex-
orcistic formula with any great confidence. Scribes and
others from Jewish ghettos in the vicinity who had come
with the father were witnessing the failure and vigorously
discussing it. Perhaps the scribes were considering the
justice of the Beelzeboul theory which the Jerusalem
scribes had published (p. 118). Just at this juncture they
were surprised to see Jesus and the three disciples some
distance away coming down a mountain path. They ran
to him, greeted him, and the father at once explained the
situation. Jesus broke out in an almost impatient ex- ©
clamation at the lack of what he called “faith” manifest
in all of them, and, for that matter in the general public
as well: “O faithless generation! how long shall I be
with you!” He directed the father to fetch his son who
had been left behind in helplessness as the rest ran to meet
Jesus. Apparently the father and son were then taken
by Jesus a little way off by themselves to secure such
ALONE IN THE Way oF Pain 261
privacy as Jesus seemed often to seek in such cases.’? In
Jesus’ presence the young man went into a violent con-
vulsion. He fell to the ground foaming at the mouth,
grinding his teeth, writhing and twisting, a shapeless thing.
The distressed father explained, in reply to Jesus’ sympa-
thetic question, that this was what had been happening to
him for years. He begged for help: “If you can do
anything for us, take pity on us and help us!” Jesus
caught up his expression: ‘Why do you say, ‘If you can
“do anything? It is not a question of my ability but of
your faith. Everything is possible to one who has faith.”
The father in desperation cried out: “I do have faith
and if it is not enough, help me to have more.” Then as
Jesus saw the crowd running toward them, breaking in
upon their privacy, he ordered the demon to come out
of his victim and stay out. The young man was left lying
on the ground in a deathlike collapse but. Jesus took him
by the hand, lifted him up and he was found able to stand.
The incident reveals the unsatisfactory state in which a
majority of the disciples were at this period and also
Jesus’ own wonderful conception of “faith.” He and
the three had come down from the mountain experience
in the full exhilaration of faith, in an elevation of spirit
‘that made all lack of faith seem a strange and heinous
thing. Faith, as Jesus used the word, seems to be the
reaching out of the soul of a man to work with the un-
seen energy of God’s mighty will to bring good things to
pass, such things as the removal of the terrible blight
from this poor boy’s life and the relief of his parents.
Jesus’s statement that the man who makes this connection
with the will of God called “faith” can do all things **
assumes that the mighty energy of the unfolding will of
® Mk. VII:33, VIII:22,
# Mk, 1X:23,
262 ie Lirrt anp TEACHING OF JESUS
God is always operating to enlarge life and open new
opportunity to men. Jesus was constantly experiencing
this through the wonderful rising of the will of God
within him and the perfect adjustment of himself to it
that made him the immortal, morally redeeming revelation
of God in the terms, and under the limitations, of a gen-
uine human life. Jesus’ statement expresses his sublime
confidence, reinforced by his experience on the mountain,
that as Son of Man he could introduce an order of things
in which all men should have the same experience with
the will of God that he was having. A vision of humanity
shaped itself in his mind in which no limit could be set
to the achievements possible to a race of men working to-
gether, in the invincible good will of faith, with the un-
seen energy of God.
Men only dimly conscious of God’s vitalizing presence
and possessing only fitful and partial good will have been
borne on to great achievements by the will of God, but
an immeasurably greater career opens before them when
faith shall become the fixed habit of humanity. In the
meantime the individual man, who in his faith reaches
out to work together with the unseen energy of God in
good will and to the utmost, does not thereby become able
instantaneously to do all that Jesus was able to do. Neither
does he reproduce in its fulness the religious experience
of Jesus. But he is part of a vast movement in human
life, which under the leadership of Jesus, will finally is-
sue in such a humanity as Jesus foresaw, and he himself
as an immortal will have his place in the final outcome.
Jesus constantly assumed immortality as an essential ele-
ment in his vision of the coming Kingdom. |
When the disciples privately questioned Jesus regarding |
the reason for their humiliating failure in the use of the
formula that had usually worked so well, he recognized the
ALONE IN THE Way or Pain 263
exceptional difficulty presented by such a combination of
ailments as characterized this case, and said that it re-
quired prayer, presumably such special prayer as their
anemic faith during this period of doubt was unequal to.
Jesus’ reply indicates that he as usual had prayed when
this wreck of a boy was brought to him and had found
instantaneous answer in the rising of the will of God
within him.
The enthusiastic report made by the three leaders of
their experience on the mountain seems to have revived the
confidence of the rest. They probably adopted various
explanations of Jesus’ dark words about death, and evi-
dently went on with their own ideas of what a Messianic
career ought to be, for they will soon be found busily
appropriating high offices in the prospective Kingdom.
Jesus, fully possessed by a faith that had cast his lot
in with the will and way of God at any cost, had found
that way to be the painful way of the cross. Neverthe-
less he went eagerly on in the exhilaration of faith. But
he henceforth walked alone with God in the way of pain."*
He had received strength from the experience on the
mountain, for there he had seen God quicken the flagging
faith of the three trusted leaders (by whatever means this
result may have been accomplished). It gave him as-
surance that God was with him and them and would bring
the Kingdom to pass.
“Of, Jn. XVI:32, Ye “shall leave me alone, and yet I am not
alone, because the Father is with me.”
CHAPTER XXV
SECRET JOURNEY THROUGH GALILEE:
POLITICS AMONG THE TWELVE
FTER a period of some weeks or months in the
A outland Jesus returned to Galilee, intending only
to pass through the province on his way to some
destination beyond.? Mark’s narrative later on brings him
to the “borders of Judea and beyond the Jordan,” ? a
region southeast of Galilee. In passing through Galilee
his Galilean disciples would have opportunity to visit their
families and attend to matters of business. Jesus him-
self kept his presence in the province a secret, either
travelling by night or, if by day, on country paths away
from cities and villages. “And they went forth from
thence and passed through Galilee and he would not that
any man should know it.” He apparently did not wish
the serious break with the hostile Galilean scribes, which
had occurred before he left the province (p. 123), to de-
velop further at present. Neither did he wish his great
popularity among the people to issue in any Messianic
demonstration. He felt certain that he had something
to do in Jerusalem of which God willed that death should
be the issue. His disciples, who had found it impossible
to adjust themselves to this idea, perhaps could not be
trusted to stay long in a region where an attempt to force
+ Mk. IX :30-32.
cn ed ia
264
Pouitics AMona THE TWELVE 265
a popular Messianic réle upon him might again be made
(p. 205). During these days he again tried to make his
disciples understand that “death” and “resurrection” after
a “three days” period were before him, but what. these
expressions could mean in the exalted career of the “Son
of Man” they could not see. They were shy about asking
for an explanation, perhaps because they feared that such
discussion would lead him into a morbid frame of mind; ®
perhaps because they feared to arouse a certain en erad
tion that he had sometimes expressed at their unreadiness
to catch his meaning.*
During this secret journey they naturally visited Caper-
naum, the city in which some of them had homes and
business.® One incident only in this visit is given. Its
scene is in a house and not in any public place, for Jesus’
presence in the city was not to be known. Its outstanding
feature is the political ambition of the disciples and their
consequent failure to sympathize with Jesus’ expectation
of suffering. During their travel on the country road,
as they drew near to Capernaum where they were well
known, he had walked at some distance from them, perhaps
with his cloak so folded about him as to be unrecognized
by any who might meet him. As he looked at them in
the distance he saw from their gestures, and perhaps from
the occasional sound of their voices, that a heated dis-
cussion was being carried on. Later when they were
all gathered in the seclusion of the Capernaum home of
some one of them (Peter? Mk. 1:29), he asked what
they had been discussing. No one was willing at first
to reply, but it finally developed that they had been dis-
cussing who among them would be greater than the rest
Of. Mt. XVI:22.
‘B.g., Mk. VII:18, VIIT:17-21.
‘Mk. I:16-31.
266 Tue Lirk anp TEACHING OF JESUS
when official positions in the Messianic Kingdom should
be assigned. When Jesus learned this he seated himself,
according to the custom of a rabbi when giving instruc-
tion to his disciples, and proceeded to give a “lecture,”
or “teaching”: ‘and he sat down and called the Twelve
and says unto them.” ‘The situation and the different
points of the teaching seem, as is often the case, more
clearly conceived in Mark than in Matthew and Luke.
According to Mark there were two groups in the Twelve,
a smaller group of leaders, each one of whom was inclined
to claim the primacy for himself, and a larger group made
up of those who did not expect primacy, but who planned
to pay especial attention to the probable premier with a
view to receiving special favor from him later, in the
day of his power. They were looking forward, like all
high minded Jews, to the reign of God in a righteous
world; but they now conceived this future in terms of their
own personal political power and honor. It would have
seemed far less desirable to them, in their present frame
of mind, if they had thought of it as an era of new and
great opportunity for all men, with no special privileges
for themselves. Devotion to the common good was not
their present passion and it did not shape their ideal of
the Kingdom of Heaven. They. were all expecting such
a Kingdom as is described in the seventeenth Psalm of
Solomon, with Jerusalem as its capital, renovated, beau-
tified, its streets delivered from the obnoxious presence ~
of foreign officials and soldiers. Irom Jerusalem as a
world capital Jesus, the Messiah, with a righteous nation
at his disposal, would enforce the rule of God in all the
world. The picture in the Psalms of Solomon has the
‘Son of David as its central Messianic figure, but in such
a picture the Son of Man, whom Jesus is now supposed
°Mk. IX:33-37, Mt. XVITI:1-5, Lk, 1X :46-48.
Pouitics AMONG THE TWELVE 267
to be, could easily be substituted for the Son of David, the
chief difference being that the Son of Man would reign
over a transformed, glorified earth.’ All this seems fanci-
ful to us, looking back across the Christian centuries, but
to these men of Galilee it seemed literal fact; they within
the next few weeks or months would find themselves con-
stituting the cabinet of the ruler of the mightiest and
holiest empire known to man. How this prospect would
naturally affect the minds of plain Galilean business men
and workmen can easily be imagined when we remember ©
some modern movements that have suddenly opened the
prospect of high political office to men unaccustomed to
public life. If Judas Iscariot had the passion for money
later attributed to him,® he would naturally have hoped
for a chance to administer the tribute money and revenues
that would pour into Jerusalem from all over the world.
Such aspirations may also have stirred the mind of
Matthew, the tax collector.
The smaller group made up of aspirants for the primacy,
evidently contained at least Peter, James and John. Peter
had been quick to recognize Jesus’ Messiahship. All three
had been recently taken by Jesus into the mountain for
an all night conference, and on another occasion had been
singled out by special attention.® James and John will
soon appear trying to secure from Jesus a pledge of the
two chief offices and exciting the indignation of the rest at
this effort to outmaneuvre Peter.1° According to the
Matthew Gospel their mother, who was probably a Caper-
naum woman, interested herself in the matter.1! All
the relatives of all the Twelve, so far as they had been
En. XLV:4-5.
*Jn. XII:6, XIII:29.
°Mk. IX:2, V:37.
* Mk. X:35-37, 41.
UMt. XX:20.
268 Tue Lire anp TEACHING oF JESUS
made aware of the Messianic secret, would naturally wish
to see their family fortunes advanced in the great enter-
prise. Peter on one occasion appears with a sense of special
grievance, perhaps because of the attitude of James and
John to him: ‘Then came Peter and said to him, Lord,
how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive |
him? Until seven times?” *?
According to Mark Jesus deals first of all with this
smaller group. It is to them that he says: “If any man
would be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.” 1%
Does this describe the punishment of the ambitious man
or the way to reach the goal of his ambition? The
Matthew Gospel understands it to mean the latter, for
it represents Jesus as inculcating the childlike spirit.'*
If this be true it is the man ambitious simply to con-
tribute to the general welfare and ready now for the sake
of the common interest to walk at the tail end of the pro-
cession. instead of at its head, who will be recognized as
really great in the New Order. This also is the thought
of Mk. X:42-45 where the Son of Man himself, who will
be in the supreme place in the future, is said to be for |
the present obscuring his glory and expecting the humilia-
tion of public execution in his devotion to the common
good. It is an impressive way of saying that real per-
sonal excellence consists in the desire to contribute to the
common good, not in the desire to have special privileges.
The New Age will be one in which realities will be rec-
ognized. In our modern interpretation of the idea some-
one who works obscurely in his laboratory, running down
the cause and cure of a devastating disease, moved by the
divine desire to eliminate the suffering and enlarge the life
“Mt, XVIII:21.
1X 335.
4 XVIII: 1-4,
Pouitics AMonG THE TWELVE 269
of future generations, will be recognized in the Coming
Age as really great.
When Jesus had finished his teaching to the small group,
each one of whom thought himself eligible for chief honor
and privilege, he gave his attention to the larger group.
He called a little child of the household, whose guest he
was, into the midst of the circle, took it in his arms?
and with this action as his text said that they must not
be trying to pay court to those who might be expected in
the future to reward such attention. They should rather
be ready to receive and entertain those (like this little
child) from whom no such return could be expected. He,
the supreme leader in the New Age, identified himself
completely with the interests of such. If the ambitious
disciples cared for his favor they must show. attention
to such. He had found the strong compulsion of the will
of God within him thrusting him out among the un-
shepherded sheep, among those who had nothing to give
back; he felt certain that God felt as he did about the
disciples’ shameful conduct: “Whosoever shall receive
one of such little children in my name, receiveth me;
and whosoever receiveth me receiveth him that sent
me.”’ 16
Kither on this occasion or soon after, while Jesus was
concealed in the house, John reported to him an experi-
ence that a few of them had had. A benevolent man had
been distressed by the fact that, since Jesus and his disci-
ples had left Galilee, the exorcism of demons had ceased.
He was one of the many who had listened eagerly to
Jesus and now he had started out to see what he could him-
* Mt. and Lk. seem to shrink from reporting this detail; so also
in their parallels to Mk. X:16; and somewhat similarly in the
parallels to Mk. X:21, “Jesus looked at him and loved him!”
Mk, TX :37.
270 Tue Lirz AND TEACHING OF JESUS
self do for the wretched demoniacs, using the name of
Jesus in his formula of exorcism. He had evidently been
successful, at least in some cases. The demons feared the
famous name of Jesus (p. 88). Such conduct had seemed
to John and others of the twelve to be improper, and they
had ordered him to discontinue the practice. John said to
Jesus, “Teacher, we saw one casting out demons in thy
name; and we forbade him because he followed not us.” 17
In their view of the case the man was invading their do-
main, encroaching upon their prerogative. They enjoyed
special distinction as a band of exorcists commissioned by
the great prophet Jesus, and they did not wish to have
their special distinction cheapened by common use. They
enjoyed having special privileges and did not wish to see
them disappear. Who could tell but that this man might
become another competitive claimant for high offices in
the new Kingdom! Jesus took a different view of the case.
He was walking in the way of pain; he foresaw a rapidly
approaching crisis when he himself would be executed and
all his adherents be brought thereby into disrepute and
danger. This man who was not afraid to use the Jesus
formula now and be pronounced by powerful scribes an
agent of Satan, this man to whom God was evidently giv-
ing power as an exorcist, would certainly be found among
the faithful in time of trial so near at hand. “Forbid
him not; for there is no man who shall be able to do a
mighty work in my name and be able quickly (soon) to
speak evil of me.” In this approaching time of trial if
anyone does not join the popular outery against the en-
terprise of the executed Jesus, it will be only because y
heart he isa friend. “He that is not against us is for us.’
The enterprise is God’s own; whoever shall show friendli-
ness by even so slight an ee as giving a drink of water
“Mk. TX :38-40.
Pouitics AMona THE TWELVE 271
to a thirsty disciple will find God eagerly giving him re-
ward (v. 41). God will reward and not rebuff this in-
dependent exorcist. In dark contrast with God’s reward-
ing any friend of the enterprise, even one so humble as
to have nothing but a drink of water to contribute, stands
the action of him who discourages and perhaps excludes
from the enterprise such humble friends. From Jesus’
standpoint the rebuff given by John to this unofiicial, but
fearlessly friendly, exorcist seemed a heinous wrong. It
might result in transforming his good will into bitterness
and turning him back from the Kingdom toward which
he was so truly pressing forward. A man might welcome
being sunk, heavily weighted, in the depths of the sea if
he was thereby prevented from doing this great wrong.
Jesus was evidently profoundly stirred by the utter
failure of his leading disciples to catch the real spirit of
the Coming Kingdom. After all his months of teaching
regarding the broad brotherly righteousness of the King-
dom and his recent emphasis on the indispensable spirit
of self-sacrifice that had already brought him in clear
visualization to the shame of the cross, they see only
political offices to be quarreled over! They are so blindly
enamored of them that they can endanger an eager man’s
chance for the Kingdom without realizing what they are
doing. In his indignation Jesus says that if they con-
tinue in this spirit, they will find themselves in hell
instead of holding high offices in the Kingdom! In bloody -
figures of speech he warns them to make any painful
sacrifice of ambition rather than fail to have the humble
devotion to the common good requisite for entrance into
the Kingdom. They should not hesitate to chop off hand
or foot, or to tear an eye from its socket, if these mem-
bers would keep them out of the Kingdom. A one-eyed,
one-handed man, a man limping about in the glory of the
272 Tus Lirz AND TEACHING OF JESUS
Kingdom would be infinitely better off than an able bodied
man in Gehenna fire, where refuse is always burning and
maggots always stirring in decaying carcasses. “If thine
eye cause thee to stumble cast it out; it is good for thee
to enter into the Kingdom of God with one eye, rather
than having two eyes to be cast into hell; where their worm
dieth not and the fire is not quenched.” 1® ‘This language,
already stereotyped in Jewish religious literature before
Jesus’ day,?® described a situation which now seemed to
the disciples very near at hand. They could almost feel
the hot breath of Gehenna fire.
Jesus then proceeded to apply his warning more
pointedly to the case of the Twelve. The text, as we
have it, contains a play on the word fire. There is
Gehenna fire and also another fire, the fire of such pain-
ful self-sacrifice as has just been described. The fiery
pains of self-sacrifice are like the salt that preserves from
the decay otherwise to be experienced in Gehenna. They
are saved from fire by fire. “Everyone shall be salted
with fire.” If the spirit of self-sacrifice, that serves like
salt to preserve from moral decay, be lost, there will be
nothing to take its place. It is like salt that has lost its
saltness.2° They must have this saltlike spirit of self-
sacrifice in themselves and be kept by it from any further
disgraceful quarreling over high offices in the Kingdom.
“Salt is good; but if the salt have lost its saltness, where-
TX :47-48.
*Gehenna: Gai Hinnom, valley or gorge of Hinnom “lamenta-
tion,” a place near Jerusalem, Josh. XV:8, where Ahaz sacrificed
to heathen gods, II Chron. XXVIII:3, and which was therefore
afterward defiled as a place of abominations and the scene of
Jehovah’s judgment. Cf. Jer. VII:31, 33. In Jesus’ day it was a
common name of the place to which the wicked dead were consigned.
® Coarse salt, perhaps distilled from Dead Sea water, would be
full of impurities. A mass of these impurities would remain and
popularly be called “salt,” after the real salt had disappeared.
Pourrios AMone THE TWELVE 273
' with will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at
peace with one another.” #4
The Matthew Gospel contains a peculiar paragraph re-
lating an incident that apparently belongs to this period.??
While Jesus was concealed in the house in Capernaum
one of the temple tax collectors met Peter on the street
and asked him whether Jesus paid the temple poll tax.”®
Peter was sure that he did. When Peter returned to the
house Jesus, seeming to know what had happened, at
once asked whether kings collect taxes from their own
sons. When Peter replied that they do not, Jesus seemed
to draw the conclusion that neither would God want the
temple tax to be collected from Jesus and his disciples
who are thought of as true sons of God, true sons of the
Kingdom. But, Jesus said, it was better to pay the tax
rather than have trouble over the matter, and told Peter
that he would find money enough to pay the tax for both
of them in the mouth of the first fish that he should catch.
What Peter understood this language to mean does not
appear, for nothing further is said. Why should the
Jewish Christians living in the original environment of
this Gospel have been interested in this subject? Per-
haps among them there was a difference of opinion about
the propriety of continuing to pay the temple tax while
they were being more or less persecuted by the temple
authorities. There may have been some effort made to
continue the collection of this tax after the destruction of
the temple in the year 70. ‘The temple authorities of
course did not consider this destruction to be final. They
expected the building to be rebuilt as it had been after
previous disasters; and they would naturally have been
= 1X :50.
™ XVII:24-27.
Ex, XXX:13.
274 Tue Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
collecting funds for this purpose. It would have been
necessary, on account of Roman watchfulness, to do this
more or less secretly and as an appeal to voluntary patriot-
ism rather than as the enforcement of a right. It is just
this sort of appeal that appears when Peter is asked
whether his teacher is not among those who pay the tax.
The compiler of the Gospel, while recognizing the force of
arguments against paying the tax, feels that it would
nevertheless better be paid. The tax commandment is one
of the “least commandments” that cannot be neglected
without running the risk of being “called least in the King-
dom of Heaven.” 74
*Mt. V:19.
CHAPTER XXVI
IN THE BORDERLAND OF JUDAA AND
PERAA; JESUS RESUMES PUBLIC
TEACHING
tinued public teaching, and in recently passing
through Galilee he had travelled incognito. But
now in a region nearer Jerusalem, where the Perean +
territory bordered on Judea, he began again to speak to
the people. ‘And he arose from thence, and cometh into
the borders of Judea and beyond the Jordan; and multi-
tudes came together unto him again, and, as he was wont,
he taught them again.” ? |
' It had been a break with the Pharisean scribes, from
all over the country,® that ended Jesus’ work in Galilee
(p. 123), and now it was a collision with them that marked
J ESUS in the outland had almost entirely discon-
the resumption of public teaching in this new region.*_ .
They had tried to enlist the Herod party against him in
Galilee. Here in Persed he was again in Herod’s terri-
tory,° and they at once tried to secure from him a public
utterance that would enrage Herod and his wife. John
the Baptist had publicly criticized Herod for marrying
his sister-in-law, and the unscrupulous woman had given
1Perea, “the Beyond,” beyond Jordan.
* Mk. X:1.
*Lk. V:17, Mk. III:22, VII:1.
*Some manuscripts omit the word Pharisees.
* Mk. III:6, Jos. Ant. XVII:8:1.
275
276 Tue Lire anp Txracurne or Jxzsvs
herself no rest until she secured John’s execution.* Herod
had divorced a wife to marry his sister-in-law and she
had put away her husband in order to marry Herod.
Jewish law did not give the woman the right to divorce
her husband, but Roman law did.? Mark, the Roman
Gospel, seems to have this in mind when it represents
Jesus as saying that if a woman “herself shall put away
a husband, and marry another she committeth adultery.” ®
The Pharisees did not dare definitely to bring up the
case of Herod, for the more conservative of them doubtless
disapproved his conduct and all of them his wife’s conduct.
They were eager, however, without compromising them-
selves to lead Jesus into a public utterance that would
get him into trouble with the court party. They seem
to have felt sure, when they brought the question up, that
he would strongly oppose divorce.® The position that
Jesus took in his reply to the Pharisees, though Herod’s
name was not mentioned, would naturally have irritated
both Herod and his wife; it would have strengthened
Herod’s theory that the spirit of John the Baptist had
entered the body of Jesus and was still to be reckoned
with.’° He did not, however, proceed against Jesus dur-
ing these few weeks that Jesus spent in his Perean ter-
ritory. He was probably shrewd enough to see that the
scribes would in some way secure Jesus’ execution; they,
and not he, would then experience the unpopularity oc-
casioned by the execution of so popular a prophet.
There was another phase of the divorce question which
the scribes meant to make embarrassing to Jesus. The
®Mk. VI:14-29. Other influences were also at work, Jos.
XVITII:5 :2.
‘Jos. Ant. XV:7:10.
®X:12. Some mss. and versions read “leave her husband.”
° Cf. Mt. V:32.
* Mk. VI:14.
Resumss Pusric TEAcHING QT
scribes held that Jesus was a wicked, dangerous man be-
cause he took advantage of his great popularity to teach
disregard of the law of Moses. Jesus had denied that
he was against the law; he was only against the scribes’
interpretation of the law, which interpretation he in turn
said was vitally antagonistic to the law it purported au-
thoritatively to explain (p. 122). They expected now to
draw from Jesus some utterance on the divorce question
that would prove him to be in disagreement with Moses.
One of the laws of Moses permitted a man formally to
divorce his wife, but required him to provide her with a
document declaring her divorced.*! This divorce law did
not state the grounds on which the husband might send her
out of his house, and this uncertainty gave occasion for
various opinions among the scribes. Some recognized a
wide range of grounds for divorce; others a very limited
range. This law of Moses was favorable to the. woman,
for it forbade a husband to order his wife arbitrarily, by.
a single word of command, out of his house, a proceed-
ing that was practically certain in many cases to drive
her into a life of shame. She must receive from him a
divorce document which would be positive proof to every-
one that she was not a temporarily discarded wife, but a
genuinely divorced woman and therefore eligible for an-
other marriage. If the divorce document sometimes con-
tained a statement of her husband’s reasons for. divorcing
her (as it generally did not),1? these might appear to
be so unimportant as not to lessen her chance of marry-
ing again, Even under such protection many divorced
women were probably driven into professional or semi-
professional immorality. Jesus’ evident compassion for
such pitiable cases may have been one influence leading
™ Deut. XXIV:1.
* Abrahams, Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels, p. 70,
278 Tue Lire anp TEACHING oF JESUS
him to take strong ground against the easy divorce that
broke up homes on slight provocation and tended to result
in widespread social evil.
He admitted that he was opposed to this divorce law
of Moses, but he did not regard this as bringing him into
collision with Moses, for he argued that Moses himself
did not really approve of this law. The low moral stand-
ards of the time, their “hardness of heart,” had made it
impossible to enforce a higher law and had driven Moses,
against his desire, to publish this unsatisfactory enact-—
ment. Moses’ real ideal was expressed in his account of
the creation where he reported a commandment of God
which Jesus, laying emphasis on the expression “one flesh,”
interpreted as really forbidding all divorce. “But Jesus
said unto them, For your hardness of heart he wrote
you this commandment. But from the beginning of the
creation, ‘male and female made he them. For this cause
shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave
“to his wife; and they two shall become one flesh’; so
that they are no more two but one flesh. What there
fore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” 14
In Mark’s Gospel no mention is made of adultery as
constituting ground for divorce.‘* This may be because
Jesus felt that a penitent adulterer or adulteress should
be forgiven and taken back by the offended party just as
any other sort of penitent sinner would be. Or it may be
that Mark assumed as a matter of course that Jesus re-
garded adultery as a proper ground of divorce. The
Matthew Gospel specifies this sin as a Justification for
divorce.?®
When the scribes thrust the divorce question upon Jesus,
Mk. X:5-9.
44So also Lk. XVI:18.
® Mt. V:32, XIX:9.
Resumes Pusnic TEACHING 279
they seemed to be performing a master stroke of policy.
They hoped to embarrass him not only by bringing him
into collision with Herod’s practice and with Moses’ law,
but by making him criticize the status of many families
throughout the country. Among his popular following
there must have been many who adopted the view of di-
vorce taught by the less strict scribes. Jesus’ statement
represented such divorced persons as had remarried to
be living in open adultery, and their children to be il-
legitimate. The scribes naturally assumed that Jesus’
attack upon these: homes would greatly lessen his influ-
ence. According to a passage peculiar to the Matthew
Gospel 1® even Jesus’ disciples resented his strictness.
They said that a man would better not marry if there
was no chance for divorce: ‘The disciples say unto him,
If the case (“cause” of divorce?) of the man is so with
his wife, it is not expedient to marry. »” Jesus replied that
not all men could safely refrain from marriage. He pro-
ceeded to mention three classes of men physically in-
capacitated for.marriage and added a statement, ambigu-
ous as it stands, which seems to mean that others who
could safely refrain from marriage might do so. This is
the position taken by Paul in view of the short time to-
elapse before the end of the age.*’ Jesus evidently re-
garded the stability and moral vigor of the home as an
essential factor in a civilization preparing for the King-
dom of God. It must not be the unstable institution that
easy divorce seemed to be making it. In the New Age
there would be no such eat as marriage and con-
sequently no divorce question.*®
Children are naturally thought of in connection with
* Mt. XIX:10-12.
EY UOr. Laat
Mk. XII:25, Mt. XXII:30, Lk. XX:35-36.
280 Tus Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
the home, and Mark at once adds a paragraph revealing
Jesus’ feeling about children.1° Among the crowds that
flocked around him again after his period of retirement
were many mothers who had brought their children
(‘“‘babes,” Lk.) to be touched by one whom they reverenced
as a famous prophet. ‘The popular idea regarding the
value of the touch has appeared before in Mark’s Gospel.?°
The fact that Jesus’ touch had cured so many sick, perhaps
made these mothers feel that it would keep their children
healthy. The Twelve felt that the reputation of Jesus
among the men was likely to suffer from the conspicuous
public handling of babies and talking with their mothers.**
It seemed utterly out of place for one who was about
to assume the administration of a great world empire to
be so engrossed in such interests. In the great political
events soon to occur nothing of political significance could
be expected from mothers and babies. No one of the
Twelve who had recently been quarreling over political
prospects would have tried to show his fitness for high
office by such conduct! They tried, therefore, to stop the
eager approach of the mothers. When Jesus saw what
they were doing the indignation, which they had learned
to fear,?? began to rise in him. He told them that it
would be necessary for them to have the spirit of these
little children if they hoped to enter the Kingdom. The
Kingdom belonged to such. Children had the simple,
spontaneous, uncalculating spirit of the Kingdom. To
Jesus the essence of life in the Kingdom was simple daily
Mk. X:13-16.
» JIT:10, V:28, VI:56.
™ Of. Jn. IV:27; at the well in Samaria “his disciples marveled
that he was talking with a woman.” Even the Matthew and Luke
Gospels seem to shrink from reproducing Mark’s statement that he
took the children in his arms, —
Mk. IX:32.
Resumes Poustrc Tracuine 281.
good will expressing itself in all the elemental relations
of ordinary life.
The disciples received a shock when they discovered how
highly Jesus esteemed commonplace little children as he
saw them in the brightness of the coming Kingdom. They
soon received a much greater shock when they found that
a wealthy citizen, apparently of irreproachable life and
high standing in the community, was not an acceptable
candidate for the Kingdom and that Jesus regarded all
rich people as being, because of their riches, most unlikely
to enter the Kingdom.
The incident is reported with considerable detail.2® As
they were starting out from their lodgings a well-dressed
young man, an official (‘‘a ruler,” Lk.), came running up
to them, with great deference kneeled before Jesus and
asked him to specify some action that would carry with
it sufficient credit in righteousness to make his account
in God’s great ledger surely show a balance in his favor
in the day when books should be opened and men be let
into the eternal life of the coming Kingdom.** He re-
garded Jesus as a great prophet preaching everywhere the
nearness of the Kingdom and competent to give an expert’s
opinion on this subject. Jesus at first seemed to doubt
the sincerity of this extraordinary deference exhibited by .
one of a class with which he was not popular. He treated
the man with reserve. He criticized his use of the adjec-
tive “good,” or ‘beneficent,’ in addressing him.?> That
% Mk. X:17-31, Mt. XIX :16-30, Lk. XVIIT: 18-30.
*The Matthew Gospel compiled among Jewish Christians who
were familiar with rabbinic modes of thought puts the question in
this form: ‘What good thing shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
* Cf. Rom. V:7. “Hardly for a righteous man will any one die;
possibly for his benefactor (“the good man”) some one even dares
to die.” The word is said not to be used in the Talmud in address-
ing rabbis.
289 Tue Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
word ought to be reserved for God, the ultimate source of
all benefactions to men.”® He then reminded him that
he himself knew well enough what were the command-
ments that lead into the everlasting life and proceeded
to refresh his memory by enumerating a list of the ones
that concern human relations. He assumed that a Jewish
gentleman would not be an idolater, a Sabbath breaker,
ora profane man. The list varies in the different Gospels.
Mark paraphrases the commandment against coveting in
a way likely to probe more deeply after a rich man’s
probable sin: “Do not defraud.” The Matthew Gospel
adds, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” a com-
mandment which the compiler regards not as displacing,
but as carrying with it obligation to keep all the com-
mandments of the law (p. 328). The man was not re-
pelled by Jesus’ reserve; he very simply said that he
had been religiously trained and had always kept these
commandments. Then, according to Mark, Jesus looked
at him for a moment, recognized his sincerity and felt his
heart go strongly out. toward him; “Jesus looked at him
and loved him.” He even proceeded without further ac-
quaintance to offer him a place among the inner circle of
his disciples. The young man was a gentleman, perhaps
also a scholar, and possessed a personality that in impor-
tant particulars would have made him a great apostle.
The only condition was that he should do what the others
had done, give up all property and business and join
them in preparing other men for the coming Kingdom.
*The Matthew Gospel is unwilling to represent Jesus as talking
in this way. Such language would have been seized upon by its
hostile Jewish environment and used to the disadvantage of the
Christian message. Therefore the form of the young man’s question
is first changed and Jesus’ reply then made to read: “Why askest
thou me concerning the good.” But this change does not fit the
following context, “one is the good.”
Resumes Pusuic Tracuine 283
Jesus’ requirement further specified that he should give
the proceeds of the sale of his estate to the poor. That is,
he must let the needs of others appeal to him as power-
fully as his own. He must surrender special privileges
and try to share them with others. In the eternal life
of the coming Kingdom men in reciprocal friendship
would bear each other’s burdens. If this man wished to
be ready for such life he must begin to live it now. But
these few moments were for him a preliminary Judg-
ment Day. He saw that he did not care to inherit such
eternal life. He cared more for his money, for the social
standing, power and gratification of luxurious tastes that
his money brought him, than he did for men. He went
away, slowly, reluctantly and very sad. It is often said
that Jesus merely wished to test the man and that if he
had found him perfectly ready to give up his property
he would have had him keep it. But Jesus did not deal
with the Twelve in this way (vs. 28-29), and there is no
reason to suppose that he would have done so with this
young man.
As the young man walked away Jes esus took occasion to
say that the rich would find it very difficult to enter the
Kingdom of God. This statement amazed his disciples.?"
It seemed to them that respectable rich people might be
the first of all to enter. Their surprise shows that Jesus
had not previously been preaching the renunciation of
property as essential to readiness for the Kingdom to any
others than the Twelve. Jesus repeated his statement in
astronger form. Using the camel as the proverbial sym-
bol of bigness (“strain out a gnat and swallow a camel”),
* Some texts read “those that trust in riches.” But there would
have been nothing in such a statement to amaze the disciples. It
was a very commonplace, unquestioned idea that those who trusted
in riches had no standing with God.
284 Tue Lire anp Tracuine or J ESUS
he said it would be easier for a camel to go through the
eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom
of God.?® This seemed to the disciples an utterly un-
practical view. Jesus was setting up impossible stand-
ards. They said with some impatience, “Who then can be
saved?” (“‘Saved,” that is, have eternal life in the Coming
Kingdom.) Jesus qualified his statement to the extent of
admitting that God could perform the miracle. |
What is there about the possession of property that made
it seem to Jesus so difficult for the rich to live the life of
the Kingdom of God? The man or woman with plenty
of money has opportunity and strong temptation to gratify,
and so to strengthen, a wide range of refined or unrefined
selfish desires. What he wants he can take. This unfits
him for the unselfish life of the Kingdom. Friendship
is the great fact in the life of the Kingdom. But it is
very difficult for a rich man to have, or to be, a true
friend. Under ordinary circumstances he has no keen
sense of needing other men. It gratifies his pride to have
about him many ostensible admirers and many subordi-
nates ready to do what he wants done; but he has little
sense of that real dependence which gives rise to the genu-
ine gratitude that is an essential element of genuine
friendship. He cannot help having a strong sense of
power to inflict social or financial “punishment” on those
who oppose him. The temptation to use this power in
unwarrantable ways is not easily resisted and yielding .
is ruinous to character. It is difficult for him to be a real
friend to the multitudes of ordinary people, because his
habits of life and scale of expenditures are so different
* Tt is sometimes said that there was a little gate near a big city
gate called “The Needle’s Eye” through which a camel might squeeze.
There seems to be no adequate evidence for such a statement. And
furthermore Jesus’ point is that the thing he speaks of is actually
“impossible with men” (v. 27).
Resumes Pusrio TEacuine 285
from theirs that he cannot meet them on the level where
there is normal reciprocal give and take intercourse. He
hands “help” down to them with more or less conscious
or unconscious patronizing. Furthermore, sincerity is the
soul of friendship and, therefore, of the life of the King-
dom, as Jesus conceived it. But the rich man’s social
relationships are apt to be artificial and insincere. Hardly
anyone tells him with wholesome frequency just what he
thinks of him! Poor people practically feel a sense of
disadvantage in his presence which makes them dislike to
be with him, although they attempt to conceal the fact; or
else they are always secretly wondering what they can
get out of him for themselves or for some cause that they
represent. They do not sincerely want him nor he them.
When the rich associate with the rich there is apt to be
a process of more or less subtle comparison and competi-
tion going on which is ruinous to the simple, sincere friend-
ships that Jesus supremely valued. In addition to all
this, the accumulation and care of riches take so much
of a man’s time that he has little leisure for the develop-
ment of friendship. Friendship takes time. All this
and more Jesus must have seen as he studied life, and
consequently he dreaded riches both for himself and his
disciples. At the same time it is to be recognized that the
atmosphere of the Gospels is charged with expectation
of the speedy end of the age. ‘There was no thought of
the modern situation in which vast industrial, political,
philanthropic and educational enterprises would be de-
veloped more and more insistently calling for, and secur-
ing, democratic, friendly co-operation of rich and poor,
enterprises in which wealth, skill, learning, the col-
lective intelligence and faithfulness of masses of men face
each other with little uncomfortable sense of superiority
or inferiority at any point.
286 Tue Lire anp Tractina or JEsus
Jesus’ repulse of so fine a man perhaps threatened a
renewal of the dissatisfaction which had been recently oc-
casioned among the Twelve by Jesus’ repellent prediction
of suffering. If so, Peter relieved the situation, by call-
ing attention to the fact that they had done what Jesus
required of the rich man, abandoned homes and busi-
ness: “Peter began to say unto him: ‘Lo, we have left
all, and followed thee.” Jesus spoke with apprecia-
tion of this sacrifice and assured them that it would be
rewarded in the remaining portion of the present age
by their getting a hundred times as much property and as
many relatives as they had given up, and in addition the
blessed eternal life of the Coming Age. This seems to
be a characteristically picturesque statement of the fact
that the friendships and spiritual possessions of the present
time of sacrifice and persecution were incomparably more
valuable than all that had been sacrificed. Jesus, as often,
may be here speaking out of his own experience. He
had been constantly finding among the people those who
in penitence and devotion set their faces toward the New
Order, ready to do the will of God. He had already ex-
pressed his appreciation of them when he said: ‘“Whoso-
ever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother and
sister and mother.” 2° He had found spiritual values con-
sisting in friendship and work together with God and
man for high ends, far better than anything that he had
sacrificed by leaving his Nazareth home and business.
The Matthew Gospel draws a picture of reward in the
Coming Age which represents the sort of Kingdom antici-
pated by the Jewish Christians among whom this Gospel
was compiled.*® It predicts the long expected national
“rebirth,” or “regeneration,” when the twelve tribes will
” Mk. III:35.
© Mt. XIX :28-30.
Resumes Pusuic Traciuina 287
be gathered in from all over the earth and each apostle
be the head of a tribe. Luke, as well as the compiler of
the Matthew Gospel, found some such picture in Q, al-
though Luke (whether with greater or less faithfulness
to Q is uncertain) omits the reference to the national
“regeneration” and pictures the twelve apostles as regu-
larly having special places at Jesus’ own table in the great
banquets of the Kingdom.*?
The Matthew Gospel adds a parable illustrating the fact
that there will be many, like the respectable rich man,
who seem to have the first and best chance to enter the
Kingdom, who will nevertheless enter, if at all, at the very
last. “But many shall be last that are first; and first
that are last.” °* The parable is a story out of the life
of those with whom Jesus had so much to do, workmen in ©
need of the day’s wage in order to live. The owner of a
vineyard sympathized with the unemployed so deeply
that he went himself, instead of sending a steward, to
the various markets where the unemployed gathered. He
kept going all through the day even to the eleventh hour,
just before sunset. When his steward paid them off at
night he directed him to pay them according to their need
and not according to their earning. Those hired at the
eleventh hour were to be paid off first and to receive a
full day’s wage. From the standpoint of the Matthew
Gospel the meaning is clear enough. It was the “un-
shepherded sheep,” the common folk, the penitent pub-
licans and sinners, whom Jesus was gathering in at the
end of the age, who would come up first for entrance
into the Kingdom, rather than the scribes, the rulers and
the rich who were so sure that they had earned special
privilege. The point comes out more explicitly a little
= XXIT:28-30.
= Mt. XIX :30-XX:16.
288 Tuer Lire anp Tracuine or Jesus
later when “Jesus said unto them (the chief priests and
elders of the people), Verily I say unto you that the
publicans and the harlots go into the Kingdom of God
before you.” *4
= Mt. XXI:31.
OHAPTER XXVITI
IN THE BORDERLAND OF JUDZA AND
PERAZA (Concluded); STARTING
FOR JERUSALEM
ERUSALEM had been the center of danger for
J months. Great scribes from the city had come into
Galilee, denouncing Jesus as an ally of Satan and
prepared to assist in his arrest and execution, As soon
as he should now pass out of Perea into Judea he would
be within the jurisdiction of the Great Court, the Jeru-
salem Sanhedrin, in which leading scribes had an influence
rivaled only by that of its priestly members. Accord-
ing to the Gospel of John Jesus had made visits to Jeru-
salem.of which there is no record in the first three Gospels,
and had been in danger of losing life there.t Never- |
theless Jesus now pressed on toward the point of danger,
often walking alone ahead of his disciples in tense deter-
mination to reach the city. His conduct amazed many of
his followers. Those who, like the Twelve, followed
steadily did so with foreboding: “And ‘they were-on the
way, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was going before
them; and they were amazed; and they that followed were
TARRE ue
For the third time Mark records an almost stereotyped
condensation of Jesus’ teaching to the inner circle re-
* Jn. pee : 10-14, VIII:59, X1:53-57.
*Mk, X
289
290 Tue Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
garding “death,” “resurrection” and a “three days” period,
this time adding a reference to the official scourging that
would precede execution and to the rough burlesque of
royalty that Jesus was to suffer at the hands of brutal
soldiers in the Roman barracks.* The disciples’ attitude
toward whatever Jesus said to them on this subject prob-
ably remained what it had been in earlier discussions (p.
238).
In the face of Jesus’ solemn expectation of suffering the
political ambition of two prospective leaders flames out.‘
They are so preoccupied with the idea of personal honors
in the Kingdom, to their minds so near at hand, that they
cannot seriously consider any other aspects of the situa-
tion. The Matthew Gospel puts part of the blame for
this obtuseness on the mother; Luke omits the shameful
scene entirely. The two brothers, James and John, ask
Jesus to make a definite pledge to them of the two highest
offices in the new state. Why did these offices seem
desirable? What functions did they picture themselves
performing? Did they see themselves in public proces-
sions at the temple, and making long journeys to distant
parts of the world attended by such retainers as they were
accustomed to see in royal processions on the world high-
ways that ran through Palestine? Was it a peasant’s
dream of irresponsible power, more possible under the
oriental conditions of that day than in modern times when
the personal responsibility of rulers is greater and rulers
can in various ways be called to account by public senti-
ment for abuse of power? In his reply Jesus reminded
them of the suffering through which he and his must
pass before the period of power should come. They evi-
dently had no clear idea of what Jesus meant by any of
* Mk. X:32-34, Mt. XX:17-19, Lk. XVIII:31- 34.
“Mk. X:35-45, Mt. XX:20-28.
STARTING FOR JERUSALEM 991
his references to prospective suffering, but they eagerly
assured him that they were ready for anything. Jesus
then told them that he had no authority to fill the offices
they wished to hold. These offices would be held by those
whom God should select: “to sit on my right hand or. on
my left hand is not mine to give; but it is for them for
whom it has been prepared (by my Father, Mt.).” The
Gospel narrative imparts a tinge of sadness to the words
of Jesus. These two men were said by Jesus to be ask-
ing for more than they realized. ‘They were, indeed, to
drink the same cup that he drank. It seems to be im-
plied that a martyr’s death awaited both. By the time
that Mark’s Gospel was compiled at least one of the
two had been executed.°®
When the ten learned what had happened they were *
very indignant at the unfair attempt made by the two
brothers. Jesus called them together and spoke to them
in a way which suggests what had really been in the
minds of the two men. They had wished to be able to
give orders with oriental arbitrariness and see them in-
stantly carried out. Jesus tried to shame them by an
appeal to national pride, describing their conduct as
“Gentile” conduct. The officials of Gentiles “lord it over
them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.” ®
The spirit that Jesus desired to see has been already con-
sidered. He emphasizes the fact here that he was him-
self not dreaming of arbitrary power. He was expect-
ing “to give his life as a ransom for many.” In his
vision of the future he saw “many,” throngs of people,
“ransomed,” that is, set at liberty from some form of
bondage. Bondage to what? Apparently to that against
which all Jesus’ teaching is a protest, the selfish, evil
5 Acts XII:1-2.
®Mk. X:42.
292 Tue Lire anp Tracnine or Jesus.
will to power, whether demonic, as the early Chris-
tians thought, or purely human. He saw a race of men
freed from the handicap of selfishness and all its disastrous
train of consequences. It was the sacrifice of the life
of the Son of Man on the threshold of the New Age that
would introduce the Age of good will, the Age of the
brotherly sons of God. How did Jesus think that the
sacrifice of his life would serve to produce, this result ?
He gives no reply at this point. The question is be-
queathed to Christian experience and thought. How has
the death of Jesus served to break the dominance of the
evil will to selfish power in the life of man? Or how
is it tending more and more to do so? How are men
actually being made better by the death of Jesus? This
question will appear again as Jesus comes closer to the
place where he “gives his life.”
Jesus and his company constituted one of many groups
in the long procession of Passover pilgrims crossing the
Jordan at the Jericho Fords, and singing psalms as. they
made their way among the palm groves and gardens of
the tropical Jericho plain. Two notable incidents
occurred in the city of Jericho where Jesus and his dis-
ciples spent the last night before they reached Jeru-
salem. In one of them Jesus had a characteristic experi-
ence with a rich tax collector’ and in the other with a
blind beggar. The tax collector was one of the head
collectors of the district, evidently a business man of
executive ability and probably none too scrupulous, for
he had piled up a very large fortune. He had been hear-
ing that Jesus, the famous prophet of Galilee, was in
the neighbourhood of the city. He knew that Jesus was
"Lk. XIX:1-10.
®Mk. X:46-52, Mt. XX:29-34, Lk. XVIII:35-43.
®*Mk. X:1.
STARTING FOR JERUSALEM 293
famous as the strange prophet who preached the nearness
of the Kingdom of God and yet, on the very eve of the
Judgment Day, did not hesitate to associate with irre-
ligious men like himself. Jesus and his large company of
Galilean pilgrims entered the city late in the afternoon
and the city turned out to see him. The collector, who
was a short man, climbed a tree at a point where he saw
that Jesus would pass, in order to see him well. When
Jesus reached the place, he noticed the man in the tree
and saw something in his face that instantly arrested
his attention. He found out who he was and asked him
to give him lodging for the night. Many in the crowd
showed that they were shocked at this. It was bad enough
to enter such a man’s house and eat his “unclean” food
at any time, but specially reprehensible at a time when
all the devout were preparing to observe the holy fes-
tival1° The collector, deeply moved by the friendli-
ness of Jesus and fearful that he might after all lose
his guest, resolved at any cost to keep him. He knew
the two things that Jesus chiefly stood for as the prophet
of righteousness: friendliness and honesty. He promised,
therefore, on the spot to give half of his entire estate to
the poor and to pay back fourfold every dishonest over-
charge that he had ever made. This probably used up
most of his property. Jesus saw in him a man now
all ready for the honest and friendly life of the King-
dom, and declared that “salvation,” that is, life in the
Kingdom of God, had that day come to him and his
household; he was a true son of Abraham, the father of
. the true Israel to which the Kingdom belonged. He had
been “ost,” lost out of the family of God, out of the re-
lationship which the honest and friendly man sustains to
the people among whom he lives, but now he had found
* Of. Jn. XI:55,
294 Tus Lirn aNp TxAcuine or JEsus
his place again. Luke seems to himself to have pictured
Jesus in the very act of saving a lost man and adds the
comment, “For the Son of Man came to seek”—as he
had sought entrance into this man’s house—‘“and to save
that which was lost.”’ What took place in the collector’s
house as Jesus met his family and talked with him in the
seclusion of the housetop through the evening under the
stars we should be glad to know. Jesus must always have
been an entertaining guest, with his keen sense of humor,
genial friendliness and clear insight into the everlasting
realities of life. It would be still more interesting to
know what thoughts were in the reformed publican’s mind
a few days later when he heard of Jesus’ execution and the
events that succeeded it.
_ The other incident occurred as Jesus was leaving Jericho
‘the next day for the final stage of his journey to Jeru-
salem. A blind beggar sitting by the roadside learned
from those around him who was going by, and instantly,
without trying first to be brought to Jesus, began to shout
at the top of his voice. The startling thing was that he
called Jesus by a Messianic title: ‘When he heard the
crowd passing by he inquired what this was. They ex-
plained to him that Jesus the Nazarene was going by;
and he shouted, saying, Jesus, Son of David, pity me.”
The people about him tried to quiet him, but he only
shouted the more. Jesus stopped, had him brought to
him, found out what he wanted and told him that his
faith had cured him. At this word of assurance the nerves
of sight began to function. With the intense joy of a
man whose world of darkness and beggary had been turned
into a world of light and work, he joined the crowd going
up the long fifteen miles of steep ascent to Jerusalem.
The fact that he applied a Messianic title to Jesus shows
that, although Jesus had concealed his Messianic conscious-
STARTING FOR JERUSALEM 295
ness, there was more or less of popular talk about the
possibility of his turning out to be the Messiah. When
the air was charged with the idea of the nearness of the
Kingdom, it was inevitable that such rumours should
gather about so great a prophet as Jesus. It evidently
seemed to Mark most significant that as they drew near
to the capital city, the Messianic cry should be raised by
a representative of those for whom Jesus had been so
deeply concerned, the sick and the poor.
Luke inserts at this point a parable very like one that
appears in another context in the Matthew Gospel.*?
Luke, unlike the Matthew compiler, seizes upon a single
minor point in the parable as suitable to this context
although the main drift of the story has nothing to do
with this point. According to Luke the Twelve believed
that the Kingdom of God would begin during the next
few days in Jerusalem. The Passover festival which
brought together multitudes of Jews from all over the
world seemed to them the natural time for Jesus to make
his Messianic consciousness public and to await the en-
dorsement of God. He “spake a parable because he was
nigh to Jerusalem and because they supposed that the
Kingdom of God was immediately to appear.” It was the
story of a nobleman who went into a far country to receive
_ for himself a Kingdom—like some of the Herods going
to Rome—and to return, the implication from Luke’s
standpoint being that Jesus had yet to go into a far
country in order to receive his Kingdom and that it was
his “return” for which men ought to be looking. Then
follows the main body of the parable, which like the
_ Matthew rendering of it, tells how the nobleman’s servants
used the money he left with them for investment during
his absence (p. 345). Another peculiar feature is added
“Lk. XIX:11-27, Mt. XXV:14-30.
296 Tur Lire anp Tracuine or Jzsvs
by Luke, namely, that the nobleman’s subjects (distin-
guished from his servants), sent a protest to the authority
from whom he expected to receive his Kingdom (again
like the experience of one of the Herods), and that con-
sequently when he returned, successful in his quest, he had
them slaughtered before his eyes.
Sometime late in the day, after hours of hard climb-
ing,’? the group of people traveling with Jesus reached
the city. Just before they entered something happened
that later seemed of great significance as the early Chris-
tians looked back upon it.1* They. recognized the fact,
so evident in their day, that Jesus was now virtually
presenting himself in the capital of the nation as a Mes-
sianic leader for acceptance or rejection by the national
leaders. It was entirely natural that this should have
been less evident at the time than later. The language
used by the people on this occasion, as reported by the
oldest Gospel, does not explicitly call Jesus the Messiah ;
it is ambiguous, as applicable to a great prophet of the
coming Kingdom as to the Messiah. The later Gospels,
Matthew and Luke, transform Mark’s language into a
definite ascription of Messiahship to Jesus.**
Mark reports that when Jesus and his company drew
near to Bethany and Bethphage, eastern suburbs of Jeru-
salem, Jesus sent two of the disciples to a hamlet, telling
them to bring a colt of an ass which they would find tied —
there. If any one should object they were to say that
The difference of level between Jerusalem and the Jericho plain
is about three quarters of a mile, although the places are only
fifteen miles apart.
18Mk, XT:1-10, Mt. XXI:1-9, Lk. XTX :28-38.
“Mk, XI:9-10, “Hosanna! Blessed (be) he that comes in the
name of the Lord.’ Blessed (be) the coming Kingdom of our father
David!” Mt. XXI:9, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed (be)
he that comes in the name of the Lord. Lk. XIX:38, “Blessed (be)
the King that cometh in the name of the Lord,”
SrartTinc FOR JERUSALEM | 297 —
their lord had need of it. It was assumed that the ob-
Jectors would know, at least after a word of explanation,
who they were and that Jesus, now famous the country
over, was their “lord,” or teacher. It is uncertain ‘whether
Mark means this to indicate supernatural knowledge on
the part of Jesus or some private arrangement that he
had previously made with friends. In any case it repre-
sents the arrangement to have been definitely planned by
Jesus. The animal would be one that had never been
used, which to the Jewish mind would indicate that it
was now to be used for some holy purpose.4° When the
animal was brought Jesus mounted it. Some in the
crowd picked twigs from trees and strewed them in his
path; many took off their cloaks and spread them on the
ground before him. Some in the crowd certainly did
this as an expression in pantomime of the hope that he
would turn out to be the Messiah. Restoration of sight
had made the blind beggar doubly sure that Jesus would
be the Messiah and he no doubt had been expressing his
conviction with enthusiasm all day. Jesus must have
realized. that there was this feeling in the crowd, and he
deliberately, though not in words, encouraged it. He had
often found the suggestive parable a congenial way of
expressing his thought.. This was a situation in which
his Messianic consciousness expressed itself in a kind of
acted parable. As in the case of most of his spoken
parables, there was no definite challenge to direct opposi-
tion. Roman spies in the crowd would have found nothing
alarming to report. A few scores, possibly several hun-
dreds of poor people, were amusing themselves on the
journey by a harmless piece of pantomime in which (ac-_
cording to Mark) they simply expressed the hope that
the Kingdom, which everyone knew the prophet to have
“Num. XIX:2, Deut. XXTI:3.
298 THE Lire AND TEACHING OF JESUS
been preaching for months, might indeed be near. Noth-
ing took place which the Jewish authorities were able
to use as evidence against Jesus when a few days later
he was on trial for his life. Even according to the Mat-
thew Gospel, which gives a more definitely Messianic
coloring to the occasion, as soon as the crowd entered the
city and were called upon to explain their unusual en-
thusiasm, they simply reported that they were with Jesus,
the Galilean prophet. “And when he was come into Jeru-
salem all the city was stirred, saying ‘Who is this? And
the multitudes said, “This is the peantes Jesus, from
Nazareth of Galilee. 77 10
And yet this scene gave expression to the deepest emo-
tions in the heart of Jesus. He had now fully accepted
a mission in some sense Messianic. He was coming to
his capital city. He was coming not on a war horse with
armed men about him, but on the animal used in times
of peace. Perhaps the Zechariah passage cited in the
Matthew Gospel may have been in Jesus’ own mind:
“Tell ye the daughter of Zion,
Behold, thy King cometh unto thee,
Meek, and riding upon an ass,
And upon a colt the foal of an ass.” ™
He was a poor man’s Messiah, riding on a borrowed ani-
mal, with poor people all about him. He came to his
capital with only an inner equipment: his sense of the
presence of God; his ideals of life.and the certainty that
it was under his leadership that God meant these ideals
to be realized; and his readiness to suffer death for the
accomplishment of this result.
7° Mt. XXT:10-11.
1 Zech. IX:9. The Matthew Gospel understands the language of
the prophecy to describe two animals.
STARTING FOR JERUSALEM 299
The special source used by Luke pictures Pharisees
in the crowd objecting to the conduct of the enthusiasts
and pictures Jesus lamenting the doom of the city that
lay sullenly waiting for him, all unconscious of the true
significance of his arrival:
“And as he was now drawing nigh, even at the descent
of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples
began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for
all the mighty works which they had seen; saying, Blessed
is the King that cometh in the name of the Lord; peace
in heaven and glory in the highest. And some of the
Pharisees from the multitude said unto him, Master, re-
buke thy disciples. And he answered and said, I tell
you that, if these shall hold their peace, the stones will
cry out. And when he drew nigh, he saw the city and
wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known in this day,
even thou, the things which belong unto peace! but now
they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come
upon thee when thine enemies shall cast up a bank about
thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every
side, and shall dash thee to the ground, and thy children
within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone
upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy
visitation.” 18
* Lk. XIX :37-44,
CHAPTER XXVIII
WHAT DID MESSIAHSHIP MEAN TO JESUS?
ESUS developed a religious experience which, more
J surely than ever after nineteen centuries, is seen
to be vitally related to the higher life of man. Ac-
cording to the sources one feature of the experience in its
later period was consciousness of what the Jews ealled
“Messiahship.” This consciousness was a part of the
personal character of Jesus. Messiahship was not an
office, which he held as a man might hold a presidential -
office, but a personal responsibility involving certain vital
relations with God and men that constitute character.
Since his Messianic consciousness was an essential feature —
of his character, it must have been, like all character, to
some extent at least, a growth. In the preceding chapters
an effort has here and there been made to discern in the
Gospels the stages of this development. Naturally these
stages are only very dimly traceable. Those who compiled
the Gospels were not concerned to do anything so academic
and theological as consciously to trace such development.
The Gospels were compiled to meet what their compilers
recognized to be the immediate vital needs of their own
generation and possibly of the generation immediately
to follow. They were interested in Jesus as a matured
Messiah, after he had “learned obedience through the
things which he suffered” and had become: “a source of
eternal salvation to all them that obey him.” + They called —
4Heb. V:8-9.
300
Wuart Mressrausuip Mrant to Jrsvus 301
him “The Messiah,” “The Christ,’ “The Son of God,”
“The Son of Man,” “The Lord,” leaving each free to sup-
ply whatever context he might naturally put into any
one of these titles. These, and other related titles, are
to us mere names, each one varying in meaning at differ-
ent periods in the history of its use. The question of
vital interest to us is this: When Jesus near the end
of his life came up to the capital city, what was the
nature of the feeling that he best described to himself
as the conviction of ‘‘Messiahship”? The answer is rea-
sonably clear. In general it was the conviction that God
had laid upon him the personal responsibility of unique
leadership in establishing true religion in the world, leader-
ship in bringing God’s ideal of righteousness to secure
realization in the lives of all men. All men were neces-
sarily in a Jewish Messiah’s vision. If there was to be
a Messiah at all, in the Kingdom of God, he would neces-
sarily operate on a world scale. The Kingdom of God,
in all forms of the idea, whether more or less provincial,
was the dominion of God through the Jew over all the
world.
Is there in the Gospels any evidence regarding the
nature of Jesus’ connection with God that finally resulted
in fastening the conviction of Messianic leadership upor
his mind? The conviction was evidently an outgrowth
of his experience in feeling and doing the will of God,
of his experience in obediently exploring the will of God.
To Jesus the will of God was a mighty force close at
hand and vitalizing all things. It was clothing the flowers
with beauty, providing the birds with food, dropping the
rain and keeping the sun shining on the fields of righteous
and unrighteous farmers, feeling a warm fatherly sym-
pathy with all the common needs and cares of men, women
302 Tus Lire anp TEAcHING oF JESUS
and children, always silently speaking into them thoughts
that, if received, would enlarge their lives.”
As we have seen, Jesus felt this mighty loving energy
rising within himself and overflowing in the forgiveness
of sins and the healing of disease. Between this loving —
will and himself there were the steady interplay of feel-
ing and interchange of thought that constitute true
prayer. As it rose within him it kindled his great pas-
sion for a righteous world in which honesty and friendli-
ness should characterize all men in all their relations to
God and their fellowmen. Out of such experience with
the will of God was born the conviction that God ex-
pected of him unique leadership in the sphere of feeling
and doing the will of God. The “wise and knowing’ re-
ligious leaders of his nation were accustomed to call un-
trained men, like himself and his disciples, “babes” who
needed scribal feeding and training.* But his experience ~
of the will of God made him sure that he was far above
them. This assurance did not beget pride in him, but
only gratitude and “meekness.” An utterance in a period
of exultant prayer, when “‘he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit,”
was deeply impressed upon the minds of his disciples: “I
thank thee, Father, Lord of the heaven and the earth, that
thou hast concealed these things from ‘wise and knowing’
men, and hast revealed them to ‘babes.’ Yea, Father, (1
thank thee) that it was well pleasing in thy sight (so to
do). To me all things have been delivered by my Father
and no one knows well the Son (knows who the son is,
Lk.) except the Father; neither does anyone know well
the Father (who the Father is, Lk.) except the Son, and
he to whom the Son wills to reveal him.” * The form of
2Mt. V:43-48, VI:25-30, IV:4.
* Of. Rom. I1:17-20.
“Mt. X1:25-27, Lk. X:21.
Wuat Messransnie Meant To Jusus 303
this utterance, especially in Luke, may slightly reflect the
theological interests of the Gospel compilers, but in any
case the consciousness of a uniquely intimate acquaintance
with God stands textually secure. This is the conscious-
ness that is expressed by the words whatever be the nature
of the ‘“‘sonship”—ethical, official or metaphysical. That
is, Jesus had mysterious dimensions, or reaches, of person-
ality that gave him capacity for unique leadership in feel-
ing the will of God in its bigness and intensity, and in
making that inner adjustment to the will of God that con-
stitutes character. Combined with this was the feeling
that he must exercise the leadership for which his experi-
ence with God had fitted him. He could not do otherwise
without failing in moral character, for the essential nature
of the will of God was its urge to share. No man in true
obedient contact with it could have any good thing for
himself alone. When Jesus found himself experiencing
in unique degree the intimate and obedient contact with
the will of God, described in the passage just quoted, it
was inevitable that he should feel himself thrust out into
the position of leadership described in the sentence that
follows it: “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke (of the
law) upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly
in heart and ye shall find rest unto your pouls, 5 the
“rest” that consists in the reproduction of Jesus’ contented
adjustment to the vast will of God.
It was this inner sense of being thrust forward by the
will of God into the responsibilities of supreme religious
leadership which he was qualified by personal experience
to exercise, that drove Jesus to assume the Messianic title.
In the Jewish thought world there was no other name for
the function that he felt himself under moral obligation
‘Mt. X1:28-29.
304. Tue Lirk anp TRAOCHING oF JESUS
to perform. Prophets urged on by God could warn and
threaten, invite and promise with a certain sense of divine
authority back of them, but the mere prophet could not
feel what the Messiah felt, namely, capacity and conse-
quent responsibility for, and the mighty urge of God
toward, the exercise of supreme leadership in the higher
life of man.
Jesus’ consciousness of Messianic leadership involved
profound interest in all men and sublime confidence in
their capacity to follow their leader in feeling and doing
the will of God. His own inner urge from the will of
God to lead, meant an inner urge from the will of God
in them to follow. What we call the “love of God” was
urging him out toward them through the kindling of his
own soul, and was drawing them to him through the
kindling of penitence and devotion in them. He felt
that they were capable of following in whatever path he
was capable of leading. He confidently assumed that he
could lead them into his own prayer experience. He en-
couraged them to pray in groups of two or three, being
sure that he himself would be praying in spirit with them,
and would be sharing with them his own victorious sense
of God’s answer (a saying that was afterward used by the
Christian preachers as a promise of the spiritual presence
of their risen Lord in heaven with his praying disciples
on earth®.) He believed that he could lead them into his
own experience of power through faith in God, into the
honor of suffering with him in order to bring in the King-
dom of God. They could be as closely related to him as a
brother or sister or mother, if they would join him in
doing the will of God: “For whosoever shall do the will
of God, this one is my brother and my sister and my
*Mt. XVIII:19-20.
Wuat Massransuip Meant to Jzsus 305
mother.” * These implications, like most others in the
first three Gospels, come to more explicit expression in
the Fourth Gospel. There he definitely proposes to share
his mission, his power to forgive sins, the increased power
to do mighty works which will be his when he is once
again with God in the unseen world, and in general his
entire relation to God: “Go to my brothers and say to
them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my
God and your God.” 8 ;
The various phases of this great experience with the
will of God, group themselves under three ideas that run
through all his teaching, namely, the Fatherhood of God,
a phrase that connotes superior power and loving care over
beings like in kind to himself and indebted to him for
existence; the brotherhood of man, or the unity of the
human race; and personal immortality, or the durability
of the righteous individual in a brotherhood unimpaired
by the phenomenon of physical death. Jesus was not the
original discoverer of these ideas, for they all appear
either before his day or among contemporaries uninflu-
enced by his thought. They are ideas that more and more
evidently seem to represent the central trend of the moral
evolution of man, which is the unfolding will of God. But
Jesus in his exploration of the will of God conceived them
with the peculiar simplicity and warmth of intense per-
sonal experience, and with a sense of their unity or in-
separableness. They appear in simple form unencumbered
by the mass of non-essential and unworthy matter some-
times associated with them elsewhere. They have the
penetrating warmth of intense personal experience and
not the chill abstraction generally characteristic of their
™Mk. III:35.
* Jn. XX:17, 21, 23, XIV:12-14.
306 Tue Lire anp Tuacuine o¥ Jxsus
presentation in more philosophical connections. And they
are a unity. Religion and ethics, the Fatherhood of God
and the brotherhood of man, are presented as inseparable;
and personal immortality is assumed, in the idea of the —
Kingdom, as essential to the proper development of both
sonship and brotherhood.
Since Jesus in his obedient exploration of the will of
God adjusted himself perfectly to what he discovered
(‘becoming obedient even unto death’’),® he became the
revelation of the character of God. As the thought is ex-
pressed in the Gospel of John, because of perfect sub-
mission to the will of God, he became the perfect expression
of the character of God. Because of this he could express
consciousness of authority as the representative of God—
“all things have been delivered unto me by my Father”
—1in almost the same sentence in which he spoke of himself
as “meek and lowly in heart.” 1° It was a consciousness
that was at the same time uplifting and subduing.
The sort of authority exercised by Jesus in view of his
Messianic consciousness was peculiarly favorable to the
development of character in others. Authority that is
based on the leader’s experience and that summons others
to try for a similar experience, is an authority that stimu-
lates character. It is not the sheer, arbitrary authority
that insists on unquestioning obedience, which is always
unfavorable to the growth of character. It is rather the
sort of authority that necessitates the initiative requisite
in the nature of the case for character.
From this view of the matter it is easy to see why Jesus
only gradually reached the conclusion that his mission was —
“Messianic.” It took time for him to explore the will of
God and find himself necessitated by his discoveries to be
*Phil. IT:8.
* Mt. X1:27, 29.
_ Wuat Messtansure Mrant to Jxsus 307
the Messiah. It is also easy to see why he should have
been solicitous about concealing his Messianic conscious-
ness when it did form within him. He needed first to
put before the nation the great ideals of righteousness. that
he found in his exploration of the will of God. The
Messianic idea was historically so knit up with political
and nationalistic aspirations that its religious aspects suf-
fered. Even his most intelligent disciples, as we have
seen, were so intoxicated by ambitious dreams of future
political greatness that for a while they nearly lost their
moral balance. Nevertheless there seems to have been no
way for Jesus’ inner consciousness of world leadership to
find historical footing and to become real, either in his own
mind or in the minds of his countrymen, except in the
form of a “Messianic” consciousness.
We may recognize the provincial and temporary charac-
ter of Messianism, but the religious experience of Jesus,
to which the idea was a temporary necessity, remains an
everlasting and increasingly redemptive fact. Jesus is to-
day the supreme leader and redeemer of men in the
sphere of their higher life because he had the supreme
religious experience. He redeems men from the power
of the evil will by leading them into such a share of his
own experience as they are able with the help of his
immortal Spirit to achieve.
CHAPTER XXIX
JESUS IN COLLISION WITH THE PRIESTS;
PRIESTS AND SCRIBES COMBINE
pect from the great Jerusalem scribes. He had al-
ready faced some of them in Galilee where they had
declared him an ally of Satan, sent to seduce God’s peo-
ple from allegiance to the law (p. 118). He in turn had
felt it necessary to criticize them severely in his public
teaching,’ a proceeding that tended to destroy their pro-
fessional reputation and undermine their influence with
the people. The personal element had entered into the
situation, as is often the case in theological or scientific
controversy, and had made the scribes doubly bitter against
him.
Jesus, however, proceeded at once in Jerusalem to an-
tagonize another powerful class whose representatives have
not previously appeared in the Gospel narrative, the
priests of Jehovah’s temple. The head priests were lead-
ing Sadducees and most of the scribes were Pharisees,
so that in now antagonizing the priests Jesus massed
against himself the whole force of a well organized
ecclesiastical and theological “machine.” He had be
hind him, however, a large unorganized popular follow-
ing. Although he had never countenanced the radical
revolutionary movement of Judas and Saddouk (p. 35), he
1Mk. VII:6-13,
J ESUS came to Jerusalem knowing well what to ex-
308
CoLLISION WITH PRIESTS AND SORIBES 309
was the hero of the people, especially in Galilee. Many
citizens of Jerusalem may have been under the influence
of the “machine.” Their immediate financial prosperity
would have depended upon the favor of the powerful
priests of the temple and the great scribes of the numerous
synagogues in the city. The temple must have brought an
unusual amount of business to the city because it at-
tracted thousands of pilgrims and required large numbers
of animals and other offerings for sacrifice. But many of
the best citizens of Jerusalem would have been repelled
by close contact with the hard professionalism of the
learned scribes, with the arrogant greed of the head priests
and their subservience to the Romans who kept them in
office. Citizens in Washington, outside of office holders,
office seekers and profiteers, are not always the most en-
thusiastic admirers of the personnel of the administration.
Just now the city was filling up with thousands of Pass-
over pilgrims from various parts of the world. Those
who came from distant regions would know little or noth-
ing about Jesus except what they heard after reaching the
city. Those who came from northern Syria, from. the
ghettos of the great cities east of the Jordan? and perhaps
even from the Alexandrian ghetto, would have heard
rumors of his power as an exorcist, healer and unorthodox
religious teacher.
When Jesus and his friendly company of Passover
pilgrims entered the city they went immediately through
another gate into the sacred quarter which contained the
House of Jehovah and the extensive paved open courts
that surrounded it.2 In these open courts and spacious
2Mk. III:8.
* This walled quarter in the southeastern part of the city was per-
haps a third of a mile long from north to south and a sixth of a
mile wide.
810 Tue Lire anp TEACHING oF JESUS
porticoes they mingled with hundreds of Jews and
proselytes from all over the world. Many of these pil-
grims perhaps fell on their faces and thanked God that
they were able once more to look across the terraced
courts at the beautiful House of Jehovah, gleaming in
white and gold, which none but superior priests might
approach. Since it was late in the day Jesus and the
Twelve soon went out to Bethany, an eastern suburb
where earlier in the day or weeks before, they had ar-
ranged with friends for lodgings during the Passover
festival. Probably only the wealthier pilgrims were able
to pay the high prices charged for quarters inside the
city. Many of the poor may have camped in the open
country.
As he had walked about in the temple courts Jesus
had seen things going on that aroused his indignation.
The scene in certain courts was that of an oriental market
rather than a place of worship. Dealers in poultry and
live stock were there with their crates of doves for the
poor man’s offerings and their droves of sheep and oxen.
They could probably guarantee that the priests would
accept their birds and animals as unblemished victims
suitable for sacrifice. Close by were money changers,
ready to change foreign coin into local currency. As
Jesus watched their operations he saw that the pilgrims
were being unmercifully cheated. High prices and ex-
tortionate rates of exchange were being charged. This
resulted in angry protests from many of the pilgrims.
On every side were the excited voices of violent alterca-
tion. Here were people who had with painful economy
saved money enough to make the expensive journey by
sea or land to Jerusalem in order to pray and sacrifice
‘Mk. XI:19, “And whenever evening came, he went forth out of
the city.”
CoLLIsSION WITH PRIESTS AND.SCRIBES 311
before Jehovah’s House. But who could pray in the midst
of such confusion and with such bitter sense of being
cheated in the very presence of Jehovah and by those
whom the priests of Jehovah (perhaps with profit to
themselves) had established there!
During the night in Bethany Jesus resolved to put a
stop to such proceedings. From a certain point of view
there was every reason why Jesus should have acquiesced,
at least for the present, in this situation which had be-
come more or less traditional. He had enough powerful
enemies already without adding a new set to their num-
ber. Tactful conduct might win for him a largely in-
creased following among.the Passover pilgrims, many of
whom were well-to-do and did not mind paying a little
extra for offerings and exchange at such a time. The
old temptation to temporary compromise may have re-
curred (p. 79). However, early the next morning Jesus
was at the temple. He went at once to the merchants
and imvigorous language told them to leave. He knocked
over the seats which the poultry sellers were occupying
and the tables of the money changers, sending their care-
fully piled. coins rolling everywhere on the pavement.
According to the Fourth Gospel ® he made himself a whip
with which he personally drove the live stock out of the
place.
Mark represents him as doing one other thing calcu-
lated to produce a quiet devotional atmosphere in the
place. People had been accustomed to use the temple quar-
ter as a short cut between the city and the eastern suburbs.
°Jn. I1:15, placed at the beginning of Jesus’ public life in accord-
ance with the general viewpoint of the Fourth Gospel. Luke omits
everything except the general statement that “Jesus expelled the
merchants.” Perhaps he feared that the action would seem undig-
nified to his readers on the part of one whom he loved to describe
as the gracious Lord.
312 Tue Lire ann TraoHuIne oF JzEsus
Jesus stationed some of his men at various entrances to
the temple quarter with instructions to turn back any
person who should appear carrying any article, and so
evidently on some errand of business not connected with
worship. “He would not permit anyone to carry a vessel
through the temple.” * It may seem strange that Jesus
should have been able so to usurp the place of the Chief
of the Temple Police, “the Captain of the Temple,” and
secure obedience on the part of merchants and suburban
citizens, but he was evidently possessed of great per-
sonal force, was known to have a large popular following
in the city, and was correcting practises which many
recognized as abuses. - As the ‘people heard what was
happening hundreds must have quickly gathered. Jesus
fearlessly proceeded to make an address to them in which
he vigorously denounced the priests for their mal-adminis-
tration of the temple. He asserted that the place desig-
nated by God in the scripture as one where all nations
were to gather for prayer, they had turned into a robber’s
cave! They had made it a place where bad men collected
plunder from travelers. ‘He taught and said unto them:
Is it not written, My house shall be called a house of
prayer for all the nations? But ye have made it a den
of robbers.” 7
Jesus’ action and public speech in the temple courts
must have stirred the whole city. The scribes and head
priests in alarm at once met together for consultation.
All traditional differences of viewpoint were forgotten
in their desire to defend themselves against this common
enemy. They feared that he was planning a revolution.
It might be the beginning of a period of disorder for which
the Roman authorities would hold them responsible and
° Mk. XI:16, “Vessels” translated “goods” in III:27.
*Mk. X1:17, cf. Is. LVI:7, Jer, VII:11.
CoLLIsION WITH PRIESTS AND.SCRIBES 313
which would result in loss of office for the High Priest
and his friends and loss of influence for the leading scribes.
They began to plan for his arrest and execution as the
scribes had earlier done in Galilee. His great popularity
made it necessary to proceed with utmost caution: “And
the chief priests and the scribes heard it and sought how
they might destroy him; for they feared him, for all the
multitude was astonished at his teaching.” ®
The priests and scribes did nothing that day except
appoint a committee to call Jesus to account. He ap-
peared the next day walking about in the temple courts,’°
perhaps looking to see whether his orders of the previous
day were being observed. Naturally a large company
would at once be attracted to him, and, according to the
Matthew Gospel, he was “teaching.” Suddenly he was
confronted by this committee composed of priests, scribes
and a few other distinguished members of the Great
Court.11. They at once asked him from whom he had
received authority to do what he had done the day before.
The question was doubtless recognized as a subtle impli-
cation that he had received his authority from the one
whom the scribes had all along accused him of serving,
namely, Satan (p. 118). In his action of the preceding
day Satan had invaded the temple of God! Jesus was
not overawed by these great officials. Neither great audi-
ences nor individual great men disturbed his self-posses-
sion. He said that he would answer their question if
they would tell him one thing, namely, from whom John
the Baptist had received authority to call the nation to
a repentance baptism. This was an embarrassing ques-—
®Mk. III:6.
*Mk. XI:18.
Mk. XI:27.
4 Mk. XI:27, cf. XIV:53, XV:1.
314 Tue Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
tion because all the people held that John was a prophet
sent from God, and if the committee should formally
deny this they would be more unpopular than Jesus had
already made them. More people than ever would then _
side with Jesus who was known to have been the friend
and enthusiastic admirer of John.12, They had probably
agreed with the opinion that John as well as Jesus had
connection with Satan,!* but they did not dare to whisper
such a suspicion now. On the other hand, if they should
say that God sent John, they would confess themselves
antagonistic to God, since they had kept aloof from John’s
movement. They, therefore, weakly replied that they did
~ not know! This was a humiliating confession of incom-
petence as true leaders and guides of the people.: In their
own hearts they knew that they did not dare to say what
they thought, which was still more humiliating, and that
they did not dare to force an answer from Jesus. The ques-
tion which Jesus asked them was not merely a shrewd at-
tempt to embarrass them. He was really asking them
the question that was being informally put to every-
one by the logic of daily events, namely, what they thought
of himself, for John’s movement and his own had been
closely ai sympathetically related.
Although Jesus refused to answer their question di-
rectly he did proceed to give a veiled answer in the form
of parables one of which Mark reports.1* In language
sometimes used in the Old Testament to describe Jehovah’s
relation to the Jewish people,!® he told of a land owner
who spent a great deal of money on his vineyard. He set
out the vines, built a stone wall around it, equipped it with
™Mt. XI:11.
“Mt. XI:18, “John came neither eating nor drinking, and they
say He hath a demon.”
“Mk. XII:1-12, Mt. XX1I:38-46, Lk. XX:9-19.
% i.g., Is. V.
CoLLISION WITH PrRIEsts AND.SCRIBES 315
its own wine press and vat, built a watchman’s tower
for its protection from thieves, then let it out to renters
and left the country. When in due season he repeatedly
sent agents to collect the rent, the tenants refused to pay
and abused the agents, even killing some of them. The
owner, who was a strangely patient man, finally sent his
son, sure that the renters would respect him and pay the
rent. But the renters saw their chance to get permanent
possession of the vineyard for themselves by killing the
heir. Accordingly they killed him and threw the corpse
over the wall into the road denying him a decent burial.
(Mt. and Lk. say they took him outside to kill him,
which probably seemed to the early Christians suggestive
of Jesus’ suffering “without the gate’).*® Jesus said
that the owner under such aggravating circumstances
would come and kill the renters and give the vineyard to
others. Then Jesus turned directly on the delegation and
asked them with some sarcasm whether in their exhaustive
professional study of the scriptures they had never read
of the incompetent builders who failed to recognize the
great stone sent up from the quarry by the architect to
serve as corner stone in the structure: “Have ye not
read even this scripture: ‘A stone which the builders
rejected, this became a head of a corner. This was from
the Lord and is wonderful in our eyes!’”1% This
parable, or rather allegory, in a veiled way, only sus-
piciously suggestive at the time but perfectly clear to
the early Christians later, told who Jesus was, the Mes-
sianic Son of God, predicted his murder and the destruc-
tion of his murderers. The allegory was particularly
pertinent when it made the point that the renters wanted
the vineyard for themselves. The priests did not wish
* Heb, XIII: 12.
* Ps, CXVIII:22.
316 Tur Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
for a Messiah. They preferred to have the situation
remain as it was. The high positions and the large temple
revenues which were now theirs might be lost to them
if a Messiah should come. Many of the scribes were also
well satisfied with the social prestige which they were
enjoying and did not care to risk losing it through the
coming of a Messiah with a new order. They were ready
to keep the inheritance for themselves, even though they
might have to kill the Son in order to do it.
Mark represents the vineyard ‘to be given to “others,”
which to his Gentile readers means Gentiles. The Mat-
thew Gospel, in accordance with its general viewpoint,
carefully notes that the others to whom the Kingdom
of God will be given are “a nation” bringing forth its
fruits, that is, a reformed Jewish nation, freed from the
burden of its present wicked leaders, a nation to which
of course peoples from all over the world may be annexed
provided they keep the commandments of Moses as it rep-
resents Jesus to have taught them to do.18 Luke adds a
comment, either his own or attributed to Jesus, regarding
the danger of maltreating the “corner stone.” He who
falls on it will himself be broken; he on whom it falls
will be scattered as dust.}®
The Matthew Gospel adds two other parables. In one ?°
a father sent his two sons to work in his vineyard. One
refused to go but afterward went; the other said he would
go, but did not. Jesus, referring to his question about
John the Baptist, said that the penitent publicans and
harlots, at first flagrantly disobedient but later penitently
obedient, were like the first son; the scribes and priests
were like the second, making large professions of obedi-
% Mt. XXI:43, XXVIIT:20, V:17-19.
*Lk, XX:18, cf. Is. VIII:14-15.
™Mt. XXI:28-32.
CoLLISION WITH PRIESTS AND SORIBES 317
ence, but failing to obey when they had the chance to
ally themselves with God’s great prophet John, and still
at the present moment continuing obdurate after having
_ seen the striking reformations in character produced by
his preaching. “For John came unto you in the way of
righteousness, and ye believed him not; but the publicans
and the harlots believed him; and ye, when ye saw it,
did not even repent yourselves afterward, that ye might
believe him.”
The other Matthew parable is that of the doomed city
that insulted its king at the time of his son’s wedding.*?
Twice after the wedding feast was all ready he sent his
messengers to gather in the invited guests, but the sum-
mons was absolutely ignored. The business of the city
went on as usual, and some of the messengers were in-
solently abused and killed. The king burned up the
city, and destroyed its inhabitants. Then he sent his
messengers out to gather in guests both good and bad
from far and wide. When the king entered the banquet
hall to inspect his guests he found a man unsuitably
dressed. He order him to be tied fast hand and foot, to
be carried out from the blazing light of the royal hall and
left in the outer darkness where invisible beings would
be heard wailing and grinding their teeth. The noise
indicated that there were many such, who had been in-
vited but not accepted as guests. The city of Jerusalem
had a definite individuality distinguishing it from the
country in general. Although the House of Jehovah was
there and priests and great scribes filled its streets, it had
a reputation for perversity in its relation to Jehovah
himself, Its evil disposition toward Jesus, the Messiah
in disguise, had been especially evident. Scribes from
Jerusalem had attacked him in Galilee. It was a prophet
‘Mt. XXIT:1-14.
318 Tur Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
killing, messenger murdering city: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
which killeth the prophets and stoneth them that are
sent unto her.” ?* It had, according to Jesus’ semi-
sarcasm, a monoply of prophet killing. “It cannot be
that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.” ?* He had
come to the city anticipating rejection and death at its
hands. God had twice summoned it (as indicated in the
parable) to prepare for the inauguration of the Kingdom
and the Messianic Son of God, first in the preaching of
John the Baptist, and then in the proclamation of Jesus
and the Twelve. Instead of heeding the summons it had
gone about its regular business, even turning the temple
courts into a market place! It had set itself with murder-
ous intent against both John and Jesus, facts that Jesus
was at the moment emphasizing in his interview with the
leaders of the city. There could be but one outcome of
such conduct. The city would be destroyed. Then God
would gather in the people from far and wide, shepherdless
sheep, publicans, harlots and those from other nations
as well (provided they respected Moses’ law),?* for other
nations were always included in the Messianic picture’
of the best Judaism.
Then follows a paragraph probably due to the shaping
influence of the early preachers in the Jewish Christian
circles in which the Matthew Gospel was produced. It
is a hostile reference to the radical Gentile Christianity
that seemed to conservative Jewish Christians to be flout-
ing the Mosaic law. (Paul himself had occasion to pro-
test against such, Rom. VI:15.) This element has re-
peatedly appeared in the Matthew Gospel: those Chris-
tian preachers who break and teach others to break com-
™ Mt. XXIII:37.
*™Lk. XIII:33.
“Mt. XXVIII:20, cf. V:17-19.
CoLLIsION WITH PRIESTS AND SCRIBES 319
mandments of the law; *° the prophets, successful exor-
cists and miracle workers all operating in Jesus’ name,
but who do “lawlessness”; 7° sons of the evil one in the
. Kingdom, close up against the righteous, causing “stumb-
ling’ among the righteous by doing “lawlessness” ; 77 the
“bad” gathered in with the good at the Messianic banquet,
in the present parable (v. 10). Such persons are repre-
sented here by the man who appeared at the Messianic
banquet without suitable dress. He had been wordy
enough in his blatant controversial days, but finally he
was reduced to speechlessness (v. 12). Perhaps there
were some among the extremely conservative Jewish
Christians who, when they read this paragraph, thought
they could identify the man alluded to! 78
The committee of the Great Court realized that they
were being attacked by Jesus in these pungent parables
in the presence of the great crowd that eagerly pressed
about them to listen. They could not give him an ade-
quate answer in words and they did not dare just then
to give him an answer in terms of brute force. They,
therefore, withdrew to their headquarters, suspecting more
than ever that Jesus had been tempted by his popularity
to undertake immediately a Messianic policy: and that
his bold assumption of authority in the temple the day be-
fore had been the first step in it. “They were seeking to
seize him—and feared the people—for they knew that
he had spoken the parable with reference to them. And
they left him and went away.” °®
eV 319,
* VIT:21-23.
7 XII1I:30, 41.
2 Of. Acts XXI:20-22.
Mk, XII:12.
CHAPTER XXX
CONTINUED CONFLICT WITH THE JERU-
SALEM PRIESTS AND SCRIBES
EFORE tracing the further development of Jesus’
B relations with his powerful enemies during the
last week of his life, attention should be given to an
incident revealing the sense of vast inner resources with
which he faced the deepening blackness. It is not so
much the incident as the words of Jesus connected
with the incident that are impressive. According to
Mark and Matthew, Jesus, on his way to the city early
in the morning, after the night in which he decided to
expel the merchants from the temple, was hungry. He
saw a fig tree in the distance, noticeable because it had
leaves which are usually preceded by fruit,? although the
regular fig season had not arrived. When he reached the
tree and found nothing but leaves he expressed the wish
that no one might ever find fruit on it. According to the
Matthew Gospel the foliage instantly shriveled up. Ac-
cording to Mark the tree was found withered the next day
as Jesus and his disciples passed along. Luke omits the
strange incident entirely. However, he, and he only,
records a parable in which a man, who was disappointed
by finding a fig tree fruitless for three successive years,
proposed to cut it down, but was persuaded by his hired
man to let him cultivate it with particular care for a
*Mk. XI:12-14, 20-25, Mt. XXI:18-22.
*Pliny, Nat. Hist., XVI:26.
820
ConFLIoT witH Priests AND SCRIBES 321
fourth year, and then to cut it down if it should be still
fruitless.? It is possible, as is often said, that this par-
able grew into an historical incident in the course of
the preaching of the pre-Gospel period.
The Mark Gospel uses the incident as the text for a won-
derful utterance of Jesus. It represents Jesus to have
regarded the withering of the tree as an act of God, per-
formed in response to what Peter called Jesus’ “curse,”
and to have told his disciples that if they would have a
similar faith in God, even greater results would follow
their praying. They would not only be able to wither a
tree, but to make the hill on which the tree was growing
fly through the air into the distant sea. “Jesus says to
them, Have faith in God. Verily I say unto you, Whoever
shall say to this mountain, Be lifted up and thrown into
the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe
that what he is saying is happening, it shall be to him
(as he says). For this reason I say unto you All things
whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye received
them and they shall be yours.” As has been suggested
earlier, this statement lets us to some extent into the inner
prayer life of Jesus (p. 85). The utterance, since it is
in accord with what Jesus had said before and had often
assumed, may be considered entirely apart from the inci-
dent to which Mark has attached it. It is most impressive
when heard from his lips during these last days of his
life. He was almost in the grip of powerful merciless
enemies, some of them conscientious, which increased the
danger. He expected shame and death. Yet he firmly
believed that God would express himself in some mighty
word or act that should transform the evil earth into a
part of the Kingdom of the Heavens. This he felt would
be done by God through the shame and death of himself
*Lk. XIII:6-9,
322 Tue Lire anp TEACHING oF JESUS
as Messianic leader and through the followers with whom
he would share his shame and power. They too, as well as
he, were to “have faith in God.” Faith in God, as has
been said before, is the reaching out of man to work
with the unseen energy of God at any cost for the creation
of an honest, and friendly world. Jesus appears here with
sublime confidence in God’s power and purpose to pro-
duce an astounding result through himself and his true
followers in the life of faith. The will of God in mighty
volume surging up within Jesus enabled him to overtop
the black evil that rose in his pathway. His conscious-
ness of direct touch with the power of God made the very
hills seem to stir from their bases as he walked back and
forth between the city and his lodgings, the black day
drawing ever: nearer. He seems to have had an almost
ecstatic sense of the power of God to produce physical
and moral results. The mighty power of God that has
pushed the Christian enterprise forward in all its chang-
ing forms through the centuries was here pushing up in
the heart of the Leader. What kind of Messianic leader-
ship Jesus expected to exercise after his death, in what
form he forecast the triumph that he felt sure would
follow his death, we may not know. But he felt the
great fact of the powerful presence of God so directly
and distinctly that nothing, however difficult, seemed im-
possible. The morally purifying power of such direct
contact with the powerful will of God is evident in Jesus’
statement that he who feels it must have only goodwill
in his heart. It is only the human heart of simple good
will that can have uplifting contact with the vast good
will of God: ‘Whenever ye stand praying forgive if ye
have aught against any.” #
The next step in the shrewd, hard scheming of priests
“Mk. XI:25.
ConFLICT WITH Priests AND ScrIBES 323
and scribes was to attract to their coalition the so-called
Herod party. An effort had been made to enlist this
party against Jesus earlier in Galilee (p. 114) and recently
in Perga in connection with the discussion of the divorce
question. The Herods were closely connected with Rome
from which they derived their political support and the
priests and scribes were now hoping through them to
arouse the sinister suspicion of the Roman authorities
against Jesus. If he should turn out to have Messianic
ambition smouldering in his heart, it would be well to
have the Roman authorities suspicious of him at the
earliest possible moment. They sent to him, therefore,
a delegation made up of Pharisees, presumably scribes,
and in addition certain members of the Herod party.®
It was their purpose to lead him in an unwary moment
to make a statement that could be used to his extreme
disadvantage. To throw him off his guard a group
of younger men, “disciples of the Pharisees” (Mt.),
came to him apparently proposing to become his disciples.
They began with unctuous flattery, complimenting him
upon the boldness with which he had faced the imposing
committee from the Great Court. They said it was evi-
dent that he did not regard the social or political standing
of men but taught sincerely the “way of God.” They as-
sumed that in response to such an approach, leading very
possibly to a large and influential addition to his following,
he would be glad to discuss freely and confidentially any
question of conscience concerning which they wished ad-
vice. “They say to him Teacher, we know that you are
truthful and do not care for anyone; for you do not look
at the person of men but teach in truth the way of God.
Is it lawful to pay the poll tax to the Emperor? Shall
we pay it or not?’ Of course, if Jesus should advise them
*Mk, XII:13-17, Mt. XXII:15-22, Lk, XX:20-26.
324 Tuer Lire anp Tracutne or Jzsus
not to pay the tax he would stand out as a confessed revo-
lutionist, a dangerous character who could be immediately
reported to the Roman officials by the Herodian members
of the delegation. Or, perhaps, as a Galilean, he would
be handed over to Herod Antipas for punishment.® If,
on the other hand, he without qualification advised the
submissive payment of the tax, this unpatriotic advice
would be published broadcast and he would lose the re
spect of a considerable number of his popular following.
Judas, the Galilean, had carried on a vigorous propaganda
along this line. All those who had any sort of lurk-
ing sympathy with these views would, to say the least,
lose much of their interest in Jesus if it could be reported
that in the capital city in conference with Herodians he
had definitely declared himself on the Roman side at this
point. His popular following would in this way be suf-
ficiently weakened to make it safe for the priests and
scribes to proceed against him, without fear of conse-
quences to themselves.
Jesus evaded the difficulty with shrewd honesty. He
called for a silver coin that had on it the Cesar’s picture
and name. He asked whose picture and name were there
and when he was told said: “Give back Cesar’s things to
Cesar and God’s things to God.” It is ordinarily said that
in the first half of this statement Jesus argued from the
unprotested circulation of this coin among the people their
acceptance of Cesar’s rule and, therefore, the logical neces-
sity of paying the Cesar’s tax. This may be true, but
it does not sufficiently explain his emphatic reference to
the picture on the coin. There was always an under-
current of resentment among the people against any pic-
ture of man, beast or bird. It seemed to them contrary
to the commandment in the decalogue against making any
* Of. Lk. XXTII:6-7.
CoNFLICT WITH PRIESTS AND SCRIBES 325
“graven image or likeness.” * One very saintly rabbi is
reported never in all his life to have looked on a coin that
had such a picture on it. At his burial his friends covered
certain statues nearby so that ‘‘as in life he looked at
no pictures neither should he see any in death.” ® Some-
times special coins without any such likeness were minted
for the Jews in Palestine. So when Jesus called for a
coin and pointed to Cesar’s likeness upon it, it was with
a tinge of humor that he virtually said: “Send Cesar’s
picture back to Cesar! Pay the tax and get the offensive
coin out of the country!” Then he added with great seri-
ousness: “Give back to God what belongs to God.” That
is, “Yield to God penitent obedience.” This reply vir-
tually advised patience. It meant, “Pay the tax for a
while and in the meantime by penitence be preparing the
way for God to bring in the Kingdom.” Jesus in this
way took ground that was probably approved by the com-
mon sense of a majority of truly religious people through-
out the nation. They felt that if the nation would only
render to God penitent obedience, God would soon send
his Messiah end give the nation world supremacy in the
Kingdom of God. What God wanted was a nation of
penitents and not a nation of revolutionists. In this way
Jesus took sides neither with the extreme revolutionists
nor with the servile priests. If he had expressed this
view in the course of a long discussion of the subject,
he would probably at some point necessarily have laid
himself open to harmful misquotation by both sides. In-
stead he made this terse, picturesque reply, which was
absolutely to the point, which it was impossible to forget
"Ex. XX:4,
*Bacher, Die Agada der palestinensischen Amorder, III, p. 616.
Abrahams, Studies in Pharisaism, pp. 62-65; Schiirer, Geschichte des
Jiidischen Volkes, II, p. 90.
826 Tue Lire anp TEACHING oF JESUS
or garble, and which because of its wit could be given —
swift currency among the crowds to the increase of his —
popularity. It is not strange that the members of the —
delegation “‘were not able to take hold of the saying before ©
the people” and that they “marveled at his reply and —
held their peace.” ®
Jesus was next visited by a delegation of Sadducees, —
the party to which the principal priests belonged. They —
attempted publicly to discredit him as a teacher by show-
ing the absurdity of belief in a life after death which
he, as well as the Pharisees, was known to hold. These
Sadducees argued that the law of Moses assumed the termi-
nation of existence at the time of death, for otherwise most
scandalous complications would result. To show this they
presented what was probably a hackneyed case.1° The
law of Moses + required a man to marry the childless
widow of his brother and regard the first son of this mar-
riage as the child of his deceased brother. In the famous
hypothetical case, solemnly cited by the Sadducean dele-
gation, seven brothers in turn were, in accordance with this
law, called upon to marry the same woman. Finally,
after the death of the seventh brother, the woman also
died. Now in case there really was to be life after death
horrible scandal would result, for in heaven there would
be a polyandrous woman with seven husbands! The
spokesman of the delegation asked, with a half concealed
smile, which one of the seven might claim her as his wife!
Jesus quietly assured them that their sad blunder in rea-
soning was due to their surprising ignorance, first, of the
scriptures, and, second, of the power of God. God had
power to create and maintain a civilization in which the
* Lk. XX 226,
™ Mk. XIT:18-27, Mt. XXII:23-33, Lk. XX:27-40.
1 Deut. XXV:5-6.
CoNnFLICT WITH PRirests AND SCRIBES 327
physical relationship of marriage would not be needed for
the perpetuation of life. ‘For when they shall rise from
the dead they neither marry nor are given in marriage
but are as angels in heaven” (in whose existence it is
assumed the Sadducees ought to believe, though they do
not).?2_ Also in their lamentable ignorance of the scrip-
tures they had failed to notice the “bush passage,”’?* which
reported God, when speaking to Moses out of the burning
bush, as still calling himself the God of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob. some centuries after they had died. It was a
cheap, unworthy conception of God to regard him, in
Sadducean fashion, as one who could say nothing better
of himself than that he was the God of some dead men who
had long ago ceased to exist! These dead men must have
been still in existence when God was speaking to Moses.
A God who could not keep his friends alive after death was
certainly not the powerful God of the Hebrew scriptures:
“Fe is not a God of dead persons, but of living persons.
You are very much in error!” The reference to Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob seems, on the face of it, to prove simply
continued existence after death, not necessarily the “resur-
rection” that the Sadducees are represented as denying
(v.18). It may be that by “resurrection” was meant the
passage from the dark shadowy realm of the dead into a
desirable state of being, an experience through which the
patriarchs mentioned are conceived to have already passed.
Or it may be that the scripture cited is thought to prove
that they are certain to participate in the general resurrec-
tion when it shall occur. Jesus’ reply was greatly ad-
mired by the people (Mt.), even by some of the scribes
(Lk.).
The violence of the attack on Jesus by representatives of
3 Acts XXIII:8.
4 Ex. III:6,
328 Tue Lire anp TEACHING or JzEsvs
the Great Council seemed to be abating. The approach
of the scribes and Herodians had revealed deadly intent.
The resurrection question raised by the Sadducees was
more academic, though not without hostile animus. It
in turn was now followed by another academic question,
this time raised by a Pharisee. It was natural for rabbis
to discuss the relative importance of various command-
ments in the law. One of the Pharisean scribes, glad to
see that Jesus had disconcerted the Sadducees (Mt.), now
tested his skill as a teacher by asking him which he con-
sidered to be the prime commandment.’* Jesus at once
replied that it was the one commanding Israel to love God
supremely, and volunteered a further reply in which he
said that the second (‘“‘like” to the first, Mt.) was the one
commanding men to love their neighbors as themselves.}5
The meaning of these commandments has already been dis-
cussed. The Matthew Gospel seems to imply (in ac-
cordance with V: 18-19) that these two commandments
sustain, and involve obligation to keep, the whole law:
“On these two commandments hang the whole law and
the prophets.” The scribe expressed himself as much im-
pressed by Jesus’ reply, and Jesus in turn assured him
that he was not far from being ready for the Kingdom
of God. Jesus had talked in the same way to the rich
young man of whom Mark said that Jesus “loved him”
as he looked at him.'* Both incidents reveal the keen
desire Jesus had to bring the scribes over to his ideal
of the righteousness of the Kingdom of God; they show
that it had not been easy for him to be true to his
inner convictions at the risk of antagonizing them.
%* Mk. XIIT:28-34, Mt. XXII:34-40, cf. Lk. X:25-28.
% Deut. VI:5, Lev. XIX:18. The combination is found in Test. of
the Twelve Patriarchs, Dan. V:3, “Love the Lord through all your
life, and one another with a true heart”; cf. Issachar V:2, VII:6,
Mk, X:21.
—_ ee eee ee ee,
ee ae ee eT
OHAPTER XXXI
JESUS DENOUNCES THE JERUSALEM: SCRIBES
administration of the temple. Soon after he directly
attacked the Jerusalem scribes on the ground of
incompetence and insincerity as religious teachers. In
his public teaching at the temple he criticized the Son of
David conception of Messiahship that many of them held.
He represented it, at least in the form in which they held
it, to be contrary to scripture. He quoted Ps. CX:1,
assuming the current idea that David was its author. In
the psalm David is understood to say that the Lord God
had assigned to his (David’s) Lord Messiah a seat at
God’s right hand until such time as God should lay all —
the Messiah’s enemies prostrate at his feet.
Se had boldly attacked the priests for their mal-
“The Lord said unto my Lord,
Sit thou on my right hand
Till I make thine enemies the footstool
of thy feet.”
Jesus asked how David could in this way apply the wor-
shipful title “Lord” to his son. It was contrary to oriental
ideas of propriety that an ancestor should so humble him-
self before a descendant: “He, David, calls him Lord,
whence then is he his son?” 1 The scribes seem to have
been unable to answer this question. The answer that
* 1Mk. XII:35-37, Mt. XXI1:41-46, Lk. XX:41-44,
329
| 330 Tre Lrre anp Tracnine or JEsus
Jesus would probably have given, if he had cared to give
an answer, is that the Messiah is to be a much more
exalted personage than the Son of David whom the scribes
expected ; he was to be the “Son of Man,” or “that Man”
from heaven. As has been suggested before, Jesus’ final
- interpretation of his own wonderful religious experience
was that into him had come the mighty Spirit of the
heavenly Son of Man (p. 229). This was now the secret
of the inner circle of disciples, and was not known to the
people whom Jesus was addressing.
Jesus’ language here does not imply, as is sometimes
said, that he was not a descendant of David. The be-
lief in his Davidic lineage could hardly have been so
- common among the early Christians, if he had been known
to have disclaimed it. He was not the Messianic Son of
David, but he was a Davidite into whom the Spirit of
the heavenly Son of Man had entered. Paul recognized
Jesus’ descent from David, but he did not hold the Son
of David view of Messiahship; he held what was really
the Son of Man idea, although not expressed by that title.”
The title “Son of David” was unattractive to Jesus.
It yielded itself too easily to the ambitions of military
Messianism. David had been a great warrior who gave
his people standing among the nations by his military cam-
paigns. It was particularly desirable just now, when the
scribes and priests were trying to make Jesus politically
an object of suspicion among the Roman officials, that
he should disclaim any such military ideas. He brings
out the fact that it was the scribes who taught the Son
of David type of Messianism, and it was, therefore, they
that might well bear the burden of sinister Roman
suspicion.
Does Jesus’ reference to the Messiah’s exaltation to the
7Rom. 1:4, cf. I Cor. XV:47.
Jesus DENOUNCES THE JERUSALEM Scrises 331
right hand of God while waiting for the overthrow of
his enemies imply anything regarding Jesus’ outlook on
his own future? He clearly anticipated death and a
_ Speedy reappearance in full Messianic power, perhaps
at the general resurrection (p. 237). Was he also antici-
pating that after death he would in some way be taken
to God until the victorious phase of his Messianic career
should be reached at the time of the general resurrection ?
The wonderful sense of direct contact with, and full pos-
session by the powerful will of God, which had become
central and dominant in his consciousness must necessarily
have shaped his forecast of a career after death. How
detailed this forecast was we have not data to determine.
Jesus carried his attack upon the Jerusalem scribes
still further in a public address before great crowds as-
sembled in the open courts about the temple. He warned
the people against their influence. “And in the hearing |
of all the people he said unto his disciples, Beware of
the scribes.” * In unsparing language, which may often
have raised a laugh from the sympathetic element in the
crowd, he exposed their weakness at vital points of char-
acter. While he may have recognized the sincerity and
high ideals of many scribes he seems to have been thor-
oughly convinced of the hypocrisy of the scribal leaders
in Jerusalem. They had earlier brought to Galilee the
official opinion that the Power within him, which pro-
duced such mighty results and which seemed to him so
surely to be the sacred gift of God, was from hell (p. 118).
Now in Jerusalem, when his sense of Messianic com-
mission from God was so fully developed, he found them
watching for a chance to kill him. In the honesty of his
soul, he found now no place for any course except open
and unsparing denunciation. In no other way could he
*Mk. XII:38-40, Lk. XX:45-46.
332 Tue Lire ann TEACHING oF J ESUS
break up their ruinous influence over the nation and be
loyal to his inner sense of commission by God as Mes-
sianic leader of the people. He described their love of
social recognition, their delight in parading through the
markets dressed in their long cloaks, looking expectantly
out of the corners of their eyes for respectful greetings.
He described their apparently well known anxiety to se-
cure prominent seats in the synagogue and the covert
rivalry with which they maneuvred for the most honor-
able places at dinner parties. Who could imagine prophets
of God in these “last days” before the Judgment Day—
Elijah or Jeremiah—solicitous about such distinctions!
He spoke of the way in which they imposed upon widows,
meaning either that they so impressed gullible rich widows
by their long ostentatious praying as to secure from them
rich gifts of houses which they eagerly gulped down
(“devoured”) like greedy men at a feast; or that they
mercilessly foreclosed mortgages on the houses of poor
widows. ‘These extra pious men would receive an extra
condemnation in the Judgment Day now so near at hand:
“These shall receive the greater condemnation.”
The Matthew Gospel, and Luke at an earlier point in
the narrative, draw from Q an account of Jesus’ attack
upon the Jerusalem scribes, much more detailed than that
found in Mark.* The Matthew compiler adds (or Luke
omits) some matter of peculiar interest to Jews.° The
Matthew Gospel also represents Jesus to have applied the
term “hypocrites” freely to the scribes while Luke avoids
it entirely in the parallel passages. Indeed, in his entire
Gospel, Luke rarely represents Jesus to have used this
term. In the peculiar vehemence of the Matthew Gospel
there is reflected the bitter strife that was going on be-
‘Mt, XXII, Lk. XI:37-52.
*Mt. XXIII:5, 7b-10, 15-22.
SEE
Jzsus DENOUNCES THE JERUSALEM Sorrpes 333
tween the conservative, law-keeping Jewish Christians
of Syria and the Jews of the synagogue, when this Gospel
was being compiled. These conservative Jewish Chris-
- tians were between two sets of offenders, the non-Christian
Jewish leaders of the synagogue and the liberal Gentile
Christians of the Pauline type. By way of warning to the
latter class Jesus is represented as making the unusual
statement that the teaching of the scribes ought to be
followed because they are the official representatives of
Moses, but that their example ought not to be followed
because they do not practice what they teach: ‘Then
spake Jesus to the multitudes and to his disciples, saying,
On Moses’ seat have the scribes and Pharisees sat. All
things therefore whatsoever they say to you, do and ob
serve, but according to their works do not do for they
say and do not.” |
There is indication, too, that the report of Jesus’ teach-
ing was at this point influenced by a desire to repress cer-
tain undesirable tendencies that were beginning to appear
among the conservative Syrian Christians themselves.
They are warned against the habit of calling their teachers
by the ostentatious title “Rabbi,” “Father,” “Master.” ®
“Neither be ye called Masters, for one is your Master,
even the Christ.” Jesus would hardly have spoken to the
crowds in the temple in this way of the Christ, when the
Christ had not yet appeared. Jesus was at the time still
concealing his Messianic consciousness from _ the
public.
The main counts in Jesus’ terrific attack upon the Jeru-
salem scribes according to the Matthew report are these: *
They take the joy out of religion. They so apply the law
of Moses to the daily life of conscientious men and women
*Mt. XXIITI:8-10.
*XXITII: 4-39.
334 Tuer Large anp TRAcHIING OF JESUS
as to make life a painful burden: “they tie heavy bur-
dens on the shoulders of men,” while they themselves sit
back in comfortable ease watching them stagger along and
enjoying the consciousness of being hard taskmasters. To
be set over others gives them satisfaction! They stand
outside the gateway of the Kingdom of God, dignified,
self-appointed gate keepers, refusing to have the humble
spirit really necessary for their own entrance and lock-
ing the gate against others who could easily be made ready
to enter. They make expensive journeys by land and sea
as missionaries of Pharisaic Judaism to gain an occasional
convert from among the Gentiles, but the poor convert,
when won, is “twofold more a son of hell” than the mis-
sionary who converted him. These alleged religious guides
are keen to make queer and unreasonable distinctions be-
tween various forms of vows, and to measure out with
eager exactness the sacred tenth of the smallest garden
seeds, but they are utterly obtuse in transactions that
eall for the fair play (‘justice’), “mercy” and wholesome
“faith” in God and man, out of which spring all true life
and religion. They are ostentatiously conscientious in
trivial matters and grossly slack in fundamentals. They
anxiously strain out of the liquid in the cup the minute
insect that might be “unclean” food, but they gulp down
a camel without a quiver! They care only for appear-
ances ; they are like dishes carefully polished on the outside
but disgustingly dirty on the inside. With their long
prayers and malicious hearts they aré like grave chambers
in the rock, carefully whitened outside but having within
the stench of decaying corpses, the bones of the dead and
all the “unclean” crawling life of the tomb. They hold
up hands of pious horror over the conduct of their an-
cestors who killed the great prophets, but in so doing they
truly confess that they spring from a prophet-killing breed.
Jesus Denounces THE JERUSALEM Sorises 335
(Luke says that they complete the work of their fathers:
their fathers did the killing, they do the burying.) ®* The
groups of malicious scribes found in the synagogues and
_temple courts now intent on murdering Jesus, are like
broods of venomous snakes; they are destined soon to be
in hell! The end of the age is near. Upon this last
bloody generation, guilty of the supreme murder, will
come vengeance for all the righteous blood shed from the
time of Abel, the first murdered victim mentioned in scrip-
ture, to Zechariah, the last recorded victim, murdered in
the temple of God by officials of high standing.®
This terrific polemic against the Jerusalem scribes
breaks into a pathetic lament over the sullen, hard-hearted,
wayward city that Jesus so loved. “O Jerusalem, Jeru-
salem, which killeth the prophets and stoneth them that
are sent unto her! How often would I have gathered thy
children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens
under her wings, and ye would not!” He had longed to
get the people about him and bring to them the protecting,
brooding love of God that he felt welling up within him-
self. But now God’s holy house, befouled by its official
keepers, must be abandoned by God to stand desolate until
such time as the nation’s leaders should be of a different
mind, ready to welcome one who should ‘come to them as
®Lk. XI:47-48.
° II Chron. XXIV:20-21. The Matthew Gospel differs from Luke in
calling Zechariah “the son of Barachias.” In IT Chron. he is called
“the gon of Jehoiada the priest.” Since II Chron., which records
the murder of Zechariah, was the last book in the Hebrew Bible,
this is like saying, “everything from Genesis to Revelation.” Ac-
cording to Josephus, War, IV:5:4,-a man named Zechariah was
killed in the year 67 or 68 A.D., “in the midst of the temple.” His
father’s name, according to different manuscripts of Josephus, was
“Bareis,” “Barouchos,” or “Bariskaios.” Perhaps the compiler of
the Matthew Gospel had this in mind. It would not have seemed
to him unfitting to attribute prophecy to Jesus.
336 Tuer Lire peas TEACHING OF JESUS
Jesus had now come, in the name and character of the
Lord.
Jesus’ terrific attack on the pompous, hypocritical great
men of the temple and synagogue, which would be reported
to their discredit all over the world by Passover pilgrims
returning to their homes, was followed by a quiet scene in
which he pointed out to his disciples an illustration of a
genuinely religious spirit.1° Huis keen eye found it in the
personality of a poor widow, perhaps one whose house had
been “devoured” by greedy scribes. He saw her as he
sat watching the rich Jews from all over the world bringing
their offerings to the temple treasury. There was a long
procession of them and they brought much. Some of them
perhaps had their servants carry heavy bags of coin.
Among many this lonely woman slipped up with two lepta,
very small coins. Jesus learned, probably from conversa-
tion with her, the amount of her gift and that it was all
she had with which to provide food for herself for the day ;
she lived from hand to mouth. He at once made the inci-
dent the subject of a “teaching” to his disciples, whom
he summoned from their strolling about in the colonnades
near by. He said that in God’s sight she had given more .
than all the rest put together. She had given all that
she had. He who was about to give his all felt a strong
bond of sympathy between himself and her.
%” Mk, XII:41-44, Lk. XXI:1-4.
_ Le
CHAPTER XXXII
JESUS’ PRIVATE TEACHING ABOUT THE DE-
STRUCTION OF JEHOVAH’S HOUSE AND
THE END OF THE AGE
HE idea prevailed among at least a section of the
earliest Palestinian Christians that Jehovah, prob-
ably in some connection with his Messianic Judg-
ment, would abandon his sacred house to utter destruction.
It was understood that Jesus himself had expressed this
expectation and had privately given some hints as to the
time when this would happen.t In the earliest days any |
Christians who held this expectation were sure to be ex-
ceedingly unpopular. We shall see that the Great Court
tried to secure the conviction of Jesus on the charge that
he had threatened to destroy the temple, but failed to prove
the charge.? Later the report that Stephen had been heard
to say “that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place”
resulted in his being lynched.* A covert assertion of this
expectation was made by circulating the rumor that at
the time of Jesus’ death the curtain screening off the most
sacred room in the temple building had been torn almost
in two. from the top down, that is, by the hand of God.‘
As the Christian movement grew stronger the expectation
of the overthrow of Jehovah’s House was openly acknowl-
1 Mk. XIII:3-4.
*Mk, XIV :58-59.
* Acts VI:13-14, VII:54-58.
*Mk. XV:38.
337
338 Tus Lire anp Tracuine or JEsus
edged and was definitely set, in the traditional teaching of
Jesus. It appears in the Gospel narrative at the point to
which we have now come.
As Jesus was leaving the temple courts after his terrific
attack upon the great men of the temple and the synagogue,
the leading priests and the Jerusalem scribes, he remarked
to “one of his disciples” (that is, “privately”), “Seest thou
these great buildings? There shall not be left here one ~
stone upon another which shall not be thrown down.”
When they had crossed the Kidron Valley, presumably on
their way to their lodging place in Bethany, Jesus stopped
on the Mount of Olives, overlooking the temple site across
the valley, and talked “privately” with four of his disci-
ples about the coming catastrophe. “And as he sat on
the Mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and
James and John and Andrew asked him privately, ‘Tell -
us when shall these things be and what shall be the sign
when these things are all about to be accomplished.’ ” °
Then follows the famous teaching recorded in Mk. XIII,
Mt. XXIV, Lk. XXI: 25-36. Many of the ideas ex-
pressed in this teaching, are those that are found in the
Jewish apocalyptic literature of the time. The peculiar
ideas that appear are such Christian adaptations of gen-
eral Jewish apocalyptic as would spring naturally out of
Jesus’ teaching about the nearness of the Kingdom and
the assumption of his own Messiahship, together with the
startling information that Jehovah’s house will be de-
stroyed in connection with the Messianic Judg-
ment.”
5Mk, XIII:3-4.
® Matthew records matter not found in Mark and considerable por-
tions of this are assigned by Luke to an earlier period, e.g., Lk.
XII:39-40, 42-46, XVII:23, 24, 26, 27, 34, 35, 37, XIX:13-26.
™The theory that there is embedded in this discourse a little Jew-
ish apocalypse which circulated independently and about which as
Tracuine Asout THE Env or THE AcE 339
The discourse, especially in its Matthew form, seems
to assume a point of view prevalent later among the early
Christians and not that of the Passover week to which it
_ 1s assigned in the narrative. In the Matthew Gospel the
disciples ask him, “What shall be the sign of thy coming
and of the consummation of the age?’ This question
seems to imply an understanding of the fact that he was
to die, be raised from the dead, taken into the heavens,
and then come from the heavens, although according to the
subsequent narrative these things were not at all clear
to them before Jesus’ death. In Mark’s Gospel, which
often more nearly preserves the original situation, the in-
dication of this later point of view is not quite so evident.
In Mark they simply ask when the destruction of the
temple, of which Jesus had spoken, would occur, although
it is Jesus’ coming as Messianic Son of Man “in clouds”
in accord with the later Christian expectation that con-
stitutes the body of the discourse. It may be that the
real viewpoint of the four disciples at the time was this:
they did not yet understand that Jesus’ prediction of death
and resurrection was to be taken literally instead of as a
kind of parable or “dark saying” § (p. 238), but they were
convinced that his Messianic demonstration would not be
made immediately, as they had hoped. He was perhaps
to withdraw again from public life for a time as he had
done once before,® and then emerge from obscurity, this
time clothed with the radiant form and power of the Son
of Man from heaven.
The main ideas presented in the beneath may be
sketched in brief as these: The Messianic demonstration
a nucleus certain Christian teachings were gathered, seems to have
no constraining evidence in its favor.
* Jn. XVI:25, 29.
°Mk. VII:24, X:1.
340 Tur Lirz ann Traonrna or Jesus
is to be preceded by a period of extreme suffering,!° during
which many spurious Messiahs will try to start Messianic
movements. ‘They will appear in the wilderness remote
from police inspection, or will be found secretly plotting
revolutionary movements in inner chambers. No such
definitely localized centres of Messianic agitation need
attract the serious attention of the disciples. Such phe-
nomena could accompany only a Messianic movement of
the Son of David type which Jesus had rejected. He had
cast his lot in with the Spirit of the Son of Man, the
signs of whose coming were to be sought in the heavens
and not on the earth. It would not be secret but open
to every one’s eyes, like the lightning flash or the hungry
eagles flying swiftly from every quarter of the sky to a
common destination for food.14_ Wars will be heard of
in various parts of the world, and earthquakes and fam-
ines; it will be a period of general upheaval and insecurity.
These sufferings are merely preliminary to worse suffer-
ing; they are the beginning of birth pains. Christians
will be killed. They will even turn against each other in
hate. False leaders will arise among them. A deadly
apathy will come over many of them. During this pre-
liminary period the gospel will be preached over the
world. (This would not require any very long time.)*?
An especially terrible and culminating incident in this
period of suffering will be something that is to take place
in Judea, evidently the desolating of Jehovah’s House.
A sign of this will be “the desolation-producing abomina- ©
tion standing where he ought not” (Mk.), something
Mk. XIII:5-23, Mt. XXIV:4-28, Lk. XXI1:7-24.
“Mt. XXIV:26-28.
Paul a few years later felt that as soon as he had done one
more piece of evangelistic work on the western edge of the world,
in Spain, the evangelization of the world would be complete, Rom.
XV:18-19, 23-28, of. X:18.
Tracuine Asout THE Enp or THE Acar 3841
“spoken of through the prophet Daniel, standing in a holy
place” (Mt.). The early Christians had evidently come to
a secret understanding as to what this ‘desolation-
__ producing abomination” was,—“let him that readeth un-
derstand,” that is, “we Christians know what this means.”
What it was is uncertain.’® The phrase “standing where
he (Mk.), or it (Mt.), ought not,” might indicate a statue
of aman. When this sign shall appear the Christian men
in Judea are instantly to drop everything and flee with
their families “unto the mountains,” where there will pre-
sumably be caves and other hiding places. It is to be
hoped that the necessity of this flight will not occur in
winter, when streams swollen by winter rains would make
travel difficult, nor on a Sabbath (Mt. with characteristic
regard for law), when it would be difficult to hire ani-
mals for the swift transportation of household goods and
families.
Luke, who pictures no “private” conversation of Jesus
with his disciples, and who has nothing corresponding to
“let him that readeth understand,” says simply, “when ye
see Jerusalem compassed with armies then know that her
desolation is at hand.” From his Gentile viewpoint there
is to be “distress upon the land and wrath unto this peo-
ple.” This distress will consist in the fact that “they shall
fall by the edge of the sword and shall be led captive into
all the nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by
the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” 14
“4 Eusebius, the church historian and.librarian who lived in Pales-
tinian Cesarea in the fourth century, had some reason for believing
that the Jerusalem Christians, in obedience to a revelation made to
approved men there “before the war,” left the city and settled in
Pella east of the Jordan, Ch. Hist., II1:5, 3.
47k. XXI:20-24.. Paul felt that the time for the fulness of the
Gentiles to be brought in might be completed in his own lifetime,
Rom. X1:25, XIII:11-12.
342 Tur Lirzt anp TEACHING OF JESUS
After this preliminary period of distress, which appar-
ently culminates in the destruction of Jehovah’s House,
the great event, the Coming of the Son of Man, will take
., place.*® It will occur “immediately after the tribulation ©
of those days” (Mt.), “in those days after that tribulation” —
_ (Mk.). It will be heralded by the portents commonly —
described in Jewish literature in connection with Jeho-
vah’s Judgment, the dislodging of the stars and the terrify-
ing of their animating spirits. Then at the signal of
a trumpet blast the angels of the Son of Man will go
over the earth to assemble “the elect.” What becomes
of those so assembled and what becomes of those who are
left, is not stated. It seems to be assumed that every one
will be familiar with current ideas on this point. The
Matthew Gospel, as we shall see later, presents a more
detailed idealized picture of the Judgment scene.*®
All these things are to happen within the lifetime of the
generation to which Jesus belonged. Heaven and earth
will pass away, will become a new heaven and a new
earth with the dawning of the New Age, but Jesus’ words
will not fail. However, the exact date within the genera-
tion is known to no one, not even the angels of heaven
nor Jesus himself. It is the Father’s secret: “Verily I
say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all
these things happen. The heaven and the earth shall
pass away: but my words shall not pass away. But of
that day or hour knoweth no man, not the angels which
are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” Whether
we have here Jesus’ own thought or the thought attributed
to him, as a matter of course, by his disciples later, is a
question which has already been discussed (ch. xxxili).
The discourse in Mark ends with a solemn injunction
* Mt. XXIV:29-44, Mk. XIII:24-37, Lk, XXI:25-36,
#* Mt. XXV:31-46,
Tracuinae Asout THE END or THE AGE 343
to the four listeners, and through them to all the disciples,
to watch. Special obligation to watch rests upon the four,
who are like the gate-keeper of an absent householder.
“Tt is as when a man sojourning in another country, hay-
- ing left his house and given authority to his servants,
to each one his work, commanded also the porter to watch.
Watch, therefore, for ye know not when the lord of the
house cometh, whether at even or at midnight, or at cock-
crowing or in the morning; lest coming suddenly he find
you sleeping. And what I say unto you, I say unto all,
Watch.” 37
In the Matthew Gospel there follows a paragraph ** not
found elsewhere, the parable of the virgins, containing a
dramatic warning to apathetic and careless disciples, par-
ticularly those holding positions of leadership. In the
Matthew Gospel, more than elsewhere, there have appeared
denunciatory references to spurious Christians, especially
teachers and ‘prophets, lax in their observance of the law,
whose counterfeit characters are to be revealed in the
Judgment Day.?® In the words just preceding this para-
ble such faithless leaders have been represented by ‘the
character of a drunken head servant who abused the privi-
leges of his position and was consequently excluded from
the Kingdom. He went to the abode of the wicked, de-
scribed in the language of current Jewish literature as
the place of “the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.” ?°
The parable of the virgins also describes persons specially
trusted with the responsibility of watching for the arrival
of the bridegroom. They had gone out in the early evening
to some designated spot to meet him, expecting to join
Mk. XITII:34-37.
#XXV :1-13.
#V:19, VIT:15-23, XIII:41, XXII:11-14, XXIV:10-12.
* XXIV :45-51; of. Secrets of Enoch XL:12, the “weeping hell.”
844 Tue Lire anp TEACHING or JESUS
him there and proceed with him to the place where the ©
wedding feast would be held. They all prepared to per--
form this function, but half of them made insufficient
preparation. They did not provide enough lamp oil to
last through the unexpectedly long interval before the —
bridegroom’s delayed arrival. He finally arrived at mid- —
night when they were all asleep. Those with no reserve
oil found their lamps going out, They tried to make good —
their neglect, but it was too late to do so and they were
consequently shut out from the wedding supper.
This parable fits well into the situation that existed in
the first decades of the Christian movement when the keen
expectation of an immediate return of Jesus from heaven
was losing its edge and Christians were becoming apa-
thetic. Was this parable the work of alert Christian
evangelists during this period who were sure that Jesus
had foreseen its needs and would approve of such teach- —
ing as this parable presents? How clearly did Jesus fore-
see all the development of the Christian movement that
took place in the early decades and in all the succeeding
centuries after his death? In any case, from the stand-
point of either the evangelists or Jesus, what was it that
the insufficiently prepared really lacked? The picture
of the Judgment scene presented in the last paragraph
of this chapter, emphasizes neighbor love as the one thing
requisite. From the viewpoint of .the Matthew Gospel
Jesus regarded neighbor love as involving, and not dis-
placi ng, obligation to keep all the other commandments.
It is one of the two commandments on which “the whole
law hangs.” 34
Still as a part of Jesus’ “private” teaching to his disci-
ples the Matthew Gospel next introduces the parable of
“The Talents,” or better, of “The Estate Held in
™Mt. XXII:40.
Traouina: Anovt THE Enp or tHE Agr 345
Trust.” 22. It is another illustration showing the way in
which disciples could successfully prepare themselves for
the impending Messianic Judgment, the point at which
there was special danger of failure and the sure conse-
quence of such failure. As in the preceding parable of
the virgins so here the idea of a delayed coming is em-
phasized. ‘The owner of the estate came back “after a
long time,” just as the bridegroom did not arrive until
midnight, long after he had been expected to come.
A man who was going abroad converted his estate (“his
goods”) into cash and left it in trust to three of his ser-
vants for investment. He gave five eighths to one, two
eighths to another, and one eighth to a third. He made
this unequal division as a result of his estimate of each
servant's business ability (v. 15). The first two invested
the amounts entrusted to them so successfully that when
they were “after a long time” called to account, their em-
ployer’s trust was found to have doubled. .He congratulated
them heartily, promoted them to positions of greater re-
sponsibility and power, and took them into a kind of
partnership with himself in what is called his “joy”:
“Enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” Perhaps the phrase-
ology of the application, the joy of life in the Messianic
age, is at this point used in the parable itself.
‘The third trustee made no investment with his trust.
He simply put it in the poor man’s popular place of safety
deposit; “he digged in the earth and hid his lord’s money.”
When he was called upon for an accounting he made a
rather ill-natured, sullen defense of his conduct. His lord
was a rough man, always expecting to reap harvests that
other men had produced. He had been afraid to do busi-
ness for such a man; he had feared that he might lose
what had been entrusted to him. So he had done no
™Mt. XXIV:3, XXV:14-30, of. Lk. XIX:12-27.
846 Tue Lire anp Tracuinae or JzEsus
business at all. He was returning the capital without any
interest. His lord called him a “wicked and lazy servant.”
His “wickedness” perhaps consisted in pride. His pride
was hurt because his business ability had been considered
less than that of his associates. He would not do what he
could with what he had, because others had more. But
he was also lazy. It was too much trouble to do business
for his lord. His fundamental defect was lack of interest
in his lord’s business. He did not care if his lord’s estate
did not iticrease. His laziness was merely a symptom of
an anemic good will toward his lord and his lord’s busi-
ness. He was relegated to the place of idleness, “the
outer darkness,” in the language of current Jewish litera-
ture. ~The amount entrusted to him for investment was —
then transferred to the man who had demonstrated his
ability to handle the largest share of the estate. The
_ estate must be developed and the opportunity to do this
must be given to the man who could and would use the
opportunity. In time of famine, when the government
is distributing seed to farmers, the little seed that he has —
received must be taken away from the small farmer who
will not sow it, and given to the large farmer who will,
for a harvest must be produced. It is a case of either
“use or lose.”
Here again the question arises, what, in the mind of
Jesus, was the meaning of this “parable” in terms of
actual life? What was it that was given to these disciples
of Jesus that was. capable of being increased, for the in-
crease of which they were held responsible, with expecta-
tion of larger opportunity if they succeeded and of ruin
if they became lax and lazy? Here again, as in the parable
of the virgins, the Judgment scene described in the next
paragraph suggests the answer. It is neighbor love,
friendliness in the simple relations of plain daily life,
Tracuinc Asour THE END oF THE AGE 347
that enables men to pass through the Messianic Judgment
into the eternal life and light of the New Age. The com-
piler of the Matthew Gospel very probably thought of this
_ parable as particularly applicable to the inner circle of
disciples to whom the Gospel represents Jesus to have
given it as private teaching.?? It would have seemed,
therefore, specially applicable to all evangelists and proph-
ets of the Gospel-making period. They must not lose their
confidence in the return of the Son of Man from heaven,
and they must do their utmost to develop in quantity and
quality the body of those who with simple, nhostenta vious
good will awaited his coming.
This private teaching closes with an idealized picture
of the Son of Man’s Judgment.** In its opening sentence
and in its description of the fate of the rejected it is very
like current Jewish apocalyptic literature, especially the
Book of Enoch, which was popular among Christians.?®
“And he sat on the throne of his glory
And the sum of judgment was given unto the Son of Man,
And he caused the sinners to pass away and be destroyed from
off the face of the earth.”
“And he will deliver them to the angels for punishment
To execute vengeance upon them because they have oppressed
His children and His elect.”
“And the righteous and elect shall be saved on that day
And they shall never thenceforward see the face of the sinners
and the unrighteous
And the Lord of Spirits will abide over them,
And with that Son of Man shall they eat
And lie down and rise up forever and ever.” ”
2 XXIV :3.
“Mt. XXV:31-46.
*In Jude 14 it is referred to by name and certain of its state-
ments regarding the judgment of the wicked are quoted.
*En. LXIX:27, LXII:11, 13-14.
348 Tue Lire anp TERAOHING oF JESUS
In the Matthew picture the Son of Man has emptied
all the heavens of all the hosts of his angels and has
them assembled in majestic array about his glorious throne
in the clouds. Below on the earth the terrified nations have
been gathered. Then the line of separation is drawn as a
shepherd separates his white sheep from a dark and sin-
ister herd of goats. That which distinguishes the true
disciple from the false is what Jesus had always in all
his teaching been urging upon those who would prepare
for the coming Kingdom, namely, sincere, dependable
friendliness in all the commonplace relations of daily life,
loving one’s neighbor as himself. The teaching repre-
sents plain daily life, with its ample opportunity for
_ the exchange of ordinary neighborly kindliness, as a situ-
ation devised by God in which to fasten upon men the
habits and disposition necessary for participation in the
activities of the eternal life of the Age to Come.?* The
Kingdom of God is a democracy in which “the King” calls
his true subjects his “brothers” and identifies himself with
the least and neediest of them. Of course, no one of them,
either good or bad, remembered ever meeting the Son of
Man, a glorious radiant being out of the heavens, sick or
hungry or in prison. Nevertheless such a being had stood
in close relation with the human suffering which they had
either relieved or ignored. “Verily I say unto you
inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brothers, even
these least, ye did it unto me.”
“Tt is sometimes supposed that this paragraph pictures the Judg-
ment of Gentiles that had never heard the Gospel. If a Judgment
scene in which neither Jews nor Christians appear had been in the
mind of the compiler of the Gospel he would have made that inter-
pretation more evident. Unevangelized Gentiles have not appeared
in the preceding parts of the teaching. The only reference to Gen-
tiles has been the statement that the Gospel is to be preached in all
the world.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE TREACHERY OF A TABLE COMPANION
| HE priests and scribes grew desperate under Jesus’
public attacks upon them at the temple before the
multitudes of Passover pilgrims that were filling
up the city. They felt that he might be tempted by his
popularity to take advantage of the presence of these mul-
titudes and head a revolutionary Messianic movement dur-
ing the Passover week. Even if he should not do this,
but should be content with his present self-assumed réle
of prophet, priestly and scribal prestige throughout the
nation and all the ghettos of foreign countries would be
seriously impaired if the thousands of pilgrims should
go home reporting that Jesus’ fierce attacks had gone un-
punished. It seemed necessary to do something decisive
at once. There were only two days left in which to act,
for after the Passover week had begun so many of his
friends, especially Galileans, would have arrived that it
would be unsafe to proceed against him. Even in these
two remaining days no open measures could be safely
taken against him: “Now after two days was the feast
of the Passover and the unleavened bread; and the chief
priests and the scribes sought how they might take him
with subtlety, and kill him: for they said, Not during
the feast lest haply there shall be a tumult of the people.” *
1Mk. XIV:1-2.
349
350 Tur Lire anp Tracuine or Jzsus
In the carrying out of any plot the priests and scribes
greatly needed the help of someone among the inner
circle of Jesus’ friends. They needed the services of some-
one who would take him on some pretext to a pre-arranged
place where they could seize him, and who would then
return to his friends with some plausible explanation of
his absence. Just at this juncture they were secretly
visited by a man from the inner circle of Jesus’ friends,
Judas, one of the ‘Twelve, who offered to deliver Jesus into
their power. They naturally gave him a hearty welcome
and promised to pay him well.?
We can only imagine how Judas’ mind worked in the
process of reaching this determination. The order of
arrangement of the narrative in the Gospel of Mark affords
a hint. Between the statement that the priests were plot-
ting against Jesus (XIV: 1-2) and the account of Judas’
visit to the priests (vs. 10-12), occurs the account of a
dinner party in Bethany, the suburb in which Jesus and
the Twelve had found lodgings.* This peculiar arrange-
ment of the narrative indicates that the compiler saw some
connection betwéen Judas’ treachery and what took place
at this dinner party. While they were at the table a
woman brought in a sealed alabaster vase of very expen-
sive liquid perfume.* Instead of unsealing the vase she
broke it, apparently intending to prevent its ever being
used again for any common purpose, and poured the liquid
over Jesus’ head. The extreme value of the perfume used
for this anointing and the fact that she broke the vase,
1 The Matthew Gospel, perhaps influenced by Zech. XI:12-13, names
the price, thirty pieces of silver. If a “piece of silver” was four
denarii, thirty pieces would have been about 120 days’ wages (Mt.
XX :2).
*Mk. XI:11, 19.
*Its cost was estimated as equal to 300 days’ wages. Mk.
XIV:5; of. Mt. XX:2.
TREACHERY OF A TABLE COMPANION 351
indicate that she intended by this action to express the
hope that Jesus would this week declare himself to be the
Messiah, “The Anointed,’ and inaugurate a Messianic
- movement.
-~Some of those present (Mt. “‘the disciples’) became
very indignant at this proceeding. If they recognized the
delicate suggestion of her act they perhaps felt that it
was not a woman’s business to be meddling with politics.
Any such suggestion might far better come from them. In
any case they objected to her absurdly expensive way of
making the suggestion. They felt sure that Jesus would
be displeased with such a use of money. They had re-
peatedly heard him say that money ought to be given to
the poor. They had recently seen him turn away a very
attractive applicant for discipleship because the man would
not make this use of money (p. 283). But to their sur-
prise Jesus called her act a “noble deed.” He did not
relax his habitual concern for the poor. “You have the
poor always with you and whensoever you will you can
do good to them.” But in the present crisis another mo-
tive ought to prevail. It was a time to show loyal affec-
tion to himself. In the city powerful men were shrewdly
plotting his execution. Dissatisfaction and resentment
were growing in the heart of one of his table companions.
At such a time the one great and noble thing to do was
to express unswerving loyalty to his person. At a later
time when men should look back upon this great crisis
in God’s On-coming Kingdom with true apprehension of
its meaning, her deed would everywhere seem memorable.
“Verily I say to you wherever the gospel shall be preached
in all the world also that which this woman has done shall
be spoken of in her memory.” The disciples had been
willing to invest their money in the poor as a means of
gaining remunerative offices in the New Age. “Lo we
352 Tuer Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
have left all and followed thee; what then shall we have?’ ©
This woman had nothing of the sort to gain by Jesus’
elevation to power; she simply loved her Lord and wished
to see him honored. 7
Another outstanding feature of the incident was Jesus’
consciousness of the nearness of his Messianic death.
Everything that he saw reminded him of it. This glad
pouring of the perfume on his person was, to his mind,
the beginning of his preparation for burial. They will
soon in sadness be wrapping sweet smelling spices in his
grave clothes and drenching them with liquid perfume.
This scene to him is prophetic of an immediate entomb-
ment rather than an enthronement.
All this was extremely offensive to Judas. It was the
last straw in the growing burden of Jesus’ offensiveness
to him (p. 220). It was clear to him that Jesus was not
equal to the crisis which his reckless harangues at the
temple had produced. In spite of his bold words he was
nothing but a queer sentimentalist, fond of extravagant
attention from women, ready to tend babies, full of weak
foreboding in the face of danger, unequal to the ad-
ministration of a great world empire. Especially Jesus’
idea that there was no place for rich men in the Coming
Kingdom had offended Judas. He bitterly resented the
loss of the time he had spent with Jesus. He had during
all these months been kept from business and money mak-
ing by the hope which he now considers to be baseless.
According to the Gospel of John he was custodian of the
meager funds available for meeting the expenses of the
Twelve ® and, therefore, may have looked forward to being
Treasurer of the Realm in the New Age. He may often
have pictured to himself Isaiah’s vision of long proces-
5Mt. XIX:27.
Jn. XII:6, XIII:29.
TREACHERY OF A TABLE CoMPANION 353
sions of dromedaries loaded with treasures, and great fleets
of ships carrying multitudes of Jewish passengers, “their
silver and their gold with them,” all hurrying to him,
_ dJehovah’s Treasurer, in Jerusalem, the world’s capital.?
All this now seems to him to have been an idle dream.
He will reimburse himself as far as he can and cut loose
from the foolish movement. It may be that he did not
expect that his action would really lead to Jesus’ death.
Jesus’ popularity, which made it seem to the priests and
scribes so difficult to dispose of him, would naturally have
seemed to Judas likely to open for Jesus some way of
escape. According to the Matthew Gospel, when Judas
later became convinced that this was not to be the case he
bitterly regretted his action. He made an unsuccessful
effort to return his blood money to the priests, and then
in desperation apparently broke into the sacred enclosure
and threw it into the very temple building itself, as if
calling God to witness that he had not kept the money.
He then went out and hanged himself. In the Gospel-
making period a field near. Jerusalem, called the “Blood
Field,’ was popularly associated in two traditions with
the death of Judas. Judas’ regret may have been occa-
sioned not only by his certainty that Jesus was a good
man, but by the fact that he found himself to be no patri-
otic hero in the eyes of the priests! He was to them simply
a contemptible man who had betrayed a table companion
for money.
The enemies of Jesus must have rejoiced at the pros-
pect of getting Jesus into their possession in this particular
way, through a table companion. They were likely to
be very unpopular after they had secured the death of so
popular a prophet. But now the people would feel sure
"Is. LX:4-9.
*Mt. XXVII:3-10, Acts I1:18-19.
354 Tue Lire anp Tracuina or JEsus
that Jesus must have been guilty of some outrageous
misconduct which the priests and scribes had fortunately
discovered, something so bad that even a table companion
had felt obliged to turn against him!
CHAPTER XXXIV
JESUS’ LAST SUPPER WITH THE TWELVE
meal with his twelve table companions was the
annual Passover supper eaten once a year by many
thousands of pilgrims who came from all over the world to
Jerusalem for this purpose. It was a joyful feast eaten
in the early part of the night by groups of from ten to —
twenty ? to commemorate the nation’s flight in the night
when God delivered them from Egyptian bondage. The
menu of the feast, as nearly as can be ascertained from
general biblical allusions to it? and from detailed post-
biblical descriptions of it in the Talmud,* was very simple
and dramatically symbolic. It consisted of “unleavened”’
bread suggestive of the traditional hurried exit from Egypt
when there had been no time to use yeast in the baking;
a lamb roasted whole without breaking a bone or cutting
. off the head, bringing to mind the lamb’s blood sprinkled
on the door-case of each faithful Hebrew family on the
night of the great exodus when God “passed over” the
blood sprinkled houses and did not stop as elsewhere to
deal out death to any luckless first born. In addition to
these two principal articles of food there were four cups
of wine for each person; salty water to be used with a
variety of bitter herbs such as usually constituted an ap-
* Jos. War V1:9:3.
* Especially Ex, XI:4-XIII:16.
* Talmud, Tract Pesachim (Passover).
855
A CCORDING to the first three Gospels Jesus’ last
356 Tuer Lire ann TEACHING or JESUS
petizing side dish;* and a pasty mixture of crushed
fruits and vinegar flavored with spices, thought to be sug-.
gestive of the clay used by the Hebrew bondmen in their
brick making.® Into this dish morsels of food were dipped.
At certain times during the meal the cups of wine were
drunk; there were various prayers of thanksgiving
and blessing, a recital of parts of the national history
before and after the great exodus and the chanting at dif-
ferent times of parts of Psalms 113 to 118 and 136.°
In the early part of the day Jesus commissioned two of
his disciples (Peter and John, Lk.) to make preparation
for the supper. They had first to secure a suitable room. ©
According to the Matthew Gospel Jesus was counting on
a certain friend in the city to furnish a room. “And he
said, Go to the city to So and So and say to him, the
Teacher says, My time is near; at your house I keep the -
Passover with my disciples.”* According to Mark’s
Gospel the process by which the room was secured was
more mysterious and is perhaps, though not necessarily,
represented to have involved supernatural insight on the
part of Jesus. The two disciples were told that in the
city they would meet a man carrying a water jar, ap-
parently a somewhat unusual sight. They were to follow
him home and say to his master that “the Teacher” wished
to engage a room in the house. It is implied that the
*G. E. Post, Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. I, p. 304.
Sometimes thought to be suggestive of bitter bondage, e.g., Oesterley
and Box, Religion and Worship of the Synagogue, p. 359. Rabbi
Jonathan said, “Why are the Egyptians compared to bitter herbs?
Because as the bitter herbs are first soft and then hard, so were
also the Egyptians; at first they treated the Israelites with kindness
and afterwards with harshness?” Tract Pesachim, ch. II.
5 Wiinsche, Neue Beitrége eur Erlduterung der Evangelien.
*See Art. “Passover,” H. D. B., and Dictionary of Christ and
the Gospels.
"Mt. XXVI°:18.
Last SupPER WITH THE TWELVE 357
householder was acquainted with “the Teacher.” Jesus
seems to have intended, either by previous arrangement
with this householder or through supernatural insight, to
keep all but two of the disciples in ignorance of the place
where the supper was to be eaten. It will appear later
that Jesus knew something about Judas’ treachery and did
not propose to let the temple police find out through the
traitor where he might be found and arrested before the
supper was ended. For some reason he especially desired
to eat this supper with his disciples. “I have greatly
desired to eat this Passover with you before my suffering,”
he said to them that evening at the table.®
The preparations for the supper, so far as they were
not made by the householder himself, involved chiefly se-
curing a lamb that would pass the epee of the temple
authorities, getting it properly killed at the temple,® and
roasted. Thousands of lambs were killed early enough
in the afternoon, after the regular daily sacrifice, to allow
time for roasting. Jesus’ two disciples would have been
busy during most of the day making these preparations,
Toward evening the two men reported to Jesus that
everything was in readiness for the supper and the eleven
men (perhaps also a few others) were conducted by the
two guides to the house. Three unusual features char-
acterized the supper: Jesus discussed the terrible treachery
of a table companion; he spoke with dramatic impressive-
ness about his death in two acted parables, the parables of
the Broken Bread and the Red Wine Poured Out; and he
took a solemn pledge never to drink wine again until they
should meet at the Messianic banquet in God’s New Age.
The natural joy of the occasion disappeared when Jesus
assured them that one of their own circle, bound to him
*Lk. XXII: 15.
*Tract Pesachim, Ch. V. Art. Passover, H DB and HDCG,
358 Tue Lire anp Tracuine or JESus
by the sacred ties of table companionship, would put him
into the hands of his powerful enemies. Someone who
then and there was dipping his morsel of bread and herbs
into the same dish of sauce with Jesus would do the dread-
ful deed. If there were on the table more than one dish
this specification narrowed the possibilities to a small —
number in the immediate vicinity of Jesus. According
to the Matthew Gospel Judas was seated so near to Jesus
that when everyone began to say “Surely not I, Lord?”
he could ask the same question and receive from Jesus an
affirmative reply not overheard by the others. Jesus’
strong words about the terrible character of the act, “good
were it for that man if he had not been born,” were a
powerful final appeal to Judas not to do the dastardly
deed.
At some point in the meal Jesus, his mind charged with
the thought of his death as it had been at the social supper
lately given in his honor in Simon’s home (p. 352), took a
cake, or wafer, of unleavened bread, asked God’s blessing
upon it, solemnly broke it into pieces which he gave to
them, saying as he did so that the pieces were his “body.”
This saying, like many of his parables, was hard for them
to understand. How came he to be speaking of his
“body”? The paschal lamb was before them on the table,
or, if he was speaking at a later stage in the supper, the
pieces of the lamb were there. The disciples might, there-
fore, have naturally thought of his body, so soon to be
lifeless, as a sort of paschal sacrifice offered on the
threshold of the New Age of Messianic liberty as the
paschal lambs had originally been killed on the threshold
of national freedom from Egyptian bondage. The
emergence of “many” into God given liberty (cf. Mk.
X:45) as the result of his Messianic death was to be the
thought uppermost in their minds as they ate together,
Last SuprpEerR wItH THE TWELVE 359
After his solemn words about the broken bread he took a
cup of wine and, again after prayer, gave it to them to
drink, saying as he did so that it was “covenant blood.”
This covenant would naturally be understood to be the
- “new” covenant (so Lk: and many readings of Mt.),
for the Messiah’s ‘““New Age” was the time when the
““New Covenant” would be made. The Old Covenant was
the one made by Jehovah and his people at the foot of
Mt. Sinai when the people covenanted to keep Jehovah’s
law and he promised by implication to bless them.1° A
covenant was made binding by the application of blood to
the contracting parties. At Mt. Sinai part of the blood of
the slaughtered oxen was put on the altar representing
Jehovah, and the rest on the people. In the present situa-
tion Jesus speaks of his death, symbolized by the blood-
like red wine poured out in the cup, as something that
binds men and God together in a New Covenant, one in
which men promise loyal hearty obedience to God and his
Messiah, and God promises the blessing of his forgive-
ness and of his continual presence and spiritual help. In
the New Age with its new heaven and new earth God will
tabernacle with his people, wipe their tear stained faces
and bring them tender comfort. The picture that was
suggested to the minds of Jesus and his disciples by this
mention of the New Covenant was that which we have in
the Revelation: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth;
for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away.
4 Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he
shall dwell with them and they shall be his peoples, and
God himself shall be with them, and be their God; and he
shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death
shall be no more, neither shall there.be mourning nor
crying nor pain any more; the first things (the things of
* Ex. XXIV:1-8,
360 Tur Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
the present age) are passed away.” 74 As these young —
Jews on Passover night listened to Jesus, they would in- —
stinctively have thought of the prophet’s famous predic-
tion of the New Covenant: “Behold the days come saith —
Jehovah when I will make a new covenant with the house —
of Israel and with the house of Judah; not according to —
the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day —
that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land ©
of Egypt... . But this is the covenant that I will make ©
with the house of Israel after those days saith Jehovah:
I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart —
will I write it; and I will be their God and they shall be |
my people. And they shall teach no more every man his —
neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know Je- —
hovah; for they shall all know me from the least of them —
to the greatest of them, saith Jehovah, for I will forgive
their iniquity and their sin will I remember no more.” *? —
It was with an intense expectation of such an Age, soon
to dawn upon the world, that the hearts of these religious —
patriots in the upper room were thrilled by the words of
Jesus about the New Covenant. We men of the modern ~
western world, who do not have their Jewish pre-supposi-
tions, find it difficult to put ourselves in their places and —
feel the excitement of the occasion. Nothing was said by —
Jesus about the way in which his death would serve to
bring God and men together in close covenant relationship. —
The disciples had not yet accepted the expectation of his
literal death, and were of course not able to think about
its meaning. A germ idea was presented in parable form
and men have been left to interpret the solemn parables
in the light of developing Christian experience.
™ Rev. XXI:1, 3-4. Of. Ps. of Solomon XVII:23-38.
“Jer. XXX1:31-34,
Last Suprrr witH THE TWELVE 361
The third peculiar feature of the occasion was Jesus’
solemn pledge that he would never drink wine again until
the company should re-assemble at the victorious Mes-
_sianic banquet when they would drink it “new” in the.
“New Age,” when all things should become new.** Jesus
was able to look across his dark death now so near and
see the light of the New Age which he felt sure his death
would introduce. The Luke Gospel, in the text as we
have it, represents Jesus to have been handed a cup of
wine sometime before he spoke the parables of the Bread
and the Red Wine, and with this cup in hand, to have made
the solemn vow of an abstinence that began at once. He
did not drink any of this cup himself nor presumably did
he later drink the cup which symbolized the poured out
blood. ‘And he received a cup and when he had given
thanks he said, Take this and divide it among yourselves,
for I say unto you, I shall not drink from henceforth of
the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God shall
come.” ?* Then follow later the parables in action of the
‘Broken Bread and the Red Wine Poured Out.
There is no evidence in Mt. and Mk. that Jesus meant
this cereniony to be repeated and some manuscripts of Lk.
omit the words, “This do in remembrance of me.” In
Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthian Christians, written
some twenty-five years later, and a considerable time before
our Gospels in their present form came into existence,
he states that he had “received from the Lord” an ac-
count of the original Lord’s Supper according to which the
future celebration of the Supper was distinctly com-
manded by Jesus: “For I received of the Lord that which
* Of. Rom. VIII:18-25.
“Lk. XXII:17-18. There are several interesting questions of
textual criticism that cannot be discussed here.
362 Tue Lirz anp TEACHING oF JESUS
also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus in the night
in which he was betrayed took bread; and when he had
given thanks he broke it, and said, This is my body which
is for you: this do in remembrance of me.” ** If Paul
“received” this “from the Lord” through the early Chris-
tians at the time when he himself became a Christian,
then this statement is evidence that the Lord’s Supper
was being observed as an ordinance of Jesus a few years,
or possibly not many months, after the death of Jesus.
“Received from the Lord” might possibly indicate a revela-
tion made through prophets in the Christian cult meeting
by the Spirit of the Lord. If so, then Luke,!® following
Paul’s statement in I Cor., would naturally incorporate
the command into his account of the Last Supper. Ac-
cording to the Acts, “the breaking of bread” was a re-
ligious practice at first observed daily, and at a later time
on the first day of the week.17 If this daily or weekly
“breaking of bread” was the “Lord’s Supper’ then the
“Lord’s Supper” was not, in the minds of the early
Jerusalem Christians, closely identified with the annual
Passover supper; otherwise it would have been celebrated
but once a year.
According to the Gospel of John the Last Supper of the
Synoptic Gospels could not have been the Passover supper,
but must have been eaten the night before the Passover.
According to the Gospel of John Jesus died in the after-
noon at the time when Passover lambs were being killed
at the temple for use in the Passover supper to be eaten
that evening.1® This Gospel describes a last meal (ch.
*I Cor. XI:23. Many texts read “which is broken for you.”
**Or some Gospel scribe, since the sentence is not found in all
copies of Luke’s Gospel.
* Acts II:42, 46, XX:7.
* Jn. XVIII:28; ef. XIII:29. This is also the representation of
the Peter Gospel fragment.
Last SupreR wITH THE TWELVE 863
XIII) eaten the evening of Jesus’ arrest, without giving
any details about what was eaten or any hint that it was
the Passover supper. There are some incidental indica-
tions in the Synoptic Gospels themselves that their Last
Supper was not the Passover supper, althougn, as we have
seen, they explicitly identify the two.1® A last supper
eaten twenty-four hours before the Passover supper would
have about it an atmosphere charged with the thought of
Passover sacrifice, and the utterances attributed to Jesus
in the Synoptic Gospels would be appropriate to such an
occasion. Such a supper would naturally have been secretly
arranged, for Judas was then already looking for a chance
to betray Jesus. Such a supper would naturally have given
rise to the early Christian custom of the daily meal eaten
with remembrance of Jesus’ last table companionship with
his disciples and of his solemn pledge of abstinence from
wine until the time of the Messianic banquet. Each at
the daily meal would know that in the minds of all was
the thought, “Till he come!” When the Passover came
the next year and the years immediately following, Jew-
ish Christian families might naturally have incorporated
into the Passover ritual certain features of the Christian
cult meal and so in time the idea might have prevailed in
some circles that the original Last Supper had been the
Passover supper.
Whatever be the real facts regarding the origin of the
Lord’s Supper, its value to us is the same. The loving
* It is thought that the Sanhedrin would not have met and tried
a case on the holy Passover day (which began in the evening in
which the supper was eaten); the disciples would not have been
carrying arms on a holy day, Mt. XXVI:51; Joseph could not have
bought anything in the bazaar, Mk. XV:46; the annual release of
& prisoner in the morning of the day when Jesus was crucified was
presumably that he might be free to eat the Passover the following
evening, Mk. XV:6-15, etc.
364 Tue Lirz ann TEACHING or JESUS
remembrance of our Lord and the spirit of united consecra-
tion with which we eat the bread and drink the cup are due
to something in him and his relation to us far more vital
than an explicit, arbitrary commandment!
.
OHAPTER ZXXV
JESUS ARRESTED IN THE OIL PRESS GARDEN
such a strange turn, the men chanted a hymn and
then came down from the upper room. The
friendly householder was thanked for his courteous hos-
pitality and the group started in the late evening toward —
their lodgings in the eastern suburb on the Mount of
Olives. It at once became evident that Jesus felt himself
to be in immediate danger. He had spoken during the
supper of treachery within the company of his table com-
panions. He spoke now of a blow to be struck out of the
dark at him, their leader, within the next few hours. It
would be a deadly attack that would send them all flying
in fear from his company. They all earnestly assured
him that he could depend on them whatever might happen.
Especially Peter, apparently his most forceful friend, who
had held the group about him in previous emergencies
(pp. 223, 286), assured him that he would stand faithfully
by even if the rest should leave him. But Jesus solemnly
assured Peter that before sunrise he would on three sepa-
rate occasions deny having any connection with him.
Jesus, who had some time before found corroboration in
the scriptures for his growing expectation of a violent
death is represented here to have cited an appropri-
*Mk. XIV:26-31, Mt. XXVI:30-35, Lk. XXII:28-38. Luke here,
as in all his account of the last week, shows the influence of another
source in addition to Mk.
. T the end of the supper, to which Jesus had given
365
366 Tue Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
ate prophetic utterance: “I will smite the shepherd and
the sheep shall be scattered abroad.” ? At the same time ~
Jesus was as full of hope as he had been a few moments
before when at the supper he spoke confidently of their
reassembling at the victorious Messianic banquet. He said
that after the catastrophe he was to be “raised up” and
would precede them into Galilee, their old home, and ex-
pect to meet them there.* He wished to comfort them be-
forehand in anticipation of the chagrin they would feel
as they should look back upon their cowardly conduct.
What he meant by being “raised up” they could not under-
stand.
On their way to the Mount of Olives they stopped at a
place named Gethsemane, or “Oil Press,” according to the
Fourth Gospel a “garden” which Jesus frequently visited.*
At the entrance to this place he left eight of his disciples
to wait while he went farther into the garden to pray. —
' He took with him Peter, James and John, but soon left
them and went on a little farther to face God alone in
one of the deepest religious experiences of his life. He
seemed to be stationing these two groups as if in anticipa-
tion of some attack to be made upon him. He told them
to “watch.” He spoke more intimately to the smaller
group regarding his feelings. He told them that he was —
experiencing a distress of spirit that seemed like death to —
him. They reported afterward that he seemed almost
frightened (‘“‘amazed,” cf. Mk. XVI: 8) and exceedingly
sad. He “began to be greatly amazed and sore troubled.
And he saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful
even unto death.” The three could easily see him in the
* Zech. XIII:7. |
* Luke omits this reference to Galilee and in his subsequent nar-
rative gives no hint that Jesus after his resurrection visited Galilee. —
*Mt. XXVI:36-46, Mk. XTV :32-42, Lk. XXII:39-46, Jn. XVIII:1-2.
Jesus ARRESTED IN THE GARDEN 367
light of the full moon (Passover came in the full of the
lunar month) and could hear the words of his prayer.
He fell repeatedly to the ground on his face and “prayed
that if it were possible the hour might pass away from
-him.” He used the Aramaic word for father, “abba,”
which seems to have been combined with the Greek word
in the common usage of the Greek-speaking Christians,
especially in prayer.© ‘And he said, Abba-Father, all
things are possible unto thee; remove this cup from me;
howbeit not what I will but what thou wilt.” He had
at an earlier time been convinced that God intended him
to bring in the Kingdom through suffering a violent Mes-
sianic death in some sense “sacrificial” (p. 241). This
idea had just appeared in the two acted parables of the
Last Supper. But he knew that God was resourceful and
possibly had in reserve some other available way. If not,
he was ready to go steadily on in the way of pain. If
there was to be any other way it would naturally be ex-
pected to open now, in time to save the traitor from the
full guilt of consummating his treachery.
What was it that caused Jesus’ extreme distress of
spirit? What was the experience that he hoped God, with
all the resources: at his command, might show him some
way to avoid? And why did this terrible distress of spirit
begin at this time rather than earlier? It seems hardly
possible that the physical pain of crucifixion was what
Jesus dreaded. Many martyrs have faced such a prospect
without the terrible gloom and fear that Jesus experienced.
The fact that the treachery, and consequent moral ruin,
of a long time table companion were involved may have
added to the poignancy of his distress. It was this that
he had just been emphasizing at the Last Supper and
this that was uppermost in his mind a few moments later:
Of. Rom. VIII:15, Gal. IV:6.
368 Tue Lire ann Tracuine or JESUS
“Arise, let us be going. Behold, he that betrayeth me —
is at hand!”
But there may well have been something deeper down ~
in the soul of Jesus. He had finally been forced by the
compulsion of his inner religious experience with the will
of God to the distinct consciousness of a leadership that —
was best described in current phraseology by the word —
“Messianic” (p. 226). Messiahship was to him no merely
official relationship, but a warm, elemental sense of direct —
personal contact with the will of God and with the life ©
of the nation. He felt the will of God and he felé the life .
of his people, and not only of his people but of the world. —
Any Jewish leader would know that the Kingdom of God —
was a world empire. A Jewish leader of Jesus’ profound |
religious feeling and insight would necessarily look out —
upon the life of all men with keenest interest. In the ©
Jewish and Gentile life all about him in Palestine he saw —
what the life of man was; his inner contact with the will —
of God made perfectly clear to him what God would have ~
it be and made him feel his own unique personal responsi- —
bility of leadership in God’s way of making life what it
ought to be. He directly felt the deep feeling of God —
about the wrongdoing of men, and conceived it in terms
of human love, that is, in terms of a Father’s love. It
became his own feeling. He felt the feeling of the
Heavenly Father about the wrongdoing of his human ~
children. Since God is a Father, one element in the com- —
posite consciousness of God, as his life presses close up —
against brutal human selfishness, must be suffering.
Therefore as the vast consciousness of God pressed up
for genuine vital expression in the receptive soul of Jesus
it caused Jesus profound suffering. In the representation
of Luke it caused the sweat to drip from his body in great
drops as drops of blood fall fast from a dripping wound.
Jesus ARRESTED IN THE GaRpEN 369
The disciples must have afterward reported that Jesus
came to them, his clothing drenched with perspiration.
No really new facts about human selfishness came to
Jesus’ attention at this time, but this selfishness was
swiftly coming to a fierce concrete expression. ‘Toward
him, the conscious embodiment of the mighty, righteous,
loving will of God the Heavenly Father, the hate, treach-
ery and moral cowardice of his human children were even
then stealing through the darkness to strike a death blow.
To feel the feeling of God in such a situation seemed
more than he could endure. In response to his prayer
to be spared any further experience of such suffering a
degree of relief came. Perhaps new tides of strength
from the strong underlying life of God rose within him.
Perhaps the pressure upon his soul of the element of pain
in the vast composite consciousness of God abated
somewhat.®
Three times in the dark hour he returned to his three
friends, presumably to talk with them and find comfort,
but each time he found the tired men sleeping.’ His
special reproach was for Peter, who had just before given
such vehement assurance that he would surely stand by.
Temptation to the disloyalty of which Jesus had just be-
fore been warning him was near. He ought to have been
watching and praying in preparation for it. Jesus dealt
considerately with him. The “spirit,” or better nature
*The writer of Hebrews says that Jesus prayed to be delivered
“out of death,” that is to be delivered out of the realm of the dead,
so that ‘his soul should not be left in Hades.’ In that case the
speedy resurrection in three days was conceived to be God’s answer,
Heb. V:7, cf. Acts I1:27. In the circle from which Luke’s source
came it was believed that God must have sent an angel to strengthen
him. Apparently then as now men reverently speculated about the
nature of this impressive experience.
* Luke with his usual reverence for “the apostles” says that “they
were sleeping for sorrow.”
370 Tue Lire anp TEACHING oF JESUS
of a man, gives willing assent to duty, he said, but the
“flesh,” or lower nature, is weak in carrying out the spirit’s
good intent. |
When Jesus returned the third time his watchful eye
saw the flickering torches ® of an approaching company in»
the distance and he sharply brought the drowsy men to
their feet by saying: “Do you sleep on, then, and take
your rest? Enough (of sleep)! The hour is come! Be-
hold the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of
sinners !”’
The Synoptic Gospels give no account of what Judas
had been doing in the last hour or two. Apparently ds
soon as he could do so he slipped away from the supper
out into the night® and hurried away to the waiting
priests and scribes with information regarding Jesus’
whereabouts which he had not been able to give them be-
fore. He led a company of temple police and servants of
the High Priest,!° perhaps first to the house he had just —
left, hoping to find Jesus still there. When they found
that Jesus and his company had left they started for the —
lodgings in Bethany, but stopped on the way in the Kidron
Valley at the Oil Press Garden which, according to the |
Fourth Gospel, Judas knew to be a favorite resort of
Jesus.‘ Judas at once stepped forward and fervently 1? —
kissed him either on hand or cheek. Luke shrinks from —
saying that the traitor’s defiling lips actually touched
Jesus. In the Matthew Gospel Jesus addresses him by ~
a title which expresses a courteous recognition of relation-
*Jn. XVIII:3.
° Of. In. XIII:27-30.
* There was a cohort of Roman soldiers with their chiliarch in
addition to officers of the Jews according to Jn. XVIII:3.
4 Mk, XIV :43-52, Mt. XXVI:47-56, LK. XXII:47-53.
% An intensive form of the verb, used also of the father’s kiss
in the parable of the Prodigal Son, Lk. XV:20.
Jesus ARRESTED IN THE GarRpDEN 871
ship and either asks him why he is there, or more probably
bids him do at once, without the mockery of a kiss, what he
has really come to do. The officers instantly stepped for-
. ward and placed Jesus under arrest. Judas had warned
them to tie him up promptly and securely,'* fearing either
some exercise of unusual power on the part of Jesus or
that Jesus would slip away in the confusion if his disci-
ples should make vigorous resistance. In the excitement
of the moment one of Jesus’ friends (Peter, according to
John’s Gospel) drew his dagger, struck at the high priest’s
servant, who was perhaps doing the binding, and slashed
off hisear. (According to Lk. Jesus healed it by a touch.)
Jesus objected (Mt.) to this well-meant attempt at defence
on the ground that those who resort to the sword shall
perish by the sword. This sounds like an appeal to fear
that is unlike Jesus. He had warned his disciples that
they must all bravely expect to perish by the cross 1* and
perishing by the sword would not be essentially different.
Perhaps his meaning was that to use the sword in such
a situation would only result in a bloody free fight in
which disciples would be killed without accomplishing
anything vital, since God meant to have his Messiah die.
He had said so in the scriptures. If God had not meant
to have his Messiah die he could have sent to the defence
of Jesus as many legions of fighting angels as there were
apostles. ‘“Thinkest thou not that I cannot beseech my
Father, and he shall even now send me more than twelve
legions of angels? How then should the scriptures be
fulfilled, that thus it must be?” 2°
Mk. XIV:44,
* Mk. VIII:34.
* Mt. XXVI:53. In Lk. XXI1:35-38, Jesus at the Last Supper
had warned them that a time was coming when they would need to
make all possible provision for meeting danger and hardship. In
picturesque language he had said, “Sell your cloak and buy a .
372 Tuer Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
After having repressed this incipient purpose to fight,
Jesus turned upon the arresting party and accused them
of cowardice. They had not dared to arrest him openly,
during the daytime, when he had been teaching every day
in the temple colonnades. Instead they had attacked him >
by night with knives and clubs as if he had been a robber!
His indignation may have been aroused by recognizing in
their action a shrewd scheme to cheapen him by proceed-
ing against him as one who was a disreputable character,
rather than to ascribe to him the dignity of a false prophet
or a spurious Messiah. Indications of this policy will
appear again later.
When the disciples found that Jesus proposed to repress
all efforts at defence and to surrender quietly, they speed-
ily escaped in the darkness rather than surrender with
him. The officers might naturally have wished to arrest
all the party to keep them from bringing information about
the arrest of Jesus to his friends in the city. According
to the Fourth Gospel Jesus requested the officers not to
arrest his disciples.1®
Mark alone mentions a half dressed young man who
was nearly arrested, but escaped in the struggle, leaving
his single garment behind him. The incident must have
had some special interest for Mark’s readers, and the fact
that nevertheless the name is omitted has led to the possi-
ble supposition that the young man was John Mark him-
self. The last supper may have been eaten in his father’s
house, which was later used as a meeting place for the
early Jerusalem Christians.17 Perhaps when Judas
dagger.” They called his attention to the fact that they had two
daggers in the company. He did not stop to explain that his lan-
guage had been purely symbolical and simply said “That will be a
plenty!”
Jn. XVIII:8.
4 Acts XII:12.
Jesus ARRESTED IN THE GARDEN 373
brought the arresting party to the house and found Jesus
gone, the young man wakened from sleep, caught up a
sheet (“linen cloth’) and ran ahead to warn Jesus in the
' place to which he heard Judas proposing to conduct the
police.
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE TRIAL OF JESUS
CCORDING to all three Synoptic Gospels Jesus
WAN was at once taken to the High Priest,’ the presi-
dent of the Jewish high court, or sanhedrin. Mem-
bers of this court had either already gathered expecting
Jesus, or were in their homes awaiting the president’s
summons. Mark and the Matthew Gospel give a somewhat
detailed account of the trial, which occurred in the night,
but was followed in the morning by a second session in
which either the proceedings of the night session were
formally ratified or arrangements were made for proceed-
ing quickly to the office of the Roman procurator whose
endorsement was legally necessary.2, In Luke’s Gospel
there is only one session of the court, and that after day-
break.? Luke’s account gives much less of detail than that
in Mark and Matthew.*
1Called by Josephus, Joseph Caiaphas, and assigned by him to a
period approximately 18-36 A.D. Ant. XVIITI:2:2, 4:3.
7Mk. XIV:53-65, XV:1, Mt. XXVI:57-68, XXVITI:1-2.
*Lk, XXII:54, XXII:66-XXIIT:1.
‘In the Fourth Gospel there is no trial at all before the Jewish
Court. In the house of Annas, an ex-High Priest, father-in-law of
Caiaphas the High Priest, Jesus was asked some informa] questions
either by Annas or Caiaphas; our text leaves it uncertain by which.
(The Sinaitic Syriac text places our v. 24 between vs. 13 and 14,
and so represents the questioner to have been Caiaphas.) Jesus, in
‘@ manner which seemed to the bystanders too independent, refused
to answer these questions (Jn. XVIII:19-22). The examination led
to no decision. Annas sent Jesus bound to the house of Caiaphas
374
Tur Tria or JESUS 376
When the court assembled it was found that there were
no witnesses at hand whose testimony was sufficient to
convict Jesus on any serious charge. A number of wit-
~ nesses had been secured but their testimony was not suf-
ficiently accordant to meet the requirements of the court’s
rules of evidence. This scrupulousness of the court ‘in
this particular does not always receive the recog-
nition it deserves. There were conscientious sanhedrists,
who like Rabbi Saul later in lower courts, sincerely re-
garded Jesus as an irreligious man doing unspeakable
damage to the religious life of the nation.©° These men
would be scrupulously honest in scrutinizing evidence.
On the other hand there had evidently come to be bitter
personal antagonism to Jesus and there may have been in
and: about the court those who were eager to assemble
witnesses without careful inquiry as to their credi-
bility.
According to Mark, followed pretty closely by the Mat-
thew Gospel, there were several stages in the trial. There
was first a period in which all the members of the court,
led by the president and his kinsmen, looked about for
who, apparently without further examination, took him early in
the morning to the office of the Roman procurator. The procurator,
who recognized that there had been no Jewish trial, offered to the
Jews the privilege of trying their prisoner themselves; “Take him
yourselves and judge him according to your law.” This privilege
they did not care for inasmuch as such a trial could not legally
issue in his execution (XVIII:31). Perhaps by the time when the
Asiatic Fourth Gospel was written Jewish communities in Asia had
no such right of initiating serious prosecutions as had existed at
an earlier time in Palestine, and the account was, therefore, modi-
fied to suit current usage.
*“T verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things
contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And this I also did
in Jerusalem: and I both shut up many of the saints in prisons,
having received authority from the chief priests, and when they
were put to death I gave my vote against them.” Acts XXVI:9-10.
376 THe Lire anp Tracuina oF JESUS
witnesses. They found many, but they did not agree in
the details of their testimony. ‘Now the chief priests
and the whole council sought witness against Jesus to put
him to death; and found it not. For many bore false wit-
ness against him, and their witness agreed not together.”
What they testified to is not stated—presumably to alleged
instances of law breaking, especially Sabbath breaking
which had long before been seized upon by the Galilean
scribes as deserving death (p. 114). A certain group testi-
fied that Jesus had spoken disrespectfully of the temple
as an inferior building “made by hands,” perhaps a covert
slur upon the part the evil Herod had played in its con-
struction; he had further boasted that within three days
he would replace it by another, a better one, built in
some miraculous way, ‘made without hands.” ‘This was
a charge calculated to exasperate people generally.® If
Jesus could have been duly convicted on this charge, his
popular following would have largely fallen away from
him, while the priests and scribes would have been exon-
erated from all blame for their hostility to him. His re-
cent assumption of authority in the temple (p. 311), could
have been turned to account against him. But the wit-
nesses did not agree in the details of their testimony.
Then the president himself tried to induce Jesus to de-
fend himself against these miscellaneous charges, hoping
that Jesus would say something on the spot that would
furnish ground for his conviction. Jesus refused to speak.
He did not propose to have his case pulled down to the
level of any cheap charge.
Finally, when Jesus seemed likely to escape conviction,
the High Priest asked him directly a question that was in
all their minds, but that they had hoped not to raise.
Their great fear had been that he would be tempted by
*Cf. Acts VI:12-14.
al eS eS Se
_ Tue Triat or Jesus 877
his popularity to indulge in a Messianic ambition. The
High Priest now probed directly toward this point in the
consciousness of Jesus: “The High Priest asked him and
. saith unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the
Blessed” (‘the Son of God,” Mt.)? To this question
Jesus at once made an unhesitating reply. He said that
he was the Messiah, a Messiah of the Son of Man type,
and that his judges would soon find the present situation
reversed. He would be coming in the clouds of heaven to
judge them. “And Jesus said, I am; and ye shall see
the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and
coming with the clouds of heaven.” * Instantly the High
Priest tore a rent in his robe, apparently a usual piece of |
dramatic symbolism expressing his indignant abhorrence
of the prisoner’s guilt. He charged Jesus with blasphemy,
and the court without hesitation voted the death sentence.
To pose as a patriotic revolutionary Messianic leader was
probably technically not blasphemy. But it was con-
sidered blasphemous in the case of such a man as the court
conceived Jesus to be, a flagrantly irreligious person, a
law breaker acting in league with Satan to seduce God’s
people from God’s service. This would especially be
so in the case of one who asserted himself to be a Mes-
siah, not of the Son of David kind, but the Son of Man,
who was understood to be with God in heaven, hidden
away there as God’s chief treasure until the time for his
"In the Matthew Gospel the reply is, “Thow hast said,” or “Hast
thou said so?” This may be a simple affirmative reply, or it may
be that Jesus put the responsibility of the public revelation of the
Messianic secret that he had so faithfully kept, upon the High Priest:
“You, not I, have said it.” The Matthew Gospel also adds the
italicised words, “Furthermore, I say unto you, from now shall you
see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, etc.” The
expression “from now,” or “henceforth,” represents Jesus as recog-
nizing that the end of life on earth is at hand. His admission of
Messiahship will result in a death sentence, and in his return to God.
378 Tue Lire anp TRracHIne oF JESUS
revelation in clouds of glory as Messianic judge of the
world should come.
At the close of the trial some, apparently members of
the court, began to express their abhorrence or personal
spite by spitting upon him. Others proposed in derision to
test his supernatural power of prophetic discernment by
blindfolding him and asking him to tell who struck him.
If he could foresee himself on the right hand of God,
or had power to build a temple in three days he ought to
be able to see through the bandage over his eyes! Then
the officers of the court “received him with blows” and
roughly hustled him away to some part of the palace
where he could be under guard until daylight.®
During the early morning hours Peter had a sad ex-
perience. When other disciples at the time of the arrest
ran out into the darkness and hid themselves, Peter fol-
lowed the arresting party at a considerable distance in
the rear. He soon slipped into the open court around
which the high priest’s house was built and mingled with
the crowd of lesser officials and servants. who had gathered
about the large firepot to warm themselves in the chill
air of the early April morning on the Judean plateau.
What happened there was reported, with some natural
variation of detail, among the early Christians. Accord-
ing to Mark one of the servant girls noticed Peter and
said in his hearing that she had seen him with Jesus, re-
ferring either to the time of Jesus’ arrest or to public
* There has been much discussion as to the legality of the process
described in Mark. If the mode of procedure given in the Talmud
at a later date actually prevailed in Jesus’ day, then there were
certain departures from it in the case of Jesus’ trial. But it is
necessary to remember that Mark’s account is very condensed and
that there is no indication that the Gospel writers saw anything
irregular in the details of procedure. It was the feeling of the
authorities toward Jesus that seemed to them so inexcusable.
Tue Trap or JEsus : 379
meetings at the temple. Peter at once denied that he had
any idea of what could have given her this impression,
and soon withdrew into the dark passage way leading
from the court yard out to the street. Either in this
passage way or after Peter had returned to the group
about the brazier, the same young woman saw him and
again expressed to the group her sinister suspicion that
he was “one of them.” Peter again denied it, but very
soon the suspicion became general and a number of them
taxed him with it. They told him that he was evidently
a Galilean. (He had the northern brogue, Mt.) Then
Peter, feeling himself in great danger, denied with vehe-
ment and solemn oaths that he had any acquaintance what-
ever, with the person they were mentioning. “I know
not this man of whom you speak.” Just then he happened
to hear the second cockcrowing of the early morning, and
remembered Jesus’ prediction the evening before of a
three-fold denial before the time of second cockcrowing.
The realization of what he had done seemed almost to
break his heart. He left the place and as he went.along
some unfrequented street, perhaps on his way to Bethany,
with his cloak drawn over his face, he “wept bitterly.”
Luke, who departs from Mark’s order and makes the
trial (of which he gives a condensed account) to have been
held after daybreak, pictures Jesus waiting in the early
morning for trial in some place where he turned about and
caught Peter’s eye at the very moment of his last denial! ®
Peter was a strong man, true and reliable, who never-
theless at the first sudden onset of temptation might flinch
for a time. Years afterward Paul thought that he dis-
covered this trait in Peter (though Peter was then as-
sociated with some very respectable persons), and called
*With his usual deference for an apostle Luke makes no mention
of Peter’s oaths.
380 Tus Lire anp TEACHING oF JESUS
it by a very disagreeable name which is obscured in our
English translation.?° :
Early in the morning, as soon as the Roman procurator
was ready for business in his office (probably either in
the barracks adjoining the temple courts or in Herod’s
palace across the city, near the Jaffa Gate), Jesus, still
securely tied, was brought before him by the officers of —
the sanhedrin.1!_ The chief priests and elders led the way
to see that the procurator did not fail them. His endorse-
ment of the sanhedrin’s sentence was necessary before
Jesus could be executed.
The procurator’s first question, “Are you the King of
the Jews?” shows that the charge, as stated by the
sanhedrin in its official document, emphasized the politi-
cal aspects of Messiahship most likely to seem flagrantly
offensive to a Roman official. As was seen earlier, Mes-
siahship was a flexible term with a somewhat varying
content (p. 40). Jesus’ reply, “You say so,” seems to
be regarded by the narrators as an assent, or at least an
admission that the charge was in some sense true. Then
the chief priests and elders with oriental intensity began
to accuse him violently.??
To the procurator’s amazement Jesus remained silent.
Prisoners usually utilized this opportunity to make a pas-
sionate defence or a plea for mercy. Pilate urged Jesus
to make some defence. He would probably have been
glad to seize upon anything that Jesus might have urged
in his defence and used it as a sufficient ground for refus-
* Gal. II:11-14, “hupokrisis,” cf. Mk. XIT:15.
4 Mk. XV:1-20, Mt. XXVII:1-26, Lk. XXIII:1-25.
The Greek may be translated “accused him much” or “accused
him of many things.” If “of many things,” then they detailed
various things, e.g., “perverting the nation,” “forbidding to give
tribute to the Romans,” etc. (Lk.), that might be interpreted as
evidence of Messianic ambition.
Tue Triau or JxEsus © 881
ing his endorsement of the sanhedrin’s sentence. Accord-
ing to Mark, he had previous knowledge about Jesus;
he knew “that for envy, the chief priests had delivered
him up.” As an efficient procurator 1% he must have kept
' posted through spies regarding the popular movement in
Jesus’ favor. He knew about Jesus’ bold attempt a few
days before to reform the abuses connected with the priests’
administration of the temple and about the weak failure
of the priests, through fear of the people, to call him to
account. According to the Matthew Gospel he may have
had some more definitely personal information about Jesus,
perhaps through household servants, for his wife had that
night dreamed about Jesus, and sent a message to him
while he was hearing the case warning him to have “noth-
ing to do with that righteous man.” She would not have
“suffered much this day in a dream” about one in whom
she had not previously been much interested. Pilate had
clearly made up his mind that Jesus was a religious re-
former with no political ambition, and was bent on saving
him from the malice of the priests.
At one point in the hearing Pilate thought that he saw
a way out, even though Jesus refused to make any defence.
A crowd came up to his office to request the customary
annual release of some prisoner at Passover time. Pilate
said instantly with a tinge of humorous sarcasm, “I will
release the King of the Jews!” When the priests saw that
Jesus was likely to slip through their hands, they hurried
about among the newly arrived crowd aad urged them to
ask, not for Jesus but for an insurrectionist named Barab-
bas, or according to some readings,’* Jesus Barabbas, so
that the choice may have rather strangely lain between
**He held office for ten years, 26-36, under Tiberius, a rather
scrupulous Emperor in provincial administration.
* H.g., Sinaitic Syriac on Mt. XXVII:16.
382 Tue Lirkr anp TEACHING OF JESUS
Jesus Barabbas and Jesus Christ.1° When the crowd
chose Barabbas, Pilate asked what he should do with “the
King of the Jews!” The newly arrived crowd, stirred
up by the priests, joined the sanhedrin crowd in a savage
shout for his crucifixion. Pilate, unwilling to abandon
his desire to release Jesus, tried to argue with them.
According to Luke, who emphatically contrasts Pilate’s
desire for Jesus’ release with the officials’ desire for his
execution,!® “he said unto them the third time, What evil
hath he done?” and proposed to content them by scourging
him, and then let him go. But each time they implacably
shouted “Crucify him.” So finally Pilate, “‘wishing to
content the multitude,” released Barabbas and delivered
Jesus for scourging and -crucifixion. He knew from ex-
perience how easily a Jerusalem mob might be excited
and how like wild fire the mob spirit might spread among
the excitable Passover multitudes. His political interests
too were involved. He could not afford to have the high
priests report at Rome that he was favoring a dangerous
revolutionary leader, whom they in loyalty to the Emperor
wished to execute.*?
Luke prolongs the description of Pilate’s connection
with the case by narrating Pilate’s effort to put off on
Herod, tetrarch of Galilee, who happened to be in the
city, the responsibility of dealing with a Galilean prisoner.
Herod had long wished to see his famous Galilean subject
and hoped to have an exhibition made of something from
Jesus’ repertoire of “miracles”! When Jesus refused
*% Bar Abba is a common name in the Talmud (Wiinsche) and
means “Son of a Father,” that is, “Son of a Teacher,” or some other
honorable man. No such significance may have been attached to it
in the case of Barabbas.
* Cf, Acts III:13-15.
7 Of. Jn. XIX:12-15, and the dramatic otarmctation of the
whole incident in the context.
Tue Trt or JEsus 383
to speak even a word Herod as a joke dressed him up in
royal robes befitting a king, and sent him back to Pilate.
He had no wish to involve himself unnecessarily in a mat-
_ter that might irritate his own Galilean subjects. The
interchange of courtesies led Pilate and Herod to the
pleasant settlement of some disagreement that had arisen
between them.*®
Jesus’ experience in Gethsemane had convinced him that
God had no other way in reserve, and that he must, there-
fore, go steadily forward to crucifixion. We naturally
wish for power of insight that would reveal to us the re
ligious experience through which the soul of Jesus was
passing during these bitter hours of the trial before vin-
dictive and cowardly officials. ‘The writer of Hebrews
had these hours in mind when he said of Jesus that “he
learned obedience through the things that he suffered.”
* Lk. XXIII:6-12.
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE EXECUTION OF JESUS
death sentence he turned back to the office routine
of the day with no consciousness of having fast-
ened his name forever in the history of the race! Jesus was
brought by a detail of soldiers into the open court of the
barracks, to wait there while arrangements for his execu-
tion were being made. Either there or before he left
Pilate’s presence he was brutally whipped as the first in-
stallment of his terrible sentence. In the barracks the
whole cohort (‘‘band’’) was called together to take ad-
vantage of an unusual opportunity for sport.1 Here was
a poor Jewish fool who thought himself “King of the
Jews!” The soldiers proceeded to treat him like a king.
Some officer’s cast-off cloak with a suggestion of royal
purple in its faded color was thrown over his shoulders;
a thorny twig was twisted into a circlet and pressed down
upon his head; a hard dry reed was thrust as a sceptre
into his hand, which was now unbound ready for cruci-
fixion. They kneeled before him shouting “Hail, King
of the Jews” and then suddenly sprang up, spit upon him,
and beat him furiously on the head with his own sceptre!
They then led him out of the city, to the place of execu-
tion, with two other prisoners, condemned brigands, ready ©
1Mk. XV:16-20, Mt. XXVII:27-31. Luke omits the scene, perhaps
as too revolting or inconsistent with his picture of the majestic
Lord.
A FTER Pilate had affixed his signature to Jesus’
384
Tue ExxrovurTion oF JESUS 8385
for execution that morning by the same detail of soldiers.
The place of execution was called “Golgotha,” “The Skull,”
(Lat. calvaria), a skull-shaped elevation where, apparently,
crucifixions customarily took place.?_ On the way to Gol-
gotha they for some reason found it necessary to impress
a passer-by to carry the horizontal piece of the cross which
condemned men usually carried for themselves. The
man was Simon from North Africa, probably a Passover
pilgrim lodging in the suburbs. He was naturally, because
of this incident, a famous character among the early
Christians. Two of his sons, Alexander and Rufus, were
evidently well-known Christians in the section of the
church in and about Rome for which Mark’s Gospel was
prepared.*
When the group reached Golgotha someone offered Jesus
a drink of myrrhed wine® (a drink said to have been
usually provided by a society of benevolent Jerusalem
ladies) apparently given to deaden the pain of the cruci-
fied. Jesus tasted it (Mt.), but as soon as he found out
what it was would not drink it. He had recently pledged
himself to drink no wine until the Messianic banquet.
Furthermore; if it was intended te stupefy him he may
have refused it because he wished to be in full pos-
session of his powers during these last hours. He could
not tell what might happen in them. Since the ex-
perience in Gethsemane he probably had no thought that
?Mk. XV:21-41, Mt. XXVII:32-56, Lk. XXIIT:26-49.
*This was later thought to indicate a weakness on the part of
Jesus which probably occasioned unfavorable comment by the
critics of the gospel. In the Fourth Gospel, for another reason also,
pains are taken to eliminate the whole episode, “he went out bear-
ing the cross for himself to the place of a skull, which is called
in Hebrew Golgotha.” Jn. XIX:17.
‘In the fifties a Christian man named Rufus lived either in Rome
or Ephesus, more probably Rome. Rom. XVI:13.
*Mt. influenced by Ps. LXIX:21, says “wine mixed with gall.”
386 Tue Lire anp TEAOGHING oF JESUS
God might take him from the cross. (The fact that some
of the bystanders thought that Elijah might come to do
this, shows that the idea would not have seemed absurd.)
But he did not know what chance there might be to com-
municate with his family and other friends. He knew
that some of the women were near by. He may have
seen them on the way out, for they appear later in the
narrative, grouped within sight of the cross, but far.
enough away to be safe from insult.
The horrible details of crucifixion are not given in the
narrative. It simply says: “And they crucify him.”
According to some manuscripts of Luke, Jesus prayed for
the soldiers who were nailing his hands and feet (Lk.
XXIII: 34) to the cross: “Father forgive them for they
do not know what they are doing.” It seemed to the
early Christians a notable circumstance that Jesus had
conspicuous evil doers on his right and left hand. He
who had associated freely with “sinners” in his lifetime
had their companionship also in death.
The narrative contains certain details of what went on
about the cross which were probably much dwelt upon
by the early preachers. The soldiers, taking their usual
perquisite, divided Jesus’ clothes among themselves by
throwing dice. Some nameless soldier wore, or sold for
drink at the wine-shop, the cloak that the sick had longed
to touch! The three crosses evidently stood near a highway
where many passed by. The priests saw to it that all
such should not be influenced by the charge put up over
Jesus’ head, “The King of the Jews.” They were made
instead to understand in accordance with the plan of the
prosecutors at the trial, that he was one who had made
sacrilegious threats against the holy temple. These pas-
sers-by shook their heads in sarcastic pretence of pity over
the sad downfall of him who had proposed to destroy the
Tuer Exrcurion or JESsuUs 387
temple and build it again in three days. Will he not,
in the exercise of his wonderful power, come down from
the cross and save himself! The chief priests and the
scribes, members of the high court, gloated over their suc-
cess; they talked sneeringly among themselves in Jesus’
hearing about the preposterous Messianic ambition which
they had been fortunate enough to uncover in the trial.
He had proposed to be a Messianic deliverer of others, but
now he cannot even deliver himself! They leered into
his face, only a few feet above their heads, and said,
“Let the Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from
the cross that we may see and believe!”? So low down in
apparent degradation was Jesus that even the two
brigands on either side could despise him: “They that
were crucified with him reproached him.”
Luke, who is evidently following a most interesting
source of information not used by Mark or the Matthew
compiler, gives a different picture of one of the brigands.
It is not quite clear how this man’s mind worked. He
cannot have thought Jesus to be the Messiah, for even
Jesus’ own disciples gave up that theory when they finally
saw him successfully crucified. The man had perhaps been
impressed by Jesus’ behavior on the cross. Most men
in Jesus’ place would have hurled down bitter, abusive
curses upon their executioners and jeering enemies. But
Jesus, as the early church always with devout wonder
remembered, ‘‘when he was reviled, reviled not, when he
suffered, threatened not.” ® ‘The brigand must have re-
garded Jesus as an extraordinarily good man who was pos-
sessed by the insane delusion that he was the King of the
Jews. His heart moved out in sincere sympathy with
Jesus. He accommodated himself:to Jesus’ delusion and
said: “Jesus, do not forget me when you come to your
*I Pet. II:23.
388 Tue Lirzt anp Tracuine or JESUS
kingdom!” Jesus saw in this expression of sympathy
the vital element in faith and assured him that before
sunset they would be walking together in the Beautiful
Garden,’
The crucifixion had begun about nine o’clock. About
twelve o’clock the clouds thickened into an awesome dark-
ness that lay like the heavy wrath of God over the whole
region until three o’clock. (The Peter Gospel says that
“darkness covered Judwa.”) The early preachers would
naturally remember the words of Amos, the prophet:
‘“‘And it shall come to pass in that day (of wrath), saith
the Lord Jehovah, that I will cause the sun to go down at
noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.” §
In the gloom of the awesome shadow a voice loud and
tense with pain was heard from the cross, “My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me!” It was a natural cry
from a man in agony and need not be pressed to indicate
any deep theological meaning. It is unthinkable that God
should have been displeased with Jesus in this hour of
his supreme obedience, or that he should have created in
the mind of Jesus the delusion that he was displeased with
him. This certainly was not the thought of the Pauline
section of the early church.® The words are the opening
sentence of the twenty-second Psalm. The first half of
this Psalm describes the condition of a tortured man, or
people, and the last half shines with the glory of God,
* Paradise was thought to be in the third of the seven heavens; cf.
II Cor, XII:2-4. Secrets of Enoch VIII. The Peter Gospel frag-
ment represents this robber to have rebuked the soldiers for casting
lots over Jesus’ garments; they became angry and “commanded that
his legs should not be broken, that he might die in torment.” The
crucified were sometimes battered to death with heavy mallets as a
merciful ending of their suffering.
*Amos VIII:9.
*He became “obedient even unto death, yea the death of the cross.
Wherefore God highly exalted him,” Phil. II:8-9.
Tus Exrourion or Jzsus 389
in one sentence (v. 28) almost using the phrase “King-
dom of God.” That is, the Psalm pictures extreme suffer-
ing opening the way for the coming of Jehovah’s Kingdom,
an idea that had for a considerable time been in the mind
of Jesus. He had made a study of the scriptures con-
cerned with the Kingdom of God, particularly those em-
phasizing Messianic suffering (p. 239). This entire Psalm,
with its picture of triumph following suffering, may have
been in his mind when he uttered its opening sentence.
Luke omits the bitter cry of Jesus, “My God, my God,
why has thou forsaken me?’ Perhaps it seemed to
him likely to be misunderstod by his readers, and further-
more was probably not in the special source which he
used in addition to Mark’s Gospel.
The name of God, both in its Aramaic and Hebrew
form, sounds something like the Greek form of the name
Elijah. Some by-standers, perhaps Greek-speaking Jews
like Simon of North Africa who had carried the cross,
thought that Jesus was calling for Elijah, who according to
the Talmud was often expected to appear in time of need.
One of these men saturated a sponge with sour wine from
the jar standing near for the soldiers’ use, fastened it on
a stiff reed, and after asking permission from the soldiers,
reached it up to Jesus’ lips. He proposed to give Jesus
strength enough to keep calling on Elijah until Elijah
perhaps would come.?°
At this point Jesus gave a loud cry and died suddenly ;
he did not gradually grow faint and expire. No one ex-
*In the Matthew Gospel there is a different version of the in-
cident. There the bystanders protest against the action on the
ground that Jesus’ unrelieved distress may serve to bring Elijah.
If the Matthew compiler was following Mark here, he may have
swerved from him in favor of a popular version of the incident
current in oral tradition. In the verses immediately following
(52-53) something that was apparently popular tradition appears.
890 Tue Lirm anp Tracuine or JEsus
pected the end to come so soon. The crucified sometimes
lived until they starved to death.11_ The two robbers, ac-
cording to the Fourth Gospel, were beaten to death to
expedite the execution. Some form of profound mental
distress seems to have caused the speedy death of Jesus.
Luke only of the first three Gospels attributes words to
Jesus in connection with this final strong cry. Jesus
trustfully calls upon his Father, and commits his spirit
to him in a sentence found in the thirty-first Psalm, a
Psalm of deliverance from suffering inflicted by implac-
able enemies: “Father, into thy hands I commend my
spirit.”
We to whom Jesus is Lord and Savior would, if we
could, penetrate into the actual experience of his soul in
these hours on the cross. What did the Heavenly Father
mean to him in these dark hours of pain and shame?
What did men mean to him, the men about the cross,
professional executioners, idle spectators, malignant
enemies, and the unseen multitudes over all the earth to
whom his thought had constantly gone out in the months
during which the burden of Messianic world responsibility
had fitted itself so closely to his soul? Had he uplifting
sense of doing some great thing for humanity? We have
in earlier chapters thought of him as being so responsive
to the feeling of the Heavenly Father about his human
children as to be its perfect expression in terms of human
life and death. The pain which is in the heart of God
over the brutal wrongdoing of his human children was
now to the utmost in the heart of Jesus. It was not simply
the pain of stretched tendons, lacerated muscles, and burn-
ing thirst. It was chiefly distress of soul. He was feeling
the feeling of God about the wrongdoing of mankind.
He could have said of himself in this experience, “He that
“ Eusebius, Ch. Hist., VIII:8.
Tur Exxrcution or JEsuUs 391
has seen me has seen the Father.” To see Jesus on the
cross with some appreciation of the experience of his
inmost soul is to look into the heart of the Heavenly
Father. The utmost that a Father can do to redeem from
his evil ways a son who has gone wrong is in some way
to show the son the pain that is in the Father’s heart.
More and more with our enlarging understanding of God
and his Fatherly nearness to human life we see in the
Christ on the cross that which shames us into an ever
deeper resentment of the evil in our hearts. We come
more and more to feel about selfishness as he on his cross
felt about it. The chief element in the pain of his cruci-
fixion hours begins at least feebly to form itself in our
hearts and we begin to know a little of what it is to be
crucified with him. We find ourselves being redeemed
from bondage to the evil will. The experience of the
great soul of Jesus was so profound that men can only
slowly grow up to it. In centuries to come, as new gen-
erations of men feel the force of the subtler and more per-
vasive temptations that await the race in the higher stages
of its development, the Christ on the cross will be an in-
exhaustible and everlasting source of redemption.
It was learned later, perhaps from Christian priests
(Acts VI:7), that on this afternoon the veil screening off
the holiest room in the temple was torn in two by a rent
which, since it was known to have begun at the top, evi-
dently must have extended not quite to the bottom. This
impressive circumstance would have easily lent itself to
various symbolic interpretations by the early preachers.
Perhaps the one most naturally suggested by the context
is that since Jesus, in connection with the expectation of
his execution by the priests and rabbis had predicted the
destruction of the temple, so now at the time of his
execution this destruction began, and by an act of God.
392 Tus Lirge anp TEACHING OF i |
The tearing in two of this beautiful curtain, so much
admired by Jews (p. 25), marked the indignant de-
parture of God and the beginning of the desolation so
soon to follow.
When the Roman officer in charge of the execution saw
the impressive circumstances connected with Jesus’ death,
the awesome darkness and the great cry, he exclaimed
“Surely this man was a son of a god.” He had heard
the Jews about the cross saying that Jesus claimed to be
“the Son of God.” In ignorance of the Jewish Messianic
meaning of the title he used it in the common Roman
sense: Jesus on an heroic being who must have had a
divine ancestor.’
The death of Jesus was witnessed by a large group of
women looking on from a safe distance. Three of them
are named as persons evidently well known among the
early Christians. One of the three, Salome, may have
been the mother of James and John (Mt.). According to
Luke many men also were with them. The women are
described as those who had “ministered” to him in Galilee
and had come up with him to Jerusalem for the same
purpose (Mt.). This ministry probably consisted in pay-
ing, in whole or in part, the expenses of Jesus’ visit to
Jerusalem. At an earlier time in Galilee, women who had
been cured by Jesus expressed their gratitude by such
contributions.?*
According to the Gospel of John, at some time during
the crucifixion a group of women, including Jesus’ mother,
came up within speaking distance of the cross. ‘The
disciple whom Jesus loved” was also with them, and to
* Luke makes the officer call Jesus “a righteous man.” Of. also
Acts III:14.
*Lk. VIII:1-3, “They ministered unto them (him) of their sub-
stance,”
Tur Execution or Jxsus 893
him Jesus committed the care of his mother.1* As the
women watched they saw the two crucified brigands
hammered to death by the soldiers who could reach high
enough from the ground to break their leg bones with
heavy mallets. This action was a concession to the re-
ligious scruples of the Jews who did not wish to have
crucified men hanging on the cross on the Sabbath. The
women, to their great relief, saw that Jesus was not
treated in this way and judged that he was already
dead.‘® Then all but two of them stole away to their
lodgings. -
The two who stayed behind very soon saw a dignified,
well-dressed gentleman in consultation with the officer in
charge of the execution.1® It was learned later that it
was “Joseph of Arimathea,” a wealthy member of the
Great Court living in a town a few miles from Jerusalem.
Perhaps because he did not live in the city he had not been
summoned to the night session of the court and had not
taken part in the trial of Jesus. He did not approve of
the verdict. He is described as one who “was expecting
the Kingdom of God” soon to appear, and had, therefore,
been influenced by the preaching of John the Baptist and
Jesus. Either openly or in the secrecy of his own heart
he was a “disciple” of Jesus (Mt.). He had come up
from Arimathza and soon found his way to the scene of the
crucifixion. When he saw that Jesus was dead he went
at once to Pilate’s office to get a requisition for the body,
which he proposed to bury. This was a bold act (Mk.)
because the procurator might have decided to arrest some
of Jesus’ party, and the sanhedrin would certainly make
it very uncomfortable for any member of the court that
4 Jn. XIX :25-27.
% Jn. XIX :31-33.
* Mk. XV :42-47, Mt. XXVII:67-61, Lk. XXIII:50-56.
394 Tun Lire anp TEACHING oF JESUS
opposed their action.17 Pilate could not believe that a
crucified man could have died so soon. He perhaps sus-
pected that Jesus’ friends were plotting to rescue him from
the cross and secretly nurse him back to health. -He ac-
cordingly refused to issue the order until the officer in
charge had assured him that Jesus was undoubtedly dead.
Joseph bought a fine linen burial cloth at a bazaar, took
the body of Jesus down from the cross, wrapped it tenderly
in the fine linen and carried it, perhaps with the help of
his servants, to a new unused burial chamber (his own,
Mt.) quarried out of the rock. He rolled a heavy wheel-
shaped stone across the low doorway of the rock chamber
to protect the body from dogs or hostile human intruders.
The two women watched while this was being done and
then went away. It was too late in the day for them to
think of caring for the body of Jesus in the way usual
at burials.*®
™ Perhaps, too, if the Passover was yet to be eaten that evening
(p. 362) touching a corpse would prevent his taking part in the
sacred supper.
** According to the Gospel of John, Nicodemus, a prominent rabbi,
joined Joseph in caring for the body of Jesus. The two men wrapped
an astonishing weight of spices, brought by Nicodemus, in the burial
linen. In John’s Gospel the women are not represented as wishing
to prepare the body of Jesus for burial,
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS
HE passionate message of the early Christian
prophets and preachers, necessarily expressed in
the terms of their own thought world, was that Jesus,
who had been so unjustly executed by the ecclesiastical ma-
chine, had been lifted by God out of Hades, the under-
world of the dead, and set in the place of power at God’s
right hand in the highest heaven. From this place of
power he continually poured into the lives of his disciples
still on earth the influence of the mighty Spirit of God,
producing various experiences, especially in the cult meet-
ing, called “gifts of the Spirit.” ‘Jesus of Nazareth, a
man approved of God unto you... ye by the hand of
lawless men did crucify and slay: whom God raised up
having loosed the pangs (bonds) of death. . . . Neither
was he left unto Hades. . . . This Jesus did God raise up
whereof we all are witnesses. Being therefore by the right
hand of God exalted and, having received of the Father
the promise of the Holy Spirit, he hath poured forth
this which ye do see and hear.” *
On his way from the underworld up to the topmost
heaven Jesus is represented to have stopped on earth for
a short period in which he made himself known to his
disciples. This revelation of himself transformed the
bewilderment and bitter disappointment, occasioned by his
* Acts 11:22, 24, 33.
395
396 Tue Lire AND TEACHING or JESUS
execution, into triumphant hope and expectation of his
soon coming again from heaven to earth to inaugu-
rate the Messianic Age of the Kingdom of God. The
“sifts of the Spirit,’ poured out in power from
heaven, were the pledges and prophetic beginnings of the
Messianic Age when the heavenly Spirit of God was ex-
pected to have undisputed control over the lives of all
men.”
Regarding the nature and circumstances of Jesus’
peculiar contacts with his disciples on his way from the
underworld to the highest. heaven there was probably a
variety of views during the decades in which the Gospel
material was being shaped by the usage of Christian
preachers. There were different ideas as to what in gen-
eral constituted a resurrection. ‘To some a resurrection
meant the resuscitation of the very body laid in the grave
or the passage of the soul into another similar flesh and
bone body.* To some it seemed that such a body would
very soon after its resurrection be transformed, in the case
of the good into a glorious body and in the case of the
bad into an inferior form.* Jews of the Alexandrian
type expected no resurrection body at all, because death
was an escape from all bodily form.® These different ideas
of a “resurrection” were probably all represented among
the multitude of Jews from various parts of the world who
within a few weeks or months responded to the preaching
of the apostles. ach one who believed in the resurrec-
tion of Jesus believed its nature to have been whatever
he understod a “resurrection” to mean. The real nature
of the resurrection of Jesus was probably as much a
*Ps. Solomon XVII:41-46; cf. Ephesians IV:8-13.
* Jos. Ant, XVIII:1:3, War I1:8:14; II Mac. VII:11, 23, XIV:46.
*Apoc. Baruch XLIX:1-L1:16.
* Philo, On the World, III. So also the Essenes in Palestine, Jos.
Wor I1:8:11.
Tue Resurrection or JEsusS 397
matter of speculation among Christians in the first days
as it is now.
This divergence of opinion regarding the nature of a
resurrection tended in the course of time to produce dif-
ferent accounts of what had actually happened in the
case of Jesus’ resurrection. The need of precision and
historical accuracy in such accounts was not acutely felt
during this period because the presence of the “gifts of
the Spirit” in the lives of those who joined the Jesus
Messianic movement was to them convincing proof of
his resurrection. Absorption in the expectation of his
speedy return tended still further to make such precision
seem unnecessary. They were all looking forward, not
backward. It is not surprising, therefore, that there
should be a considerable degree of difference in the Gospel
accounts of what took place in the days immediately fol-
lowing the execution of Jesus.
Common to them all is the fact that the resurrection,
whatever its nature and circumstances, was Jesus’ spiritual
assurance to his disciples that he was proceeding with the
Messianic program, with preparation for the establish-
ment on earth of God’s will for the life of man. Excep-
tion is sometimes taken to the fact that evidence of Jesus’
resurrection was‘given, according to most accounts, to no
one outside the circle of disciples. But there was no oc-
easion to prove to outsiders that he was still in existence.
Searcely anyone except the Sadducees doubted the con-
tinued existence of the dead in Hades. The only thing
‘that the first preachers felt the necessity of proving to
outsiders was the continuance of Jesus’ power as a Mes-
sianic leader to work on human life for the establishment
of the will of God. This they considered to be proved
by the experience of the disciples as they felt and mani-
fested the daily effects of “the Spirit”? which, they as-
398 Tue Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
serted, Jesus had promised to send them from heaven.
The “appearances” of Jesus were important as marking
the inauguration of this heavenly influence, but they were
not the main thing. The main thing was the evidence of -
Jesus’ permanent connection with the life of his disciples
after the resurrection appearances. If this evidence had
been lacking, the beginning and maintenance of the Chris-
tian movement would apparently have been impossible.
This evidence consisted partly in certain conspicuous emo-
tional upheavals natural to the temperament, pre-suppo-
sitions and religious fashions of the time, but more
fundamentally in the profoundly satisfactory beginnings
of ethical success—“love, joy, peace, long suffering, kind-
ness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control.” °
Turning now to the Gospel records it appears that
according to all the first three Gospels it was women who
first visited the grave chamber and found it empty. These
women were two named Mary, Salome (Mk.) and Joanna
(Lk.). Late Friday afternoon they had seen from a
distance the body of Jesus placed in a grave chamber.
Twenty-four hours later in the evening of Saturday, when
the Jewish Sabbath had just come to its end, they bought
spices in the market hoping that the corpse would still be
in such condition early the next morning that they could
give it the affectionate anointing customary at burials.
They reached the tomb at sunrise after wondering on the
way how they could roll back the heavy stone that they
had seen rolled across the low entrance Friday evening.
To their amazement they found the stone rolled back.
When they stooped and entered the chamber they found
no corpse there. While they were for a moment uncertain
whether friendly or unfriendly hands might have re-
moved the body, they saw a young man wearing a long
Gal. V:22, cf. Acts IV:32-35.
Tue ResurrEecTion or JzEsus 399
white cloak, sitting at their right on the narrow ledge of
rock that ran round the room (two men standing, Lk.).
He at once urged them not to be afraid, said that he
knew they were looking for “Jesus, the crucified
Nazarene,” that he had risen and that they could see
simply the place where his body had lain. Furthermore
he told them to tell the disciples of Jesus, and especially
Peter (Mk.), that they must go north to Galilee, where
Jesus would have preceded them and would meet them as
he had previously promised. Luke’s Gospel, which had con-
tained no such promise,’ omits at this point the command
to go north, and gives no hint either in the Gospel or
Acts of a meeting in Galilee. The appearances he re
cords seem all to have been in or about Jerusalem; the
disciples were even commanded not to depart from Jeru-
salem.
The women instantly left the grave chamber and fled
from the spot in fear (also with joy, Mt.), intending to
carry the word to the disciples (Mt.). The Gospel of
Mark stops abruptly at this point with the statement that
“they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.” ®
It is sometimes maintained that the Gospel was intended
to end at this point. It is, however, unusual for a Greek
sentence to end with a conjunction (“gar”), as would then
be the case.®
Among the reasons for thinking that verses 9-20 were
not originally a part of the Gospel are their omission in
certain old manuscripts and translations and their failure
to carry on the interesting narrative begun in the verses
just preceding. They contain simply a bare catalogue
TOf. Lk. XXII:39-40 with Mk. XIV:28, Mt. XXVI:32.
®* Possibly “afraid of” for the Greek word might be translated
either way. In this latter case the Gospel would break off in the
middle of a sentence.
*It sometimes does so end, e.g., Is. XXIX:11, Septuagint.
400 Tue Lirk anp TEACHING. oF JESUS
of appearances of Jesus, including no mention of an ap-
pearance in Galilee that had been promised in v. 7 and
that we find in the Matthew narrative.*° According to
the Matthew narrative the women, on their way from the
tomb to the disciples, met Jesus himself, clasped his feet
in worship and received from him a message to the dis-
ciples to meet him in Galilee. At once the eleven disciples
went to a place in the Galilean hill country which had
been specified by Jesus. When they saw him there they
worshiped, or made obeisance to him, “but some doubted.”
The narrative gives no information as to who doubted or
as to how these doubts were removed, but proceeds at once
to give Jesus’ command to make disciples among all na-
tions of the world. The account reads like a very con-
densed statement (such as is characteristic of the Mat-
thew narrative in general) of the conviction that formed
itself in the hearts of the disciples during these first days
of special contact with the Spirit of Jesus, regarding their
Messianic Lord’s will to prepare men for the coming King-
dom through their preaching. Their extreme unreadiness
at once to obey this command appears in the Acts where
they stay in Jerusalem until forced out by synagogue
persecution. This unreadiness might well have been due
Mt. XXVIII: 16-20. “The Matthew account of the women’s visit
to the tomb represents the person whom the women found at the
grave to have been “an angel of the Lord.” The grave had been
opened by an earthquake; the angel of the Lord had rolled away
the stone and was sitting on it in lightning-like majesty when the
women arrived. It is further said that the guard, granted by Pilate
at the request of the Jewish leaders, saw the angel roll away the
stone and that some of them ran in terror to report it to the
Jewish leaders. These leaders, against whom the Matthew Gospel
all the way through has had a pronounced feeling, it now represents
to have bribed the guard to say nothing about what they had seen
and to report that while they were asleep the disciples of Jesus stole
his body, a story said to be still current among Jewish antagonists
of Christianity at the time when the Matthew Gospel was compiled.
Tur RESURRECTION oF JESUS 401
to the feeling that it was useless to go to other nations with
the declaration of Jesus’ Messiahship until his own na-
tion had first been convinced. The injunction here in
Matthew to teach their converts to keep all the things
that Jesus had commanded them included the Mosaic
law,'4 and shows that in the circle which produced the
Matthew Gospel Jesus was understood to have planned
the incorporation of all Gentile converts into a law keep-
ing Jewish nation convinced of his Messiahship. Such
a view was a natural one for Jewish Christians to hold
even as late as the sixties or seventies. The baptismal
formula, “unto the name of the Father, and the Son, and
the Holy Spirit,” seems unnatural on the lips of Jesus.
There is, however, no reason to suppose that it may not
have been an established formula among Christian
preachers even as early as the fifties,‘? and so have na-
turally been attributed to Jesus at the time when the ee
thew Gospel was compiled.
The Lukan accounts of Jesus’ interviews with yah
after his death represent them to have occurred in and
about Jerusalem. It is implied that the women did not
see Jesus (contrary to Mt.) although they were first to
discover the empty grave.1® The ones who saw Jesus were
two friends walking in the country, Peter, and a group
of disciples including the eleven. All three of these ap-
pearances occurred during the day in which the tomb was
found to be empty.1* The story of Cleopas and his un-
named friend walking in the country has about it the same
beautiful atmosphere that characterizes another country
scene found also only in Luke, his story of the angels’
=Mt. V:18-20.
Of. II Cor, XIII:14.
@Lk, XXIV :22-24.
“Lk. XXIV:13-15.
402 Tur Lire anp TEACHING OF JESUS
songs and the shepherds’ joy in the Bethlehem fields at
the birth of Jesus. ,
The experience of the two men is described with an
interesting fulness of detail, that does not characterize
any other account of the resurrection found in Luke or
either of the other two Synoptic Gospels. Luke seems to
have put into it, or found in it if it was in his source,
a satisfactory exposition of what seemed to him to be the
real meaning of the resurrection. Two Jewish patriots
in great sadness of spirit. were earnestly talking as they
walked along a country road in the afternoon. They had
been attracted to Jesus because they had regarded him
as one who would soon begin a revolutionary movement
of a high type, leading to national righteousness and politi-
cal liberty. They had hoped that “it was he that should
redeem Israel.” A stranger joined them and asked what
they were discussing so earnestly. They stopped to tell
him: ‘they stood still looking sad.” They described to
him the brilliant career of Jesus as a healer and popular
teacher, a “prophet mighty in deed and word before God
and all the people.” They told him the sad story of the
execution by the ecclesiastical machine, “the chief priests
and our rulers.”’ They also told him the strange story of
the tomb found empty that morning by the women and of
their vision of angels reporting him alive. Then the
stranger, in a kindling way, began to argue that they ought
to have expected the national deliverer, promised by God
to his people, to die and afterward to enter into the glory
of the New Age. He cited many statements in the He
brew scriptures that they ought to have understood to teach
this strange unrecognized truth. As they walked on listen-
ing to him they came to their village home and hospitably
urged him to be’their guest since night was drawing on.
He accepted their invitation, but when food was served
Tue Resurrection or JEsus 403
suddenly assumed the rile of host, “took the bread and
blessed it and breaking it gave to them.” Instantly they
knew him and he “vanished out of their sight.” -They
at once spoke to each other about the peculiar exhilaration
of spirit felt by them as they had listened to the stranger’s
explanation of the scriptures, apparently an experience
that had frequently occurred in their intercourse with
Jesus: “Was not our heart burning within us while he
spake to us in the way, while he opened to us the scrip-
tures?’ They immediately in early evening hurried back
to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven and others
with them. It is assumed in the narrative that they were
not scattered but were assembled in some place known to
the two. Before the two could tell their story about Jesus
being “known of them in the breaking of bread,” 7°
they were greeted with the cry that Peter had seen Jesus.
Then they told their story and while the others were
intently listening to it, Jesus suddenly “stood in the midst
of them.” They were frightened because they thought
they saw a spirit. Jesus quieted their fears by showing
them his hands and feet (probably thought of as marked
by crucifixion wounds) and by eating a piece of broiled
fish, all to prove the reality of his flesh and bone pres-
ence.’® He pointed out to them, as he had done to the
two in the afternoon, statements in the scriptures fore-
telling, as no rabbi had recognized, the death and resurrec-
tion of the Messiah. The early Christian preachers based
* The double emphasis on “the breaking of the bread” as the act
in which Jesus was revealed (vs. 30, 35) suggests that at the
Lord’s supper in early church life, there was probably unusual activ-
ity among those who possessed “gifts of the spirit.” Such “gifts”
were thought of as coming from Jesus, Acts I1:33.
* This narrative assumes the resuscitation of the flesh and bone
body. So also does the Acts narrative (II:27, 31). Perhaps the
ultimate condition of the body of Jesus was thought of as in the
Apoe. of Baruch (p. 396).
404 Tue Lire anp Traonrne or JEsvs
their arguments on such passages.*7 Jesus then outlined
a career of world wide preaching of repentance and for-
giveness beginning at Jerusalem where he commanded
them to stay until he had reached heaven and sent back
to them the Spirit. Then he led them out of the city to
the Bethany suburb and, as his hands were extended over
them in blessing and his lips moving in prayer for them,
he was lifted out of their sight into heaven.
The oldest list of Jesus’ appearances to his disciples is
that given by Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians,!®
written in the fifties and reporting what was believed by
Christians at the time when he became a Christian, a short
time after the death of Jesus. In this list an appearance
to Peter comes first: “then to the twelve; then he appeared
to above five hundred brothers at once”—most of them
known to be still living in Paul’s day. “Then he appeared
to James; then to all the apostles.” Women are not men-
tioned in Paul’s account. In the Gospel accounts, too,
the connection of women with the event is chiefly as dis-
coverers of the empty tomb and messengers to the disciples
rather than as witnesses of Jesus himself.?®
What shall we say actually happened in these experi-
ences that the disciples are reported to have had with Jesus
after his death? There may well have been a degree of
idealization, some exercise of a devout imagination, espe-
cially in the only long resurrection narrative found in the
first three Gospels, the one describing the experience of the
two men walking in the country. This seems especially
probable in the case of an author who shows such tendency
to idealization as appears in the early chapters of Luke’s
"#H.g., Acts II, II, XVIT:2-3.
*XV:5-7.
* Mt. alone represents women to have seen him. In the late end-
ing of Mk. and in John’s Gospel, one woman, Mary Magdalene, sees
him.
Tut RESURRECTION OF JESUS 405
Gospel, whether the songs and visions there recorded be his
own creation or selection. But this supposition of a degree
of idealization does not at all account for the great central
fact. The central fact is that something happened which
convinced the disciples that Jesus did not remain in the
underworld where the dead were supposed to await the
resurrection, but was instead lifted up by God to be Lord
of all in the heavens. It would have been natural for
the disciples, after they saw that God did not send Elijah
to help Jesus on the cross, nor in any other way deliver
him from being swallowed up in death, to suppose that he
had joined the long succession of martyr prophets. Or
if they went further and still believed that the Spirit of
the heavenly Son of Man had been in him, they would
naturally have settled down to wait for his emergence
from the underworld in the general resurrection, whenever
that might occur. But this was not what they did.
Something happened that was decisive enough to change
their disappointment into enthusiasm, to take their
thought decisively and suddenly from the underworld to
the highest heaven. That which is reported to have ef- _
fected this change is certain experiences with Jesus him-
self. On the supposition that this did actually happen,
did these experiences involve an appearance of Jesus that
could have been recorded by a camera, such words of
Jesus as could have been registered by a dictograph? This
seems to be a wholly minor matter. The highest personal
reality is not necessarily recorded by camera and dicto-
graph. It seems necessary to say that the personality of
Jesus was present with such force as decisively to con-
vince his disciples that he was with them and would con-
tinue to work with them as the leader appointed by God
to establish righteousness in the life of man on earth./The
great convictions that arose in their souls out of such an
406 Tur Lire anp TEAcHING oF JESUS
experience seemed to them, and were, the voice of their
living Lord. They began then and there with new and
clarified devotion to adopt at any personal cost the simple
fundamental, religious and ethical ideals of Jesus: prayer
to the heavenly Father, an invincible generous good will
to men, expectation of an everlasting life in the Coming
Kingdom of God. These were traditional Jewish ideals
emphasized by Jesus. That which constituted them
pioneers of a new epoch in the history of man, was the
fact that they let their affections follow Jesus as Lord
and Leader out into the unseen world of the living God.
They conceived him to be continuing a profound experi-
ence with the will of God while he was still remaining in
the sphere of human relationships. They reached out in
spirit to take such share in his experience as he had always
seemed patiently eager during his days on earth to accord
them. In response to such outreach there rose within
them out of the unseen world a tide of moral incentive that
gave them victorious sense of the beginnings of an ever-
lasting ethical success. Through the Christian centuries
the repetition of the essential features of their experience,
varying in superficial details with the unfolding life of.
mankind, underlies the conviction that Jesus of Nazareth
is the living Lord and active Savior of the world.
INDEX TO REFERENCES
Genesis I Samuel
ae Pe: ee ee) ee 68 VLE 54022 Fo aa we nie as 40
"3S bap ya Re ae dee aga pe) Se 245 | IIT Samuel
> 0,14 BEY ae are rarer re 196 VLE LEM ee sraiaachou danas 43
Exodus II Kumgs
ETA2G6 Fs eerie eee ae 327 PORE sree Buck obice molare aus. 62
WV 2 OB ook ee os ea ie 43 DVis 42044 ayo nc aie) & ats trae 203
BU ALLE SIG) os cee ce *,.. 355 | IT Chronicles
» PCY URN Ee re, 325 »D.G NED eGo ae et Y 335
ADVE bee ag oe 359 OBE BR ice DCR! ELLE Bae ere, 272
2D, Ee Sate es ape r r * 273 | Psalms
Leviticus NA Ed aril aieh agile, drecle @teueiecs 388
ATITORTV Oost oe aay 93 eal Rae h=eaeeny o gaat wialordy eaten 239
Ved O-30 3 e8b skies wane 133 NURS ZS ieee ia coer Shara , 389
MTR TAB yay ceeeee 328 N 8 BGAN Cn aii i Nae aaa A ah 385
Numbers TUR RERAZG 27 oo cis si omits 43
WISI D ein cs ames ee 61 Oe ee i cies ais: a) aetion Miorks 329
AN OL s4aLo 22 bes ee eee 27 OXTT-COX VIN so. eldavets 356
LA Te) (Aes a a kt Tee 297 VE TREE rs eco elanscaie to oe 315
Deuteronomy CT So LLM 8 state oka secatstia oa 356
BOD oss eds eR Eek es 72 | Isaiah ‘i
Ws iaso 2 Cee eee te ee 72 IVE Be Ts, Big, wale iat es aa: alia 314
5 dh SE leit Nn eae ag 27 PV De ak IN. ti cst etal en oy Rictele 189
LAE cen ot et ea ee 328 WET ASL 5 oe ss sci ats Whe ote 316
‘1a OS ER Aes tila aan ee 72 Dg Ba ue oinericeicnrc) 76
‘i Ast 1: tiple or edeleeleme bese 72 SAAN TLS ENT satel bie ve Bnet 231
“GUNS C2) Bnei Ae 74 | XXIK11 ............ 399
VEE) ee ee 8 72 | XXXV:5-6 .......0.. 67, 214
BOO Gs ee 73 Vibe fo cee ctlbesias eters 8 bas Rc gPENS 312
IX : 11 Pe Ne niwieed 73 LX 24-9 fe)! Wyle 6 8) Bho lee) oene eRe 353
1x i 18 ao alee 73 LXI : ] S Stale Shevake tel pie ehel ese tele 67
SNe ROAST Gea ay, A Oi ERE SLO oa eh edie ee cue 140
> DALAT RO ae eo 74 : ia
XI:13-21 27 Jeremiah
Ue” AL eS Bae Cases VD Te ol th aiicren ak saline ee 312
CVD ae oles Fs ER 203 UIT SINS Nie ee 272
PC VALLES ID Peirce ere FE 231 aa Sena e | uke 360
XXT:3 oe 297 Met a eae 144
DAS CRUG be 8 gle doin Rn RON 20 Li 217 Daniel
REV 2-0 tsetse e tian e 326 ATU arte AT a ah eo Soa NR 43
Joshua Hosea
At - RI OR te toeiRe ee Pa) Ae 272 ES ARS EE ad pe a a rae 237
ENE Oa. Abs See at ee 144 PARE EARN nee CEE Ne be ed ee 43
408 InpEx To RererENncrs
Amos We Deo ye cee ass hoe 163
VRE Ors oa ic hsncuahe Sera ne 388 VU 24-7 ierse ade oo 19
Micah VEPIB eh Gp ates oe eee 163
ME Be Gos oN Rett. Puwunuce 56 VE PSR as eet eee 16
Zechariah VES568 us ow ce dle oe 163, 164
TSE Og Si Pe 298 Vii OlSoQntt Bice see 165
MESI2- Dake wal te eee 350 ViieiGsls irene yi. 19, 163, 164
SBM EET: Sra Trg al et oe Sy 61 i ral let a eee 180
MPLS. cakes con ee een 366 VEsOae i bs eae ie 160
Malach ViLISS-3D i pied td cies cette 302
PTET ori aca tae cet nrete 76 ViPS 26- 34070 Chios, 158, 162
PVD O eee aes oe 62, 259 VES es Cfo Deh ans yee 159
Matthew VisBleaoa . Lee eu Son 56, 76
181 Marae ne es RST RID cap 51 ae Ae Se 174
ATT So ee oe aay Co eee 62 YLT Goh tee eee 19
TERPS) Oe a See 16 VETS 7-8! tae dhe tee 156
1 MAA CO inp Mem A Oe Fig ey odeguallal ts A 62 Vids ld saree cen sears 156
WY Ed Bi cornea leh dl eer ghiinicmr ob ve 64 i ef areas Ge erly gene & 169
TESTS yy ee ae ar ea 62 VITs laste nau) ears 170
APRA Bs So TA MINS 66 VIT2 16-23 tb eh Seems 343
bs takai elds Th Aah ey ANA 73 VIT:2U2S ye ee eee 197, 319
TVs Eee die aie ae 302 MITT 4-4 yr les PAS ee 3
PV 02 TA) 7 eB a Ae Ae 119 WIT: B13) cee 86, 95
bE ts ed eh ea oneladlge ep 2 9!) hae 28 VATE 779s Peer eee ee 247
VEVIE tone SON ene 150 VITESl6. (usher. Gaeeere See 84
NA EY PR ge Baek BS OPEL gm tr lh Se nici ViLTi 219-20 +42 32d 28 hoe 185
GEE ie Maret aie perpen trashing Ah ndtirs 180 VULT So U 2 ereee eeee 184
VB TBs op ae aee eas. Fe 170 NALD QO fe es 8, eee 87
Vee S Cie oe eae eon 180 UX. ons « ate eee 102, 103
CO st terse ar ee ices aces 152 me «PRET ieee caer teres 149
Wis ES) PA oie tae Sin Wiig 171 De eae 1 Rb teh a cere 142
A DT EE a Mk Meee LT adi had 172 DO EERE Bee gt weed! 2! 18
Vv STs ee eee 316, 318 DB S1G-42) FP ere ee 146
UTS A Fete A Ret aR SEY ait 14 DS = Wn Be Ree Ltr 7,7 250
Vd Re TO ie Nee 9 xh mi 18, 328 Sb yd bbe wigacl a eee e ee 145
V sa Be Ay ee Fee eee 401 bb 7: sy ae ies iaierabag e. 2.5 B 184
V:19 14, 15, 197, 274, 319, 343 OR EU SEh i cs aeadebtae ch dealt glo cateh ae 56
DREAD RED Ps ei BA dl 16 KS ODS Oui, cas ciarn ale a chee 145
RO PEO end go Ne en ae 172 eee ae ake ath aye ane 81
VETS Tw Fee ee ley et eae 151 BO GPE | nar MA ae.” 67, 226
NV, 2 RNAS PAN NR & 6 a ee 19 BG Eb MRI ae ae" 84, 248
i As TR AU I i pe 173 AL OeU Li. eeeaks eee! 247
ets or 41 SPN Aaa one nba: 173 ALslly.. ccs eas oe eee ee 314
by ar Bn Pie a 173 Mise oc dsc ay eee eee 61
DY ae ere Le ae ee 276, 278 De TS ce are wae cen 314
V SORO 7) Sethe e o28 19, 153, 173 mle ess Ce ane 58
Nims eaere' nn cate w the a eee 174 25227 Cs cat ce ee 302
Vid S48 OR pees 302 PS by EP oe age iad Th | 306
Ae CY Ee eapea genau ONE A A TRS Wh chk LAB BOr oie cee eae 303
M SES eS PSO orate now TBS POETS 28:30 70 Soro ere 171
VI:1 eoeereem eee eee eeeenv 08 169 - XT :29 e®eeceeveooe ee eevee es 806
InpEx TO REFERENCES 409
ee OS atic ph ans 89
ALD SSB yale « deterea eats 248
BR LES ASS thc ee oe 87
eS 48-S5 res aa tae 152
b.@ 8 et 5 eA ee ere 217
DP. @ 8 1 Pete WrMi ee. . 4!) oe 195
LEE SO oy alice pele es 319
0 Ty ee 248, 319, 343
bead ssa. ootls ae 248
RELL <55* eis'o5a oe oe eee 56
MULT G5-56) cs esac eee ee 55
AM Se Lee ode nwo 200
LV sBR-20 le irs ata re 17
SU Rg & eter Bice ay aig cr 225
SRV PLB EG. Yoen ares. sel ema tee 14
SMW ILO chavghat ee gravehe siuue ca oe 17
POV EDO Ce ch esky alee ate 14, 123
OR Vito OS biel ees 212
DOV deere iy aera, ate Ceere 149
Oe Ve ee Soke ee ee 217
VO eee ee 219
OV P2021 0 oe diate 202
AVES -18 sat ee wee
OW Ed Oe bathe Cle Male aeeeie 223
RV aes Sos a's See area 62
2 A Ty 3 a eee 230
OV Pele er eee ats 17
VT BP ee tel Oe. hs 265
RV Utes ce i oueeae'n ots eat 242
VELL oe eee ee 257
AVITTIO-13 Ors 8 see 259
VALS oe ae 160
OV LE Sa aye oy) eee 17
VL 24-87 wie hols er et 273
MVIh 1-4 yey ae 170, 268
OV ITT Beco eee 266
POV ELL LB ech. sa eae 174
MOVIL I BUF doi eck ee 175
MVTU SIAN et sce 103, 232
VILE 3 9-20 he ee. ae 304
VEL 2 ee tak, ae 17, 268
B66 98 EA Dy A te ek ag 174
Do WHI OE ee 8 176
PVE 25-248 eo oe ey 176
RO aie ee le ee 173, 278
EN 10-12 oe ek oe 279
MTR 16-300. So ou PS 281
are Lert as et Fi Seas 352
XIX:28 ..... 15, 117, 143, 231
ER 2R-BO a io ca eee 286
XIX :30-XX:16 ....... .. 287
RN tL Git cies ait ee ee 57
ROG Taig wid ewe nile a aus 350
fe Ua NW BP MR PA sl 343
as WR A ined par ae ad 290
KPa SEAN WH Cis ieiuig. ta Wine de e's Soe ote 267
MR OO 28 4 es abet eaes 290
OR 29-34. ewes abt ee a 292
SR Oye sg CP Cea 296
LED. ce ates alate 296
ARTs LORD Ae ei ais ee ons 298
ROL Laie ies vivian Beate Beats 198
ARS 18-22 56 oi eae eo fas 320
XRT eB BeSE cial. ocaeeeweate ae 316
2 Be TS ee ie 4 Sapa eh dt 288
188-46 ote tee hele 314
SO ORY CME RETR ad 15, 316
DG OR FN A IRA Ts ae fe 317
2.90. BHR TOA eh gf Sate Vik ht 319
GW TED Bp ES Ks De ioe Bae 197
OAL kee (iva sete ane wane 319
ARIE 15122 3 ae ey 323
MALES 23-33) Seka see ohars 326
MITE SO eer eo ake 279
OWL 8440 Oe ae es ee 328
WALES SA-3e cues sre 1G 154
RR a lis wicte alata ets 344
BD 0) AT: 9 RO SC en 329
PE PED testy cnatanecena beset 163, 332
PLL 2S Wide d gape sie aes ]
DOLL Le flor Mees array ae menue 36
WRIT 4-3 gee ee a 333
CULL ED iuiguiyis oo tae hie comee 332
AMI 7 D-10 0 dea oe ee 332
SOCLIT S-100. oss 19, 333
PULLS SLAM Uo oes be 169
AA TILULONG Gre Oak 232
AM ALIESIG-22 toe eee ocak 332
AXTLE 16-22) enero ee 19
bo. 88 EL ® Rie aa 14, 32
LLL ST Me cise needs one 318
PSU Ma Ree eee 338
DO ES Re ar en Date 345, 347
XLV ise 2B Pes | ee 340
DEV CLOn 12 ee Boies 343
NEY SOO) ge eae te ve 15
AAT V 226-28 5 Seve, ee 340
RXEV COO wus 18, 20, 251
PU Vie POPOL See el eats 245
XD Vig 20-44 ke See 342
RALV 284-39 Reid seo ere oie 251
XXIV :45-51 ecrvesoeceoe 343
410 Inprx to Rererences
MAW SIFLS Sa ena ae 343 TY-TLE awk ANS oe bee
Ve baa oe oa as 295, 345 ADcl-TIEs30 skcvia veo es
ee VERO Al a eRe eae 345 UH CP FPR RPP ne 102,
OV S146 oo we das 342, 347 REs1S-17 s ovacce ds Soe era
WRN Ee LOWS i nana meyers SRetone 356 ATs 18419 cuciaaa cee eee
XX V1E330-36. 20) Te 365 11: 18-22 -cccvey cae cee
2. Gl Ee: Ve bes 399 TU 1Ss i eve raei Faso ees
XV 1: 36-465.) eae 366 TLs28-119 56 law ete aoe
MX VI: 47-56 °c. SE 370 he ee ey 111, 219, 275,
MAY LOL oe oe — 363 LUT 8612 | 20s Fea 2 ee
AAV ADS? hye ot cohen Sik VITS7-8 1d hAw One ees
XX VI «57-682 SORE 374 HG Ee Pee ey 131, 210, 214,
DCA. VID: 1-2) Bee 2 374 EIDE LO. Sed eed. eee
XV ITEL 26 0 6 Ae 380 MAIL 12) y sti. bee ae ee oe
AX VIE:9-10 2 Re 353 TIES 13419. 65s de eee
AV ELS IG. s vesa cre chetbtone 381 PITS bisdcceaveseceens
KON VEE 20-25 \ eae 16 TEP Br 10. dpcageteces Coma
AV IL e eS). Lee 384 DIT 220.21 janie eee 119,
KM VITSS2-56,.. 02.00.0028 385 D2 b sig aca nee be eee
meV 11162-63355 20055 7, 389 MALS Oe a er eee 118,217;
RAVI 57-61; '.. Seeks 393 TI1 223-30» data noe areee
OX VILL E1LI-19;, See 16 RUD 27. eth 2s cede ee
AX VITTS16-20) .). Cec ee 400 TIT 228-29 2 a eee
RA VILIEI9 - 9 eee 18 EELISO |, eens oda « MORN ee
RX VIIT19-20) oi 0e 2 231 III <31-36,).,.. 04... SOY,
RX VILE 20 15, 316, 318 TIE:35 eee eeee. 286,
Mark DVisiky coin) viet acest ee ee eee
UES Co a eerie arial 2 99 EV 31-345... 00 Soe ees
Ly Yee ear ar ear: eo ae BF) 61 EV 3378130 eee case eee
LCL DURA a aban bb ME 61 TV :10-12 04% 188,
MOTE ula tlan alike SRY Cee 54 1V 510217. eae
Pele tea oe ciale te te eee eee 71 TV 238-19. cou eee
1 i Siaieaetre ey «ee adic 76, 94 LV 2122 hs ea ee
1 ES): hs A yh dee ee Oa 1 LV 32352600) oa eee
YY | RA Mme enw g. ue Ke 91 TV 226-29) gun Cee ee
B216-BY oo ek ae OD 265 TV230282 2S eee
PST ee Cl eee eee 13 TV r3b-V-43 0 eee 126,
Up's RO ey eRe Gb Dh 84 WV 28 oe eee
Be re act Vana eeee eee 82 Y Sabot. es ye Caen
Bie i. Oe Ly seins ee ae 87 bh. ¥ GRR Manes Ts )9 bo)
DAF NRPS ies Race dtet 84, 139 MT ST-ha tie hate Oe 138,
Bae et AE eran 13, 265 V8 Voc eae
EsaU-ah cok Al le Wes 86 Veh Det Ce eee
Bs Garde 5s he cick ee ee ee 76 Wis Teta uo. yeoman 138,
DPC eae ei Ra Pay 2 (i 84, 102 ad Wey a be Roepe ee 0 |
Te3b-38. (34 fh se asee ae 93 Ws ka ec kui aon eee
DeaGrosn ss le sek te eee 100 Misla-1@6 3 Poe
Da eae os old. ieee aR? 93 WE = 14-00 ee 199,
1 SOR Um NE A bash obs od 94 Vi TT-29 1 is athe stiw aes
43-45 oe aes 76 WL B00 ii ale ee Oe
tO: Fs Ae A te 3 a 1l, 95 WE 530-44) 3s SEV OR
InpEx To REFERENCES 411
Woo) Roe ee here 200 Gs Bie idk). 1) a a a, 84
BET FST, ERR SPAR EEG? 204 A SORA ce. oc a ag 270
* ET TIM is PARE cee UN Ye, 207 PM a iis lel occ dle kat 144
OL SB Bc56 5 chaos, csahurs ee 207 ED G2 9 Bd Ae SOAR iret 2) Se oe 271
eee Ge: | 280 ERATOR iy art, Bale Beha 2iz
MET eae ee en 121, 275 Re O meter erotics ids. slo. 0e 273
1 EG EY CY RR a ty L 99, 121 Dare Papen a, 264, 275, 292, 339
WED 22-4557... '5 MOLAR Na | 10 DCS | HO eee aa kA ot 8
IP eRe ee os hei ate te 104 2 ASR EE Ie TR REG OA PRINS Ade 173
WIEt6-18 uate eee 308 DR Le ie te gale Gm 276
WE REIS io Giviclns cee 265 ARE ad Ol cic 6 ache eR are 280
pial O° URS Sei 12, 14, 123 TO i el via an ttle 269
RD EZ a a 123, 210, 339 DCS on DRS AI Bia Ng oe 281
WLU 4-30 a a hora bo kn ee 210 2 CWA ALE Oe Canaan Nhe 269, 328
VII:24-VIII:26 ......... 209 CHF Se ea | Me 284
TAS aS Ueno aoe halla ete cote 131 Te NO yo iic/ piles waeie aighars 283
VI t88 oy eds os ee 261 OR Bee ie nei k ee hare 289
I da ek theca tare dat eeetee 214 BAe Vas Fa aes eo? 236, 290
WILE ISO oc ie ee 218 92 Ly tis i OU OR ea AD DD 267
VIII:17-21 ....., d's aioe 265 RM SB AU ian wk os a Pate uediers 223
WET DSTO oy ao usd eerste 202 DOs SY. Ete Tie era Tea 290
RL RSS ie ok a cis alin e oh ani 261 eA Dis Ce Aled eiclencto ava mahal 267
WALL t22-26 ona sels ee 221 BORO WS 2hd ity 2h gl Ied 5 Yo a lteter g 291
WALT SOT ee oe were e x oe ws. 102 248d os ced oes nein? 268
VAETSO7-28 ck. c « otek 89, 205 PAB Oe ale withe od alate 168
VIII:27-30 11, 66, 89, 206, 222 CSR Hs TN ae Ay 11, 358
VEIT 29-30 ok cg a Sane 6 ERIS ie tales cca teas oslo 8 292
MELE SOI «os atco acs 11, 227, 252 POA PSV Se ota \aher ety 6 a eines: 2 abe 296
VILESSL-SS. 0... ss oe 234 PM ee ROS EDs, cy. ca «a5 eh ehete alte 296
Vill 31 -E xb. Warnes 257 Sy a a ae, Fe ate gic OOO
WA TU SAe reuse ae & ates 241, 371 ee ee ns ik « wtb die 320
VIIT=34-35 0 0 es nlee 168, 252 PRINS DOES a ac yicc a's. 9 ohio er 200
WAIT 8S5°O6 0s wes ai3's eee 242 PRE SLB cela Weise cre wieisle Wane 312
YG iD ye ae ari he BN 242, 253 ONS RY Sit G8 ete aa ad AS lo 312
EA PAA ittaisin se. c aan 257, 267 STIR ES SPR GERRI natalie 313
ERteeDUtee cates n> see, 257 24 IA UR MOU a ie a 310, 350
PRR ee cece oe veGee Eb eOS AO stre es Siew ieih ste cuate's 320
DR PUsE coins tea ee aa 238 A Ab RRA LG ieee AR ep 85
PROBL acces otis ce wars aion 62 BR dre Aa aa ee LY. a ei a) are aie aiteks one 86
DRL Sie. kk te ae ee 259 ol EAT he NOY al A a a 322
DIST We otek ae 11, 239, 259 BU ee fear ticeeus wahee oh c ts 313
DR Wa ete hae eas ea ler y el 261 B44 8 AUS, ge i Iaaet ee ANG ma 0 187
LO. G41 UH Spee thes pocataguily any + 8 211 Lede h Omi ete se tite eke 314
EX CON ie nA eee 85 8. GHEE ipl ydldhcly seas RR 15
ERO econ mie chic an okie vale DN A Am ae NN s sela'y Nine, peek 4k 319
1 RS EEA CVES 1 Ailes kA lb ae CENA Sea ae Pe LU sa ckedgpe Cos te tie coe eat 323
Paes ode avai eat ll, 236 CELT, vionicin aevers ect ots 380
Ly A ule aig Oh AWA Sek ph 280 DESIR leo oe ct 34, 327
1D, ey MU i Rar A De EA oy Sy 269 AIT ?28-34 ook cece vedas G20
412 InpEx TO REFERENCES
TE se BOBO i cisns tote setetede es oie 154 1S EW ey SN i OT AON a tee LE ie 19, 60
MET SSB-BT a aarti elerkae 329 BEE 87 th cca drcnmies Oe
BLE SB8-39 beccsee dace 125, 185 TST vel 4 Moeleaees eee eae 63
MET SSO MW coin ee 331 TET SR EBy ae cca scdint ns ota oeene 64
EL SA Deh 4 ic eis iees toe Sha ate 336 PET PT Webi ccrmtoceidia wane eee 68
PONE BE Wy cc.2 Geeta ah dated sfarsantintet ete 338 1D iy 4: CUS Nn tre apiaes 8) 60
LEO ie cat tecaey 337, 338 BV tS, ok Gen aos jernte cee 73
>. WEE Ss BCR er mie os 340 TV s6h Sab ed doco male eet 72
OLE Shadow latte in a ees 27 EV ¢13)) cade sees Dae 79
MULT AS4i5 caveanraeeeas 20, 251 UNM 216-20 6 cca ue 60 enters 58
TEE 24-27 oe cighctniown ae cMaes 245 EV c1B-SO) . siicte tere eiptereten ne 140
XIUIT:24-37 2... OMe A | 342 WV $28-10) Ai iets 140, 177
LT eSB h odclal delate olBle etm 251 EV 222). oVPR Ei cae erate 19
NTE 234-3878 bi asek sa Rees 343 18 45 CO a a AS 140, 187
TV's LeBel ass i te’ 11, 349, 350 TV 26-272 vcs eeu kek ewe 18
LV £y hal aly Win la telaiei oie deme 350 EV 240) ¢o.3 et eone dee a htt 84
MD Wie LOMAS oe Josie atsicieieints 350 EV 242-480 65 S85 bod dsindhe ts 93
MV S628) 5 bcc dieleteraes 365 Wedel) eer atersei es Ae 92
EL Ve Se ices tela tel ota twining sete 399 Wis lQe16? fe coh aed, gee 93
Vit Ge-42 Cb cena ne ae 366 VelVinye ssh Sacre eee 101, 275
TY 243-68 iis aics vistas ees 370 OV OG isis 2 oe 82 OY ae ke
Drad Bary: © Yarn LE Sram ries 7 371 WeBare ies urea 63, 165
ORV 2S ri ett eielst etal ciel ant aueee 313 V's SB-S0 Gr io SOU ee ee 109
CTV 453-GO0o eis. telewia’s wa ane 374 VISIO Pe yose Fe eee 117
ES BG Teo ctaedh cle arate 1] Wis tecl Gece ee ee cee 142
MLV tOS-O8) bec eee ee 337 VisZ0-25'" as Sowa ae ere . 180
EV sh OS ores bate erotace ete ll VI:20-49 ....... PR ohm Std. 150
We SES cigs Se a eae 313, 374 VT OR op oss oon es eee 169
ee TsO TUT Srila tata ta tonebet aceon 380 VIESEALO Cer aes ae ae 95
Te Gs bia ste siatatal tw chelesctecs 363 VET 86 ito CAN ee eee 46
en Oe fo iatel al or eter ol harm meet ll WT TEL 30425 eee 136
TNE Era ile prateratelemcararats 384 WS 2 Oe Sea oe tee eer 67
9.004 oe 9 Rn eure 4: 385 VIS R28 ite ee ce ak ween 226
We a Ot CRA Te ot ata ate 240 VIPS. 255 2 uae heen aes 248
Te VTS athe edict sha avotohateremtar bate 337 ViPS O28 0. Se ce 247
KOM Pea fit iors Sete areueelee 393 WTR eri eet Posen ee 68
VAG iat reer ae sous 363 A'S LTE Y AbParr sry Petr. " 158
eV So abateihate steghere sane 366 WETS Lh three aa eos eee 19
MVAIO-ZO uss dbsewe cls 13, 399 VT lB eee eee 392
Luke VULES LG 7 6 Chea se 3, 193
Bat is Ee yO Ry hei | ok eis 7 WLI 40 8. eee 19
Wie beet Lier care cad tmerede a eee aes Pray gn 149
DiGO The oneal ats eatin cme 61 EX tL SU dl ees oh cae eee 223
Ba 9 es me pe a ae er age i La 61 TX 220-20 A a ee aalen 140
TsSO et ea PPOs Oe Ee ree 61 TAAOL owe ots oak oe 242
DER es ceo we Oe ee age 61 a A elgg easiest J baadiel OE
Dee aieicce reece Payers | Pate vac cee tees cae 258
SI Lee ees Bat al toes aaa 19 LA. t 40-85. 'etee ek aes cep se, BOO
CU Vals le olelore ie tala i'd tle ohne ee RAL awe Vala eee parece aim) Wee
TI:41-51 eeoecsnevrened ereee 54 IX: 51-55 eoveeeorenesese 143
IT:51 err eee eee 54 IX :57 eeeereoeoeesee@gieonse 20
Inpex To REFERENCES 4138
EX s67-58.- otc weg ces 185 NS Oe A re BSC 158
BX350-60 onion wi avyheees 184 Vis AOR ed ton i clisies ett 178
Tl eh ey oe 20 VSO a os ok Sees heer 370
MH tE-20.. 25. ibaeteaewy eg 147 VL Tere SG ee es fo 181
Pet lTahO sc shed cindy See oe 76 PA VARs Lire ri ieee ey ae orale 160
Bh orale in he are ten ee 302 OVE ST Parr a a siete lee vid 18
A 25-28 i254 ais pane a 328 SA Vi 211 Bee ida atahaticla sera" 173, 278
ALSO OE >| C5405 Sake 18 VES TRB LW pet ale ela 182
M2728 + naa cue es 154 De VEL eS lee seks ote 174, 249
R849 > vicarcicies Aer 177 DEV LIPS 20 ean oe eee 174
MBB sens view beacon 20 ENV Lis Sis ule to get Sab oh 176
ee BB 4D wan’ len keh 180 me VLESO I e's wieaie' eee See 160
6 0) LEE eres .. 63, 165 DVL s eee eee 20
D0 Oy a ae ee en 165 MOVED 1-19 Ox, he 18, 157
Pl 5B cone his hed aaa 85 RVI 22387005 te ea
XI:5 Bee utewieek y BP itvoete reees 178 XVII:23, 24, 26, 27, 34,
PTI B Bien ces Vasc eee 157 O's Ohh else's © bearer a ale ty 38
LO re sida aired Maine 248 OVER D LS see gierd sare oats 157
LS OSD ascot bly Betay 217 VIEL DS LR Sai tererew i talents 108
LEST D2) wi wen wary Vero 332 eV ALS TS- Td ey le oe 158
OT GATS Mec heniwitran aiiatae 335 VEIT S-B0 iain inn otk 281
+ 0 ED CRRR Sv eramre eam tt 219 POVIEI ES 134 Weve eae shares 290
ERE TO ~ 5. oie ea evc er 87 VTE S DES on Ca ia 292
PLES LBL nasche saverdhctete wavered 181: DLR ee LOEW Silay oh o's ote 292
eA MOD SLB iss Vien cect hee rena 158 i, Gay DSL Me ann ba 250
RT EEO BE hia ciate wAiw's we dates 162 9 08 Wy Re Pra ere 295
PLES Bondy Mra erarshitetarerals Oba tatd 180 » 0 PEA Wo ESPs EP i ae 4 345
BIER tS ako rercies ais 6) Perak 160 IRIS 26 aie oh Ves 338
AES ae Olas sai ek ek iucesteny 338 AE NN RMB O WNcran’y Gin view bide ee 296
ESE) py Sie vsscletinsei Miceate a 180 RDA TOE a ek wale ee 299
DG EE VE OGn Ries. 5 02 338 REARS Rew hitle wea thew see 296
ULE O0 ir ntaeicte arses eee 256 POLO aera gcoleman 314
DG WETS ss 1 SR neni os 145 Men riaet Lesa dolar or bide: lhc alt iA MO 316
PR TEE S25 Weiareteshccstiahesouiae’s 153 DON BO-26 sek iene 323
MELT GeO PGs snahesner apsciore io ee 321 2D ER SOU a re BBL A 326
CAPE SAO ab yf siacetamtatvenes ster lll PSD ee FO hese wp ontticle tiarth yale 326
PRE SL We ae tee tavwhateltte 214 PEAR GISOOY. Wire nied Rohe Wy 279
Ee iis soy wis o 4 hs 27 DEAS E ER wie sien eca da, vans 43
AE BELG | voyecotescnckert-uletote ote 214 2 A re ae wg ee 329
Se LEA OM a ooh ie mia sesso 170 ak ADAG his Che's Seater 331
SPELL OL+SE ya buericteneine 220 DALE yuki sven Dee iets 336
G08 ESPs fs Rae peeaeenn td oo. 237 PORE 2 2 eos og. cit eeaeeeae 340
Siessae cr. as 19, 318 BGO EPL Ue cep GA Io 341
EM STELD vious ib ielelin Feet 179 2 OEY TER A ee, Ae 20
SAY © MRE een? | 178 NRE OAS aotars wokee site 245
AMIEL LS OS caw oannioet te 169 XT 2H-SG taicter staal ges 338, 342
RAG i. s, nso eae ees 184 PA Dehl SO une usiciete Aik. 251
9 14 7s KER rey aBNS 3 LS 180 PLR PDS a cle ecadiv ya his caibtels 19
DEV iets s o0h.a mayne ete 19 BOLTS Laie ook dave Ses 357
ANG oh aoc eumieamas te 157 » 4) WES W (hb RE See 8 See 361
414
BOX TE S838 2 os pelle: 365
RX IC 80 hc wae 117
SNIT235, 38) 4,0 cca 371
RXTE G40) 1s eee 399
RIT OO-48 sp lak ee 366
KIT 47-68 co 370
OKIE! ly Gs eee 374
XXII:66-XXIII:1 ...... 374
MND: 1-05 . BS Wf dace Tee Mee UR a 246
BR OSS OT aoe cne ee 215 PG ik Bo 2D bY PU at ee 340
TA 3340 . eee 20 ENN APY A BS ds Ua ua AS Sa ee mA 340
DP AAD! cole ne cat Coss eee 46 A VES me ee eee ae 385
Ee Best he ach boaterarete ce Mae 259 | I Corinthians
UE LOFIG dc. Se tharos 259 1 BED A Soe Satiek pC einsar pee dea Me 2 65
SLOSS Fae sy aiuidae aelaete 210 ME ee ee et Wak’ 103
>. Ys |; POA rob OR 13 WW LL SoU al 279
2 EK UOR PRS ats ORAM CROPS «3 Yee (7 210 VED Sb Gs ir Ot ius 1
AIT 51-2... cK OD. ae 291 3.0 Gy 4s I EE, OSD, Raa te 362
MITE odie. abeneke 13, 372 DT ORO dU ila Muli 1
IT EQOs iiuiecioe Mek bate 209 OV ide 9 a Nad ie arg 237
LET 1 BA es ow ber 4 KN 26-7) ie deities Bs ue 404
TT Ee TB bed ic acssn ae ea 28 Ve OO SS ks Bie ie 44
A VB leis nileincks Si atte ae 15 LO ef CA RARE Ra Aa 227, 330
Vib kee Ge. ee 15 BV BO-62 i heey ane ill 245
> Mg) 05 Os ee 2 rie re ey 46 | II Corinthians
RVI1isT Berea: Fase 20 Drs BD Cis revi ten i ne Ay 1
OO V.10-102 2icinciieskess ietoe 259 IVT Eine ceils aba te peal aw AUP ECO a RD ea Gh ae fea ALY 144
3D CCR: Oo ETRE ONE AOR OE 2 84 2. 6H SO eee a ea! 18, 401
RUA Gdeih in ites Rielwre bie ccte mene 362 | Galatians
ASL 17 yee. Cas 20 18 Oh) Wh Bs Fe Ase ie ae 16, 232, 380
5D. NEL 8 4° a PTE A: 319 ET re eth ety mater ay parks
DEX DEL Bids heen eee 327 5 ATH SOS ICID RUD SA 367
ER LEDs DG, cin ttc peelaateiane 20 SUEDE Is Ue RRS ips MI RT 398
VSD ZG sins sie bre btn le ake 20 | Ephesians
Re VCO LO ik cients te Stele ate 375 EV. SSL \aain eetataisl «tomers Ghai 396
MOV LE SoA Chin tai eh whtbetehs 20 | Philippians
Romans RE arias ete tala adie aielee akere 306
Dp ab hig: RK bcs Woe va te eticle boat ah 1 TUB Oye ee tee 388
he Se aeran Ure ers =use 8 330 | Colossians
PE LGy sg ese Herein tees movle 212 EVLA rik PAG Wy a Le 20
OS 7 eae ee aa ee 302 | I Thessalonians
PVCS 6 Seca i ia ROS Nh 81 WE Vit FAs 20 ee go elie eee 173
WET is ear Cah st itiaicl aha. RAPE ote 281 | II Thessalonians
Wilh -o.daeeyckey Sees: 318 eGR Rea ss gk dition Cee 250
METTSIG. cise Fees 367 EDs 1eTo a, See 249
WELT 18-25 oie cs oka s 361 | JI Timothy
jit). CR Ne leo 188, 249 Pe TB rae wie bg MIRE a 46
PLES PIS. eb ween ees 340 | Hebrews
416
We eae e Ce ee wick eae kiero 369
IVER Tele tatis aie) eel hk anes 256
Wa SiO Gentes de acai lnata 49, 300
REAL Lk Silils Set evietesint pia a) oxeneton 315
I Peter
PDS eek fescue atone a 387
Jude
BG estates Gles seoece Suaveconnivis eteine 347
Revelation
De Weis tad ask es ees . 22
LE AERA Aste) braver anilets MAAR a 22
TEDtZ0-2 bie. RA 5
EAN Ltd Ys cul ea ciocnoreioehts 360
ANG ES SRR apap el Aa i | 360
PO LS OOe abe te at Ueki 5
Aristeas, Letter of ........ 25
Ascension of Isaiah, X-XI.. 224
Assumption of Moses, X:10 45
Baruch, sed hd i of,
XXIX:5 niplpticiat one ete re 74
XLIX:1- i. Fy Ee pee Pra 30, 396
Ecclesiasticus
at Liss) bsin ese Ree ees 43
Dee TUOE eieak tpladaainy anew 26
Enoch
RVI ¢404s iced Ge 41
Dada V hab 2h ate er etohe she HORE 267
PUY IER VERB aks os eek 43
MAVEUS eee aah baa keen 41
RV Tee Os ia. pee 42.
DV ELLE sas taversmietewe aote 42
Bi Bali o Poe cia ater ae 45
Dil ere ce Nea Ae ae 252
BA EY aan ae ier ae 347
DALE 218-14 sevens 42, 347
ERT OTSA ai ee 347
DU RO tet OR ee tO ae 42
Per ee heen ie eet 44
Enoch, Secrets of
WLLL Vintineiy atatsia wees weer 388
MLSE Se poea sis ih ec aaeee 343
IV Esdras
V EE One re 44
PE Nar ees lca So tate ae Sere 43, 227
I Maccabees
Ei BG-Da) cdss ope ae + wean 58
II Maccabees
Vee Dy tS ai uh ae 396
Lg be Per ere pee f 396
InpEx To REFERENCES
VIT:37-38 2... cee ews eees 241
RLV ch Gleiicccechasinse Geen 396
IV Maccabees
E09 R 2 edavncessiogs bes eee oe 240
Ve 2D ccossslununncuemiekeeaane eee 241
Ke VITA 2I 22s... aieipree Sew ees 240
Sibylline Oracles
LV :24-33,. 162-170 ....... 05 45
EX POAT, cle sion 63
Solomon (Pharisees),
Psalms of
P.O BS A, STP 360
DOV TUS AG | cisspheiaccun ctor 396
RV UU od clearest 43
Solomon, Wisdom of
ELS LOTS Pie Les siabetetouat te 43
Testaments of the
12 Patriarchs ........ 39, 64
LBV MLV ES Sioaimacaien ates 44
Issachar, V:2, VII:6.... 328
Dan, PV 23. ioeacanukeeee 328
Asher, (WULES is. decease ae 44
Benjamin, IX:2 ........ 44
Clementine Recognitions
DBS S GO iis) eceyesonsveine eee 64
Eusebius, Church fivstorg
SO ited. a's u'o aa ata a en 53
PEMD Ute sapsraledisis eyatoe cove 841
sh es! Raion es Wear} pA 8 12
WALILS Hida anni dealer ae 390
Josephus, Antiquities
ATT LO SG ys ainwe ley aa
Tak Vise Sv ssiictan keane 34
ALY iBi1-3. pec aee e beeen 28
ee ViR BS EO scenes pupipter ee ae 276
PV ELSBt 1, aso wiy oye Beene 275
Xe Ved slilceay spas eee 35
A VIEDEOT 3) sare eres ae 396
TEX VELTGL 23) fo ves ties gee 30
OV Ee th oe Sine gare ee 34
AA ELL LS By 7%, uoshelm reek ake 35
RV ATT 22: oo oe we kee aetee 374
D958 98 he 1 | OU a a 374
VT Be Be ala cate mat ayare 60, 276
Ne Ba es a cian wl Be 46
Josephus, War
BE Bree a a's 3 ee Say GRD
EE ED or Ree 396
fF k eo : ame 30, 34, 396
fU 2 PARR PEE AE Oe Co 335
InpEx To REFERENCES 417
ELD CO) ae Mire aie Fils erties 24 On the World, III....... 396
BVLL SSS! Gretta ah aa oth aa 355 my
Justin Martyr, Dialogue Natural History, V:17... 35
MER VELL Goes aie Cette aed 235 PV ESEG OM aatnee win ecalehi ase . 320
PERS V DEL bes alates eee tk 57 | Talmud
PE a Le veieis = tix tate e ine 235 Agada der Galeatine
NGG aes oH Ne OPP ERY fae spe 235 eneischen Amoraer,
Jwenal, Satire ‘Die, Bacher, IIT;.616.... 32 re
POV \ biateiael a tahtie e's »- 12, 110 Pirke Aboth, IT: Oe
Piulo Tract Pesachim. . 395, 356, 357
On the Virtues of Am- Teachings of the Twelve
bassadors, P. 45....... 12 | Apostles
On the Virtuous Man Be- VALLES As am Shen s Gamera ae 5s 107
ing-Free, XII ........ 35
Pate gor uae
u * 44 i
A RA An aN AAO 4
GENERAL INDEX
Abba Father, 367
Abomination of desolation, 340
Abrahams, I., 68, 111, 113, 277,
325
Alexander and Rufus, 385
Andrew, 92, 99, 143
Annas, High Priest, 374
Anointing of Jesus at feast,
350 f.
Antioch, Matthew Gospel in, 16
Antiochus Epiphanes, 29
Apocalyptic literature, 24
Aramaic Gospels, 8
Aramaic expressions, 122, 135,
367
Aramaic, Son of Man in, 102f.,
113
Bacher, Wilhelm, 325
Baptism of proselytes, 63
Barabbas, 381-2
Barracks, Roman, in Jerusalem,
28
Bartimaeus, 294 f., 297
Beatitudes, 170-2
Beelzeboul, theory of the Scribes,
118-20, 139, 189, 191, 313
Bethany, 296, 310, 350, 379, 404
Bethphage, 296
Bethsaida, 148, 204, 209, 213
Bi-lingual Palestine, 8
Binding and loosing, 103, 231 f.
Burning bush, 327
Caesar, Julius, 28
Caesar’s coin, 323-6
Caesarea Philippi, 209, 222, 223,
226
Caiaphas, High Priest, 374, 376-8
Capernaum, 92, 95, 99, 119, 148,
207, 216, 273
Captain of the Temple, 26, 312
Charles, R. H., 24
Chasidim, 29 f.
Chorazin, 148
Church, 175, 230-3
Cleopas, 401
Conder, C. R., 136
Covenants, new and old, 359 f.
Dalmanutha, 209, 216
David and priests’ bread, 112
and Psalm CX, 329 f,
Death, Jesus dealing with, 132,
135-7
Death of Jesus, significance of,
(See Suffering)
Death, Messianic, in
thought, 234 f.
Decapolis (Ten City District),
132, 209, 213
Deissmann, Adolf, 214
Demons, exorcism of, 83f., 87-
Jewish
90, 118-20, 129-32, 144,
147f., 210-12, 259-63,
269 f.
Elder, quoted by Papias, 12 f.
Eleazar and Izates, 46
Elijah, 62, 142, 222, 223, 224,
252 f., 258 f., 389
Elisha, and the loaves, 203 f.
and Naaman the Syrian, 142
Emmaus, two disciples going to,
401-3
End of the age, 243-55, 337-48
Eschatology of Jesus, 243-55,
337-48
Essenes, 34f., 61
Faith, 86, 96, 100£., 128, 133-5,
137, 158-60, 212, 260-2,
304 f., 321 f.
Fasting, 107-9
Feeding multitudes, 198-207,
214f ;
419
420
Ferrar, W. J., 24
Fig-tree withered, 320-2
Food laws, 11 f., 121-3
Forgiveness, 100f., 102 f.,
174-6, 322
Future life, 305 f.
123,
Galatia, Jewish Christians in,
.
Galilee,
Early home of Jesus, 53 f., 61
Jesus’ public work in, 81-208
Jesus leaves, 207f.
Jesus’ brief return to, 216-18
Jesus travels secretly through,
264-75
Gehenna, 272
Gentiles in the Kingdom of God,
Jewish view, 44-6
Mark Gospel, 10-12
Matthew Gospel, 14-16, 231 f.
See in Palestine, 8, 29 f.,
3
Gentiles of the synagogue, 45 f.,
, 212
Gerasene demoniac,
Gethsemane, 365-73
Golgotha, 385
Gospel, meaning of, 2
Gospels, credibility of, 3-8
Gospels, shaped by Christian
teachers, 4-7
129-32
Healing, Jesus’, by prayer, 83-7,
135, 213
Jesus’ avoidance of, 92-5, 214
Hebrews, Gospel according to,
-113 f.
Herod Antipas, 81, 115, 199, 210,
218-20, 275 f., 323-6, 382 f.
Herod the Great, 24, 51f.
Herodians, 114f., 218f.,
323-6
Holy Spirit, 86 f., 120, 147, 229,
220,
Biasbham’ against, 120
Humility, disciples’ lack of,
265-73, 280, 290 f.
Idumaea, 116
GenrraL INDEX
Izates, the proselyte, 46 -
Jackson and Lake, 62, 143
James, brother of Jesus, 119
James, of Zebedee, 92, 143, 290 f.
Jeremiah, Jesus reincarnation
of, 222, 224
Jericho, 292-4
Jesusalem, visits of Jesus to,
52, 53 f., 81 f., 289, 298
Jesus,
Birth, 51f., 70
Genealogies, 53
At temple as a boy, 53 f.
Life in Nazareth, 49-59
Family, 55 f., 118 f., 138
Carpenter, 56 f.
Date beginning public life, 60
Baptism, 65-69
Temptation, 70-80
Prophet and healer in Galilee,
81-208
Choosing disciples, 91 f., 117 f.
Sending out disciples, 144-46
Multitudes eating in brother-
hood, 198-207
Leaves Galilee, 207 f.
In outland. 209-21
Brief return to Galilee, 216-18
Reveals . Messianic conscious-
ness, 222-33
Travels secretly through Gali-
lee, 264-75
In Peraea, resumes public
work, 275-88
To Jerusalem, 289-99
Conflict with scribes and
priests, 308-28
Private teachings about end of
the age, 337-48
Last Supper, 355-64
In Gethsemane, 365-70
Betrayal and arrest,
370-3
Trial, 374-83.
Execution, 384-90
Burial, 393 f.
Resurrection, 396-406
Healings by,
Bartimaeus, 294 f.
350-4,
GENERAL INDEX 421
Jesus, Jesus,
Healings by, Teachings of,
Centurion’s servant, 95 f.
Deaf stammerer, 213 f.
Epileptic, 259-61
Jairus’ daughter, 133, 135 f.
Leper, 93-5
Paralytic, 99 f.
Simon’s mother-in-law, 86
Ten lepers, 157
Withered hand, 113 f.
Woman bent over, 111
Woman. with blood issue,
133-5
See Demons, exorcism of,
Parables of,
Drag net, °196
Friend at midnight, 85, 178
Good Samaritan, 177
Growth of seed, 194
Judgment scene, 346-8
Laborers in the vineyard,
57, 287 f.
Leaven, 196
Lost coin, 157
Lost sheep, 157
Lost son, 157f., 177 f.
Marriage of king’s son,
317-9
Mustard seed, 195
Pearl merchant, 196
Pharisee and publican, 158
Plant uprooted, 14
Pounds, 250, 295 f., 344-7
Rich fool, 181
Rich man and Lazarus,
182 f.
Shrewd steward, 181 f.
Sower, 190-3
Strong man bound, 119 f.
Talents, 344-7
Tares, 196 f.
Treasure in field, 196
Two sons, 316 f.
Unforgivingg servant, 176
Unjust judge, 156 f.
Virgins, 343 f.
Wicked husbandman, 314-6
Teachings of,
Attention, 191-3
Based on experience, 150 f.
Basis of authority, 306
Beatitudes, 170-2 ;
Brotherhood, 166-83, NS
254, 305 f.
Central trends, 305 f.
Children, 280 f.
Divoree, 173, 276-9
Faith in the Heavenly
Father, 159 f.
Forgiving, 174-6
Friendly heart, 172
Fulfilling law, 174
Future life, 326 f.
Golden Rule, 169 f.
God a Father, 155, 165,
200 f., 254, 305 f.
Honest heart, 152 f.
Humility, 265-73, 280, 290-2
Lord’s prayer, 164 f.
Love of neighbors, 166 f.
Loving heart, 153-5
Loyalty to Jesus, 183-5
Lust, 173
Money, 160f., 180-3, 282-5,
336
Paying debts, 173
Prayer, 156 f., 178
Repentance, 157 f.
Revenge, 173 f.
Righteous heart, 151 f.
Self-denial, 168
Servant of everyone, 167 f.
Social courtesies, 178-80
Sympathy, 177
Thankfulness, 157 —
Trusting the Heavenly
Father, 158 f.
Unostentatious righteousness
162-4
See Eschatology, Faith,
Kingdom, Law, Suffering.
Joanna, 398
Johanan, Rabbi, 3
John of Zebedee, 92, 143, 290 f.
John the Baptist,
Preaching and baptism of,
60-3, 82 f.
422
John the Baptist,
Disciples of, 63 f.
Prediction of the Messiah, 64 f.
Baptizes Jesus, 65 f.
Recognition of Jesus’ Messiah-
ship uncertain, 66f. 83 f.
226
Imprisonment and execution
of, 81, 199
Not a healer, 83 f.
Jesus’ eulogy of, 247 f.
Not in the Kingdom of
Heaven, 247 f.
Called Elijah, 259
His spirit in Jesus, 222, 276
Jesus questions Pharisees
about, 313 f.
John the Baptist sect, 63 f.
Jonah, 217
Joseph of Arimathaea, 393 f.
Josephus, Works of, 23
Judas, the Galilean, 35, 59-61,
63, 79, 138, 141, 143,
194f., 308 f.
Judas Iscariot, 143 f., 220, 267,
350-4
Judgment of the Son of Man,
347 f.
Kingdom of God (Heaven)
Jewish idea of, 38-48, 70,
203 f., 266 f.
Jesus’ idea of life in, 149-186,
197, 268 f.
Jesus’ idea of when and how it
would come, 243-55, 337-
48
Korban, 122
Law and synagogue, 27
Law of Moses, Jesus’ view of,
112, 131701794, 98 f.,
104 f., 109-14, 121-3, 174,
197, 216f., 276-8, 282,
318 f., 328, 333, 344
Pharisees’ view of, 30-33
Levi, 103-6, 143
Logia of Matthew, 17
Lord’s prayer, 164 f.
Lord’s Supper, 201, 355-64
GENERAL INDEX
Lord’s naeens Not the passover,
362 f.
Love to God, 153-65, 328
Love to men, 166-83, 328
Loyalty to Jesus, 183-6
Luke, 20
Gospel of, 18-21
Special teaching in the Gospel
of, 177-86
Maccabean martyrs,
new age, 240f.
Magadan, 216
Magians, 52
Mark, 12f., 377 f.
Gospel of, 10-13
Late ending of the Gospel of,
399 f.
Mary and Martha, 179 f.
Marys at the empty. tomb, 398
Matthew, 103-6, 143, 267
Gospel of, 13-18
Messiah from tribe of Levi, 64
Messianic consciousness of Jesus,
development of, 67 f.,
76f., 80, 88f., 96, 102,
123 f., 204-6, 210, 217, 225-
30, 233, 241 f., 253 f., 256
294, 296-8, 300-7, 321 f.,
330 f., 339-48, 376-8
Concealment of, 222-33, 240,
' 204f., 296, 377
Messianic hope, Jewish, 38-48, 65,
70, 72, 224, 234, 307
Of the Twelve, 266-8
Montefiore, C. G., 122
Moses at the Transfiguration,
252 f.
Megsianic _ prototype,
203 f., 205, 207
Mount of Olives, 338, 366
Mysteries, 189 .
Nain, Widow’s son, 136
Nazareth, description of, 54 f.
Jesus’ early life in, 50
Jesus’ rejection in, 138-42
Nazarite, 61
Nicodemus, 82, 394
Oesterley and Box, 356
introduce
72-4,
GENERAL INDEX
Papias, 12, 17
Parables, Jesus’ reason for using,
187-90
Paradise, 388
Passover, 355-8
Paul, 1, 19 f., 22, 105, 120, 187 f
212, 249f., 279, 318, 340,
341, 361 f., 375
Pella, 341
Peraea, 275, 323
Peter,
Source of Mark, 12 f.
Exalted in Matthew, 16 f.
Called by Jesus, 92
Mother-in-law cured, 86
Walks on water, 206
Confessor and rock man, 223,
230-3, 235 f.
With the keys, 232 f.
Misunderstands prediction ot
resurrection, 238 f.
Denies Jesus, 378-80
Peter Gospel, 388
Pharisees,
Origin of, 29f.
Teaching of, 30-33, 98 f., 123-5,
281
Number and. influcnce of, 36
Early conflicts with Jesus,
98-125
Asking for a sign, 216-20
Combine with priests against
Jesus, 308-29
Denounced by Jesus, 329-36
Philip, 143
Pictures, Jewish dislike of, 324 f.
Pilate, the procurator, 153, 380-
4, 393 f.
Pompey, 33 f.
Post, G. E., 356
Prayer, 84-86, 92f., 129, 135,
156 f., 163-5, 178, 204f.,
213, 262f., 304, 321 f.
Priests, 26, 28 f., 33 f., 220, 313-
28, 386 f.
Priests and_ scribes combine
against Jesus, 308-28
Prophets and teachers shaping
Gospels, 4-7
Publicans, 37, 103-105, 292-4
423
Quelle, Source document, 8 f., 17
Rabbinic method of teaching,
Raseaay, (We M., 51
Resurrection, current Jewish
ideas of, 30, 34, 326f.,
396 f.
Jesus’ view of, 326 f.
Jesus, expectation of his, 234,
236-8, 265, 289 f.
Nature of Jesus’, 396-8, 404-6
Revelation, Book of, 5, 21
Rich man discouraged, 281-3
Righteousness in relation to God,
150-165
In relation to men, 166-183,
282-8
In the heart, 151-7
Pharisees’ ideas of, 31, 101 f.,
104 f., 107f., 109-11, 118,
121, 123 f., 281
Romahs in Palestine, 28
Rufus and Alexander, 385
Sabbath, 109-115 .
Saddouk, see Judas the Galilean.
Sadducees,
Origin and teaching, 33 f.
Number of, 36
Included chief priests, 308
Resurrection debated with
Jesus, 326-8
Salome, 392, 398
Satan, 72f., 76-9, 83, 118-20,
126 f., 1383, 139, 147
Schiirer, Emil, 325
Scribes,
Influence of, 27, 36, 98 f.
Mainly Pharisees, 36, 308
Against Jesus, 98-125, 313-36
See Pharisees
Scribes and Pharisees denounced
by Jesus, 329-36
Scribes and _ priests combine
against Jesus, 308-28
Sermon on the Mount, 150, 170
Seventy sent out, 147 f.
Sidon, 116, 123, 148, 209, 212
Sign from heaven refused, 216-8
424
Siloam, 153
Simon, Jesus’ cross-bearer, 385,
389
Simon “the Cananaean” or “the
Zealot,” 143
Sinners, 38 f.
Jesus’ eating with, 103-6
Smith, G. A., 54 f.
Son of David, 40f., 117, 227,
294, 329f., 340
Son of God, 43, 66-68, 70-80, 123
Son of Man, 41-43, 227, 238, 340
Jesus the, 102 f., 113, 135, 227-
30, 330
Sources of the Gospels, 8 f.
Stephen and the Law of Moses,
14, 337
Storm, Jesus, quieting, 127-9
Strack and Billerbeck, 40
Suffering of Jesus, Meaning of,
236-42, 264, 268, 290-2,
321 f., 352, 358-60, 366-9,
383, 388 f., 390 f.
Synagogue, Purpose of, 26-28, 82
Ruler of, 27, 111
Synoptic problem, 2, 8 f.
Syro-Phoenician woman, 210-12
Tacitus, 146
Talmud, 3, 23f.
Temple bazaar closed by Jesus,
81, 310-12
GenERAL INDEX
Temple, Jewish, 24-26, 309 f.
Temple tax, 273 f.
Temple to be destroyed, 337-42
Temptation of Jesus, 70-80, 217,
225 f.
Theophilus, 19
Thief on cross, 387 f.
Thompson, W. H., 190
Tiberias, 381
Timothy, 46
Tradition of elders, 14, 31 f.
Opposed by Jesus, 120-3, 216
Transfiguration, 252 f., 256-9
Trial of Jesus, 374-83
Legality of, 378
Tribute money, 322-6
Triumphal entry, 296-9
Twelve, selection of the, 117 f.,
143 f.
Twelve sent out, 144-6
Tyre, Jesus in, 123, 209, 211-12
Virgin birth, 50f., 70
Weber, Ferdinand, 110, 235
Widow, poor but generous, 336
Winsche, August, 356 .
Zacchaeus, 292-4
Zadok, see Saddouk
Zealots, 35 f., 143
Zechariah, 335
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