DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

GIFT OF
Prof. Boland H. Bainton

THE FIRST THREE. GOSPELS.

THE

FIRST THREE GOSPELS

THEIR ORIGIN AND RELATIONS

BY
J. ESTLIN CARPENTER, M.A.

SECOND EDITION.

ILontion :
SUNDAY SCHOOL ASSOCIATION,
Essex Hall, Essex Street, Strand, W.C.
1890.

TRUTH ALWAYS AND EVERYWHERE IS A SACRED TRUST FROM
GOD FOR THE SERVICE OF MAN.
From a Sermon preached by the late Rev.
Aubrey L. Moore, M.A., at St. Mary's,
Oxford, November 24, i88g.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

This little book is an attempt to set before the ordinary English
reader some of the results of recent study of the First Three
Gospels. A few years ago I endeavoured to draw up a brief
-account of the general social and religious conditions amid
which Jesus lived and taught. It was my hope then that Life
in Palestine might be speedily followed by a short and simple
Commentary on the Gospel according to S. Luke. But the
preparation of a series of Notes on that Gospel for the use of
parents and teachers,1 convinced me that no commentary could
be really useful or intelligible until the way had been made ready
by a previous exposition of the modes of thought and feeling
which helped to shape the Gospel narratives. The following
pages are intended to set forth some of these ideas, and describe
the growth of the documents in which they were finally embodied.
As this book is written for those who may be unfamiliar with
the history and the methods of critical enquiry, almost all refer
ences to sources which might be closed to them have been
avoided ; the notes which might have contained more ample
acknowledgement of indebtedness for facts or for ideas, have
been suppressed ; and quotations from the Revised Version have
been freely placed upon the page. In the enormous literature
which surrounds the subject, the attention of English readers
should be directed — on the traditional side — to the various tives
1 Sunday School Helper, vols. i. and ii., 1885 and 1886. A 2

vi. PREFACE.
of Christ by Archdeacon Farrar, Dr. Geikie, the late Dr.
Edersheim, and Dr. Bernard Weiss, with the Introduction to
the Study of the Gospels by Dr. Westcott, to whom all
students of the New Testament are under such deep obligations.
Those who desire a fuller knowledge of different views in the
modern critical schools, may turn to the Bible for Young People,
vols. v. and vi., to the New Life of Jesus by Strauss, or the great
treatise of Keim entitled Jesus of Nazara. Much has been
written since these works were produced. In English I have
profited most by the labours of Dr. Abbott,1 while the writings
of Holtzmann, Weiss, and Weizsacker have often guided me.
Above all, Dr. Pfleiderer's most stimulating book, Das Urchrist-
enthum, has been my constant companion.
Had not the appropriate limits of size been already exceeded,
this enquiry should have been opened by a sketch of the great
critical movement of our time in its application to the Gospels,
with the view of showing what service it has rendered in en
abling us to disengage the abiding truths in Christianity from
their local forms and national associations. We cannot always
rightly estimate the true greatness of Jesus, because we cannot
always translate his language into a moral and religious idiom
more closely akin to our own hopes and efforts ; we are per
plexed by doubts as to how much, after all, is really his ; and
we are embarrassed by the seeming conflict between the received
interpretation of words attributed to him, and the experience of
history. In the seventh chapter of this book a new solution is
suggested of one of the most obvious and pressing of these
difficulties.2 Whether or not that particular explanation be
conceived on the right lines of critical probability and spiritual
1 See his article on the ' Gospels ' in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, and the Common Tradition of the Synoptic Gospels
(Abbott and Rushbrooke) . References to Philochristus and The
Kernel and the Husk will be found further on.
2 In the Commentary on Luke, which I hope may follow at no
very distant date, the great problem of the interpretation of the
teaching of Jesus will be treated in detail. For that ampler dis
cussion, also, the consideration of the Resurrection must be reserved.

PREFACE. vii.
harmony with the character of Jesus as it is elsewhere made
known to us, is of small consequence, compared with the general
results towards which modern investigation is tending. Do these
diminish or heighten our reverence for the Teacher ? Chris
tianity, as it is presented to us in the great orthodox Churches
and in the civilization of our own day, is the result of innumer
able influences working through many ages and many minds. But
it is no less true that Christianity, as it is presented to us in the
New Testament, and even within the limits of the First Three
Gospels, is the product of various and complex forces at work in
the early Church. It is the object of this book to show some of
these forces in actual operation. Can we pass behind them, and,
if so, what do we find ? To answer these questions fully, a more
searching analysis is needed than is here attempted. It is only
possible to observe now that the creation of a new moral and
religious ideal such as the Church embodied, demands an
adequate historic cause. Whatever uncertainty may attach to
large portions of the tradition about Jesus, the attempt to
penetrate into the mystery which still surrounds the origin of
Christianity will not be fruitless, if it enables us to realise more
clearly the force of personality, the boldness of view, the purity
of insight, and the elevation of soul, which are winning even
now fresh life and growing power for the ideas of the ' Prophet
1 of Nazareth.' J. Estlin Carpenter.
Oxford, February 15th, 1890.

NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

In this edition a few passages have been added, and others
slightly expanded ; but the unexpected demand for a re-print has
left no time for incorporating any references to the discussions or
results of the most recent works in the same field. Different
views will be found in The Seat of Authority in Religion by Dr.

•viii. NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
Martineau, in The Kingdom of God by Dr. A. B. Bruce, and The
Composition ofthe Four Gospels by Mr. Wright: while the student
may be further referred to Usener's Religionsgeschichtliche
Untersuchungen, Bonn, 1889.
To prevent any misapprehension as to the aim or scope of this
book, the reader should be warned not to expect in it any treat
ment of ' the great moral problems ' of the Gospels. He is not
invited to do more than consider their literary and historical
problems. No attempt is made in the following pages to investi
gate the contents and meaning of the real sayings of Jesus, except
incidentally ; the enquiries here conducted only concern the form
and character of the records, and the causes which have brought
them into their present shape. Not till these enquiries have
Teceived provisional answers is the ground cleared, or the way pre
pared, for the more penetrating study of the life and words which
are still for us the highest personal expression of the relation
between the human soul and God. J. E. C.
Oxford, September 5th, 1890.

ERRATUM.
Page 335, line 7 from bottom, for Cor. read Col.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

THE GOSPELS AND EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.

§ 1. Literature of the Second Century .
§ 2. The Four Selected ....
(i) Canon of Muratori (Rome)
(2) Irenaeus (Lyons)
(3) Tertullian (Carthage)
(4) Clement (Alexandria)
(5) Tatian (the ' Assyrian ') .
$ 3. The Gospels before they were Scripture
(1) Justin the Martyr
(2) Papias ....
$ 4. The Value of the Attestation .
(1) The Uncertainty of Early Quotations
(2) Contrast of Classical Usage
(3) Compositions bearing great Names
$ 5. The Gospels and the Church
(1) The Catholic Church .
(2) Gnosticism and the Sects .
(3) Montanism and Liberty of Teaching
(4) The Choice of the Apostolic

PAGE 1
4 558
1011 '+
•418
20
20 232426
2626 2828

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTEK II.
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS AND THE FOURTH.

Meaning of the term Synoptic .
$ 1. Their General Arrangement ....
(i) Synoptic Plan of the Ministry of Jesus
(a) The Preaching in Galilee
(4) Journey to Jerusalem and Last Days
(c) Duration of the Ministry
(2) Johannine Plan 
(a) The Scene ....
(A) The Time ....
(3) New Places, Persons, and Incidents .
(4) Disappearance of Important Crises .
$ 2. Matter and Style 
(1) Mutual Resemblance of the Synoptics
(2) Peculiarities of the Fourth Gospel
(a) Narratives of Events
[b) Discourses of Jesus
(c) Characteristic Themes
§ 3. Differences of Original Conception
(1) The Johannine Prologue .
(2) Relations of Jesus and John the
(3) Recognition as Messiah
(4) Feeding the Multitude
(S) Doctrine of Eternal Life .
(6) The Death of Jesus .
§ 4. Influence of a Great Idea

Baptist

PAGE. 3°31
3131 3i
32 323233
34 3435
35 36363737393941
43 45485i54

TABLE OF CONTENTS. xi.
CHAPTER III.
THE FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TR'ADITIONS. PAGE.
Need of the Enquiry . 58
§ 1. The Preaching of the Early Church ... 59
(1) The Ministry of the Word . . 59
(2) Apostolic Use of the Old Testament . 60
(3) Rise of Teaching about Jesus . 61
§ 2. Transition to Writing ....... 63
(1) Propagation of the Traditions orally. . . 63
(2) Evidence of the Apostle Paul . . . .64
(3) Missionary Preaching ... 65
(4) Incompleteness even of the Written Form . 67
(a) Sayings ascribed to Jesus outside the
Gospels . . . . .67
(4) Later Additions to the Gospels . . 67
§ 3. External Form of the Traditions . 72
( 1 ) The Teachings of Jesus  72
(2) Incidents of his Ministry . . . . .74
(a) Connection of Sayings and Incidents . 74
(b) Attachment of the same Saying to
Different Incidents . . . 76
(c) Duplication of Incidents . . . -79
(d) Confusion of Symbols and Facts . . 80
(3) Grouping of Incidents . . . .81
(4) Opposite Tendencies ; Vagueness and Precision 82
§ 4. Contents of the Traditions ... . . 84
(1) The Messianic Idea . . . .84
(2) Influence on Quotations . . . . .86
(3) Conformity to Prophecy  90
(4) Circumstances of the Church . . . -94
(5) Conceptions of Righteousness . . . .96
(6) The Gospel and the Gentiles . . . .98
(7) Devotional Significance of the Gospels . . 99

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MESSIANIC IDEA.

The Dominant Idea in the First Three Gospels
i 1. The Idea and its Forms .
(i) Its Roots in Hebrew Prophecy
(2) The Book of Daniel
(3) Current Expectations.
(a) The Two Ages
(4) Signs of the End
(c) The Kingdom
(d) The Messiah
(e) The Judgment
2. The Idea in the Gospels .
(1) The Framework .
(a) The Kingdom
(4) This Age and the Age to come
(c) The Signs
(rf) Eternal Life
(e) The Judgment
(2) The Person
(a) Son of David
(4) Son of God
(c) Son of Man
(d) The Lord
(e) The Holy One
(/) Application of Prophecies concerning
the ' Servant of Yahweh ' .
3. Transformation under the Influence of Ideas .
(1) The Prediction of the Wonderful Vine,
cribed to Jesus by Papias .
(2) The ' Conformities ' of Francis of Assisi
(3) The Legend of the Buddha

PAGE- IOI
103
103105 107
107107108 109 no
II I
III
III 112"3
114 114116
116 117122
124127
. 128 I31
• 132
• 134
• 136

TABLE OF CONTENTS. xiii.
CHAPTER V.
Messiah's preparation, page.
Where does Messiah's Career begin ?
$ 1. The Birth Stories 
(i) Comparison of Matthew and Luke .
(a) The Popular Cry ' Son of David ' .
(4) The Genealogies
(c) The Virgin Birth ....
(d) Bethlehem and Nazareth
(2) Matthew's Story 
(a) Legendary Character of the Narrative
(4) The Magi and the Star
(3) Luke's Story ...
(a) Its Peculiar Style
(4) The Enrolment ....
(c) The Governorship of Quirinius
(4) Ideal Elements in the Birth Stories .
(a) Messiah as Son of David
(4) Messiah as Son of God .
(c) The Poor and the Gentiles
(d) Danger and Deliverance .
(e) Fulfilment of Prophecy .
(5) Growth of Legend around Historical Characters 158
(a) Plato . . ...
(4) Caesar Augustus
(c) The Buddha . ...
i 2. The Baptism . . ....
(1) The Synoptic Narratives ....
(2) The Story in other Gospels
(3) The Baptism and Messiah's Sinlessness .
§ 3. The Temptation 
(1) Messiah's Conflict with Satan .
(2) The Three Trials 
(3) The Temptation of Zoroaster .
(4) The Triumph of the Buddha over the Evil One

xi*.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VI.

the miracles.

Miracles and early Rationalism
§ 1. The Atmosphere of Faith
(i) Absence of Direct Testimony
(2) Indications of Current Belief
(a) The Apostolic Age .
(4) Roman and Jewish Thought
(c) The Church .
(d) The Talmud .
$ 2. Cure of Demoniacs
(1) Messiah's Conflict with Evil
(2) Conversion of Figures into Facts : the Demoniac
of Gerasa
(3) ' Spirit ' and ' Wind '
§ 3. Old Testament Elements
(1) Prophecy ....
(2) Symbolic Language .
(3) Influence of Scripture Types
4. Language of Parable and Hymn
(1) The Fig-tree
(2) Walking on the Waves
(3) The Buddha and his Disciples
$ 5. Allegorical Composition
(1) The Draught of Fishes
(2) Feeding the Multitude
6. Growth of Legend around Religious Teachers
(1) Wesley and Demoniacal Possession .
(2) Israel Baal-Shem and the Chassidim .

177 179
179 182182184 184 185188 188 189192 •93193195 197198 199
201 203205 206 208 212212 213

TABLE OF CONTENTS. xv.
CHAPTER VII.
THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN. PAGE.
Difficulties attending the Inquiry .... 217
J 1. At Caesarea Philippi  218
(1) The Galilaean Ministry of the Kingdom . . 218
(2) The Appeal to Israel at Jerusalem . . . 220
(3) The Question of Jesus  221
(4) Anticipations of Danger  225
(5) Taking up the Cross  227
J 2. The Faith of the Church  228
(1) Jesus the Messianic Son of Man . . . 228
(2) His Return in Glory ...... 230
§ 3. The Transfiguration  232
(1) Diverging Interpretations ..... 232
(2) Old Testament Elements  234
(3) Symbolism  235
(4) The Transfiguration of the Buddha . . . 237
§ 4. The Last Things  239
(1) The Discourse on the Mount of Olives . . 239
(a) Its Occasion ...... 239
(4) Its Forms  240
(2) The Siege of Jerusalem and the Coming of the
Son of Man  242
(3) The Discourse a Compilation .... 244
(4) A Little Apocalypse  247
(5) Ascription of other Literary Language to Jesus 249
(6) Inconsistency of the Discourse of the Last
Things with other Teachings . . . 250
J 5. The Coming of the Son of Man  252
(1) Did Jesus predict the Coming of the Son of
Man?  252
(2) The Triumph of the Kingdom . . . .255
(3) The Realisation of the Reign of God. . . 256
(4) The Kingdom without Messiah .... 258
(5) Messiah's Death and Resurrection . . . 262
Summary  264

tvi. TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK. PAGE.
) 1. The Relations of the First Three Gospels . . . 266
(1) The Facts to be Explained .... 266
(2) Their Common Source .... 268
i 2. The Priority of Mark  270
(1) Mark not compiled out of Matthew and Luke . 270
(2) Originality of Mark's General Arrangement . 273
(3) Superiority of Mark's View of the Galilaean
Ministry . . ... 274
(4) Earlier Forms of some Sayings in Matthew . 278
3. The Representation of Jesus ..... 280
(1) His Office as Messiah conferred on him at
Baptism . ..... 280
(2) Limitations of his Power and Knowledge . . 281
(3) Personal Characteristics . ... 283
i. Traits of Authorship and Date . 286
(1) Recollections of a Disciple. . 2S6
(2) Familiarity with Palestine . . . 287
(3) Peculiarities of Language . 288
(4) Signs of Date ... . . 289
5. The Witness of Tradition ... . 290
(1) Mark the ' Interpreter ' of Peter . . . 290
(2) Other Materials besides Peter's Recollections 293
(3) Traces of Pauline Influence . . 294

CHAPTER IX.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.
The Preface to the Gospel  296
1. Its Relation to Mark  298
(1) Mostof Mark's Contents represented in Luke . 298
(2) Verbal Parallels  299
(3) Correspondences of Order ... . 300

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

xvn.

Its Relation to Matthew 
(l) Their Treatment of Matter also found in Mark
(a) Luke does not adopt Matthew's Amplifi
cations ....

PAGE. 302303

and

after the

(4) Nor follow Matthew's Changes in Mark's
Order ....
(2) Additional Common Matter in Luke
Matthew(a) Its Different Arrangement
(4) Earlier Forms in Luke
§ 3. Peculiarities of Composition .
(1) Large Quantity of Unique Matter
(2) Indications of Plurality of Sources
(3) The Three Divisions of the Gospel
§ 4. Characteristics of Thought and Feeling.
(1) The Heightened Christology
(a) The Son of God
(4) Triumph over Evil .
(c) Development of Appearances
Resurrection
(2) Thoughts of Forgiveness and Love
(3) Sympathy with the Poor .
(4) The Claims of the Suffering on God
(5) Universal Scope of the Gospel .
$ 5. General Aim 
(1) Relation to Judaism and the Law
(2) Relation to Paul
(3) The Preaching to the Gentiles .
(4) The Reconciliation of Parties .
$ 6. Time, Place, and Author
(1) Signs of Later Date .
(2) Distance from Palestine
(3) Evidences of the Author's Education
Traditions about Luke .

Church

335

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER X.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.

5 3.

Intricacy of the Problem ....
J 1. Its Framework 
(i) The two Acts 
(2) Collections of Sayings
(3) Massing of Incidents
(4) Sayings and Incidents in Duplicates .
5 2. Its Relation to Mark 
(1) Variation and Correspondence in Order
(2) Parallel Passages show — .
(a) Agreement
(4) Abbreviation
(e) Modification
(d) Addition .
Relation to Luke
(1) Conflicting Facts
(a) In the Form of the Common Matter
(4) In its Combination or Distribution
Additions to the Common Matter of Luke and
Matthew
Combinations of Mark and Luke
Sources .
Additions to the Common Matter of all Three
Synoptics
J 4. The Person and Teachings of Messiah
(1) New Elements in his Life .
(fl) The Birth Story
(4) The Ministry .
(c) Death and Resurrection
(2) The Motive from Prophecy
(3) The Appeal to the Jews
(4) Legalism ....
(5) Universalism
(6) The Church

(2)
(3) (4)

their

TABLE OF CONTENTS. xix.
PAGE.
§ 5. Date and Authorship  377
(1) The Jewish Christians of the Dispersion . 377
(2) Existence of Elements of late Date . . . 378
(3) Testimony of Papias  379
(4) The Gospels as Devotional Books . . . 381
Appendix :
The Term ' Son of Man ' in the Synoptic Gospels . 382
Index of Gospel Passages  401

CHAPTER I.
THE GOSPELS AND EARLY CHRISTIAN
LITERATURE.
[See Westcott, Canon of the New Testament; Sanday, The
Gospels in the Second Century ; Abbott, art. ' Gospels,'
Encyclopaedia Britannica."]
$ 1. Literature of the Second Century.
Our New Testament opens with four lives of Jesus
which we call Gospels. They are followed by a book of
Apostolic history; by letters, bearing the names of the
great Apostle to the Gentiles, of some of the Twelve
and of their fellow-workers ; and the collection is closed
by a book of visions now entitled 'the Revelation of
S. John the Divine.' The story of the growth of this
collection extends over hundreds of years. It was
formed only gradually, by long and slow processes :
diversities of opinion had to be brought into
agreement, differences of feeling soothed, and opposition
endured and resisted till it was overcome. In the
meantime books of various sorts sprang up in the

2 EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.
churches. Some became popular and were widely
circulated ; others were known only in the obscure sects
in which they had originated, and after a time they
disappeared and were forgotten. In this wider literature,
what was the place of our Gospels ?
During the second century the Christian Church was
filled with activity of many kinds. It was zealous for
missionary extension, all the way from the Euphrates to
the Rhone. Planted in every great city of the Empire,
its teachers were confronted with the manifold forms of
popular religion, and with the philosophical speculations
by which these varieties might be harmonised and
reconciled. In the face of the imperial government it
was necessary to vindicate the faithful from the cruel
charges brought against them by ignorant informers. The
contact of Christian with Greek thought led to many new
and unexpected developments of doctrine ; while the
moral and social difficulties engendered by the great
warfare waged by the Church with sin, called forth
protests against the relaxation of discipline, which in their
turn ended by throwing more power into the hands of the
official hierarchy, and giving greater unity and force to
the episcopal organisation. Men of wealth and learning
devoted themselves with zeal to the work ; they went the
round of the schools unsatisfied ; they saw the Christians
go joyously to death, and they learned of them the
way of peace.
These different movements naturally expressed them
selves in literature. The travelling preacher desired to
leave among his converts some record of the truth he
had declared. The champion of the new faith sought to
prove its superiority over the common idolatries ; or to

THE SECOND CENTURY. 3
show that it gave a deeper foundation for belief than the
old philosophies. To the Jews he endeavoured to
demonstrate that it fulfilled their ancient prophecies ; or
he boldly addressed the imperial throne itself to defend
his brethren from the imputations of secret hostility to the
government, or hatred of the human race. Each new
teacher must justify the form in which he clothed the
imperishable word; each new sect must have its own cre
dentials of belief. As the Churches were drawn closer
together in mutual interest, as they sought each other's
advice, or desired each other's sympathy, letters passed to
and fro to warn or cheer. And ever and anon, as the great
hope of the Master's return burst forth afresh, or the work
of the Church loomed through the unknown future before
the prophet's eye, the spirit of ancient seers uttered
itself again in vision and commandment and similitude.
So beside our Gospels we hear of Gospels according to
the Hebrews and the Egyptians ; and there are traces of
others named after Peter, Bartholomew, Thomas, Judas,
Matthias, and the Twelve. There were Acts of Andrew,
John, and Thomas. We yet have a Letter of Barnabas
(in the Sinaitic MS. of the New Testament), and another
of Clement (as in the Alexandrian MS. of the New
Testament, now in the British Museum.) Seven other
Letters are still extant in the name of Ignatius of Antioch,
addressed to the churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, Rome,
&c. ; and there is one from Polycarp of Smyrna to the
Philippians. The book of visions entitled ' the Shepherd,'
ascribed to Hermas, was extremely popular in the second
half of the second century; and it is included in the
Sinaitic MS. with the Epistle of Barnabas. There was a
Revelation of Peter, and even of Abraham, and Adam.

4 EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.
Many of these works are now known only by name :
many more, it may be supposed, have perished without
even leaving so faint a sign. These books did not
possess the force and elevation which mark our Gospels,
and other portions of the New Testament writings ; in
the conflict of the sects they failed to hold their own,
and disappeared. The same fate has overtaken a still
"wider range of literature. Among the defences, or
apologies for Christianity, against the objections of
Judaism, or the attractions of philosophy, or the claims
of government, some precious works still survive, such as
those of Justin the Martyr, Tatian, and Clement of
Alexandria. On the internal condition of the churches,
probably early in the century, vivid light is thrown by
the recently discovered work known as the ' Teaching of
the Twelve Apostles.' The refutation of heresy employed
several pens, but from this period one treatise only on
this subject, by Irenaeus of Lyons, has come down to us.
Among this mass of literature what traces do we find
of our Gospels ? How far back can we carry them, and
what authority is ascribed to them ? Let us try briefly to
follow them backwards from the period when they come
into full view.

$ 2. The Pour Selected.
It is clear that in the last generation of the second
century, the four Gospels as we have them were known
and received from East to West. We may call witnesses
from different lands, and- we shall find that amid slight
divergences their report is substantially the same.

THE CANON OF MURATORI. 5
(i) The so-called Canon of Muratori is a fragment
copied from an older MS., which was itself imperfect. It
was discovered in the Ambrosian library at Milan, and
derives its name from the learned historian and archae
ologist Muratori, who first published it in 1740. Its
author is unknown, but internal evidence renders it
probable that it was drawn up in Rome, or at least in
Italy: its date is variously placed between 170 and
200 a.d.1 It begins abruptly with what was presumably
a reference to the Gospel according to Mark, the account
of Matthew having been lost altogether. It continues :
' Third is the book of the Gospel according to Luke,' the
fourth being that of John. A remarkable passage follows :
Though various principles [or ' beginnings '] are taught in the
separate books of the Gospels, still there is no difference for the
faith of believers, inasmuch as all things are declared in all of
them by the one and chief Spirit concerning the nativity, the
passion, and the resurrection, his conversation with his disciples,
and his two-fold advent, the first when he was disposed in lowly
estate, which has been, and the second, glorious in royal dignity,
which is to be.
Here the four Gospels are clearly regarded as in some
sense or other inspired. There is, however, a distinct
perception of their variations ; yet within and beneath
these, it is affirmed, is a deeper unity. No mysterious
meaning is attached to number four.
(2) Irenaus was among the most distinguished of the
teachers of his age. Born in Asia Minor, he had been a
hearer of the famous Polycarp of Smyrna. But he passed
1 This is the range of a large consensus of critics. It has been
put as early as 160, and as late as the third century. The late
Bishop of Durham in a letter to the Academy, Sept. 21, 1889,
attributed it to Hippolytus, possibly about 185 or 190.

6 EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.
westwards, and joined the church at Lyons, where he
served first as an elder (presbyter), and afterwards, on
the death of the venerable Pothinus in the terrible
persecution of the year 177 a.d., under Marcus Aurelius,
succeeded to the office of Bishop. His treatise ' Against
Heresies 'was written between the years 180 and 188.
It was directed chiefly against the various forms of
speculative Christianity known as Gnosticism (see § 5, 2),
and laid special stress on the argument of the historical
transmisson of the faith. Naturally, therefore, the four
Gospels have peculiar importance in his eyes ; yet how
curious are the reasons which he alleges, iii. n, 8 :
It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer
in number than they are. For since there are four zones of the
world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the church
is scattered throughout the world, and the pillar and ground of
the Church is the Gospel and the Spirit of life, it is fitting that
we should have four pillars breathing out immortality on every
side, and quickening men afresh. From which facts it is evident
that the Word, the artificer of all, he that sitteth upon the
Cherubim and contains all things, he who was manifested to men,
has given us the Gospel in four-fold form, but bound together by
one Spirit.
Similarly, there were four animals about the throne,
Rev. iv. 7; they were the symbols of the four evangelists ;
the lion representing John, the calf Luke, the creature
with a human face Matthew, the eagle Mark.1 And if
1 The curious reader may notice that the symbols here
enumerated do not appear with their usual ecclesiastical applica
tion, and the order of the Evangelists also varies. The
problem suggested various answers to the Christian Fathers.
Mark being identified with each of the four ' creatures ' in turn.
Speculation was still rife at the beginning of the fifth century,

IRENAEUS. 7
this was not proof enough, were there not four covenants
made, with Adam, Noah, Moses, and Christ ?
But these were not, after all, the real reasons which
moved Irenaeus. Doubtless, such harmonies of number
had a great influence on his imagination, and helped
to justify in his mind the practical fact that the
churches received these Gospels, on the supposition that
they had descended from the Apostolic age. He
endeavours, therefore, to trace them back to their authors,
and the view which he expresses has a deep interest,
inasmuch as he combines in a peculiar way the learning
and the tradition of both the East and the West. Like
the unknown author of the Canon of Muratori, he
attributes some kind of inspiration to the Gospels, for he
uses the phrase 'the Holy Spirit says by Matthew'
(iii. 1 6, 2). So he places them on the footing of Scripture,
a term hitherto applied chiefly to the books of the Old
Testament. But he does the same also with the
' Shepherd ' of Hermas, generally believed by modern
scholars to have been written about 140 a.d. If he
mistook this book, written in his own life-time, for a
production of the apostolic age (e.g. of the Hermas
mentioned in Rom. xvi. 14), he might have been equally
in error with respect to other works circulating under
Augustine mentioning two different interpretations, one following
that of Irenaeus, and another afterwards adopted by our own
Bede, though neither was ultimately received. The series which
finally established itself in the Latin Church, and passed into
Western Art, — Matthew represented by the man, Mark by the
lion, Luke by the ox, and John by the eagle, — bore the
sanction of two venerated names, Jerome and Gregory the
Great.

8 EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.
apostolic names. If, on the other hand, he admitted so
recent a composition to the rank of Scripture, with full
knowledge of its date, the argument that this character
could attach only to the ancient and apostolic, breaks down.
(3) Tertullian, the most vigorous and original writer of
the Latin Church, belonged to Carthage, being an elder
in the African capital, about 197 a.d., and onwards. Like
Irenaeus he was largely occupied with the refutation of
heresy. This might be conducted on two grounds. It
might be shown that the views of the so-called heretics
were in opposition to the doctrine of the sacred books, or
that they did not accord with the teaching current in
the oldest churches, where the tradition of the apostolic
preaching had been most carefully preserved. The first
line of argument was often met by the contention that the
sacred books had been designedly altered or corrupted by
those in whose charge they had been placed. The pro
duction of what seemed to be conclusive proof out of the
Gospels failed to convince opponents who declared that
the passage could not be accepted as genuine. In some
moods, therefore, Tertullian proposed to abandon the
appeal to Scripture altogether ; it had no other result, he
said, than to 'upset either the stomach or the brain.' He
relied, in this predicament, on the concurrent testimony of
churches of ancient and apostolic foundation, who could
not, he ' thought, have all gone astray on the same point
and in the same way. What was believed to be Christian
truth from East to West, must be accepted on the ground
of a common tradition. But in other parts of his writings,
Tertullian invoked this tradition to vindicate the apostolic
origin of the Gospels, of which he speaks in the following
terms : —

TERTULLIAN. 9
We lay down in the first place that the evangelical instrument
has Apostles for its authors to whom this office of publishing the
gospel was assigned by the Lord himself. . . . Of the apostles,
John and Matthew first instil faith into us, whilst, of apostolic
men, Luke and Mark renew it afterwards, starting with the same
rules [of faith] so far as relates to the One only God the Creator,
and his Christ, born of the Virgin, the fulfilment of the law and
the prophets. Nevermind if different arrangement causes changes
in [the order of] the narratives, provided that there be agreement
in the essential matter of the faith. {Against Marcion, iv. 2.)
Tertullian, it is plain, like the author of the Canon of
Muratori, was not unconscious of the difficulties arisingfrom
the variations of the Gospel story. But he accepts the
four narratives as Scripture, places them at the head of a
collection of evangelic and apostolic writings, to which
he is the first to give the name New Testament, and sets
them as inspired beside the Old.
But it must be confessed that it was not difficult for a
book to secure such recognition from Tertullian. Among
the numerous writings setting forth the Jewish hope of the
triumph of their religion and the judgment on their foes,
was a strange work which went under the name of Enoch.1
Its earliest portions were written in the second century, b.c,
and it received large additions in subsequent generations,
some of them from Christian hands. This book was a
great favourite with Tertullian, and he claimed for it a
patriarchal origin (Gen. v. 2 1 -24). This is his explanation.
I am aware that the Scripture of Enoch . . . . is not
received by some, because it is not admitted into the Jewish Canon
either. I suppose they did not think that having been published
before the deluge, it could have safely survived that world-wide
calamity, the abolisher of all things. If that is the reason (for
1 See Life in Palestine, p. 162.

10 EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.
rejecting it), let them recall that Noah, the survivor of the deluge,
was the great-grandson of Enoch himself ; that he, of course, had
learned through domestic renown and hereditary tradition about
his own great-grandfather's grace in the sight of God, about all his
preachings, since Enoch had given no other charge to his son,
Methusaleh, than that he should hand on the knowledge of them
to his posterity. Noah, therefore, no doubt might have succeeded
in the trusteeship of his preaching, though even otherwise he
would not have been silent, both about the general providence
of God his preserver, and about the particular glory of his own
house. {On Female Dress, 3.)
It might be supposed that this is aparodyof the reasoning
which was thought adequate to establish the apostolic
authorship of the Gospels. But it is intended in the most
simple seriousness. Does it not, however, throw vivid
light on the manner in which books bearing great names
might be accepted by minds ready to approve their
teaching ?
(4.) Clement of Alexandria, learned, gentle, and
devout, was head of the school of Christian catechumens
there during the last decade of the second century, while
Irenaeus was bishop at Lyons and Tertullian an elder at
Carthage. He had travelled widely and had attended
the lectures of many famous teachers, in Syria, Greece,
and Italy, as well as in his native Egypt. He had a
prodigious acquaintance with the literature of antiquity,
and he shared the breadth of view and liberality of
thought and sentiment which were characteristic of the
Alexandrian school. His treatment of earlier Christian
writings shows at once his catholic spirit and the absence
of precise ecclesiastical or theological limitations. He
quotes from our Four Gospels freely, but he quotes also
as ' Scripture ' a saying of Jesus which none of them

TATIAN. 11
contains, and which he must have drawn either from
tradition or (more probably) from some other gospel,
' Be ye approved money-changers.' He cites Barnabas
and Clement of Rome as apostles. The ' Shepherd' of
Hermas is in his eyes a revelation whose words are divine.
He seems to regard the ' Preaching of Peter ' as an
apostolic work ; he ascribes language to Paul in which
the apostle recommends the Sibylline verses; and he
attributes prophetic character to a book current in the
second century under the name of Hystaspes, predicting
the fall of the Roman empire, and the destruction of the
world by fire. What were the arguments on which such
judgments rested? They were simply the general
harmony of these works with his own views, the reverence
paid to ancient and honoured names, the willingness to
accept what bore the outward impress of antiquity, with
out a corresponding power to test its worth.
(5.) The teachers just enumerated were all at work
nearly at the same time, in the latter part of the second
century; they all belonged to the lands of the Mediterra
nean. A little earlier, perhaps by one or two decades,
stands the first writer who specifically uses our Four
Gospels, Tatian. He describes himself as an Assyrian :
that is, he came from the great valley of the Tigris and
the Euphrates. He, too, was educated in the learning of
his time ; as a wandering enquirer he studied one system
of religion and philosophy after another, not forgetting
the Jewish Scriptures and Christianity itself. But it was
not until he became a hearer of the Christian philosopher
Justin, at Rome, probably between 1 50 and 1 60 a.d., that
he resolved to profess the new faith, and in an ' Address
' to the Greeks ' publicly defended his change. At a

12 EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.
later date Tatian returned to the East, and there, so ran
the tradition, he composed a Diatessaron (a gospel ' by
four'), a sort of harmony of the works of the four
Evangelists. Little was known of this early endeavour to
fuse the divergent narratives into one, beyond the state
ment of a Syriac writer, of the twelfth century, that it had
formed the subject of a commentary by the venerable
Ephraim the Syrian in the fourth, and that it began with
the opening words of the Gospel according to S. John.
Of this commentary an Armenian translation has recently
been made accessible. This has proved clearly that the
Diatessaron was founded on our Four Gospels ; that it
started with the prologue of John, and that it omitted the
genealogies of Matthew and Luke.1 The attempted
combination implies the diffusion and importance
of the Gospels which we now possess. Those of
John and Matthew seem to have supplied Tatian's chief
material, Mark and Luke being only used secondarily.
The work consisted of a continuous narrative, formed out
of sections taken in succession from the different Gospels.
But the freedom with which these were treated shows us
that the compiler did not ascribe to his documents an
exclusively canonical or sacred character. Bold changes
were made in the order, especially in the arrangement of
passages from the Fourth Gospel. Some portions were
dropped. The excision of the genealogies has been
1 It is thought likely that it was compiled after 160 a.d., in
Syriac, the language of the Christians of Edessa and the neigh
bourhood round the Euphrates. The following summary is
derived from Zahn's work. The reader may also refer to the
article on Tatian in Smith and Wace, Dict. of Christian Biogra
phy, and to Hemphill, Diatessaron of Tatian, London, 1888.

TATIAN. 13
already mentioned — this probably was due to doctrinal
considerations ; the second feeding miracle of Mark and
Matthew may have been left out as a mere duplicate ; but
for the suppression of the woes on Bethsaida, Chorazin,
and Capernaum, no such explanations can be suggested.
Some passages were curtailed ; but others, on the contrary,
were enriched with fresh detail, or extended with
additions from unknown sources. At the Baptism, it is
affirmed, light arose over the water. In Matt. xv. 4 appear
the unexpected words ' and he who blasphemes God, let
' him be crucified.' Jesus says to the woman of Samaria,
' My water cometh down from heaven.' The account of
the Paschal supper has evidently been affected by that of
the apostle Paul in 1 Cor. xi. But it seems further to
have contained a very singular account of how Jesus
' washed ' the bread before he handed it to Judas, who
was not worthy of the bread given in covenant to the rest
of the Apostles. With Matthew's story of the death of
Judas the different version of Acts i. 18 was incorporated.
/ The Diatessaron, thus compiled, acquired the rank of
Scripture elsewhere assigned to the Gospels separately.
For hundreds of years it served in their stead. As late
as 453 a.d., Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus on the Euphrates,
found more than two hundred copies in use in the
churches in his diocese, which he replaced by the
complete works of the Evangelists, f Tatian thus marks
for us the time when our Gospels were acquiring their
place in the Church at the head of a new collection of
sacred writings. He stands between their recognition as
in some way authoritative and inspired, and the older
view of them as simply apostolic ' recollections.'

14 EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.
§3. The Gospels before they were Scripture.
What do we know of our Gospels before the period
which we have just described ? The books themselves
bear no dates, nor — save by tradition — do they carry any
names.1 What indications are there, then, of their
existence and use prior to the days of Tatian ? Tatian
had been himself a disciple of Justin the Martyr, who is
believed to have perished in Rome about 163 a.d. Justin
was a copious writer, and some of his works. have been
preserved ; the most important being two ' Apologies,'
(one addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, the other
to the Romans) and the ' Dialogue with Trypho ' which
states the case between Christianity and Judaism. These
were composed after 140 a.d.
(1.) Justin was a native of Neapolis, the ancient
Shechem, the modern Nablus, lying between Mount Ebal
and Mount Gerizim in the heart of Palestine.2 Like many
of the earnest-minded men of his day, he passed restlessly
from one system of thought to another, quitting the Stoics
1 This statement is true, even of the Fourth Gospel. No
doubt the appendix to that Gospel, John xxi. 24, speaks of the
disciple which 'beareth witness of these things and wrote these
things.' But even he is not named ; and it is not clear whether
the ' writing ' ascribed to him is limited to the particular narrative
in this chapter, or is meant to cover the whole previous book.
The Church has certainly understood him to be the Apostle John,
and has claimed him as the author of the entire Gospel. But the
history of the criticism of the Gospel shows that other interpre
tations may be at least possible.
! Life in Palestine, p. 20.

JUSTIN THE MARTYR. 15
for the Peripatetics, leaving the Peripatetics for the Pytha
goreans, and abandoning the Pythagoreans for the
Platonists, till he fell in with a certain venerable old man
of gentle manners who told him of teachers more ancient
than all the philosophers — the Hebrew prophets — and
bade him pray that the gates of light might be opened to
him. The old man went his way, but his words were
fruitful, and Justin found, as Clement of Alexandria said
half-a-century later, that philosophy had been his ' tutor '
to bring him to Christ.1 His study of the Old Testament
was extensive, and he quotes it repeatedly. It is his sacred
and inspired authority. No book outside of it is ever
cited by him with the phrase 'Thus saith the Holy
Spirit.' But his quotations are by no means always exact.
Words are often omitted or altered, and he groups
together, as though theyjwere continuous, passages that are
widely separated, or even come from different books. Is
it surprising, then, that he should apparently deal in the
same manner with Christian writings?
What were the Christian writings with which Justin was
acquainted ? No single book in the whole of our New
Testament is ever referred by him to any individual
author, save the Revelation, which he ascribes to ' John,
' one of the apostles of Christ.' Fixing our attention on
the gospel narratives, we may put aside the Fourth Gospel,
which does not come within our present scope, and the
traces of which are so indistinct that critics of the highest
eminence are in doubt whether Justin knew it; Dr.
Drummond, for example, believing that he did, and Dr.
Abbott arguing that he did not. The question is narrowed
to his use of our First Three.
1 Cp. Gal. iii. 24.

16 EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.
Now there are scores of quotations from the teachings
of Jesus in Justin's writings which run parallel with
passages in Matthew and Luke, and much more rarely
with passages in Mark. Whence are they taken ? They
are taken from what he calls the 'Memoirs' or 'Recol
lections ' of the Apostles. These were the sources of
Christian teaching, these were the church-books, now
employed in public worship. ' On the day called Sun-
' day,' he tells us, ' all who live in the cities or in the
' country, gather together to one place, and the memoirs
' of the apostles, or the writings of the prophets, are read
' as long as time permits.'1 Elsewhere he speaks of the
memoirs composed by the apostles ' which are called
gospels.' In only one passage does he couple with such
writings any apostolic name. Quoting a phrase now
found only in the Gospel according to S. Mark, he refers
it to the ' Recollections ' of Peter.2 But when Justin's
citations are compared with our Gospels, it is found that
they present just the same kind of variations which have
been already noted in his use of the Old Testament.
Some passages agree closely, some differ slightly, some a
good deal. And the question arises, how far may we
infer from these divergences that Justin employed other
gospels in addition to, or instead of, those which we
possess ? Is such an inference, indeed, legitimate at all ?
The answer to this question must really depend on a
careful collection of all the quotations, and a comparison
of them with our gospel texts. It would be necessary then
to estimate the parallel evidence afforded by the Old
Testament quotations. And other considerations, founded
on the value of the manuscript of Justin's works, and the
1 First Apology, 67. 2 See below, chap. viii. $ 5, 1.

JUSTIN THE MARTYR. 17
chances of its corruption or alteration would enter in,
needing a highly-trained and balanced judgment to decide
upon them. We must be content with one specimen of
the kind of deviation which Justin presents : —
This devil, when [Jesus] went up from the river Jordan, at the
time when the voice spake to him, Thou art my son, this day
have I begotten thee, is recorded in the Memoirs of the Apostles
to have come to him and tempted him.
The words uttered by the heavenly voice-are given in one
form by Mark and Luke, in another by Matthew, but with
neither of these does Justin agree. They run thus : —
Mark i. 1 1, Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased.
Luie'iW. 22, Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased.
Matt. ii. 7, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
Now is Justin's form, which rests upon Psalm ii. 7, merely
due to a confusion of memory, or is it an independent
tradition, or is it quoted from some other Gospel ? The
latter suggestion is made at least possible by the fact that
this version of the utterance of the heavenly voice did occur
in one edition of the Gospel according to the Hebrews.1
This possibility, moveover, is strengthened by the existence
of other signs of Justin's acquaintance with a wider range
of gospel narrative and tradition. Thus, for example, he
relates that when Jesus came up out of the Jordan, fire
appeared on the surface of the water. So also said one
version of the Gospel according to the Hebrews. There
are other statements not made by our First Three
1 Namely in the Ebionite form, where it is combined with the
words now in Mark and Luke. It may be observed that in one of
the oldest MSS. of Luke (the gift of Beza to the University of
Cambridge) the words run ' Thou art my son, this day have I
begotten thee.' C

18 EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.
Evangelists, such as that Jesus was born in a cave, that
the Wise Men came from Arabia, that all the children in
Bethlehem were massacred, that Jesus made ploughs and
yokes. Whence were these derived ? They may be due
to the ever-operating tendency to make tradition more
fixed and definite by adding details to fill up gaps in the
narrative, as it passes on from mouth to mouth ; or they
may be Justin's own inferences from the language of
ancient prophecy which he thought Jesus must have
fulfilled; or they may be derived from other gospel
sources. The probability that they were so drawn from
Gospels which afterwards passed out of use, is fully
conceded by Dr. Sanday. If this be so it shows that our
Gospels were not then regarded as separate and inspired
' Scripture.' The sayings of Jesus are occasionally set
side by side with the authoritative words of prophecy ;
but the Memoirs which contain them, though their use in
public worship indicates the growing appreciation of
their value, are not yet in themselves the sole channels
and organs of the Spirit.
(2) Among the contemporaries of Justin was Papias
of Hierapolis in Phrygia, who died somewhere between
161 and 163 a.d. He, too, had been a tolerably copious
writer, for in the decade 140-1501 he composed five
books of ' Expositions ' or ' Explanations ' of ' the Lord's
sayings.' The term ' sayings ' (Greek logid) or ' oracles'
is the same as that used to designate the divine utterances
in Hebrew prophecy. Messiah's words have equal rank
1 This is the date adopted by Dr. Westcott and Prof.
Holtzmann. In the Dict. of Eccl. Biography, art. ' Papias,"
Dr. Salmon places it about 130. Others have carried it down
below 150.

PAPIAS. 19
with these; but no such significance as yet attaches to
any written memoirs about him. The treatise of Papias
has perished ; but the historian Eusebius has preserved
a few extracts of great interest. In these Papias affirms
that 'Matthew wrote the logia in the Hebrew tongue,
" and everyone interpreted them as he was able'; and that
' Mark, as the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately,
' though not in order, all that he remembered that was
' said or done by Christ.' 1 Such language treats the
Evangelists' narratives as ordinary human literature. The
work of Matthew, in the Aramean vernacular of Palestine,2
was left for each reader to translate as best he could ; the
feature of Mark's version of Peter's recollections was its
want of proper arrangement, which must (one would
think) have impaired the accuracy of the record./ The
criticism shows at least that Papias did not view the books
of which he spoke (whether identical or not with our
present Gospels of Matthew and Mark) in the light of
later ideas of inspiration. Indeed, he frankly tells us
that he attached much more value to oral tradition than
to written documents : — '/
I shall not regret to subjoin to my interpretations also for your
benefit whatever I have at any time accurately ascertained and
treasured up in my memory, as I have received it from the elders.
 If I met with anyone who had been a follower of
the elders anywhere, I made it a point to enquire what were the
1 For the bearing of these statements on the history of our
Gospels see below, chap. viii. $ 5, i, Mark ; and chap. x. § 5, 3,
Matthew. As Eusebius quotes nothing relating to Luke and
John, it has been inferred that Papias was not acquainted with
the books under these names. From an opposite point of view,
however, this inference has been disputed.
2 Life in Palestine, p. 32.

20 EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.
declarations of the elders, what was said by Andrew, Peter, or
Philip, what by Thomas, James, John, Matthew, or any other of
the disciples of our Lord, what was said by Aristion,1 and the
elder John, disciples of the Lord; for / do not think that I
derived so much benefit from books as from the living voice of those
that are still surviving.

§ 4. The Value of the Attestation.
No name, we have seen, is connected with any Gospel in
extant Christian literature for upwards of a hundred years
after the death of Jesus.3 Are there, however, no earlier
references to his words or deeds which may be identified
with passages in one or other of our evangelic books ?
(i) To those who have learned to attach great
importance to the actual utterances of the Teacher, it will
appear strange that so few of them should be directly
quoted. How little we should know of the Master's
thought and speech, had we only the letters of the Apostle
Paul ! Even in the books which relate the story of his
life, how small a proportion of his teaching is recorded I
We can easily understand that there may have been many
sayings of his current in the churches, or enshrined in
other Gospels, which have not come down to us. Here
and there we can catch one ere it passes from hearing or
from memory, as when Paul reminds the Elders of
Ephesus at Miletus of the words of Jesus, ' It is more
1 Of this ' disciple ' nothing more is known.
2 The precise length of the period before Papias wrote cannot
be determined. Assuming the date given above, it will exceed a
century. According to Dr. Salmon it would be about 95 years.

QUOTATIONS OF THE WORDS OF JESUS. 21
' blessed to give than to receive,' Acts xx. 35. So
Clement in his Letter to the Corinthians (above, § 1, p. 3)
quotes certain ' words of the Lord,' but in a form so loose
and free that they cannot be claimed as witnesses to the
existence of our Gospels in their present form. They
may have been drawn from tradition; they may have
come from earlier editions of our Gospels ; or they may
be cited from some one of the numerous attempts to set
forth the Christian story, mentioned in the preface to our
Third Gospel, Luke i. i.1 For instance, the Letter of
Barnabas (chap, iv.) contains this passage : Let us
'beware lest we be found, as it is written, "Many
' " called, but few chosen'' ' Is this a quotation of Matt.
xxii. 14, ' For many are called but few chosen ' ? It is
to be observed first that Matthew is not named at all.
In the next place, the words are introduced with the
phrase usually reserved for passages from the Scriptures
of what we now call the Old Testament. The application
of this phrase to a Gospel citation at the date commonly
assigned to this letter (100-125 a.d.,) would be in the
highest degree remarkable. Is it possible that the writer,
vaguely recalling the words, ascribed them wrongly to
some ancient Scripture source ? Let another quotation
(chap, xvi.) answer this question : ' The Scripture saith,
' "And it shall come to pass in the last davs that the Lord
' " will deliver up the sheep of his pasture, and their
' " sheepfold and tower, to destruction. And it so happened
' "as the Lord had spoken. " ' This passage is unknown
in the Old Testament. We are not then surprised that
the only words which the same writer ascribes to Jesus
1 Compare chap. iii. § 2, 4.

22 EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.
(vii). are not in any extant Gospel : — ' Those who will
' see me, and obtain possession of my kingdom, must lay
' hold of me through anguish and suffering.' These are
from some unknown source, whether oral or written :
what proof is there that the words ' Many called, but few
' chosen ' have not the same origin ? In another case we
have positive historical testimony of the employment of
other Gospels beside those in our New Testament. The
longer form of the Epistles of Ignatius contains three or
four striking sayings peculiar to Matthew embedded in
the writer's own words. But the only utterance actually
attributed to Jesus does not occur in any of our Gospels :
'And when he came to those about Peter, he said to
' them, " Take, handle me, and see that I am not a
'"bodiless demon."' The historian Eusebius, writing
two hundred years after, says that this was derived from
a source unknown to him. A little later, Jerome, who
had studied the different forms of Jewish Christianity in
Palestine, asserts that they were found in a Gospel read
in his day by the Nazarenes.
The case may be illustrated thus. Let us suppose that
there is a royal suite of jewels, various in origin, shape,
and size ; the present setting of the gems can be shown
not to be their original setting ; and the style in which
some of them have been cut is plainly more recent than
that of others. The collection has been evidently formed
out of diverse stones gathered from many lands, so that
they do not always harmonise with each other in brilliance,
colour, or shape. Imagine now that some poet living
during the century in which the jewels were thus brought
together, mentions a stone bearing a motto found on one
of the smaller gems in the collection. Could that be

VALUE OF QUOTATIONS. 23
regarded as sufficient evidence of the existence of the
whole suite in its present setting ? Plainly not. In the
first place, though the probability might be strong that
the stone in the collection was identical with the stone of
which the poet sang, yet it is quite conceivable that there
might have been other jewels like it bearing the same
motto. And secondly, even the identification of one
single stone cannot be taken as a guarantee that it had
been already placed in its present setting, and still less
that the poet knew the entire suite to which it is now
attached. (2) The uncertainty attaching to the early Christian
quotations stands in remarkable contrast with the greater
precision of the classic writers of Rome. Their usage is
thus described by Strauss : —
Cicero, for instance, alludes variously to different writings of
his own in his letters, and in his ' Brutus ' to Caesar's ' Commen
taries ' ; Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, refer in later writings to earlier
ones ; Pliny the Younger supplies in one of his letters certain
particulars for the use of his friend Tacitus which the latter
wished to treat of in the history he was then writing : in another
letter he enumerates the works of his uncle, the Elder Pliny,
mentioning their order and subdivisions. The latter point is
essential, and the description ought to be exact, in order to render
the proof of authorship satisfactory, since the authentic writing
attested by the author or some acquaintance of his may have been
lost, and another substituted for it afterwards. Only when some
near contemporary, in speaking of the work, cites passages which
are still read in it, as Pliny for instance does an epigram of
Martial, does his testimony reach the highest degree of attainable
reliability.1 On the other hand, when Papias speaks of Matthew as
the author of a collection of the ' sayings (oracles) of the
1 New Life of Jesus, i. p. 48.

24 EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.
Lord,' in Aramean, we cannot identify our ' Gospel
according to Matthew ' with this work, for two reasons :
(i) because our Gospel is in Greek, and in the process
of translation it may have been modified or enlarged ;
and (2) because it contains a great deal more than
' sayings,' or even ' sayings ' with their setting in
incident and anecdote ; it is a continuous and elaborately
arranged life-story, beginning with genealogy and
nativity, and ending with resurrection-triumph. And
when Barnabas or Ignatius uses the words or expressions
of our Gospels without specifying their source, we can
have no security in inferring that they were really derived
from those Gospels, for we know that other Gospels were
also employed, in which these phrases might also have
been found.
(3) It must further be remembered that the literary
habits and usages of those days differed widely from our
own. Literary habits, indeed, the early Christians had
none. Fictitious compositions abounded; and pious
authors again and again sheltered themselves behind the
great names under whose sanction they sought to gain
currency for their productions. Alongside the ' Memoirs
of the Apostles ' Justin cites as authentic documents
the 'Acts of Pilate.' They related the story of the trial,
the death, and the resurrection of Jesus, in the form of a
report addressed by Pilate to the Emperor Tiberius.
Justin appeals with confidence to the original, which he
supposes to be laid up in Rome. But the ' Acts ' seem
to be now embodied in the 'Gospel of Nicodemus,' and
no one ascribes to them any official character or historic
value. The resemblance of some passages in the works
of the philosopher Seneca to others in the letters of the

GROWTH OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 25
apostle Paul led to the idea that their writers must have
been acquainted ; and this expressed itself in the form
of a correspondence between them, which still survives,
but is admitted on all hands to be perfectly worthless.
The historian Eusebius even quotes with the utmost
gravity the letter which (it was alleged) Abgar, King of
Edessa, sent to Jesus, entreating him to come and heal
him of his malady, and the Lord's reply ! The confusion
by which the works of one author are ascribed to another,
is not unknown in our own literary history ; for all is not
Shakespeare's which is found within the covers of the
'Plays.' And the deliberate adoption of another per
sonality for specific ends finds a remarkable illustration
in the well-known 'Eikon Basilike,' published imme
diately after the death of Charles the First, in his name,
as his composition. The tests and methods by which
authorship may be now proved or disproved, were
unknown in the second century ; the works which seemed
in harmony with current teaching were received and
circulated ; in due time they might be quoted as
Scripture ; accepted in churches of apostolic foundation,
they were themselves regarded as of apostolic antiquity,
and they were ascribed like the letter of Barnabas, or the
' Shepherd ' of Hermas, to the pen of the founders'
companions and friends.

EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.

§ 5. The Gospels and the Church.
(i) The four Gospels which come clearly into view in
the second half of the second century, had attained a
unique position by its close. Events were then moving
rapidly. Tendencies that had been for some time
working obscurely, became vigorous and powerful, and
claimed and received a definite shape. It was a period
of intense and eager life among the churches. They had
been feeling after a union of faith, a union of discipline,
a union of usage ; and they attained it. For more than
two generations distinguished teachers and eminent
church-officers had been eagerly discussing, travelling to
collect information, meeting for conference on diversities
of practice, corresponding, issuing decrees, asserting
pretensions and repudiating them, smoothing down
difficulties, softening bitterness, and conciliating opposi
tion : and the result was the gradual growth into light
and strength and beauty of the ' holy Catholic Church.'
Here lay the rule of faith; to this and to this alone
belonged the Scriptures and the Sacraments. On one
side this movement led to the formation of a New
Testament beside the Old. On another, it resulted in
committing the guardianship of the truth and the main
tenance of ecclesiastical order into the charge of the
bishops, who rose into monarchical eminence above the
collective body of presbyters. In each of these two
directions the Church was driven in self-defence against
dangers which threatened it not from outside but from
within. (2) During the first half of the century Christianity had

THE GOSPELS AND THE CHURCH. 27
been brought into close contact with Greek thought and
life, and had begun to incorporate into itself elements
from many different sources. There was an aspect in
which it seemed like a new and better philosophy, and
many of those who took this view of it, laid special
stress on its doctrine of Gnosis, or 'knowledge.' Desiring
at all costs to maintain a religious spirituality unimpaired
by contact with earthly and material things, they
criticised many of the representations of God in the
Old Testament, and would have nothing to do with the
ancient Jewish law. When once this speculative
tendency had started into life, it created all kinds of
sects. Their teachers multiplied, especially in the East ;
and some of them, in the course of time, made their way
to Rome. When they were questioned about the
authority of their teaching, they made precisely the same
answer as the orthodox believer. They, too, affirmed
that they drew their doctrine from the Apostles. They
invoked the names of Peter or James or John. They
claimed to be in possession of an Apostolic tradition,
' which we also,' said they, ' have received by succession.'
So, when the Gnostic Marcion came to Rome, soon after
140, to be the head of a school founded there shortly
before by Cerdo, he made it his avowed aim to restore
the true Gospel of Jesus, which had been corrupted by
the Jerusalem Apostles. He produced as the credentials
of his system a Gospel founded on that ' according to
Luke,' and ten Letters ascribed to the Apostle Paul, not
including those to Timothy and Titus. The book of
Acts and the Apocalypse he rejected. Here was the
first instance of a Christian Canon, a collection of books
to serve as the rule or standard of faith. Marcion was

28 EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE.
content with a single Gospel. To this the Church, in
the second half of the century, opposed its sacred Four.
(3) About the same time that Marcion was teaching in
Rome, a remarkable movement arose in Phrygia, in Asia
Minor, led by a man named Montanus. His teaching
was not heretical, and his followers were at first dis
tinguished by their earnestness and purity of life.
Montanus laid Stress on the prophetic elements in
Christianity. He brought the doctrine of the Paraclete
or ' Comforter ' into prominence, and made it a living
and powerful religious force. Disregarding priestly
pretensions, he protested against the growing claims of a
sacred order, pleaded for the right of free teaching
concerning divine things, and denounced all attempts to
restrict it in favour of exclusive church-officers, such as
bishops and presbyters. The movement of Montanus
was of course based on ' apostolic ' literature : but its
'new prophecy' professed to represent a maturer develop
ment even than the Gospels. It spread far and wide
beyond the limits of its Phrygian birth-place, and urged
its plea for liberty, and its demand for an austere holiness,
in city after city through the West. From another side
the Church felt itself threatened. As it met Gnosticism
with a standard collection of Christian Scriptures,
guaranteed by tradition, so it suppressed Montanism by
the aid of an official body, divinely appointed to be the
keepers of the sacred deposit of the truth, and the
guardians of the unity of discipline and practice.
(4) So the formation of the Canon of the New
Testament, and the organisation of the Catholic Church,
proceeded together with steps which though slow were
sure. The two movements were closely related, and

THE GOSPELS AND THE CHURCH. 29
ought never to be separated in our thought. The one
aim which presided over both was the desire to maintain
and work out what was supposed — whether in doctrine or
in usage — to be ' apostolic' The ultimate decision on
some of the books now in our New Testament might yet
be delayed for centuries ; but our Gospels had a general
reputation as ' apostolic ' in the broad sense. The
Gospel of the Hebrews, in the forms current among the
Ebionites and the Nazarenes, continued for a long while
to be used in the Judseo-Christian sects ; but our Four,
representing the union of the Jewish origin of Christianity
with its Hellenic adaptation, remained the permanent
possession of the Church.

CHAPTER II.
THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS AND
THE FOURTH.
No enquiry into the structure of the First Three Gospels
can wholly pass by their relation to the Fourth. Before
we endeavour to trace the origin and formation of the
gospel tradition, we must have some idea of the two
great types under which it is presented. Early in the
history of Gospel criticism it was observed that the First
Three Gospels took the same general view of the life and
teachings of Jesus ; and the great scholar Griesbach,
near the beginning of this century, gave them the name
' Synoptic ' (looking-together) to show that they were
bound together by many common resemblances. What
is the character of these resemblances ? In what respect
does the Johannine version of the gospel story differ from
that of the Synoptics ? 1
1 For purposes of reference it will be convenient hereafter to
use the personal names as the titles of the Gospels. But this must
not be supposed to imply any special theory of their authorship.

THE ORDER OF EVENTS. 31

$ 1. Their General Arrangement.
(i) The First Three Gospels all agree in their general
presentation of the career of the Teacher. It opens, so
they relate, with the baptism on the Jordan, which is im
mediately followed by the temptation in the wilderness.
The imprisonment of John is the signal for Jesus to take
up the prophet's word, ' The kingdom of God is at hand,'
and he returns into Galilee to preach. The ministry thus
inaugurated falls into two clear divisions.
(a) There is, in the first place, a period of active work
in Galilee. Its starting point is at Capernaum ; its centre
is the lake with its busy towns ; and among these does
Jesus pass and repass, with only a rare departure into the
remoter regions of Phoenicia (though Luke omits this), or
the sources of the Jordan under the cliffs of Mount
Hermon. Similar epochs mark the progress of events,
the choice and mission of the Twelve, the execution of
the Baptist, the retirement of Jesus to the north, the
memorable declaration of Peter at Caesarea Philippi, and
the Transfiguration, after which Jesus first announces his
coming journey to Jerusalem and his expected death.
This is the prelude to the second great act of the Synoptic
drama. (b) The scene is now transferred from Galilee to
Jerusalem. The route of the journey lay on the east of
the Jordan, according to Matthew and Mark ; or in Luke
(with less historical probability, see chap. ix. § 3, 3)
through Samaria. At Jericho the Synoptic accounts join
once more. They relate in common the. triumphal entry
from the Mount of Olives ; the cleansing of the temple ;

32 THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
the conflicts with the authorities ; the great discourse con
cerning the 'last things'; the approach of the Passover;
the celebration of the Paschal supper; the agony in
Gethsemane ; the arrest, the trial, and the crucifixion.
(c)- The fulness with which the brief days at Jerusalem
are described is in strange contrast with the too meagre
narrative of the Galilaean preaching. But it is evident
that the Synoptic distribution of the ministry of Jesus into
these two parts of unequal length brings the whole within
the compass of a year. Jesus attends only one Passover.
Not many days were spent in Jerusalem before the end.
The journey, even on foot, could not have occupied, at
the outside, more than two or three weeks. And the
Master's labours in Galilee during the imprisonment of
John, and after his death, do not seem to cover more than
a few months. So some of the Christian Fathers found in
this chronology the fulfilment of the ancient prophecy
about ' the acceptable year of the Lord.'
(2) In the Fourth Gospel there are no such clear
divisions. The Johannine story opens indeed with the
preaching of the Baptist ; but he stands in a very different
relation to Jesus (see § 3, 2). Leaving the Jordan, Jesus
passes, without any interval in the wilderness, to Galilee ;
but the scene of his first appearance there is not
Capernaum, it is the hill village of Cana, and when he
moves down to the town on the lake-side, it is only for a
brief sojourn — ' he abode there not many days.'
(a) From this time the scene is constantly changing
between north and south. Without any further develop
ment of the ministry in Galilee, Jesus goes up to the Pass
over at Jerusalem. It is the first of several visits which
he will pay to the holy city. He does not, indeed, enter

NEW PLACES, PERSONS, INCIDENTS. 33
it with a crowd of disciples, amid the acclamations of the
multitude ; but he proceeds at once to the expulsion of
the money-changers from the temple, and casts out the
dealers in animals for sacrifice. In the oldest Synoptic
tradition this act concentrates on him the priestly wrath,
and finally costs him his life. But the Johannine Christ
moves about unscathed ; and his signs draw believers
around him. When he leaves the capital, it is to tarry in
Judaea, and baptise (iii. 22), while John — 'not yet cast
'into prison' — was at no great distance, baptizing also.
From Judaea a second visit is paid to Galilee, where the
Galilaeans ' having seen all that he did in Jerusalem at the
feast,' received him. But Jesus only stays to heal the
nobleman's son at Capernaum ; another feast is at hand,
and he returns to Jerusalem. This, is indeed, the true
scene of his ministry, and one festival after another in the
yearly round finds him there, with occasional brief
excursions to Galilee between.
(3) The result is that the time through which the
ministry continues is greatly lengthened. The Passover
at which he suffers is the third recorded in the narrative,
so that his career as Teacher is spread over more than
two years. We have already noted the important chrono
logical misplacement of the cleansing of the temple.
There is another significant time-difference between the
Synoptic and Johannine narratives. It concerns the day
on which Jesus died. The First Three Gospels all repre
sent the supper which Jesus ate with his disciples as the
Paschal feast. Jesus, therefore, was crucified on the day
after the Paschal lamb was slain.1 But in the Fourth
1 For the details of the Passover celebration see Life in
Palestine, \ 33, p. 111.

34 THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
Gospel the last meal is held before the feast ; and Jesus
dies on the veiy day when the victim is sacrificed.1
(3) Differences such as these are naturally accompanied
by the mention of places, persons, and incidents,
unnamed by the Synoptics. There is a second Bethany,
' beyond Jordan ' (ii. 28), there are Cana and Aenon,
Salim and Sychar. One after another fresh characters
appear and pass away — Nathaniel, the Israelite ' in whom
' is no guile,' Nicodemus the Pharisee, the Samaritan
woman, the man at Jerusalem who had been born blind ;
while beside Martha and Mary stands Lazarus. The
Sanhedrin send a deputation to John to ask who he is ;
after the Baptist's testimony to Jesus, two of his disciples
(one of them being Andrew, brother of Simon) leave him
and attach themselves to the new Teacher, while Andrew
goes to fetch his brother Simon, telling him ' We have
' found the Christ.' 2 Even more remarkable is it that
John alone represents Jesus as baptizing (iii. 22, though
he afterwards limits the statement to the disciples, iv. 2) ;
John alone describes the people of Galilee as wishing to
make Jesus king ; John alone relates the striking miracles
of the conversion of the water into wine at Cana, the cure
of the paralytic at Bethesda, and, above all, the raising of
Lazarus at Bethany.
(4) On the other hand, some of the important crises of
the Synoptic story disappear from the Johannine narrative.
Here is no Baptism recorded, though the reference to the
' Some eminent critics of different schools, like Dr. Westcott
and Dr. Abbott, think this historically the more correct.
2 The Fourth Evangelist here represents Jesus as at once con
ferring on Simon the name Cephas (Peter), which Mark and
Matthew reserve for later occasions,

DIFFERENCES OF MATTER. 35
descent of the Spirit (i. 32) immediately recalls the state
ments of the First Three Evangelists. The Temptation
is in the same way omitted. The first day at Capernaum,
so vividly related in Mark, is ignored ; the boat on the
lake-shore from which Jesus told the story of the Sower,
the choice of the Twelve and their mission, Peter's
confession of his Master's Messianic dignity, the Trans
figuration, and the Agony, — all these which mark so
many turning-points in the great drama, disappear. The
demoniacs, the lepers, the publicans and sinners, fade
out of sight. The characteristic synagogue scenes, where
the Teacher again and again enforced the broadest
principles of conscience against a rigid legalism, pass out
of view ; and but for one single reference (vi. 59) it
would not appear that Jesus ever taught in one, through
out his ministry.

$ 2. Matter and Style.
(1) The differences of plan and arrangement just noted
lead to the closer consideration of the substance of the
Synoptical Gospels. Not only do they present the same
general view of the ministry of Jesus, they show a striking
resemblance in their contents, and they deal with their
materials in much the same style. They abound in
anecdotes, short narratives of incidents, which often
seem to be quite independent, and possess no inner
marks of necessary order. They are introduced with
similar phrases, but their arrangement may often vary.
It has been reckoned that if the common matter of the
gospel-story be divided roughly into sixty sections, forty

36 THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
will be found belonging to Matthew and Luke, and
twenty will unite Mark either to Matthew or Luke.1
Even the passages peculiar to the several Synoptics share
the same general character of narrative and speech. The
teachings in Matthew's Great Sermon, the parables of
Luke, do not differ in style, in quality, in kind, from
those which they report together. The study of their
common matter, however, reveals a still closer relation.
Its distribution along certain general lines of order leads
nevitably to but one explanation (to be established here
after at greater length), viz., that the Synoptic narratives
are all more or less closely related to a single type. In
parables, such as that of the Sower, in incidents like the
cure of the paralytic, even in Old Testament quotations
of peculiar form containing rare words or expressions,
it becomes apparent either that one Evangelist borrowed
from another, or that an older and more original form lies
behind them all.
(2) But in the Fourth Gospel the narratives and dis
courses are of a different kind.
(a) The frequent references to 'other signs' which won
belief, shows that the writer has carefully selected a
special series of the ' works ' of Jesus, and arranged them
so as to produce a particular effect. The Synoptics
1 The common matter and the peculiarities in each Gospel, are
valued numerically in the following table, where the total contents
of the several Gospels are represented by 100.
Peculiarities. Coincidences.
St. Matthew  42  58
St. Mark  7  93
St. Luke  59  41
St. John  92  8
Westcott, Introduction, p. 195, quoting Stroud, Harmony qf
^he Gospels, p. 117,

DIFFERENCES OF MATTER. 37
relate a score of miracles, or more ; John tells but seven.
Moreover his reports are as unlike as possible to the rapid
movement of Synoptic anecdote. They are often lengthy
and circumstantial, and constantly pass into explanatory
or allegorical address.
(£) In the', same way the discourses of Jesus are
extended and continuous. Instead of the short pregnant
sayings, after the manner of ancient Hebrew wisdom,
which the First Three Gospels record, the Fourth
presents us with speeches which develop some idea much
as a musician works out his theme, and occasionally run
without warning into the writer's own comments or
exposition (e.g. iii. 16-21, 31-36). Even the great
collections of sayings in the Synoptics, such as the Sermon
on the Mount, never lose the impress of their national
form. The maxims of conduct and religion, ascribed to
the Master, though of various value, are all coined in the
same mint. But the Johannine Christ does not utter his
thought in these compact and incisive sentences. The
profound conceptions which he has to unfold, the deep
emotions which he communicates, need as their vehicle a
consecutive argument, or an elaborate allegory. So the
exquisite simplicity of the parables is replaced by care
fully wrought symbols, — the well — the bread of life — the
true vine — which sometimes seem the product of con
scious reflection, and appeal rather to the intellect than to
the heart.
(c) And lastly, the problems of life which arise so
unexpectedly — ' Who is my neighbour ? ' ' Speak to my
' brother that he divide the inheritance with me,' ' How
* oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him ? '
'What shall I do to inherit eternal life?'— the Sabbath

38 THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
questions, the great themes of self-denial, of service, of
saving the lost, of the coming of the kingdom, — these
either lose their prominence, or disappear. The rich
background of nature and society, the variety of occupa
tions, the manifold touches' which reveal the Teacher's
close and loving observation both of his country and his
countrymen, are merged in a few great and universal
ideas, in whose glow all local colour has been blanched
away. Over against 'the Jews,' almost always hostile,
blundering, and unintelligent, stands the incarnate Word ;
but the personality of the prophet of Nazareth, alive at
every point, in sympathy with all forms of human need,
whose teachings reflect every phase of the community
around him, and who speaks with equal ease of 'my
father' and 'your father,' seems mysteriously changed.
Through words whose crystal clearness hides rather than
reveals their spiritual depth, one pair after another of
opposite though related terms comes into view. God and
the world stand out in sharp antagonism. They are as
far removed as light and darkness, truth and lying, life and
death. In contrast to their warfare is the mystic union of
'the Father' and 'the Son,' and the process by which the
eternal glory of the Son 'before the world was' shall be
realised anew. These ideas pervade the Gospel from one
end to the other, and the story of the life of Jesus is
arranged so as to exhibit them to the best effect. The
Synoptical narratives, it has been truly said, are mere
aggregates of detail, much of which might have been
differently distributed without appreciably affecting the
result ; one miracle more or less would have mattered
little ; and the whole must be collected from its com-
ponentparts. But in the Fourth Gospel each episode is

THE DOCTRINE OF THE WORD. 39
vitally connected with the principle which shapes them
all. Nothing can be omitted without surrendering some
thing of permanent significance. Every detail is related to
an idea which lives in the author's mind, and guides the
choice and order of his materials. The successive
incidents do not in fact tell all their story by themselves ;
they only become intelligible when they are interpreted
by a great conception which is independent of them.
The whole is in reality something more than can be
gathered from the parts.

§ 3. Differences of Original Conception.
These diversities of form are but the external counter
part of inner differences of what we may call spiritual
imagination. All the Gospels seek to show that Jesus
was the Messiah ; ' the beginning of the gospel of Jesus
'Christ, the Son of God,' says Mark i. i; 'these are
' written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
' the Son of God,' says John xx. 31. Yet how wide an
interval separates the national and prophetic ideas of the
one from the universal and philosophic conceptions of the
other. (1) The prologue in John i. 1-18, unlike the simple
beginning of Mark, or the birth-stories of Matthew and
and Luke, starts with a theological exposition. The
writer's theme is the great doctrine in which Greek
thought had effected so singular a union with Hebrew
faith, viz., the ' Word.' How the Word (or Logos) was
related to God on the one hand, and how it ' became
flesh' in Jesus on the other hand — this is what he desires

40 THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
to set forth. This was the new form in which he sought
to express Christianity ; this was the mould in which the
features of the Teacher were to be cast afresh ; this was
the pattern by which the Master's life was to be again
described. The union of the divine Word with a human
body was not a union of a person of the Godhead with a
man. There were not in Jesus two natures, each with its
own mind and will. That element in man's conscious
ness which the Biblical writers call spirit, was replaced in
him by the Incarnate Word.1 The peculiar being of the
divine Logos remained unchanged. His relation to the
Father remained unchanged. It was only his mode of
self-manifestation that was altered. He had been ever
active, for both the material and the spiritual creation had
come into being through him. Through this activity he
had been continuously giving himself to the world.
That self-communication now passed into a fresh phase.
It entered on a new stage of historic energy among men
in the form of Jesus, who was in virtue of it the Son of
God, and so also the Christ, in a sense wider and deeper
than the Messiah of the Jews. And when he passed
1 This interpretation, which begot the Apollinarian heresy, is
not that usual in the Churches ; but it is the one which the book
appears to me to require.. Into the difficult question how far such
a being could suffer pain or want in our fashion, or feel our sorrow
and share our griefs, it is not necessary here to enter. But when
we read the words ' now is my soul troubled,' John xii. 27, it must
be remembered that the Greek word translated ' soul ' {psyche)
had not the spiritual meaning we attach to the term ' soul.' It
denoted rather the complex mass of feelings and impulses which
had their root in the bodily organism. In using it of the Incar
nate Word the writer seems to drop for a moment on to the lower
level of our common experience. So also xi. 33, xix. 30.

JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST. 41
away, it would assume a third character as a continuous
and abiding revelation in the hearts of the true disciples,
who would receive him and his Father, and be one with
them both. The second of these great processes is the
subject of the Fourth Gospel. — To see how this potent
conception is worked out, it would be necessary to com
pare the Johannine story step by step with the Synoptic
narratives ; some typical instances, however, may be
selected. In introducing them it may be observed that
the real significance of the continued movements of Jesus
which the Fourth Evangelist depicts between Judaea,
Samaria, and Galilee, is that Palestine serves him as the
miniature of the world, which the Word traverses at all
times freely, lighting every man that cometh in. The
unbelieving Jews are but the types of the enemies of the
light in every time and place ; and Jesus is much more
than the redeemer of Israel, he is the revealer of God to
humanity, and thus as ' way, truth, and life,' he stands in
a universal relation to all men.
(2) The first element in the gospel-tradition with
which the Fourth Evangelist deals, is the connection
of Jesus with John the Baptist. The Synoptic
accounts of the Baptist's ministry are in general
harmony, though the events of the baptism of Jesus
are variously recorded. Mark (i. 9-1 1) implies no
recognition of his Messianic character by John. Were it
not for the bodily form with which Luke endows the
holy Spirit on its descent (iii. 22), the Third Gospel
would be equally silent ? and with this absence of open
or public indication of any special calling the Baptist's
subsequent message of enquiry, 'Art thou he that cometh,
'or look we for another?' (vii. 20), is quite consistent.

42 THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
But in the Fourth Gospel, John, in reply to a deputation
from Jerusalem, bears emphatic testimony to Jesus from
the first. Appropriating to himself the quotation from
Isaiah xl. 3, by which the Synoptics had described him,
he applies to Jesus (i. 26, 27) the language employed by
the Baptist in the Synoptics to portray the great
manifestation of divine power for which he looked.1 But
there is more than that. On the next day he sees Jesus
approaching; 'Behold,' he cries, 'the Lamb of God
' which taketh away the sin of the world,' — not, be it
observed, by way of atonement for guilt, but as the
purifying and consecrating power which removes the evil
by dispersing it and driving it for ever from its sight.
Immediately after, the pre-existence of the Logos is
affirmed, ' he was before me,' though in that earlier con
dition he had not yet been manifested, for John adds
(ver. 31) 'I knew him not.' But now his true character
has been disclosed, for John bears witness, saying, 'I
' have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of
' heaven, and it abode upon him.' What Mark and
Matthew describe as a personal experience of Jesus,2 is
here transferred to John, for the Word needed no such
1 Compare Bible for Young People, v. pp. 130, 138.
2 Mark i. 10. Matthew iii. 16.
And straightway coming up And Jesus, when he was
out of the water he saw the baptised, went up straightway
heavens rent asunder, and the from the water, and lo, the
Spirit as a dove descending heavens were opened unto him,
upon him. and he saw the Spirit of God
descending as a dove, and

See below, chap. v. § 4-

coming upon him.

RECOGNITION AS MESSIAH. 43
supernatural confirmation of the character which was not
conferred upon him there, but was his own by spiritual
nature. And in the same way the Synoptic attestation by
the heavenly voice, ' Thou art my beloved Son, in thee
' I am well pleased,' is not rendered by God to Jesus, so
as to designate him Messiah, it is made in the third
person by John (ver. 34), ' I have seen and have borne
' witness that this is the Son of God.'
(3) There is no mention here of the baptism of Jesus.
Is this implicitly assumed, or designedly omitted ? The
question is answered differently by interpreters of different
schools : but it seems likely that the next incident of the
Synoptic story — the Temptation — appeared unsuitable to
the august being of the Incarnate Word, and was
intentionally set aside. Instead, therefore, of being driven
by the Spirit into the wilderness (Mark i. 12) to be
tempted forty days by Satan, Jesus remains by the Jordan,
and on the day after John's emphatic testimony he is a
second time described by him as the ' Lamb of God '
{John i. 36). Two of the Baptist's disciples at once
abandon him for the new Teacher; one of them is
Andrew, who loses no time in seeking out his brother
Simon, and announces to him, 'We have found the
Messiah' (ver. 41). Simon then accompanies him to
Jesus, who at once bestows on him the name of Peter
(ver. 42). — How many are the variations between this
narrative and the Synoptic tradition ! There, Jesus only
enters public life after the Baptist has been thrown into
prison : here, he begins to exert at once his wondrous
influence, and his first followers are the disciples of his
predecessor. There, Simon and Andrew are called
from their nets by the lake-side : here, they are among

44 THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
the crowd gathered on the banks of the Jordan around
John. There, Simon only receives the name Peter on
his declaration, after months of discipleship, that Jesus is
the Christ (Matt. xvi. 16-18) ¦> here, it is conferred upon
him at the outset. And there, above all, a certain
development may be traced which culminates in the
impetuous burst with which Peter claims for his Master,
at Caesarea Philippi, the dignity of Messiah, of which
Jesus had hitherto said not a word :2 here, that high
function is recognised at once by the Baptist and the
disciples, and assumed (e.g. i. 49, 50) at the outset by the
Teacher himself. The great scene by the Jordan springs,
which in the Synoptic narratives is the crisis of the
Master's whole career, loses in the Johannine story all its
significance ; it serves only to mark the difference between
the faithful and the faithless among the disciples, it
makes no era for Jesus himself. When the two are set
side by side, it seems at first sight impossible to find any
points of contact between them ; yet the comparison of
the two declarations of Peter renders it practically certain
that the second is only a variation of the first.
Mark viii. 27-31. John vi. 66-70.
And Jesus went forth, and his Upon this many of his dis-
disciples, into the villages of cipies went back, and walked no
Csesarea Philippi ; and in the more with him. Jesus said
way he asked his disciples, say- therefore unto the twelve,
ing unto them, Who do men Would ye also go away ?
1 Mark represents it as bestowed earlier, apparently in
connection with the choice and mission of the Twelve, iii. 14-16.
2 This statement anticipates conclusions which will be ex
pounded further on. See especially chap. vii. § 1, 1 -3 ; chap.
viii. $ 2, 3.

FEEDING THE MULTITUDE. 45
say that I am ? And they told Simon Peter answered him,
him, saying, John the Baptist : Lord, to whom shall we go P
and others, Elijah ; but others, Thou hast the words of eternal
One of the prophets. And he life. And we have believed
asked them, But who say ye and know that thou art the
that I am? Peter answereth Holy One of God} Jesus
and saith unto him, Thou art answered them, Did not I
the Christ. And he charged choose you the twelve, and one
them that they should tell no of you is a devil P Now he
man of him. And he began to spake of Judas the son of Simon
teach them that the Son of man Iscariot, for he it was that
must suffer many things, and should betray him, being one
be rejected by the elders, and of the twelve.
the chief priests, and the
scribes, and be killed, and after
three days rise again.
(4) The method by which the Synoptic incidents are
employed in the Fourth Gospel as the foundations of
allegorical discourse may be illustrated from the story of
the feeding of the Five Thousand. It is preceded,
according to John, by the cure of the sick man at the
pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem. From there Jesus ' went
' away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee ' (vi. 1), a
description which would have been natural enough if he
had set out from Capernaum, but is hardly more
appropriate geographically than to speak of going from
Manchester to the other side of Windermere. Does it
not show that the writer, in adapting his older materials,
is not so much concerned with historical and local
accuracy as with the portrayal of the central thought, the
1 The ' Holy One of God ' is ' the Christ,' who is marked off
and hallowed for God's service, comp. x. 36. The term is rare,
but it occurs in Mark i. 24, and parallel in Luke iv. 34. See
chap. iv. 2, ae,

46 THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
unceasing activity of the divine word in Jesus ? The
miracle which follows is related much as in the First
Three Gospels, save for the tendency to rob it of its
spontaneous character, and convert it into a designed
display of superhuman power ; 1 and it produces so
profound an effect that the multitude propose to come
and take Jesus by force and make him king (ver. 15).
In Mark and Matthew the sequel of the first feeding
miracle, after their return across the lake, is a continua
tion of the beneficent healing activity of Jesus in city and
village (Mark vi. 53-56, Matt. xiv. 34-36), and the
second (for Mark and Matthew apparently incorporate
duplicate forms of the same original story, see chap. vi.
§ 5) leads up to the demand of the Pharisees for a sign
and the discourse about leaven (Mark viii. 11-21, Malt.
xvi. 1-12). Neither of these narratives is adopted by
John. He founds upon the event which has just occurred
a great discourse, having for its fundamental idea 'the
' meat which abideth unto eternal life.' It is delivered,
apparently, in the synagogue at Capernaum (vi. 59) ; but
the hearers who only the day before desired to crown
him, and, when they discovered his departure, crossed
the lake to find him, cannot understand his mystic
speech ; forgetting the enthusiasm with which they had
greeted the sign of the loaves (ver. 14), they eagerly
demand a fresh one (ver. 30), and when one 'hard
saying' succeeds another, they finally succumb under
their predestined unbelief (vv. 64, 65), and quit his side.
What, then, is the essence of the teaching which causes
1 Note especially vv. 5, 6, 'Jesus saith unto Philip, Whence are
' we to buy bread, that these may eat P And this he said to prove
'him, for he himself knew what he would do,'

SACRAMENTAL ALLUSIONS. 47
so great a shock ? It is, first of all, the unqualified
demand for faith, which pervades the whole of the
Fourth Gospel, ' This is the work of God, that ye believe
' on him whom he hath sent ' (ver. 29) : ' This is the will
' of my Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son,
' and believeth on him, should have eternal life ' (ver. 40).
Secondly, it is the contrast between the manna in the
wilderness and ' the true bread out of heaven,' the divine
Word which comes down and gives life to the world.1
The implication of an earlier heavenly existence in this
passage (ver. 33), is made still more clear in the words
that follow (ver. 38) : ' I am come down from heaven, not
' to do mine own will but the will of him that sent me.'
Lastly, by a sudden and unexpected turn Jesus identifies
the 'living bread' with his own flesh (ver. 51), and
meets the question of the Jews with the further declara
tion, ' Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and
' drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves.' From
the end of the second century these words were
universally understood as an allegory of the Lord's
Supper, the Eucharist or ' Thanksgiving.' We are
accustomed, in accordance with the language of Paul
and the First Three Evangelists, to speak of the body and
the blood of Jesus rather than of his flesh. But the
account of the rite which Justin Martyr gives us, also
contains the word flesh : —
For not as common bread and common drink do we receive
these ; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having
been made flesh by the word of God, had both flesh and blood
1 Philo, observes Dr. Abbott, had already interpreted the manna
allegorically of the Logos, the imperishable and heavenly food of
the soul,

48 THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the
food which is blessed by the prayer with his word, is the flesh and
blood of that Jesus who was made flesh (First Apology, 66).
It will be remembered that the Fourth Gospel does not
relate the institution of the service of remembrance.
But, if the interpretation just mentioned be correct, in
this passage it seems to be assumed, and the writer
expounds its deep and inner meaning. Does this appear
strange ? It will be found less so, if it be also allowed
that the Church has been likewise right in discovering a
reference to the doctrine of Baptism in the words to
Nicodemus, ' Except a man be born of water and the
' Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God '
(iii. 5). The Evangelist's aim is to teach what he
believes to be spiritual truth; the occasion and the
words are but the vehicle for conveying thoughts. He
is not concerned with history or the events of time, he
moves in a circle of ideas belonging to an unseen world ;
and he gladly escapes from the seeming roughness of
their contact with material forms like flesh and blood,
into the higher realm in which, after his ascension,
the Eternal Word will resume his former glory
(vv. 62, 63) : —
Doth this cause you to stumble ? What then if ye should be
hold the Son of Man ascending where he was before P It is the
spirit that quickeneth (giveth life), the flesh profiteth nothing;
the words that I have spoken to you are spirit, and are life.
(5) Somewhat resembling the difference in the treat
ment of the Eucharist, is the new form of the doctrine
of ' the kingdom ' and the ' last things.' In the First
Three Gospels the background of thought is everywhere

DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL LIFE. 49
the national faith and hope.1 ' Repent,' cries John the
Baptist, 'for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' The
' good news of the kingdom ' is the substance of the first
preaching of Jesus. It is a conception which he boldly
applies to this world ; it will involve a vast social change,
and when it is fully established, it will effect a complete
alteration in the outward relations of men, because it will
first have transformed their hearts within. Round this
spiritual thought gathered a multitude of popular expecta
tions. The ' age to come ' was to be introduced with
troubles and sufferings, dangers and persecutions. The
armies of the Gentiles would assemble round Jerusalem,
and perhaps lay it low ; and portents among the heavenly
bodies would be followed by the appearance of the sign
of the Son of Man in the sky, whence he should come
in clouds with great power and glory. All this vivid
imagery has vanished from the Fourth Gospel like ' the
* unsubstantial fabric of a vision.' Once only does the
term ' kingdom of God ' appear (iii. 3, 5) ; once only
does Jesus speak of his kingdom (a phrase of very rare
occurrence in the Synoptics), when he says to Pilate
' My kingdom is not of this world ' (xviii. 36). What is
its substitute or equivalent ? It is the word of common
Jewish speech, ' eternal life,' but with a new meaning.
This is not to be ' inherited ' by * doing ' anything ; it is
something bestowed, not earned ; it does not carry with
it admission to earthly privilege — a place at the Messiah's
feast, — it involves a spiritual relation to God, in which he
takes the first step from his great heart of love, chooses
the faithful soul, and draws it to him. Hence it is a gift,
1 Compare Life in Palestine, chap. vi.

50 THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
whose source is God, and whose channel is the Word in
Christ. So we read such passages as these : —
No man can come to me except the Father which sent me
draw him (vi. 44).
No man can come unto me except it be given unto him of the
Father (vi. 65).
Father, the hour is come ; glorify thy Son, that the Son may
glorify thee; even as thou gavest him authority over all flesh,
that whatsoever thou hast given him, to them he should give
eternal life (xvii. 1, 2).
The condition of possessing this eternal life is belief : —
He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath
eternal life (v. 24).
And its result is knowledge : —
This is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true
God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ (xvii. 3).
This knowledge is a spiritual state ; and the conception
of ' eternal life ' to which it belongs is consequently
wholly free from the local and national associations of
Hebrew piety ; it has undergone a profound transforma
tion, and has been placed, as it were, in a new plane of
thought. The same is true with the doctrines of the
resurrection, the second advent, and the judgment. The
resurrection is an inward change in the hearts of the
disciples, described in imaginative language as passing
from death to life. And there is to be the scene of
Christ's coming, when the love of God and of Jesus rises
with full free stream within the soul. Sometimes it is the
Comforter, sometimes the Father, sometimes Jesus him
self, who will come. But the coming is never outward
or visible ; it is heralded by no catastrophes in earth or
heaven, announced by no angels' trumpet-blast. It is

THE DEATH OF JESUS. 51
the realisation of an inward fellowship, a spiritual
presence, which does not seek the definiteness of
pictorial form, but rather translates the shifting symbols
and images of historic hope into the abiding con
ditions of the divine life within the soul.
In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in
me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments and keepeth
them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be
loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself
unto him. Judas (not Iscariot) saith unto him, Lord, what is
come to pass that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not
unto the world ? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man
love me, he will keep my word; and my Father will love him,
and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. —
(xiv. 20-23, CP- xvi- l3> &c0
(6) It has already been pointed out that the Fourth
Gospel represents the death of Jesus as taking place on
the day before the celebration of the Passover, whereas
the Synoptics place it after the Paschal supper (above § 1,
2). The difference may seem at first sight unimportant.
But when it is combined with other statements peculiar
to the Johannine narrative, it seems to acquire a deeper
significance. Here and here alone do we read that the
Jews asked Pilate that the legs of the sufferers on the
cross might be broken, and the bodies removed, so that
they should not remain upon the cross on the approaching
feast-day (xix. 31). When the soldiers came to Jesus,
they found him already dead, and they left the body
unharmed. This, it is said (ver. 36), 'came to pass, that
' the Scripture might be fulfilled, a bone of him shall not
' be broken.' It is commonly supposed that this is an
allusion to the treatment of the Paschal lamb, ' Neither
'shall ye break a bone thereof (Exod. xii. 46, Num.

52 THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
ix. 12). If this be so, the writer intends to suggest a
parallel betweed the Paschal lamb and Jesus, and by
identifying the day on which Jesus died with that on
which the lamb was killed and sacrificed, he gives a
quasi-historic shape to Paul's triumphant words, ' Our
• Passover also hath been sacrified, even Christ ' (/ Cor.
v. 7). The seamless robe (xix. 23), resembling the high
priest's vestment, already applied by Philo as a symbol of
the Logos, which, without being itself divided, held
together the parts of the universe, was early understood
to be the emblem of the indivisible unity of the Church,
— the body of Christ which it enveloped. And the
strange story of the blood and water which issued from
his side, when it was pierced (xix. 34), seems only
intelligible as an allegory of the sacraments of baptism
and the eucharistic blood, which derived their efficacy
from his death. That death was not the ' ransom ' by
which Messiah bought believers' souls : nor was it the
inauguration of the ' new covenant ' by the ancient
method of shedding blood. Nor, again, was it the
means by which Messiah escaped from the limits of his
Jewish nationality, and by entering on the risen life broke
through the restraints of the Law and abolished its
power for ever. It was the crowning proof of his love :
the ' good shepherd ' gave his life for the sheep ; and
Jesus, in the same way, laid down his life for his friends
(x. n, xv. 13). By this devotion of himself he broke
the power of evil ; the prince of this world was judged
and cast out, and the world itself was overcome (xvi. 11,
33.). Moreover, it was the necessary passage to his
glorification (xii. 23, 24) ; when the hour arrived for him
to resume the glory which he had with the Father before

THE DEATH OF JESUS. 53
the world was (xvii. 5), he must needs lay aside his
earthly form, and go unto the Father (xiv. 28). So even
his death, which was in one sense Satan's work, through
his tool Judas, was in another the free exercise of his own
right ; he had power to lay down his life, and power to
take it again (x. 17, 18). As the last hour drew nigh, it
cost him no agony to do the Father's will ; he needed no
disciple to keep the watch of sympathy while he bowed
in prayer ; no angel, pitying his struggle with unwilling
flesh, came from heaven to strengthen him.1 His majestic
demeanour so awes the troops — no rabble of ill-armed
1 Compare, on the other hand, the passage in xii. 27, on which
Dr. Abbott writes as follows, ' Gospels,' Encycl. Brit. x. p. 827 :
' " Now is my soul troubled." Thus the Saviour avows a certain
' conflict in his heart, yet by the very deliberateness (as well as by
' the publicity) of the avowal, takes from it something of the
' intense and almost passionate humanity of the Synoptic narrative.
' Immediately after these words, the Saviour, in the Fourth
' Gospel, deliberately suggests to himself the Synoptic prayer, and
' repeats it : " What shall I say ? ' Father, save me from this
'hour?' But for this cause came I unto this hour." At once
' triumphing over the — from the point of view of the Fourth
' Gospel — unworthy suggestion, he exclaims " Father, glorify thy
' name." Upon this comes the heaven-sent message, but not (as in
' Luke) an angel to " strengthen " one " in an agony praying more
' earnestly " ; on the contrary, the voice does but ratify the
' Saviour's utterance ; " I have both glorified it, and will glorify it
1 again." . A soul " troubled," a prayer to be saved from the
'trouble; the suppression of that prayer, after more or less or
' conflict, and the substitution of another prayer in its place ; and
' lastly a message or messenger from heaven. — The facts are much
'the same both in Luke and in John, yet how different is the
'treatment of the facts, and what a world of difference in the
1 spiritual result J '

54 THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
priest's servants, but a Roman cohort from Antonia five or
six hundred strong— that they fall on the ground unable
to proceed with the arrest. Instead of the silence, which,
in the Synoptic story, roused Pilate's wonder at a prisoner
who made no effort to justify himself, we catch the
echoes of past words as Jesus calmly declares (to the
still greater astonishment of his questioner), 'To this end
' have I been born, and to this end am I come into the
' world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every
< one that is of the truth heareth my voice ' (xviii. 37)-
No more, upon the cross, the anguished cry ' My God,
' my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? ' The divine
Word, quitting his tabernacle of flesh, in full assurance of
union with the Father, looks back upon the work he has
achieved, and departs with the triumphant exclamation,
' It is finished ' (xix. 30).

\ 4. Influence of a Great Idea.
The foregoing illustrations of the differences between
the Johannine story and the Synoptics may serve to show
the cause to which they are to be ascribed. The Fourth
Evangelist has framed for himself a theory of the person
of Jesus. He has discovered, as he thinks, an explana
tion of the part which the Teacher played in the great
drama of human destiny. To that theory he gives
concrete shape in his narrative : that explanation under
lies every discourse which he sets down, every act which
he relates. Taking up some of the material supplied
by his predecessors, he produces a new biography, not of

INFLUENCE OF GREAT IDEAS. 55
Jesus of Nazareth, ' anointed with holy spirit and with
power,' but of the Word made flesh in the person of the
Christ. This is the central doctrine which governs the
Gospel from the opening to the close. The Jewish
Messiah is divested of his robes of sovereignty, but the
writer has thrown round him, instead, the ethereal
splendour of the Greek Logos ; and he presents him to
the world no longer as the Son of David, but as the Son
of God existing in glory, ere David, or Abraham, or the
world itself, began to be. Far from anticipating twelve
thrones for the twelve apostles to judge the twelve tribes
of Israel, he is a spiritual king. Hence the national
ideas which could not live in the higher atmosphere of
universal thought, drop out of sight ; and only those are
retained which seem to have a meaning for all time.
This is why many of the conceptions of the Fourth
Gospel are felt to belong so much more closely to our
inner life than some of the Jewish elements of the First
Three. They are thrown into forms which have a wider
scope, they attach themselves more easily to our per
manent experience. But none the less must we recognise
that they are an interpretation of the Master's thought ;
they are a translation from a dialect of antique usage and
narrower range into a speech of general currency. In
short, the Fourth Gospel is a version or rendering of the
life and teachings of Jesus composed under the influence
of a great idea.
This is not the only instance of what may be called
dramatic presentment in the literature of the Bible,
though it is undoubtedly the noblest. The Old Testa
ment contains more than one example of this method of
setting forth what were believed to be principles of vital

56 THE FOURTH GOSPEL.
import. When the early traditions of the Deliverance
from Egypt and the Wanderings had been consolidated
around the figure of Moses, and ancient custom had been
reduced to Law in the shape of the First Code,1 a new
development of what was regarded as Mosaic religion
took place, and in the glowing utterances of Deuteronomy
a little band of unknown teachers pleaded, in the name
of their great predecessor seven hundred years before,
for the sole deity and the sole worship of Yahweh. And
when, later still, in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, the
community in the restored Jerusalem needed a programme
of law to preserve the truths which had been won through
suffering and captivity, it was again under the solemn
sanction of Moses, with Aaron by his side, that the great
priestly legislation was drawn up and established. Com
pare the David of history with the David of the
Chronicler's imagination, and the same process will be
seen anew. The past is reconstructed in the light of
later practice and belief.
In all these cases, the influence that guides the author's
mind is largely conscious. He works under known
assumptions, towards a given end. The Fourth Evangelist,
as we have seen, deliberately desires to combine two
widely separate ideas, that of the Jewish Messiah and of
the Greek Word. His purpose was clear, and the trans
formation which the figure of the Christ undergoes at his
hands, can be largely, if not completely, traced.
But when we pass backward to the materials with
which the Synoptics supply us, can we escape from
similar enquiries ? Are these stories, simple and artless
1 See Exodus xxi.-xxiii.j Life in Palestine, p. 87.

INFLUENCE OF GREAT IDEAS. SI
as they so often seem, a genuine deposit of trustworthy
tradition? Do they represent the facts as they occurred ?
Or do they, too, betray the influence, conscious or
unconscious, designed or accidental, of the ideas and
feelings, the hopes and expectations and beliefs, of their
narrators ? This is the enquiry that now lies before us.
The path is not easy, and the way is long. We must
encounter many difficulties, and we may. often have to
lament that our results must remain after all uncertain.
One thing only is clear, that whoever would try to know
and understand Jesus, must honestly make the attempt.

CHAPTER III.
THE FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL
TRADITIONS.
How came our First Three Gospels to be written? Were
they produced independently of each other, or did the
later writers use the work of the earlier ? In what
order were they composed, and at what dates ? Why do
they sometimes agree so closely, as in the parable of the
Sower, or the story of the paralytic let down through the
roof; and why do they sometimes vary so widely about
important sayings of the Teacher, or no less important
incidents in his career ? From what sources did the
author of the earliest Gospel derive his knowledge about
Jesus ; and what other materials were at the command of
the succeeding Evangelists ?
It is easier to ask these questions than to answer them.
They are only specimens of the kind of problems which
beset all enquiry into the origin of the Synoptic narratives.
But before we seek for some clearer light upon them, let
us examine first of all the general conditions under which
our Gospels came into existence. How did men know

THE MINISTRY OF THE WORD. 59
anything about Jesus before the lives of him were drawn
up ? They could only know what they were told by his
friends and followers. They depended, that is, on the
witness of the Church. Of what did this testimony
consist, and how was it formed into a body of definite
teaching ?

§ 1. The Preaching of the Early Church.
(i) Jesus committed nothing to writing. The words
which he traced upon the Temple floor in presence of
the guilty woman, while her accusers slunk away (John
viii. 6, 8), vanished without a record. The founders of
Christian sects have left behind them, like John Wesley,
copious discourses to serve as standards of the faith.1
Mohammed armed his followers with revelations which
were afterwards collected into the book on which Islam
rests, viz. the Koran. But Jesus, like Socrates, was
content with ' speaking the word,' Mark ii. 2. After his
first appearance in the synagogue at Capernaum, his
amazed hearers cried out 'What is this? A new
teaching ! ' Mark i. 27. And all through his public
life, in the villages of Galilee, or the crowded temple-
courts at Jerusalem, he moves among men as the
'Teacher.' Nor is there any trace that his disciples
1 A curious difference has been observed in the case of two of
the world's greatest teachers in another sphere. Dante showed
no solicitude for his great Commedia. Most of Shakespeare's
plays would have perished, in the absence of any pains on his
part for their preservation, but for the unasked labour of
Hemynge and Condell.

60 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.
wrote anything during his life. There were, indeed, no
scribes among them who might have been used to letters.
The most eminent apostles, the most intimate companions
of Jesus, Peter, James, John, were fishermen. The best
educated of them is supposed to have been Matthew, the
tax-gatherer.1 Even after the Master had passed away,
the Church at Jerusalem consisted mostly of the poor
and unlearned. So was it at Corinth, 'not many wise
' after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble,' were
among the called, / Cor. i. 26. And what was true
of the chief cities of Jewish piety and Greek culture, was
no doubt true of many lesser centres of the new faith.
The outward circumstances of the Church, therefore,
were not at first favourable to literary composition.
(2) Moreover, the ministry of the apostles, like that of
their Master, was a ' ministry of the word.' Follow them
through the pages of the Book of Acts, and whether it is
at Jerusalem or in Samaria, at Damascus or Antioch,
they are busy preaching. They argue and discuss, they
meet objections, they confute opponents, all with one aim,
viz., to prove that Jesus is the Christ. And to what
authority do they appeal? By what means do they
vindicate their claim ? Their justification lies in the Old
Testament. In the temple-halls, before the tribunal of
the Sanhedrin, at sabbath-worship in the synagogues,
even among the friends of the centurion Cornelius, it is
on law and prophet and psalmist that they rely. There
were revealed already, so they believed, the facts of
Messiah's life and death and resurrection. They had
but to apply them to Jesus, and the evidence was
1 On the ' publicans ' see Life in Palestine, § 5.

USE OF THE OLD TESl'AMENT. 61
complete. ' The written Gospel of the first period,'
observes Dr. Westcott, ' was the Old Testament, inter-
' preted by a vivid recollection of the Saviour's ministry.'
The passages on which they relied, may not seem to us
very conclusive. But to the first Christians they came
with a new and unexpected force. They often carried with
them the venerable sanction of the synagogue, where
they had been so understood for generations. Their
adaptation to Jesus rested on analogies which we cannot
accept ; it was a work of pious imagination, which was
indifferent to their original meaning, and seized on some
feature of doubtful likeness with a fervour of conviction
defying refutation. It was, indeed, the only method open
to Jews in argument with Jews; and it continued
efficacious for more than a hundred years. The
principal work of Justin the Martyr, in the middle of
the second century, is a dialogue with a Jew named
Trypho, in which he seeks to prove from the Old
Testament that Jesus was the Messiah whom the
prophets had foretold.
(3) This line of reasoning, however, was only
intelligible to those who accepted the apostolic statements
about Jesus. To enforce it successfully it was necessary
that the facts about him should be known. It must be
shown that they conformed to the prophetic requirements.
From this inevitable demand a body of teaching about
Jesus took its rise. The story of his life was shaped
under this idea, for this was the outward principle on
which the Church was founded. To understand why he
was to be acknowledged as Messiah was indispensable,
in face of persecutions in the synagogue, or the scourge
and imprisonment at the hands of a magistrate. But to

62 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.
the believer, this was not enough for the ordering of his
daily conduct, or the satisfaction of the new love and
hope aroused within him. In the community at Jeru
salem, and in those that were founded from it, some kind
of rule and organisation were required. When the great
' change of heart,' called ' repentance,' had taken place,
and taken place sincerely, there still remained fresh
ideas to be worked out in practice, fresh habits to be
formed, fresh affections to be regulated and maintained.
What were the principles which should govern all
behaviour ? Plainly the principles of the ' kingdom ' as
laid down by the Teacher. So, more and more stress
came to be laid on the knowledge of the ' laws of life '
announced by Jesus. This knowledge could be drawn
from one source only, — the followers to whom he had
imparted it. The first attempts to throw it into a shape
in which it could be communicated to others, must have
proceeded from them. They would arise naturally in the
Church at Jerusalem, to meet the simplest cases of daily
need. They sprang out of the recollection of the
Master's words; they consisted, therefore, in remin
iscence, guided by faith, and prompted and shaped by
the circumstances and conditions of the time. These
memories, gathered out of the vanished year of their
discipleship, they related to each other, and to the new
converts. Like their public preaching, this private
instruction was given by word of mouth. Here, then,
were all the elements of a tradition.

PROPAGATION OF THE TEACHING. 63

$ 2. Transition to Writing.
(i) The length of time which would elapse before
such traditions would be reduced to writing, cannot
possibly be determined. It must have depended on
many circumstances which it is no longer in our power to
trace. But it is plain that the conditions were not at first
favourable to the conversion of an oral into a written
gospel. Those who were actively engaged in preaching,
would not pause to record their message. The ministry
of the word was much easier to the unlearned than that
of the pen ; and the pauses of travel and hardship, and
the moments of safety from danger, seemed always to be
occupied by some more immediate need. How little is
left out of the years of toil from such a correspondent
even as the Apostle Paul ! Moreover, in the expectation
of the speedy return of Jesus, who would usher in the new
time of the 'age to come,' the claims of the present
possessed an urgency which threw the idea of a literary
provision for the future into the shade. Who would
record the apostolic recollections, for the sake of a
posterity that would never see the light? And who
would devote to such unprofitable labour the hours and
the strength which might yet avail to rescue some lost
souls from the doom that must otherwise overtake them ?
Besides, it was the method of the time to pass on by
memory the stores of accumulated learning ; and the
Rabbis, who had piled up a mountain of oral law beside
the Pentateuch, were in the highest degree averse to the
idea of arranging it in literary form. ' Commit nothing
'to writing,' was a well known maxim of the Schools.

64 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.
The sayings of the famous teachers, their interpretations
of obscure or doubtful rules, their decisions in perplexing
cases, were handed on from one generation to another,
until, after the final overthrow of the Jewish national
hope, the first collection of them was made in the second
century of our era, under the name of the Mishna. For
hundreds of years in India, the ancient hymns, the books
of ritual and philosophy, were transmitted in the same
way. And at this day, in the schools at Jerusalem
connected with the Mosque of Omar, on the very site of
the Temple, the Koran is learned in like manner by
constant repetition. But these instances are not really
parallel. The sacred lore of the Hindus was committed
to a special caste, and the most careful safeguards were
devised for its accurate preservation. The Christian
tradition, on the other hand, was no fixed deposit, no
rigid and unalterable form. As it passed from mouth to
mouth, no years of initiation were demanded before it
could be mastered and again handed on. Those who
received and propagated it were not trained ' repeaters ' ; 1
they were gathered from the harbour, the market-place,
the shop, and there was no guarantee that nothing should
be added, changed, or dropped, upon the way.
(2) That this was the actual method of early Christian
instruction, is proved, for example, by the language of the
Apostle Paul. His allusions to the incidents in the life
of Jesus are, indeed, but few. He speaks of his descent
from David and his birth ; he mentions the last supper,
the betrayal, death, and resurrection. All these events
1 The name given to reciters of different books of the sacred
canon of the Buddhists.

THE APOSTLE PAUL. 65
had their place in his doctrine of redemption. But much
more may have been included in what the Apostle —
addressing the Church at Rome — describes as ' that form
' of teaching whereunto ye were delivered ' (Rom. vi. 17).
This was to be firmly retained in personal memory, and
in the life and usage of the community. ' Hold fast the
traditions' (literally 'the deliverings '), he urges on the
Corinthians, ' even as I delivered them to you ' (/ Cor.
xi. 2). The character of these traditions may be in part
inferred from two prominent examples, that of the institu
tion of the Lord's Supper, / Cor. xi. 23-25, and that of
the Resurrection, / Cor. xv. 3-8. It is noteworthy that
the account of the Lord's Supper is not followed by the
text of any of our Gospels, though additions may be
traced in the narrative of Luke bringing it into closer
harmony with that of Paul. The beginnings of a collec
tion of Christian literature may (in one aspect) be carried
back to the Apostle's injunction that his letter to the
Thessalonians should be read at a Church-meeting (/
Thess. v. 27). But so remote is it from the Apostle's
mind to attach any weight to his literary productions,
that among the different 'gifts' which he enumerates
there are teaching and prophecy, there are tongues and
their interpretation, but of writing and authorship there is
not a word. There was absolutely no intention, there
fore, of adding a fresh set of Scriptures to those already
in existence. None would have been more surprised
than its chief authors at the elevation of the New
Testament to divine authority beside the Old.
(3) It is, however, easy to understand that the extension
of missionary preaching would stimulate the demand for
a permanent record of the traditions. The very fact of their
F

66 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.
propagation beyond the limits of their native home in
Palestine, among those who knew little or nothing of the
places and the persons with which they chiefly dealt, would
make their committal to writing desirable. In the first
place, few hearers would be satisfied with the meagre
outlines supplied by such reports of apostolic discourses
as that of Peter to Cornelius, Acts x. 34-43- These bare
general statements helped to convey a few leading ideas ;
but they needed immediate enlargement with illustration
and detail. The travelling preacher, again, who must
pass on to the next town, and carried away with him the
precious store of apostolic recollections, would naturally
desire to leave behind him some memorial of the truth.
He might even himself record in his own fashion the
words and deeds of the Master which he was accustomed
to relate,1 and from such sources might have proceeded
some of those numerous attempts to present the Teacher's
life mentioned in the preface to the Third Gospel, Luke
i. 1-4. Many, says the author, had taken in hand to
draw up a narrative of the things that had been fully
established among them, in accordance with the traditions
handed on by the original eye-witnesses and teachers (i.e.
the apostolic followers of Jesus). These traditions were
already the subject of oral instruction. Theophilus, for
whom he wrote, had been trained in them. To confirm
Theophilus in this knowledge, he himself undertook to
set forth the traditions in order, after having traced the
course of all things accurately from the first. It is
1 The impulse to writing may often have proceeded from the
necessity of fixing in Greek what had been originally ' delivered'
in Aramean. Cp. below, { 3, 1, p. 72.

INCOMPLETENESS OF THE RECORD. 67
impossible to indicate more clearly that the reduction of
the traditions to writing was not undertaken by apostolic
hands. (4) Even when the oral Gospel had acquired literary
shape, we may readily comprehend that no single com
position would embrace all the materials that were
circulating through the Churches.
(a) Sayings that were received in one place might be
unknown or even rejected in another : and narratives
involving important doctrines might be repudiated by
those to whom the doctrines seemed unreasonable. It is
known, for instance, that the Gospel current among the
Jewish Christians who were called Ebionites ('the poor'),
did not contain either of the narratives of the birth of
Jesus now prefixed to our Matthew and Luke. The
Book of Acts, xx. 35, reports the Apostle Paul as
reminding the Elders at Ephesus of the words of the
Lord Jesus, ' It is more blessed to give than to receive.'
In various early Christian writings such sayings as the
following are attributed to Jesus :
On account of the weak I became weak ; on account of the
hungry I was an-hungered ; and on account of the thirsty I was
athirst. Those who will see me, and obtain possession of my kingdom,
must lay hold of me through anguish and suffering.
Be ye good money changers.
If you are gathered in my bosom, and keep not my
commandments, I will put you away, saying, ' Depart from me, I
'know you not, ye workers of iniquity.'
(b) But the Gospels themselves enable us to trace the
manner in which the traditions might be gradually
shaped, by defining what seemed indefinite, by modifying

68 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.
what seemed impracticable or austere, by filling up detail
and thus completing and strengthening the general effect.
Here are some instances: the margin of the Revised
Version will supply plenty more. Sometimes the
additions were on a tolerably large scale. The story of
the woman taken in adultery was incorporated at an early
date, into the Fourth Gospel (John vii. 53-viii. 11), and
was then generally received. The following Sabbath
anecdote is inserted in the Codex Bezae (an ancient MS.
preserved in the library of the University of Cambridge)
after Luke vi. 5 : —
On the same day, seeing one working on the sabbath, he said
to him, O man, if indeed thou knowest what thou doest, thou art
blessed : but if thou knowest not, thou art accursed, and a trans
gressor of the law.
But this addition did not win acceptance, and failed to
find a permanent place. On the other hand the abrupt
conclusion of Mark xvi. 8, 'for they were afraid,' was
obviously incomplete ; and two different endings to the
Gospel were afterwards provided. That which is printed
in the Revised Version, as an appendix, xvi. 9-20, is
plainly later than the narrative of Luke (w. 12, 13,
referring to the Emmaus incident, Luke xxiv. 13-33), an<^
shows some affinity also with the close of Matthew, cp.
ver. 15, Matt, xxviii. 19; ver. 20, Matt, xxviii. 20. The
other ending ran thus : —
And all that had been enjoined on them they reported briefly
to the companions of Peter. And after these things Jesus
himself, from the east even to the west, sent forth by them the
holy and incorruptible preaching of eternal salvation.
Sometimes the addition only serves to fill out the picture,
as in Mark ii. 16, ' He eateth with publicans and sinners.'

ADDITIONS TO THE RECORD. 69
Eating implied drinking, and this in due time found its
way into the text, which now runs ' He eateth and
' drinketh with publicans and sinners.' — The Church was
accustomed to close the Lord's Prayer with an ascription
of praise to God. Later generations attributed the words
to Jesus himself ; they were then attached to the prayer
in Matt. vi. 13, ' For thine is the kingdom, and the
'power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.'1 — When the
disciples had failed to cast out a particularly violent evil
spirit, they asked the reason of their Master privately.
' This kind,' so ran the answer, Mark ix. 29, ' can come
' out by nothing save by prayer.' Christian prayer, like
its Jewish counterpart, was often accompanied with
fasting. Here again later usage claimed the Teacher's
sanction, and an augmented text ran 'by prayer and
fasting.' The corresponding story in Matt. xvii. 20
ascribed to Jesus a different answer assigning the
apostles' difficulty to their little faith. But the
harmonizers of after days, desiring to bring them into
some kind of agreement, added the enlarged verse of
Mark, introducing it with a but : —
But this kind goeth not out save by prayer and fasting.
In the first of the great contrasts between the old teaching
and the new, Jesus introduced the new law of love thus,
Matt. v. 21, 22 : —
1 A remarkable instance of the tendency to fill up gaps will be
found in comparing the two forms of the Lord's Prayer, Luke xi.
2-4, according to the earlier text of the Revisers, and the textus
receptus of the Authorised Version. The Christian Scribes added
whole clauses to bring the prayer in Luke up to the standard of
that in Matthew. See below, chap. ix. $ 2, 2b,

70 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.
Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt
not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the
judgment. But I say unto you that every one who is angry with
his brother shall be in danger of the judgment.
Here was an austere prohibition of all wrath, for within
the kingdom all men were brethren. It seemed a
demand too great for human attainment, and the Church
took away its difficulty by limiting the doom to him who
was ' angry with his brother without cause.'— When
Jesus warned the disciples against pious display of charity
and devotion, he bade them give alms and pray in secret,
adding ' Thy Father which seeth in secret, shall
'recompense thee.' Should not the world, then, know
that love and piety received their reward ? In the interests
of religion it was desirable that the blessing should be
visible to all ; and accordingly an amended version of the
promise ran, Malt. vi. 4, 6, 18 : —
Thy Father which seeth in secret shall recompense thee openly.
On the refusal of the Samaritans to receive Jesus and
his disciples on their way to Jerusalem, James and John
burst out in indignation, Luke ix. 54 : —
Lord, wilt thou that we bid fire to come down from heaven to
consume them?
The incident of Elijah (2 Kings i. 10) was- no doubt in
the writer's mind, though he did not expressly allude to
it. But a later scribe recalled it to the attention of his
readers by adding the words ' even as Elijah did ; ' and
these were very widely copied. The story went on to
relate that Jesus turned and rebuked them. ' What did
' the Teacher say ? ' enquired some devout disciple,
anxious to lose no profitable word. In due time an
answer found its way into some manuscripts : —

ADDITIONS TO THE RECORD. 71
Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.
Yet this was not enough. The case was only a particular
application of a general principle, which a few versions
of the story stated thus : —
For the Son of Man came not to destroy men's lives, but to
save them.
The story of the Passion and the Resurrection, in Luke,
has, in like manner, received many additional touches.
The appearance of the angel in Gethsemane, and the
sweat-like drops of blood, xxii. 43, 44, are marked by Dr.
Westcott and Dr. Hort as early insertions, probably
made in the West. How much simpler is the narrative
of inward struggle, in its sublime intensity of anguish
and self-surrender. The words of Jesus on the cross,
xxiii. 34, ' Father, forgive them ; for they know not what
' they do,' are, in the same way, the early utterance of the
Church, in the Master's spirit. The tendency to expand
and define may be traced in the margin of the Revised
Version all through Luke xxiv. Sometimes the additions
are simply explanations ; e.g. ver. 3, ' found not the
body ; : no reader could really be in doubt whose body ;
but for the sake of clearness, the words ' of the Lord
Jesus' were appended. Other insertions are of more
consequence, as in w. 12, 36, 40,-51.
If the traditions could thus continuously grow after they
had been reduced to writing in the original forms of our
Synoptics, it was still more easy for them to take up new
elements before that process was complete.

72 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.

$ 3. External Form of the Traditions.
Out of what materials would the traditions be
composed, and what form would they assume ?
(i) Naturally the teachings of Jesus would first of all
rouse interest and claim attention. Every reader of the
Gospels must have observed the tendency, common
more or less to all the Synoptics, to throw them into
groups. A whole sheaf of stories may be gathered out
of the last days at Jerusalem. Mark iv. contains a little
series of parables delivered by Jesus from the boat on
the lake side. The same series, modified and enlarged
to the sacred number seven, reappears in Matt. xiii.
Luke assigns to the Teacher a Discourse upon the Plain
(vi.) ; Matthew has a counterpart to it in the Sermon on
the Mount (v.-vii.), which critics of all schools agree in
regarding as a collection of utterances which were not
really pronounced on a single occasion in consecutive
order. Into the great denunciation of the Scribes, Matt.
xxiii., with its sevenfold ' Woe,' the Evangelist has thrust
all that he could find of indignant rebuke amongst the
Master's sayings. The prophecy concerning the 'last
things ' in Matt, xxiv., Mark xiii., Luke xxi., is based on
various elements circulating in the early communities (see
chap. vii. § 4, 3). These collections passed as specimens
of the teachings of Jesus on particular topics. They
served as ' lessons ' for the instruction of the Church.
They obviously tended to incorporate into themselves
more or less of the interpretations, the current ideas and
phrases, as well as the positive reminiscences, of the
Apostles. To take but one single instance : — Examine

THE SAYINGS OF JESUS. 73
the literary structure of Mark iv. The scene is the boat,
where the Teacher sits, pushed off a little way from the
crowd beside the water's edge. He tells the story of the
Sower and his seed (w. 3-9). It is the first parable
which the Evangelist relates, and he seems to feel that
it needs an explanation. This is accordingly immediately
inserted (w. 11-20). But the boat was evidently no
suitable place for such private exposition ; it is introduced,
therefore, by the statement (ver. 10), 'when he was
alone.' Passing over w. 21-25, (see below 2, b), we find
more parables, w. 26, 30, linked together by the words
' and he said.' These were, of course, addressed to the
whole assembly from the boat. In ver. 34 there is a
further allusion to subsequent explanations. But the
time for them, at any rate, had not yet come. The
Teacher is still face to face with the crowd. With
untiring patience he speaks, they listen, all day long.
Only at eventide does he propose to escape from their
eagerness by crossing to the other side (ver. 35). The
disciples, then, 'leaving the multitude, take him with
'them, even as he was, in the boat.' The narrative
passes on with its usual rapid movement. There is the
storm, the calm, the cure of the Gerasene demoniac,
and the return across the lake. In all this swift
succession, where is the quiet hour for the long-deferred
questions of the disciples ? Is it not clear that there are
here two layers of thought, the original story and the later
interpretation? The story is primary, the explanation
is secondary.1 In these ways did the reports of the
1 Sometimes the story itself is secondary, and the explanation
later still. In Matt. xiii. there is reason to think that the parable

74 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.
Master's sayings take up into themselves a considerable
amount of material shaped under the necessities of the
community. Such collections naturally began at
Jerusalem. The language in which they were first made
was the Aramean vernacular of the men among whom
they arose.1 But they were by no means confined to the
Jewish capital. They may have passed (as the statement
of Paul shows us they passed, / Cor. xi. 23), at first by
oral transmission to other centres, to Antioch, Ephesus,
Corinth, Rome. They did not always preserve the same
form upon the way. First of all they were transferred
into a new language — Greek. This would at once
introduce divergences in the choice of word or phrase.
Next the connections of specific sayings might be
forgotten. The sayings themselves, detached from their
context, might be modified. Independent explanations
might be offered by one or another of the apostolic
teachers, and these in turn might be imperfectly
understood or remembered by their hearers. Variations
would thus inevitably creep in, and when the sayings
were reduced to writing, they would be recorded in
different order by different hands.
(2) The same liability to- unconscious change would
attend the reports of the events of the Teacher's ministry.
(a) In the first place the narrators would naturally
endeavour to connect some pregnant saying with what
of the wheat and the tares, w. 24-30, is a secondary formation out
of the beautiful parable of the husbandman and the seed, Mark
iv. 26-29. Then the interpretation, Matt. xiii. 36 sqq., is a sort
cf tertiary deposit, when the original significance of the story had
been lost.
1 See Life in Palestine, § 9, p. 32.

SAYINGS AND INCIDENTS. 75
they believed to be the incident which called it forth.
But the recollection of the precise circumstances might
have become confused ; it might have become doubtful
whether the scene was a synagogue or a house; the
disease beneath which some sufferer was labouring
might have been forgotten. Yet the principle for which
Jesus was contending impressed itself deeply on the
thought of his followers. His pointed questions, his
homely illustrations, remained fixed in their minds.
Accordingly we have such variations as the following
around a common theme, ' Is it lawful to heal (or to do
•good) on the sabbath day ? '
Matt. xii. 9-13. Luke vi. 6-10.1 Luke xiv. 1-6.
And he departed And it came to pass And it came to
thence, and went in- on another sabbath, pass, when he went
to their synagogue ; that he entered into into the house of one
and behold, a man the synagogue and of the rulers of the
having a withered taught : and there Pharisees on a sab-
hand. And they ask- was a man there, and bath to eat bread,
ed him, saying, Is it his right hand was that they were
lawful to heal on the withered. And the watching him. And
sabbath day ? that scribes and the Phar- behold, there was
they might accuse isees watched him, before him a certain
him. And he said whether he would man which had the
untothem, Whatman heal on the sabbath ; dropsy. And Jesus
shall there be of you, that they might find ans weringspake unto
that shall have one how to accuse him. the lawyers and
sheep, and if this fall But he knew their Pharisees, saying, Is
into a pit on the sab- thoughts, and he said it lawful to heal on
bath day, will he not to the man that had the sabbath or not ?
lay hold on it, and his hand withered, But they held their
lift it out ? How Rise up, and stand peace. And he took
much then is a man forth in the midst, him, and healed him,
1 Compare Mark iii. 1-5.

76 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.
of more value than a And he arose and and let him go. And
sheep ! Wherefore it stood forth. And he said unto them,
is lawful to do good Jesussaid untothem, Which of you shall
on the sabbath day. I ask you, /* it law- have an ass or an ox
Then saith he to the ful on the sabbath fallen into a well,
man, Stretch forth to do good, or to do and will not straight-
thy hand. And he harm ? to save a life way draw him up on
stretched it forth ; or to destroy it /And a sabbath day ?
and it was restored he looked round And they could not
whole, as the other, about on them all, answer again unto
and said unto him, these things.
Stretch forth thy
hand. And he did
so, and his hand was
restored.
Here Matthew combines into one story the sayings
which Luke distributes over two. The question was
remembered; but it was uncertain who asked it.
Matthew attributes it to the authorities in the synagogue,
Luke (in both cases) to Jesus. The substance of the
illustration was remembered, but Matthew specifies a
poor man's only sheep, while Luke mentions the
common animals of burden and labour, an ox or an ass.
(b) In this way it becomes quite intelligible how the
same saying may appear in different incidents. Thus it
was remembered that Jesus had warned his followers
against self-seeking and ambitious desire of power.
Here are two forms of the same utterance.
Mark x. 42-44. Luke xxii. 25-26.
Ye know that they which are
accounted to rule over the The kings of the Gentiles
Gentiles lord it over them; and have lordship over them; and
their great ones exercise au- they that have authority over
thority over them. But it is them are called Benefactors.

SAYINGS AND INCIDENTS.

77

not so among you ; but whoso
ever would become great
among you, shall be your
minister : and whosoever would
be first among you, shall be
servant of all.

But ye shall net be so ; but he
that is the greater among you,
let him become as the younger ;
and he that is chief, as he that
doth serve.

In Mark the words are addressed to the disciples when
their indignation is roused by the request of James and
John for the posts of honour on the right and left hand
of Jesus in his glory, and the incident occurs on the
journey to Jerusalem. Luke, with less probability,
transfers them to the Paschal supper, and represents
them as called forth by a dispute among the apostles
as to which should be accounted greatest. In this
case the meaning and force of the words remain
unchanged. But in others the arrangement of the
sayings in new connections may completely alter their
significance. Consider, for instance, the diversity of
interpretations which the following words receive in
varying forms and contexts, starting from the place and
meaning assigned to them by Mark, in the discourse
delivered from the boat : —

Mark iv. 21-22.
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 ; neither was any
thing made secret, but that it
should come to light.

Luke viii. 16-17.
And no man, when he hath
lighted a lamp, covereth it with.
a vessel, or putteth it under a
bed ; but putteth it on the
stand, that they which enter in.
may see the light. For nothing-
is hid, that shall not be made
manifest; nor anything secret,
that shall not be known and
come to light.

78 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.
The passage occurs in connection with the parable of the
Sower, and obviously refers to the propagation of 'the
word,' which is not to be hidden away privately, but
brought forth for the public good. But Luke again
introduces the first saying in a slightly altered form
elsewhere, xi. 33, as the prelude of the comparison to the
eye which is the lamp of the body, thus : —
No man when he hath lighted a lamp, putteth it in a cellar,
neither under a bushel, but on the stand, that they which enter
in may see the light. The lamp of thy body is thine eye : when
thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light ; but when
it is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.
Finally Matthew provides yet another application, v.
14-16, viz. to the duty of citizens of the new kingdom to
show forth the light in their lives : —
Ye are the light of the world. A city set on a. hill cannot be
hid. Neither do men light a lamp, and put it under the bushel,
but on the stand ; and it shineth unto all that are in the house.
Even so let your light shine before men, that they may see your
good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
The second maxim, Mark iv. 22, was again susceptible
of varying adaptation. In slightly modified terms Luke
employs it on another occasion, xii. 2, as a warning
against false assumptions of piety and righteousness
which were certain in the long run to be unveiled : —
Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
But there is nothing covered up, that shall not be revealed : and
hid, that shall not be known.
Once more Matthew uses the very same words to
encourage the disciple in times of danger or persecution,
x. 25-26, by the assurance that the truth will triumph
over all opposition : —

SAYINGS IN DIFFERENT FORMS. 79
If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how
much more shall they call them of his household I Fear them
not, therefore; for there is nothing covered, that shall not be
revealed ; and hid, that shall not be known.
A similar tendency to variation maybe easily traced through
the verses that follow the passage already quoted from
Mark; cp. Mark iv. 23 with Luke xiv. 35, Matt. xi. 15;
Mark iv. 24 with Luke vi. 38, Matt. vii. 2; Mark iv. 25,
with Luke viii. 18, Matt. xiii. 12, and with Luke xix. 26,
Matt. xxv. 29.
(c) The same cause supplies us with an explanation
of the repetition or duplication of incidents. They
become embedded in the traditions in different places ;
one collector adopts one and rejects another ; a second
editor finds a place for both. Thus Matthew and Mark
each have two accounts of the feeding of the multitude ;
Luke has but one. Matthew and Mark each report
twice over a stormy passage across the lake, when the
disciples are in danger or labour hard at the oars. In
one case, Jesus is with them in the boat ; he is asleep,
but they awake him ; he rebukes the storm, and the
waves grow calm : in the other, he comes to them,
walking upon the water ; he joins them in the boat, and
the wind ceases. But Luke, perhaps regarding the
second story only as a variation on the first, passes it by
in silence.1 Here is a pair of obvious duplicates : —
Matt. xii. 38-39. Matt. xvi. I, 2a, 4.2
Then certain of the scribes And the Pharisees and
and Pharisees answered him, Sadducees came, and tempting
saying, Teacher, we would see him asked him to shew them a
a sign from thee. But he sign from heaven. But he
1 See chap. vi. $ 4, 2. 2 See Revisers' Margin.

80 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.
answered and said unto them, answered and said unto them,
An evil and adulterous genera- An evil and adulterous genera
tion seeketh after a sign ; and tion seeketh after a sign ; and
there shall no sign be given to there shall no sign be given
it but the sign of Jonah the unto it but the sign of Jonah.
prophet.
Later editors of the Gospel recalled a passage where
Jesus had contrasted the popular skill in interpreting the
indications of the weather, with the failure to read aright
the meaning of the age in which they lived, and the
changes that were imminent. In Luke xii. 54-56, this
thought is thus expressed : —
And he said to the multitudes also, When ye see a cloud
rising in the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower ;
and so it cometh to pass. And when ye see a south wind
blowing, ye say, There will be a scorching heat ; and it cometh to
pass. Ye hypocrites, ye know how to interpret the face of the
earth and the heaven ; but how is it that ye know not how to
interpret this time ?
The same thought was early combined with the second
demand for a sign in Matthew, by the insertion of the
following words before the condemnation of the evil
generation : —
When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather : for the
heaven is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather
to-day ; for the heaven is red and lowering. Ye know how to
discern the face of the heaven ; but ye cannot discern the signs
of the times.
(d) Lastly, it would seem (in one case at least) that
the tradition may have actually transformed the original
material into a wholly new shape. The account of the
fig-tree which withered away beneath the curse of Jesus,
Mark xi. 12-14, 20-24, Matt. xxi. 18-22, has long been a

INCIDENTS IN THE MINISTRY. 81
stumbling-block to apologists for the Gospel narratives.
But there is reason to believe that it is a kind of
translation into incident of what was in reality a parable
of the fate of unbelieving Israel, comp. Luke xiii. 6-9,1 so
that the tradition converted a story of symbolic meaning
into the record of an actual occurrence.
(3) The incidents once fixed in more or less
determinate shapes would tend, in many cases, to fall
together into more or less firmly knit successions. Thus
Mark opens the account of the ministry in Galilee with
the call of Simon and Andrew, James and John, i. 14-20;
then follows the synagogue incident at Capernaum,
i. 21-28; from the synagogue Jesus passes to the house
of Simon, i. 29-31, where the mother-in-law of his host
lies ill; the crowd gathers through the evening at the
door, i. 32-34; to escape the concourse Jesus rises
before the dawn and goes forth into a place apart to
pray, i. 35; there Simon and his friends pursue him,
and they go forth together into the next towns, i. 36-39.
This series, which may have depended on Peter's
reminiscence,2 relates the events of but one single day.
It was the introduction to the record of the Master's
preaching; and served, like the groups of parables, or
other discourses, as a Church ' lesson ' describing how
he set about the work. It was followed substantially by
Luke, though Matthew, following other principles of
arrangement, departs widely from it.3 A similar group,
consisting of five anecdotes illustrating the kind of
1 For further discussion of this case, cp. chap. vi. § 4, 1.
2 See below, chap. viii. § 4, 1 ; $ 5, 1.
s See chap. x. § 2, 1. G

82 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.
criticism to which Jesus was exposed from different
quarters, and the character of the opposition which his
bold unconventionality at once excited, follows in Mark
ii.-iii. 6, cp. Luke v. 17-vi. 11. Other instances will be
found in the combination of the scene at Caesarea
Philippi where Jesus is greeted as the Messiah by Peter,
with the first warnings of his approaching death, and
his Transfiguration; or the succession of incidents on
the journey to Jerusalem, the blessing pronounced upon
little children, the question of the rich young man,
the petition of James and John, the passage through
Jericho, and the entry from the Mount of Olives, this
last set (like the first) having a definite time-order
running through it. These show the Teacher moving
among men, among the religious parties whose
discussions filled the air, among the common needs of
daily life, in retirement with his disciples, or on the
public highway. They are as clearly groups of incidents
for instruction in the Master's methods of dealing with
the circumstances round him, as the discourses are
collections of his sayings for the edification of believers.
(4) The artless manner in which these incidents follow
each other, will be constantly observed. Two tendencies
are in fact always at work as a tradition is propagated, in
seemingly opposite directions; one is towards a certain
vagueness, an absence of detail, a want of precision;
while the other strives to correct these very defects by
inserting names, and fixing places, and specifying dates
and times. Many readers may have felt half consciously
that the presentment of the last days in Jerusalem has
about it a greater air of vividness, a closer relation to the
actual order of the occurrences, than the record of the

OPPOSITE TENDENCIES. 83
Galilaean ministry. It is because the tradition was really
formed first in Jerusalem. It was already, therefore,
removed from the scene of the Master's early labours.
Cut off from its local base, it appears to have less
exactitude ; but in dealing with the events in the city, the
Temple, the supper-room, it is on familiar ground. At a
later stage, the desire for definiteness will assert itself.
In the next century, the Syrophoenician woman will be
called Justa, and her daughter Berenice. Yet further on,
the names of every one of the seventy disciples (Luke
x. i) are known. This tendency is not without examples
even in the Gospels. John alone — confessedly the latest
of all — mentions that the name of the high priest's
servant whose ear was struck off at the arrest of Jesus, was
Malchus ; John alone attributes the blow to Peter. The
tradition of Mark, with which Matthew agrees, is content
to state that Jesus sent two of the disciples to make ready
the passover : Luke only identifies them as Peter and
John. After the first day in Capernaum, Mark relates, i.
39=— And he went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee,
preaching and casting out devils.
Matthew, however, proceeds direct from the call of Simon
and Andrew, James and John, without the opening
scenes in Capernaum, to the far more comprehensive,
and at the same time detailed, statement, iv. 23-25 : —
And Jesus went about in all Galilee, teaching in their
synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and
healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness among
the people. And the report of him went forth into all Syria ;
and they brought unto him all that were sick, holden with divers
diseases and torments, possessed with devils, and epileptic, and

84 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS. *
palsied ; and he healed them. And there followed him great
multitudes from Galilee and Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judaea
and from beyond Jordan.
And this before a single word has been reported, or a
single specific act described! Thus has the tradition
become both generalised and defined.

§ 4. The Contents of the Traditions.
The foregoing examples have illustrated the effect of
varying circumstance on the outward form of the
traditions. It remains to be asked whether the contents
correspond to the actual fact. It has already been shown
that the same sayings might bear different meanings in
varying combinations. But are the sayings themselves
always correctly recorded ; are the incidents with which
they are linked accurately described ? The whole of our
enquiry will deal, in one form or another, with these
questions. Only a few illustrations, therefore, are now
offered, of the kind of influences which helped to mould
the traditions on their way into our Gospel narratives.
(i) The apostolic witness all centred round one great
idea. Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. When he
had passed away, all reminiscence was steeped in this
belief. By what processes his followers had arrived at
this conviction need not now be examined. It is
sufficient to observe that the recollections of his words
and deeds were suffused with the glow of feeling which
this faith excited. All memory palpitated with emotion,
which could hardly fail to impart to imagination a certain

BELIEF IN JESUS AS MESSIAH. 85
•
quickening power. Under its stimulus the testimony
even of eye-witnesses rose unconsciously to meet the high
demand for a fit account of Messiah's work. The magic
of a wondrous personality, and the ardour of new-born
trust, affection, hope, lifted men's thoughts into an
activity greater than they knew. All the enthusiasm of
the early Church for Jesus was poured into the Gospel
tradition. With singular elasticity it gathered up
elements derived from various sources, but all penetrated
with the same assurance, and fused them with more or
less completeness into the common mass. It has been
shown how a presentment of Jesus as the Incarnate
Word led to modifications of the Gospel story. These
modifications were to a large extent conscious and
intentional. In many of the Synoptic narratives a
similar influence has been at work ; but it has not
operated so much by design, as by the unsuspected
changes wrought by time and faith. The idea of the
Messianic dignity governs the whole.  Again and again
in the history of religion may like processes be observed.
The legends of the saints are full of them ; read the lives
of our own Dunstan or Becket, of Francis of Assisi or
Bernard, and you will find the traces of them at every
step. In India, the story of the life of Gotama, the
founder of Buddhism, was early cast in the mould
supplied by the theory of the 'Buddha' or the 'Enlightened
One,' and all his teachings and the incidents of his
career were conformed — partly by the unconscious work
ing of creative imagination, and partly by purpose and
method, — to this type. The Bible itself, it has been
already observed, presents more than one instance of the
same kind of development. In the patriarchal stories, in

86 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.
the narratives of the exodus, the wanderings, the
conquest, in the successive codes of the law, in the
representations of the origin of Israel's royal power, it is
possible to trace the growth and manipulation of the
traditions of centuries. In one case, imagination works
on ancient legend, handed on orally from generation to
generation ; in another, it founds itself on actual written
documents, which it embodies, or leaves on one side, as
it likes, to suit its ends. Can we find any trace of the
same treatment of its materials, oral or written, by the
early Church ?
(2) Not even Scripture itself was exempt from the
danger of unconscious falsification under the potent
influence of preconceived interpretations. The very
words, though they could be verified at once, underwent
transformation to suit the doctrines which they were to
illustrate or support. For instance, in the second
century, men began to ask themselves where Jesus had
gone in the interval between death and resurrection,
while his body remained in the grave. He had
descended, it was thought, to the underworld, to preach
to the spirits who waited his advent in She61. If that was
so, it would of course be found already intimated in the
Old Testament; and Clement of Alexandria1 discovered
the witness of it in the following passage2 : —
Wherefore the Lord preached the Gospel to those in Hades.
Accordingly the Scripture saith, Hades saith to Destruction, We
have not seen his form, but we have heard his voice.
There are no such words in the Old Testament. What
Clement cites as a Scripture testimony, is his own (or the
1 See above, p. 10. 2 Stromata, vi. 6.

INFLUENCE ON QUOTATIONS. 87
Church's) transformation of a verse in the magnificent
description of Wisdom, Job xxviii. 22 : —
Destruction and death say, We have heard the fame thereof
with our ears.
A little earlier, Justin the Martyr1 actually charges the
Jews with having cut out of the prophecies of Jeremiah
the decisive proof of the doctrine in these terms : —
The Lord God remembered his dead people Israel who lay in
the graves, and he descended to preach to them his own
salvation. If such could be the effect of doctrinal belief in creating
additions to the written records of ancient prophecy, it is
hardly surprising that similar additions should be made
to the unwritten prophecies of Jesus himself. When the
Teacher was asked for a sign by certain of the Scribes
and Pharisees, he replied, Matt. xii. 39, 41, cp. Luke xi.
29, 32 :—
An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign ; and
there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of Jonah the
prophet. The men of Nineveh shall stand up in the judgment
with this generation, and shall condemn it ; for they repented
at the preaching of Jonah ; and behold, there is more than
Jonah here.
But later editors of the tradition were not satisfied with
the parallel which Jesus suggested. They demanded a
closer conformity between the Messiah and the prophet ;
and they found it in an analogy between the interment of
the Son of Man in the ground and the sojourn of Jonah
in the 'great fish' which had swallowed him. This
expressed itself in an addition, thrust in between w.
39 and 41, and shattering their connection : —
1 See above, p. 14. Dial, with Trypho, 72.

88 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.
For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of
the whale, so shall the Son of man be three days and three
nights in the heart of the earth.
The words have caused great difficulty to apologists, for
on no theory of the Resurrection was Jesus three days
and three nights in the tomb. Moreover, they are clearly
out of place in the story, for they imply a reference to his
death, of which nothing has as yet been said. Their
absence from the corresponding passage in Luke affords
a strong presumption that they are among the latest
additions to the Evangelic sayings.1 — The foregoing
instance does not, indeed, concern the actual quotation
of Scripture. But examples of this, too, are not wanting
in the Gospel narratives. Thus, the following parallels
contain a common remodelling of a declaration in
Malachi : —
Matt. xi. 9-10. Luke vii. 26-27.
But wherefore went ye out ? But what went ye out to see ?
to see a prcphet ? Yea, I say a prophet ? Yea, I say unto
unto you, and much more than you, and much more than a
a prophet. This is he of prophet. This is he of whom
whom it is written, it is written,
Behold I send my messenger Behold I send my messenger
before thy face, before thy face,
Who shall prepare thy way Who shall prepare thy way
before thee. before thee.
The application is here to John the Baptist, who prepares
Messiah's way. And under the impression of this
meaning, the words have been appropriately adapted to it.
For they really ran thus, Mai. iii. 1 : —
Behold I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way
1 See chap, x., $ 3, 10.

INFLUENCE ON QUOTATIONS. 89
before me; and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to
his temple.
The prophet here describes a manifestation of Yahweh
himself. But the Church seized on the relation between
the messenger and the Lord, and fitted it on to John and
Jesus. The next step was to incorporate it into the
Master's teachings ; and in the process the words
assumed a new shape.1 — It would, indeed, have been
interesting had the modern literary habit of reference
guided our Evangelists. Then we should have known
what was in the mind of the writer of Matt. ii.
22, 23 :—
Being warned of God in a dream, he [Joseph] withdrew into
the parts of Galilee, and came and dwelt in a city called
Nazareth : that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by
the prophets, that he [Jesus or Messiah] should be called a
Nazarene.
No known oracle corresponds to this allusion. Had
the Evangelist some lost or apocryphal document in his
thought, or was his fancy only playing round some
ancient word in which he imaginatively saw the name of
Nazareth foreshadowed ? The latter is the more probable :
does it not, however, show with what ease doctrinal
interpretations could be converted into facts, and known
events could react on prophecy ?
1 The same words are prefixed in Mark i. 2, to a quotation from
Isaiah xl. 3, and appear under the name of that prophet. They
are probably an insertion here, by some editor who was acquainted
with their application in Luke or Matthew, and thought this a
suitable place for adding this prophetic testimony to Mark.
Then later copyists perceived the mistake of ascribing Malachi's
words to Isaiah, and corrected thus ' Even as it is written in the
prophets'

90 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.
(3) The conformity of the outlines of Messiah's life to
prophetic intimations was a fruitful source of influence
not only on the quotation of Scripture but on the
Evangelical tradition itself. By degrees, the whole career
of Jesus from birth to death was cast into this frame. It
must be remembered that the application ot Scripture
in the Jewish Schools was often wholly independent of its
original sense. In the discussions reported in the Talmud
the argument is again and again concluded by the citation
of a passage entirely remote from the matter in hand, and
only externally connected with it by some casual word.
The letters of the Apostle Paul show that the faintest
resemblances sufficed to justify the combination of sayings
which in their proper connection had no bearing on each
other, or on the subject which they were employed to
illustrate.1 Moreover, the variations of the Greek version
of the Scriptures known as the Septuagint (LXX.), and
the habit of uniting into a consecutive whole utterances
that were drawn from different parts of a book, or even
from different books, further tended to give a forced
significance to declarations which were thus distorted in
form and wrenched from their proper context. The
astounding misapplications of prophecy which may be
seen in Justin's Dialogue with the Jew 7'rypho, in the
second century, show to what extravagances this method
1 Thus in the vindication of the preaching of the Gospel to
the Gentiles, Rom. x. 15-20, a series of citations occurs which all
receive in the Apostle's use a meaning which they do not bear in
their original context. Note especially the manner in which
Ps. xix. 4 is diverted from the poetic expression of the language
of the heavens to support the proclamation of Christianity beyond
the limits of Israel.

CONFORMITY TO PROPHECY. 91
might be pushed. But the Gospels themselves contain
clear instances of the way in which this reacted on the
recollections of Jesus, shaping their contents and filling
up their deficiencies. Reserving for future discussion the
incidents of the nativity at Bethlehem,1 let us examine
one or two lesser illustrations of the same tendency.
When Jesus is about to enter Jerusalem, he sends two of
his disciples with these instructions : —
Mark xi. 2. Luke xix. 30. Matt. xxi. 2.
Go your way into Go your way into Go into the village
the village that is the village over that is over against
over against you : against you ; in the you, and straightway
and straightway as which as ye enter ye shall find an ass
ye enter into it, ye ye shall find a colt tied, and a colt with
shall find a colt tied, tied, whereon no her; loose them, and
whereon no man ever man ever yet sat ; bring them unto me.
yet sat ; loose him, loose him, and bring
and bring him. him.
Mark and Luke, it will be observed, agree nearly word
for word ; and they mention only one animal. Matthew,
on the other hand, names two. Why ? The Evangelist
himself explains :
Now this is come to pass, that it might be fulfilled which was
spoken by the prophet, saying,
Tell ye the daughter of Zion,
Behold, thy King cometh unto thee,
Meek, and riding upon an ass,
And upon a colt the foal of an ass.2
The method of Hebrew poetry is to repeat, with a kind of
rhythm, in the second part of the verse or clause, what
has been already said in the first. The Evangelist,
misunderstanding the parallel style, supposed that the
1 See chap, v., j 1,4*. 2 Zech. ix. 9.

92 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.
prophecy really referred to two animals. He accordingly
put them into his story, and actually represented Jesus as
riding into the city upon both : —
Mark xi. 7. Luke xix. 35. Matt. xxi. 7.
And they bring And they brought And [they] brought
the colt to Jesus, and him to Jesus, and the ass and the colt,
cast on him their they threw their gar- and put on them
garments, and he sat ments upon the colt, their garments, and
upon him. and set Jesus thereon, he sat thereon.
Again in recording the events of the Passion, a singular
variation betrays a similar influence : —
Mark xv. 23. Matt, xxvii. 34.
And they offered him wine They gave him wine to
mingled with myrrh ; but he drink mingled with gall ; and
received it not. when he had tasted it, he
would not drink.
Mark's statement refers to the custom of offering to the
sufferer a draught which should at once stupefy and
support him under his pain. But Jesus would not thus
deaden his thought, or die benumbed in spirit; he would
endure all with full consciousness. Matthew, however,
turns the drink embittered with gall, into an aggravation
of the torture. For what reason? Because (it would
seem) he recalls and applies the Psalmist's word1 : —
They gave me also gall for my meat ;
And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
In the sufferings and death of Jesus the Church found
abundant fulfilments of the description of the fate of the
Servant of Yahweh, Isaiah Iii. 13-liii. These passages
were readily applied by pious believers, who may have
written them first on the margin of their Gospel-scrolls,
1 Psalm lxix. 21, cp. Luke xxiii. 36.

CONFORMITY TO PROPHECY. 93
whence they finally passed into the text itself. Thus to
Mark's narratives xv. 27 : —
And with him they crucify two robbers ; one on his right hand
and one on his left —
later copyists added the prophetic application 1 —
And the Scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was
reckoned with transgressors.
But in another version of the tradition, Luke xxii. 37, these
words are awkwardly put into the mouth of Jesus himself,
as he bids his disciples prepare for the future by taking
purse and wallet and sword : —
For I say unto you, that this which is written must be fulfilled
in me, And he was reckoned with transgressors : for that which
concerneth me hath fulfilment.
And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords : —
where the answer refers to the words preceding the
quotation. Messiah's death was, in fact, the great
difficulty which the early Church had to overcome. Paul
found that it was ' to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to
' the Greeks foolishness.' There was all the more need,
therefore, to show that it was in conformity with prophecy.
Accordingly we find such variations as the following,
where Luke justifies by reference to the. prophets, the
warnings which the Evangelists attribute to Jesus.
Mark x. 33, 34. Matt. xx. 18, 19. Luke xviii. 31-33.
Behold we go up Behold, we go up Behold, we go up
to Jerusalem ; and to Jerusalem ; and to Jerusalem, and all
the Son of Man shall the Son of Man shall the things that are
be delivered unto the be delivered unto written by the pro-
chief priests and the the chief priests and phets shall be ac-
scribes ; and they scribes ; and they complished unto the
1 Isaiah liii. 12.

94 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.
shall condemn him shall condemn him Son of Man. For he
to .death, and shall to death, and shall shall be delivered up
deliver him unto the deliver him unto the unto the Gentiles,
Gentiles ; and they Gentiles to mock, and shall be mocked,
shall mock him, and and to scourge, and and shamefully en-
shall spit upon him, to crucify ; and the treated, and spit
and shall scourge third day he shall be upon ; and they shall
him, and shall kill raised up. scourge and kill him ;
him ; and after three and the third day he
days he shall rise shall rise again.
again.The motive of Luke's variation is plain. But behind this
lesser modification, stands a further question, how far
do these detailed predictions represent the language of
the Teacher himself, or how far are they rather to be
understood as the pious expression of the faith of the
Church ? It will be more easy to form some opinion on
this enquiry when the group of beliefs relating to the
'Son of Man' has been examined.1 It need only be
observed now that these repeated announcements (e.g.
Mark viii. 31, ix. 31, x. 33-34) wholly failed in their
object. They did not succeed in preparing the minds of
the disciples. The Master's death crushed all the hopes
of his followers : the first tidings that he was risen were
not received as a triumphant confirmation of a trust
which ignominy and ruin could not overwhelm : they
were scorned as ' idle tales.' Does not the Gospel
narrative itself reveal to us the later growth of these
elements in the tradition ?
(4) Another powerful factor in shaping the contents of
the Teacher's word, is doubtless to be found in the social
circumstances of the community. The Gospel was at
1 See chap. vii. § 1, 4, and onwards.

CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CHURCH. 95
first addressed to the poor, and it was among the poor
that it found its warmest reception and its most earnest
support. It was, indeed, supposed by some that the
afflicted and needy were in a special sense the objects of
the providence of heaven. A certain merit seemed to be
associated with innocent suffering ; want might almost be
taken to imply virtue ; poverty and desert went hand in
hand. This belief, for instance, underlies the form in
which Luke presents the Beatitudes, in comparison with
Matthew. Consider the influences which have led to
such modifications as these l : —
Matt. v. 3-12. Luke vi. 20-26.
Blessed are the poor in Blessed are ye poor : for
spirit; for theirs is the king- yours is the kingdom of God.
dom of heaven. Blessed are ye that hunger
Blessed are they that hunger now : for ye shall be filled.
and thirst after righteousness: Blessed are ye that weep
for they shall be filled. now : for ye shall laugh.
Blessed are they that mourn .******
for they shall be comforted. But woe unto you that are
rich, for ye have received your
consolation. ******
In the same way the references to reproach and persecu
tion, to expulsion from synagogues, to trials before
foreign governors and kings (e.g. Matt. v. 11, x. 17-18,
Luke vi. 22, xii. 11, &c), seem rather the reflection of
later difficulties and dangers than the actual utterance of
Jesus in the first flush of Galilaean success. The words
(in their present form) express rather the comforts of the
Church for believers than the expectations of the Teacher
1 See chap. ix. $ 2, 2b.

96 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.
himself. Similar influences have given point to pre
dictions . of internal dissension, of false prophets, and
unauthorised performers of mighty works, cp. Matt. vii.
15, 22, &c. So, also, in the regulations for pious
observance, for alms and prayer and fasting as a kind of
religious duty or sacred service, each in turn confirmed
by the rhythmic promise 'thy Father which seeth in
' secret shall recompense thee,' Matt. vi. 1-18, we hear
the voice of later ecclesiastical usage. Why should the
disciples of the new Teacher fast ? ' New wine must be
' put into fresh wine-skins ; ' new truth could not be
thrust into old forms and rites, cp. Mark ii. 18-22. And
when they prayed, it should be in faith, for strength for
heroic enterprises, not as a modification of Jewish
custom in a better spirit, cp. Mark xi. 22-25. The rules
for dealing with a brother who has sinned, .betray the
same influences in the form in which they now stand,
Matt, xviii. 15-18. The 'church' whose authority may
be invoked, is very different from the Master's ' kingdom
' of God ; ' and the rejection of the unrepentant evil
doer on to the level of the heathen or the publican hardly
savours of the tireless love which came to seek and to
save the lost. Here, likewise, may we not say, the
practice of the later community seeks shelter under the
Founder's sanction ?
(5) The Gospel tradition sprang up on Jewish soil,
and those who gave to it the first outline of its shape
were Jews. Many of the questions which arose in the
new community, issued from their customs and obliga
tions as Jews. Their ideas of conduct and religion were
naturally those of Jews. Their conceptions of right
eousness and faith were consequently closely related to

CONCEPTIONS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 97
the ancient Law. It was from that side that they
approached the teachings of Jesus. Whatever in them
seemed to harmonise with their own notions — modified
as they had been by their intercourse with the Master —
they naturally emphasized. And that which stood on a
different plane of thought and life they would record
imperfectly, because they had understood it imperfectly-
On the other hand, at an early period a new principle
emerged into view through the labours of the Apostle
Paul. It presented . the Christian character in a fresh
light. It was not the result of a higher legalism, the
fulfilment of a law — diviner, indeed, but still a law; it
was the outcome of a spiritual affection, which, under
the name of faith, transfigured the whole nature into a
fellowship with God and Christ. This produced out of
the fulness of inner life the richest fruits of holiness,
which were rather a spontaneous growth from the new
quickening infused into the heart, than the positive
achievements of a regulated and disciplined will. Both
these aspects were blended in the soul of Jesus. But
they could only have been reproduced by those who,
through kinship of spirit, fully understood and realised
them. It was inevitable that they should be only
partially apprehended ; and it is not surprising that the
tendency to the old type of legal r-ighteousness should
occasionally assume exaggerated forms, so as apparently
to sanction the extremest demands of rigid observance.
Standing on the broad ground of humanity in its relation
to God, Jesus lays down in the briefest terms the resulting
principle governing, for instance, all sabbath-doings,
Mark ii. 27 : —
The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.

98 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.
Yet elsewhere, Matt, xxiii. 2, 3, cp. v. 17-19, the same
Teacher is said to lend his authority to that mountain of
sabbath-legislation piled up by the Rabbis, which, as they
observed, hung suspended by a hair l : —
The Scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat ; all things
therefore whatsoever they bid you, these do and observe.
Here the permanent obligation of the whole body of
scribe-made law is strictly enforced, including, of course,
the rules for the hallowing of the sabbath. How can we
reconcile this with the declaration but a short while
before, Matt. xxii. 40, that on the two commandments of
love to God and love to man ' hangeth the whole law,
' and the prophets ? ' 3
(6) Connected with these different views of the
essential nature of the Christian life was the question of
the scope of the gospel, and the relation of the Gentiles
to the kingdom of God. This was the battle which was
fought and won by the Apostle Paul. The cause of
freedom was not gained without long struggles and bitter
opposition. The advocates of the obligation of the Law
sent out their emissaries into Asia and Greece. Parties
were formed bearing rival names, Paul, Apollos, Cephas
(Peter) ; while, at Jerusalem, the most austere devotion
to the Law was supposed to have been practised by
James. These conflicts left their marks on the gospel-
tradition formed in their very midst. Had Jesus author
ised or had he prohibited the preaching to the Gentiles ?
' Go not into any way of the Gentiles, and enter not into
1 Life in Pal. § 34, cp. p. 128.
2 On the legal elements of Luke and Matthew see chap. ix.
J 5, 1, and x. § 4, 4.

THE GOSPEL AND THE GENTILES. 99
' any city of the Samaritans,' says Matthew's Jesus to the
Twelve (x. 5). But Luke's Jesus organises a special
mission of Seventy disciples on his way through Samaria
to Jerusalem (x. 1). Nay, Matthew's Jesus himself gives
contradictory instructions. The injunction to go to the
lost sheep of the house of Israel exclusively (x. 6) is
explained by the belief that the ' end of the age ' was so
near at hand that they should ' not have gone through
'the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come' (x. 23).
But in the last scene of all, the end of the age is
indefinitely postponed. Instead of a Son of Man who is
to come in clouds of heaven with power and great glory,
there is a risen Christ who tells his disciples he is with
them ' alway, even to the end of the age ; ' and the
command then is, ' Go ye and make disciples of all the
nations ' (xxviii. 1 9-20). So, even the same Gospel may
contain, without really combining, widely different views,
resulting from different periods and representing different
tendencies of Church development.1
(7) Besides the influences thus operating upon a
positive tradition, which was rooted in actual reminiscence
of the Master's life, there are further elements for which
it is difficult to believe that there is real historic ground.
The accounts of the Nativity are not only mutually
inconsistent,2 but they cannot be fitted into the rest of
the narrative. They must be regarded as symbolic ;
they express beliefs, they portray ideas, they do not
relate facts. In other stories we may discern a similar
1 On Matthew, see below, chap. x. § 4, 5 ; on Luke, chap.
ix. § 5, 3.
2 See chap. v. $ 1, 1.

100 FORMATION OF THE GOSPEL TRADITIONS.
significance. Their function is not biographical but
devotional. The Temptation does not describe a literal
event ; its succession of scenes is ' imaginative and
dramatic ; it is not concerned with the times and places
of earth; it belongs to another world of thought and
feeling, where truth is conveyed by pictures which awake
emotion, rather than by the methods of documentary
history, of science, or philosophy. The Transfiguration,
and many other narratives, do but throw into the forms
of personal incident the reflections of the Church on the
Master's life, viewed at one time in relation to the
spiritual powers which preceded him, at another in
connection with the great movement which issued from
him. The gospel-traditions were shaped at a time when
love and insight were in the highest degree creative. In
their treatment of the past the Christian teachers did not
deal with it on modern principles, endeavouring to
estimate the conditions, calculate the forces in operation,
measure their interaction, and read off the effect.
They fixed their gaze always on the divine goal to which
they saw all things tending. In their view this was no
'far-off event,' it was close at hand. The purpose of
God, as they understood it, was their standard. What
ever brought that into clear prominence, deserved their
trust. Hence it is that the Synoptic narratives present
to us the Jesus of ecclesiastical belief, the idealised
Christ as he was interpreted and received now by one
party, now by another. To find the real Jesus we must
learn to penetrate through the radiant haze with which
he has been invested by tradition and faith.

CHAPTER IV.
THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
We all know how easily our judgments of persons and
events are affected by our particular sympathies and
prepossessions. The same acts are attacked or defended
from opposite points of view in politics. The lives of
eminent statesmen have been written in our own day in
the spirit of enthusiastic devotion or of bitter hostility,
and though the same incidents might be related, and
the same speeches quoted, the two portraits came out
entirely different. If this is the case where events are
recent, facts easy to ascertain, and words within reach of
verification, how large an allowance must be made for
the transforming influence of ideas and feelings upon a
tradition detached from its native soil, translated into
another language, and propagated by men who had had
no part in the circumstances which it described. Aspects
of character and thought are variously apprehended by
diverse minds. The Greek teacher Socrates was
described in one way by one of his hearers, Xenophon,
and in quite another way by another, Plato ; while a

102 THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
third observer, Aristophanes, portrayed him differently
from both. And when imagination endeavours to
delineate the past in the light of great principles, it tries
to picture to itself what must have happened, and frames
its narrative so as to give these principles full scope.
The writer of the Book of Chronicles, believing in the
antiquity of the religious institutions of his own day, and
of the ideas embodied in them, carried them back to the
pious kings of ancient time, and drew a picture of David
and Asa and Hezekiah which expressed to his thought
the traditional repute of these princes, much in the same
way as later English stoiy delighted to depict the heroic
forms of Arthur and Alfred. We have already seen
(chap, ii.) that a similar process has been at work in the
Fourth Gospel. Is there any one great idea influencing
the representation of Jesus in the First Three ?
This question has, in fact, been answered by
anticipation, chap. iii. § 4, i. The dominant idea in
the Synoptic narratives is that Jesus is the Messiah or
Christ. The Gospel according to S. Mark opens with
the words — 'The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.' This was the theme of apostolic preaching
from the earliest days : ' Let all the house of Israel know
'assuredly that God hath made him both Lord and
'Christ,' Ads ii. 36. This, according to the Book of
Acts, is the word of Peter at Jerusalem or Caesarea;
Philip proclaims it in Samaria; Paul carries it to
Damascus, through Asia Minor, into Greece, and never
stops till in Rome itself he preaches the kingdom of
God, and teaches ' the things concerning the Lord Jesus
Christ,' Acts xxviii. 31. All great ideas have a history
behind them; they have gathered up into themselves

ITS ROOTS IN PROPHECY. 103
many elements; they have expressed themselves in
changing forms. What elements of this Messianic
expectation do we find in the Gospels, what form did it
assume in the minds of the followers of Jesus ?

§ 1. The Idea and its Forms.1
(i) The roots of this enduring hope lay in the
teachings of the Hebrew prophets about Yahweh and
his people Israel. Looking out upon their people in the
land they loved so well, they sought to explain to
themselves how it was that Israel alone possessed the
precious knowledge of Yahweh, while the nations around
worshipped other gods. They found the answer in the
thought that Yahweh had chosen Israel, and placed it in
its fruitful country, and made it a people, out of his pure
love. To that love he would be always faithful : from
that choice he would never swerve. But such love laid
on Israel the high duty of being worthy of it ; and such
a choice contained within it a secret purpose. If the
true religion was committed to Israel, it was in order
that Israel might be the instrument for spreading it
among the nations. So, on the one hand, the prophets
told of the need of Israel's purification, and of the
discipline by which it would be cleansed from its
1 For fuller details see Life in Palestine, chap. vi. To the
books there named may be added The Jewish and the Christian
Messiah, by V. H. Stanton, 1886, in which a different view of
the Messianic elements in the Gospels is set forth.

104 THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
idolatries and sins ; and they held up before it the idea
of right conduct for all classes within it. And on the
other they uttered glowing words of a future when the
knowledge of Yahweh should be diffused by its means
through all the world. The prophets of the monarchy
thought that the first great aim — the internal purification
of Israel — would be attained under a righteous king, who
would rule with justice and wisdom beneath the guidance
of the divine spirit.1 He would be of the house of David,
and would restore the ancient glory of his house. And
then the nations would flock to Jerusalem ; thence
would the teaching go forth which should tell all men
how to walk in the ways of Yahweh.
When the monarchy was overthrown, the hope of a
Davidic prince faded into the back-ground. But in the
hour of triumph, at the restoration of Israel after the
captivity, the new joy broke out in the ringing cry
' Yahweh is King,' and poured itself forth in psalms of
praise of the heavenly rule, made manifest in the return
of the people to their ancient home. This strain did
not soon fade away. Even later still it might be clearly
heard, as in these verses, Psalm cxlv. 10-13 :
1 Inasmuch as the king of Israel reigned in the name of
Yahweh, God of Israel, and was consecrated by the ceremony of
anointing with oil, he was called Yahweh's ' Anointed,' (Hebrew
Mashiach, Greek Christ). Thus Saul is called Yahweh's Messiah
(in the Greek version 'the Lord's Christ'), 1 Sam. xxiv. 10. The
name might even be applied to a foreign king acting under the
purposes of Yahweh. It is thus given to Cyrus by one of the
Prophets of the Captivity, Is. xiv. 1, 'Thus saith Yahweh to his
' Messiah (Greek, Christ) to Cyrus.' Hence the title came to be
employed in later times to designate the ideal king round whom
gathered so much of the national hope.

THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 105
All thy works shall give thanks unto thee, O Yahweh,
And thy saints shall bless thee.
They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom,
And talk of thy power ;
To make known to the sons of men his mighty acts,
And the glory of the majesty of his kingdom.
Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
And thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.
(2) On this conception the thought of Israel fixed with
a tenacity which no suffering could shake. In time of
trouble the cry for justice went up with passionate plea,
calling for a great world-assize, when the nations should
be summoned to the judgment before the throne of God,
and the persecutors should be overthrown. The Book of
Daniel, written under the stress of the persecution by
Antiochus Epiphanes, which began in 168 b.c, gave
vivid utterance to it. Looking back over the later history
of his people, the writer traced the succession of mighty
empires East and West — Babylonian, Median, Persian,
Greek — which had, as he thought, ruled over it. They
bore the shapes of beasts of prey, symbolic of brute
strength, greed, and ferocity. The thrones were placed,
and the Ancient of Days sat in the midst; thousand
thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times
ten thousand stood before him. The nations were
gathered for the judgment, and the books in which the
deeds of men had been recorded were opened. The
dominion of the beasts was taken away ; the sway of the
alien powers was broken; but to whom was the
sovereignty awarded ? Through the darkness of the
night the seer gazed, until a new form appeared,
Dan. vii. 13-14 : —
And behold, there came with the clouds of heaven one like

106 THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
unto a son of man, and he came even unto the ancient of days,
and they brought him near before him. And there was given
him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples,
nations, and languages should serve him ; his dominion is an
everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom
that which shall not be destroyed.
Who is this mysterious figure ' like unto a son of man ? '
It is plain at once that it is a symbol like the lion, the
bear, the leopard, which represented the great Gentile
empires. But it is nobler than they, it wears a human
form, and stands for other qualities than those of bestial
appetite and worldly might. We are not long left in
doubt ; the writer explains his own vision ; the majestic
personage to whom the perpetual sovereignty over all the
nations is assigned is the purified Israel, who will rise into
glory and receive the obedience of all worldly powers : —
And the kingdom, and the dominion, and the greatness of the
kingdoms under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of
the saints of the Most High ; his kingdom [i.e. the kingdom of
the holy people] is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions
shall serve and obey him. Dan. vii. 27, comp. vv. 17-18.
So the great hope won fresh expression, and book after
book in Palestine or Egypt bore witness to the activity
of Jewish imagination as it played round the central
themes of deliverance, judgment, and the triumph of
the true religion over the hostile powers of the world.
Some of these books, like the Sibylline Verses, the Book
of Enoch, the fourth Book of Ezra, became popular
among the early Christians, and after a common literary
fashion received considerable additions at their hands.
It has even been thought, and not perhaps without good
ground, that the book now placed last in our New
Testament, the Apocalypse, or Revelation, was originally

THE TWO AGES. 107
a Jewish work, dealing with the national hope, which
was adapted for Christian purposes and suited to the
ideas of the Church.
(3) Current expectation, then, had already its doctrine
of the ' kingdom,' long before John or Jesus proclaimed
that it was at hand.
(a) In the first place, it would be in no distant scene ;
Jerusalem would be its centre ; the familiar hills would
witness the great judgment. The questions concerning
its manifestation related to its time and not its place.
This epoch was hastening to its end, and a new era
would begin; 'this age' would be brought to a close,
and the mighty world-event would usher in ' the age to
come.' All life on earth, therefore, was distributed
between these two periods : happy would it be for those
who should be fitted to enter the coming age by well
doing in this. ' This age,' said a famous Teacher, ' is
' like a vestibule to the age to come. Prepare thyself at
' the vestibule, that thou mayest be admitted into the hall.'
' Great is the Law,' said another Rabbi, ' which gives life
'to those who practise it in this world and in the life
' to come.'
(b) It could hardly be supposed, however, that the
age then running out would pass away without any sign ;
still less would the coming age arrive unobserved. The
language of prophecy had delighted to depict the
sympathy of nature with man; under the reign of
righteousness the moon should be as bright as the sun,
the sun should shine with sevenfold brightness, and even
among the fiercest beasts of prey there should be
universal peace. The convulsions which would attend
the last efforts of the heathen against Israel, would, in

108 THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
like manner, be mirrored in the world without. The
heavens would reflect the carnage below; there would
be swords in the sky, said the Sibyl, and battles in the
clouds, while the sun would be eclipsed. No rain
would fall upon the earth, predicted Enoch ; the fruits
would be stopped, the moon would not appear, and the
stars would wander from their courses. When the world
around was thus out of joint, it would not be surprising
that society should suffer, and crime multiply. These
things would be the 'birth-pains' of Messiah. Ere he
appeared,, voices long silent would be heard once more
with a last warning ; Elijah, Jeremiah, Moses himself,
would come again, to prepare the way for the new
kingdom. (c) The kingdom itself bore different names, and
might be viewed under 'different aspects. Inasmuch as
it was a kingdom set up, in the language of Daniel (ii.
44), by 'the God of heaven,' it might be called the
'kingdom of God,' the 'kingdom of heaven,'1 or even
'the kingdom of the firmament.' But these latter names
were in no way descriptive of the locality of the realm of
the future; they implied its character, they did not
indicate its site. There was, indeed a sense in which
the kingdom of God — the acknowledgment of his
sovereignty, — the endeavour to obey his will — was a
1 This use of the word ' heaven ' as equivalent to ' God ' is not
uncommon in Jewish writings. Even in the New Testament it is
not without example, Luke xv. 18, ' I have sinned against heaven.'
In China, the great sage Confucius always preferred to speak of
the supreme power under the ancient designation Tien, sky,
' heaven,' rather than as Shang-te, ' supreme ruler,' the personal
title bestowed also on the Emperor.

THE KINGDOM. 109
present spiritual fact. Whoever repeated the great
confession of Jewish faith called (after its first Hebrew
word) the Shemd, beginning ' Hear, O Israel, the Lord
' thy God is one God,'1 was said to ' take upon himself
'the kingdom.' But pious fancy always loved to cast
its thoughts into pictures ; and as in the Book of Daniel
the writer had portrayed the awful form of the Ancient
of Days upon the throne of judgment, so did the author
of the Revelation behold the throne set in heaven,
whereon sat the Lord God, the Almighty, before whom
the four and twenty elders gave thanks because he had
taken his great power and did reign, Rev. iv. 2-1 1,
and xi. 16-18.
(d) These visions of the heavenly rule seemed to
dispense with any earthly representative of the Most
High. But it was sometimes thought that God would
choose for himself some other being, human, or
superhuman, to be the instrument of carrying out his
purposes. His will might realise itself, so the Sibyl
taught, through the prophets, as judges and just kings
of mortals ; or again through a single ruler : —
Then shall God send a king from the sun, who shall cause the
whole earth to cease from wicked war, when he has slain some,
and exacted faithful oaths from others. Neither shall he do all
these things of his own counsels, but by trust in the beneficent
decrees of the great God. 2
Whether the king would appear in the age that then
was, or in that which was to come, or in some interval
between the two, was indeed uncertain. Springing from
1 See Life in Palestine, § 32, p. 106.
2 Sibylline Oracles, iii. 652-6. For the beautiful description in
the Psalms of Solomon, see Life in Pal. \ 44, 4, p. 168.

110 THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
the ancient royal line, he would be known as ' Son of
' David ; ' the heathen enemies would be overthrown ;
some would perish, but some would be converted ; and
over these he would extend his beneficent sway, the seat
of which would be in the City of David. The venerable
walls of Jerusalem should be miraculously glorified, and
a new temple should arise within it. By this renovation,
indeed, it would correspond to the ideal city, the
heavenly Jerusalem, as it had existed from the beginning
of the world ; and there the outcasts of Israel, scattered
through many lands, should reassemble.
(e) Not Israel only, however, would be gathered at
their ancient capital. Fondly supposed to be the mid
point of the earth, Jerusalem would be the scene of
what the Apocalyptic writers called ' the great Judgment,'
'the great Day,' 'the day of Judgment,' 'the last
'Judgment for all eternity,' the concourse of nations
being marshalled in the valley of Jehoshaphat
beneath the city walls. Would this tremendous event
take place before or after Messiah's reign ? The
question was answered by different seers in different
ways. So, too, was another question — who would be
the judge ? Said the Rook of Enoch : —
The Most High will exalt himself in that day to hold the great
judgment upon all sinners.
But in the Psalms of Solomon judgment is regarded as a
permanent function, rather than as a single event, and
it is entrusted to the ideal king :
He shall bring together the holy people, whom he shall lead in
righteousness, and he shall judge the tribes of the people made
holy by the Lord his God. And he shall not suffer iniquity to
abide in their midst, nor shall any man dwell with them knowing"

THE JUDGMENT. Ill
wickedness. He shall judge peoples and nations by the wisdom
of his righteousness.
Lastly, the judgment would not be passed exclusively
upon the living. The dead also would be summoned to
% For them, therefore, a resurrection was decreed :
they would assume again the bodily forms which they
once had worn. Yet these would not be needed long ;
they would undergo transformation corresponding to the
lot assigned to their possessors, the wicked being cast
into Gehenna, while the good were exalted to the
splendour of angels or the brightness of stars.

§ 2. The Idea in the Gospels.
(i) Conceptions similar to these meet us in the First
Three Gospels at every turn. They are expressed in the
language of the common hope, with which they are
often in clear correspondence. In some cases they have
doubtless acquired new meanings;- but the general
framework which they supply for the teaching^ of Jesus,
closely resembles the forms just described. A few
instances will make this plain.
(a) The message of John the Baptist was summed up
in the words ' Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand : ' and this, in the same manner, according to
Matt. iii. 2, iv. 17, was the first utterance of Jesus. It is
not necessary now to ask what was the difference between
the idea of the kingdom as Jesus taught it, and that of
his fellow-countrymen. A single saying implies it :

X12 THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
' The kingdom of God is within you.'1 It is sufficient to
observe that this was from first to last the main theme of
his teaching. Parable after parable sets forth the silent
diffusiveness of its growth ; one discourse after another
lays down the way of life for those who would belong to
it: and as though to verify the Jewish maxim that that
prayer is not a prayer which contains no mention of the
kingdom, the prayer which Jesus taught his disciples
comprises the petition 'Thy kingdom come,' with its
explanatory sequel ' Thy will be done on earth as it is
'in heaven.' Save in one passage, Luke xxii. 29, 30. 3
Jesus does not speak of the kingdom as his, any more
than did his predecessor John the Baptist, or the disciples
whom he sent forth to preach, appropriate the kingdom
as theirs. The rule and sovereignty belong to God alone.
(b) The doctrine of the inwardness of the kingdom
might seem to render distinctions of time superfluous.
But the First Three Gospels contain frequent references
to the age that now is, and the age that is to come. ' In
' this time ' shall the disciple who has given up all for
1 This saying, Luke xvii. 21, may be understood as the margin
of the R.V. suggests, in another sense ; it may only mean ' the
' kingdom of God is already here in the midst of you.' The chief
objection to the first and more spiritual interpretation appears to
be that as the saying was addressed to the Pharisees, it was not
true that the kingdom of heaven was within them. But the
emphasis does not lie on the pronoun ; and in the announcement
of the fundamental principle of the inwardness of the true
recognition of the rule of God, Jesus passes beyond the
opponents to whom he is immediately replying, and speaks to
humanity at large.
2 Of doubtful authenticity on other grounds. Cp chap ix
J 6, 1.

THE FRAMEWORK IN THE GOSPELS. 113
the Teacher's sake, receive houses and brethren and
sisters and mothers and children and lands a hundred
fold, with persecutions, and ' in the age to come,'
eternal life, Mark x. 28-30. When the Sadducees seek
to throw discredit on the doctrine of a life hereafter
by an absurd case of complicated relationships, they
are met by a reply which assumes this distinction,
Luke xx. 34, 35 :—
The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage ; but
they that are accounted worthy to attain to that age, and the resur
rection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage.
On the gravest of sins, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit,
is pronounced the awful doom, Matt. xii. 32 : —
It shall not be forgiven him, neither in this age nor in that
which is to come.
(c) By what marks, then, would the passage from one
to the other be recognised ? When Messiah would
appear to usher in the coming time, what warnings
would inform the faithful that he was near at hand ?
' Tell us,' cried some of the twelve to Jesus as he sat on
the Mount of Olives, 'what shall be the sign of thy
' coming, and of the end of the age ? ' Matt. xxiv. 3.
The discourse which answers this question ignores the
principle laid down elsewhere by Jesus, ' The kingdom
' of God cometh not with observation,' Luke xvii. 20,
and describes at some length the commotions in earth
and sky which will attend the calamities in which the age
that now is will expire. There will be wars, earthquakes,
and famines, Mark xiii. 8 ; these will be the beginning
of travail, the 'birth-pains' of Messiah are at hand.
They will be followed by portents above ; the sun shall
be eclipsed, and the moon will cease to shine ; the stars

114 THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
will fall from their places, and the powers that are in the
heavens shall be shaken, Mark xiii. 24, 25.1
(d) When ' the age to come ' is inaugurated, on what
terms may life amid its blessings be secured ? That is
the meaning of the question put to Jesus by the lawyer,
Luke x. 25, or the rich young man, Mark x. 17. The
' eternal life ' which they desired to win, was in reality
admission to the privileges of the kingdom, a share in
the glories of Israel's future. That future was sometimes
known as 'the regeneration,' Matt. xix. 28, or rather
'the renovation' or 'renewal' — the renovation of Nature,
the renewal of Jerusalem. Or again, as it would be
preceded by the resurrection, it was itself designated by
that term. 'In the resurrection,' ask the Sadducees,
' whose wife shall she be ? ' of all the seven who had her
to wife, Mark xii. 23. 'Thou shalt be recompensed' is
the promise of Jesus to the generous host 'in the
'resurrection of the just,' Luke xiv. 14. The nature of
the resurrection-body was a frequent subject of dis
cussion in the Jewish schools; would the dead rise
maimed and halt, or whole and sound? They would
enter into life as they quitted this ; for Jesus, using the
physical imagery of the time, declares it better to ' enter
' into life ' with only one eye, or hand, or foot, rather
than having two eyes to be cast into the fiery Gehenna,
Mark ix. 43, 48, cp. Matt, xviii. 8-9. The Rabbis
settled that the lame or the dumb would rise with
their defects, and then be healed.
(e) Finally, all future expectation converges in the
Gospels on the judgment day. There must men give
1 On this discourse see chap. vii. $ 4.

THE JUDGMENT. 115
account of every idle word that they may speak, Matt.
xii. 36 ; there will the terrible sentence be passed on the
unfaithful who are still clamouring 'Lord, Lord' — 'I
' never knew you,' Matt. vii. 22, 23. Then will the Son
of Man ' render to every man according to his deeds,'
Matt. xvi. 27 ; and as he sits on the throne of his glory,
all the nations shall be gathered before him, Matt. xxv.
31 sqq. Beside the picture drawn in this parable, let
us place an earlier one from the Book of Enoch, where
God himself, the Lord of the sheep, casts out the wicked
and gathers in the good : —
And lo ! I saw them all in bonds as they stood before him.
And judgment was passed first on the stars, [i.e. the fallen
angels] ; and they were found guilty, and went to the place of
condemnation, and were thrown into a fiery deep, full of spires of
flame. And those seventy shepherds [the Gentile powers] were
judged in like manner, and thrown into that fiery deep. And
then I saw how a similar deep, full of fire, was opened amid the
earth ; and the sheep that were blinded were brought up for trial
and all judged guilty, and thrown into that fiery deep : there they
burned : and this deep was to the right [i.e. the south] of that
house [Jerusalem].1 And I saw how those sheep burned, and
their bone burned. And I stood up to see, till he wrapped up that
old house, and did away with all the pillars, and all the beams and
ornaments of that house were wrapped up with it : and it was cast
out, and put in a place at the south of the land. And I
beheld the Lord of the sheep, till he brought a new house
[Jerusalem] greater and higher than that first, and set it up on the
site of the first which had been wrapped up : all its pillars were
new, and its ornaments were new, and exceeded the former old
ones which he had cast away : and all the sheep were in it. And I
saw all the sheep that had remained, and all the beasts of the earth,
and all the birds of heaven, how they fell down and did homage
before those sheep, and entreated them and obeyed them in every
1 The deep is ' Gehenna,' the ancient valley of Hinnom.

116 THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
word. And after that, the three in white clothing who had
previously led me up, took my hand ; and the hand of that young
man [Elijah] holding me, they set me down among those sheep,
before the judgment took place. And those sheep were all white,
and their fleece thick and pure. And all the ruined and scattered
sheep, and beasts of the field, and birds of the air, were gathered
in that house ; and the Lord of the sheep had great joy, because
they were all good, and returned to his house. And I beheld
till they laid down that sword which had been given to the sheepj
and brought it back into his house, and sealed it up before the
face of the Lord, and all the sheep were gathered into that house,
and it could not hold them. And the eyes of all were opened, so
that they saw the good, and there was not one among them that
had not sight. And I saw that that house was great and wide
and very full. '
(2) The framework of the Messianic idea in the First
Three Gospels thus corresponds point by point with the
externals of the popular expectation. What further
indications do these documents offer concerning the
central figure which this framework encloses ?
(a) The prophets had declared that the ideal king
would spring from David's house. This hope further
expressed itself in the Targums by which the sacred
Hebrew books were rendered into the common speech of
the people,2 and the interpretations handed down in the
Rabbinical schools. It was uttered likewise by the poet
of the Psalms of Solomon not long after 48 B.C.
Behold, O Lord, and raise up for them their king, son of David,
for the time which thou knowest, O God, that he may reign over
Israel thy servant.
1 Quoted by Dr. Martineau, ' Early History of Messianic
Ideas,' National Review, vol. xviii., 1864, p. 569.
2 See Life in Palestine, p. 32.

'SON OF GOD.' 117
The popular greeting, accordingly, which hailed Jesus as
Messiah, addressed him by this title. Under this name
did the blind beggars of Jericho appeal to him, as he
passed out of their city on his way to the capital, Matt.
xx. 30-31 ; in this capacity did the multitude herald his
entry into Jerusalem, Matt. xxi. 9. When Jesus
enquired of the Pharisees 'What think ye of the Christ?
' whose Son is he ? ' the answer came promptly back ' the
' Son of David.' Jesus, indeed, appears to have disowned
the name. Quoting a passage from the 110th Psalm,
popularly, though unhistorically, attributed to David,
and supposed to refer to the Messiah, ' The Lord said unto
'my Lord,' he observed that if David described the Christ
as his Lord, the Christ could not be his Son, Matt. xxii.
41-45; and to this argument the representatives of the
traditional expectation seem to have been unable to reply.
(b) Another title bears an unmistakable official
meaning, ' Son of God.' It is quite true that this phrase
might be used in a high spiritual sense. It took its rise
from very early ideas of the kinship between a people and
its God. In ancient days the Deuteronomic prophet had
on this ground bidden his people avoid all heathen
customs of mutilation and mourning for the dead,
Deut. xiv. 1 : —
Sons are ye of Yahweh your God ; ye shall not cut yourselves
nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.
The relationship thus indicated might be conceived more
and more inwardly; 'those who enter future blessedness,'
said the Sibyl, ' are called sons of the great God ; ' ' they
' are all sons of their God ' declared the poet of the
Psalms of Solomon ; ' blessed are the peacemakers,'
said Jesus, ' for they shall be called sons of God.' But

118 THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
when it is applied to Jesus specifically, it is undoubtedly
employed with a different and more technical purpose ;
it is, in fact, the express designation of the Messiah.
Thus in the opening verse of Mark i. 'the beginning of
'the gospel of Jesus Christ,' this title was afterwards
added, and now stands in our Revised Version, ' Son of
God.' It is, however, never used by Jesus of himself.
The echo ot it is heard in the divine voice at the
baptism, ' Thou art my beloved Son ; ' it is attributed to
the tempter in the wilderness, ' If thou art the Son of
God;' it is the sum of Peter's triumphant declaration,
' Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God ; ' it is
the attestation on the mount of transfiguration, ' This is
' my beloved Son, hear ye him ; ' it is the essence of the
high priest's charge upon the trial, ' Art thou the Christ,
' the Son of the Blessed ? ' it is the verdict of the
centurion beside the cross, ' Truly this man was the Son
of God.' It would seem from these instances that it was
one of the current Messianic terms, but it cannot be
discovered in any of the earlier literature concerning the
Messianic idea.1 Yet it is not perhaps difficult to
1 In one passage, common to the First and Third Gospels,
occurs a remarkable phrase of a rather different order, ' All
' things have been delivered unto me of my Father, and no one
' knoweth the Son save the Father ; neither doth any know the
' Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to
'reveal him,' Matt. xi. 27, Luke x. 22. Here 'the Son' is the
counterpart to ' the Father,' much in the fashion of the related
pairs in the Fourth Gospel, see above chap. ii. § 2, 2c, and the
peculiar doctrine of their mutual knowledge introduces us to a
different circle of ideas wholly unlike the national hope centred
in the Messianic ' Son of God.' It should, however, be observed
that 'the Son' and 'the Father' occur in an unmistakably

•SON OF GOD.' 119
account for its employment.1 In prophetic thought
Israel had been the child of Yahweh's love. ' Thou shalt
' say unto Pharaoh,' so ran the commission of Moses,
* thus saith Yahweh, Israel is my son, my firstborn,'
Ex. iv. 22. ' When Israel was a child,' said Hosea,
pleading in Yahweh's name, 'then I loved him, and
'called my son out of Egypt,' Hos. xi. i. When the
monarchy was established, and the king ruled as God, as
the very angel or representative of Yahweh, cp. Zech. xiii.
8, so that his throne was founded and guaranteed by the
powers of heaven, this title passed to him. ' I will
' establish the throne of his kingdom for ever, I will
' be his father and he shall be my son.' Such was the
promise of Yahweh to David, 2 Sam. vii. 13-14, in the
language of prophecy ; and it was repeated in the poem
which described the reign of the expected king, Psalm
lxxxix. 26-27: —
He shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father,
My God, and the rock of my salvation.
I also will make him my first-born,
The highest of the kings of the earth.
This exalted view of the sovereign was, indeed, common
to many ancient nations. Before the days of Moses it
was carved upon the Egyptian temples. Among the
copious inscriptions of Rameses the Great, in the
fourteenth century, b.c, occurs the following dialogue
between the great god Amun-Ra and the king : —
Messianic passage, Mark xiii. 32, cp. Matt. xxiv. 36. For proof
that this discourse has taken up later elements into itself, see
chap. vii. § 4, 3, 4.
1 In the Theological Review, 1866, p. 465, Mr. R. B. Drummond
has sought to prove that it originated with the Apostle Paul.

120 THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
The God. ' I am thy father, I have begotten thee like a god, all
thy limbs are divine. I have fashioned thee to be the joy of my
person. I have brought thee forth like the rising sun.'
The King. ' I am thy son, thou hast put me on thy throne,
thou hast transmitted to me royal power, thou hast made me after
the resemblance of thy person, thou hast transmitted to me what
thou hast created. I shall answer by doing all the good things
which thou desirest.'
With such thoughts as these it was natural for the
Hebrew poet, describing the vain efforts of the nations
against Yahweh and his Messiah, to portray in dramatic
colloquy the high dignity of the king, who might be said,
on the day when he received power, to be begotten if
Yahweh, Psalm ii. 4-8 : —
The Poet. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh :
Yahweh shall have them in derision.
Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath,
And vex them in his sore displeasure : —
Yahweh. Yet have I set my king
Upon my holy hill of Zion.
The King. I will tell of the decree :
Yahweh said unto me, Thou art my son,
This day have I begotten thee.
Yahweh. Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for
thine inheritance,
And the uttermost parts of the earth for thy
possession.
This passage was applied to the Messiah in the Jewish
schools, and hence probably arose the designation ' Son
' of God.' Its employment was doubtless facilitated by
another meaning which the phrase bears in the Old
Testament. The belief in One God which Israel attained
through the labours of the prophets was not incompatible
with belief in many other exalted powers also. Between

•SON OF GOD.' 121
man upon earth and the 'Most High' in heaven there
was a vast interval which Hebrew imagination filled with
superhuman beings. These were called in the language
of poetry ' Sons of God ' ; they formed the retinue of the
King above the skies ; when the world was made they
' shouted for joy,' Job xxxviii. 7, and they offered to the
sovereign of the universe perpetual worship of thank
fulness and praise, Ps. xxix. 1. But they were not
confined to the abodes above. They sometimes passed
to earth as messengers of the divine will, and returned to
present themselves before their Lord, cp. Job i. 6, ii. 1.
So they acted as protectors or guardian spirits of
the righteous, Dan. iii. 25, 28. Or, with larger
functions, they served as patrons or prince-angels of
whole nations.1 Such was Michael, the 'prince' of
Israel, and such were the ' princes' of Persia and Greece,
Dan. x. 13, 20, 21. Might not Messiah, as the agent of
Yahweh's purpose for his people be likened to these
manifestations of superhuman power ? This meaning of
the term ran side by side with its application to the
Davidic king, and each may have strengthened and
supported the other. Opposite conclusions have, indeed,
been drawn from the same facts ; and certainty in these
difficult enquiries is impossible. But the use of the title
by the Apostle Paul, e.g. Rom. i. 4, as well as its employ
ment by the high priest when Jesus was brought before
the Sanhedrin, implies that it had a recognised significance
in this connection. Messiah was already, as Israel's
guide and representative, what the whole people should
be ; nay, according to Paul, what all humanity was in the
1 Comp. Cheyne, Psalms, on Ps. lxxxii.

122 THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
divine intent ; for the official meaning passes over in
Paul's thought into the spiritual, as he realizes that ' as
'many as are led by the Spirit of God, are Sons of God,'
and looks forward to the time when ' the creation itself
'shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the
' glorious liberty of the children of God,' Rom. viii. 14, 21.
(c) One more title ascribed to Jesus in the Synoptic
Gospels bears upon it the Messianic impress, ' Son of
Man.' This is the name by which Jesus again and again
speaks of himself in the forms of his sayings which have
come down to us. Many of what we think his most
characteristic utterances embody it ; ' The Son of Man is
' come to seek and to save that which was lost ; ' ' The
' Son of Man hath not where to lay his head ; ' ' The
'Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to
' minister.' In passages of this description it has been
supposed that the term was used in the prophetic sense,
in which the prophet Ezekiel, for example, is repeatedly
addressed as ' Son of Man ' by ' the word of Yahweh ; '
or it has been explained as the title by which Jesus
desired to show his oneness in the broadest sense with
men's sufferings and needs, and offered himself as the
humble self-abasing servant of humanity. There are,
however, other sayings in which the name has a plainly
different meaning, as at the trial, when Jesus replies to
the question of the high priest, ' Ye shall see the Son of
' Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with
'the clouds of heaven,' Mark xiv. 62, cp. viii. 38 and
xiii. 26. Whether Jesus really intended in these words
to identify himself with the ' Son of Man ' must be reserved
for enquiry later on.1 It is sufficient to note here (1) what
1 See chap. vii. § 5, and appendix.

' SON OF MAN' 123
was the origin of this imaginative language, and (2) what
was the application made by the disciples. It was founded
unquestionably on the description of the judgment in the
vision of Daniel (see above § 1, 2), where the kingdom
was given to 'one like unto a son of man' who 'came
' with the clouds of heaven ; ' and it was undoubtedly
applied by the apostles to the Teacher himself. How far
the words in Daniel were popularly understood to refer
to the Messiah, it is not now possible to determine1: in
later days it was said that ' if Israel behaved worthily the
' Messiah would come in the clouds of heaven : if other-
' wise, humble and riding upon an ass.' If, however, the
disciples imagined that Jesus was himself the Son of
Man in the Messianic sense, it is probable that this is the
meaning intended by the Evangelists in all the passages
1 In Rev. xiv. 14, a passage, supposed by some to belong to the
older Jewish section of the Apocalypse, the Seer beheld ' a white
'cloud, and on the cloud one sitting like unto a son of man,
' having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp
' sickle.' This figure, whose aspect appears to have been suggested
by the language of Daniel, seems to be marked as regal by ' the
' round and top of sovereignty.' If so, it is most naturally interpreted
of the Messianic king. But it is noteworthy that the king only
proceeds to action when an angel comes out from the heavenly
temple and bids him send forth his sickle and reap. Nor is this
office peculiar to him. Another angel comes forth also with a
sharp sickle, and he in like manner waits till an angel from the
altar directs him to gather the clusters from the great Earth-vine.
The crowned being ' like unto a son of man,' and the angel with
the sickle, are both appointed to the same office, and neither
discharges it of his own accord without a celestial summons. If
the first is the Messianic king, is it not clear that the conception
in the writer's mind was still vague and indefinite, and that no
sharp distinction separated him from other angelic powers ?

124 THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
where the name occurs. They understood these
utterances to contrast the lowliness of Messiah's earthly
lot, both with the popular expectations of his royal pomp
and with the heavenly glory which they believed he would
one day assume.
(d) Another term deserves a word of notice, 'the
Lord.' Though it occurs but once in the First Three
Gospels on the lips of Jesus himself, it is used with
special frequency in narrative by Luke. The title ' lord,'
(Greek Kurios, Hebrew Adhon) is applied in the New
Testament through a wide range of relations. It denotes
ownership, as in the case of the possessors of the colt on
which Jesus rode into Jerusalem, Luke xix. 33, and
designates the master who rules a household of slaves.
It is the respectful address of the Pharisees to Pilate,
Matt, xxvii. 63, R. V. ' Sir', and marks the submission of
Festus to the imperial Caesar, Acts xxv. 26. In a higher
scale it is the natural salutation for an angel, Acts x. 4 ;
and finally, it is the equivalent of God, Mark v. 19,
Luke viii. 39, in the Old Testament sense.1 Within
these limits what is its significance when applied to Jesus?2
1 It is well-known that the later Jews shrank from pronouncing
the sacred name Yahweh. They accordingly replaced it, in
reading their Scriptures, by the word Adhonay, ' my Lord.' In
the Greek translation known as the Septuagint this was rendered
by Ho Kurios, ' the Lord,' in which form it appears in our
English version. It is quite possible that the application of the
same term to God and to Jesus, though in different senses, aided
the processes of thought and imagination which finally led to the
belief that they were ' of the same substance.'
2 It may be added that its Babylonian equivalent Mar some
times bore the meaning of Teacher, and was also employed in
address like the title Rabbi which is bestowed on Jesus in the

'THE LORD.' 125
It may be nothing more sometimes than the title of
courtesy from an inferior to a superior, Luke v. 1 2 ; the
parallel in Mark i. 40 omits it. An intenser but still
undefined meaning may lie in Peter's exclamation
' Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord,' Luke v.
8.1 Elsewhere it is distinctly associated with the
character of Jesus as Messiah, through its combination
with the recognition of him as ' Son of David,' Matt. xv.
22, xx. 30. This is its undoubted sense when it is used
of him descriptively again and again in Luke vii. 13, x. 1,
39, &c.2 Here it means something more than the
Teacher, it is equivalent to the Christ. The origin and
significance of this special application are somewhat
difficult to trace. But it certainly implies the exalted,
and possibly even the superhuman, nature of Messiah.
In the ancient speech of the Deuteronomic prophet,
Yahweh is ' God of gods and Lord of lords,' Deut. x. 17,
where the term ' lord ' coupled with ' god ' appears to
denote an order of beings beyond those of earth.3 The
phrase in Ps. ex. 1, ' Yahweh said unto my lord,'
commonly interpreted in the Jewish schools in reference
to Messiah,* does not necessarily carry with it this higher
Gospels. In the Aramaic phrase in / Cor. xvi. 22, ' Mardn athd,'
' Our Lord is coming,' it stands for Kurios in the Pauline sense.
1 The addition of the English ' O,' which manifestly improves
the rhythm, and gives greater solemnity, is no more needed here
than in similar cases of address.
2 It may be noted that Mark and Matthew only employ it thus
after the Resurrection, Mark xvi. 19, 20, Matt, xxviii. 6.
3 So also Is. xxvi. 13, ' O Yahweh our God, other lords beside
'thee have had dominion over us.'
4 Cp. Mark xii. 36, 37, and parallels.

126 THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
meaning. Neither does the expression 'Christ [the]
Lord,' which occurs in the Psalms of Solomon,1 require
it. But the language of the Apostle Paul seems clearly
to approach the antique sense of Hebrew Scripture, when
he observes / Cor. viii. 5, 6 : —
There are gods many and lords many, yet to us there is one
God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him ; and
one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we
through him.2
The frequency of the title ' lord ' in the writings of the
Apostle must have struck every reader ; again and again
it replaces the name Christ; 'the Lord's death,' for
example, which is proclaimed every time that the bread
is broken in remembrance of him ' till he come,' / Cor.
xi. 26, is, of course, Jesus Messiah's crucifixion. The
current identification of Messiah with the 'Lord' in Ps.
ex. 1, was at once transferred to Jesus, who is said to have
been made by God ' both Lord and Christ,' Acts ii. 36.
In this sense it passed into narrative about him, and in
this sense it is placed once, but only once, on his own
lips. When he is about to enter Jerusalem for the last
time, he sends two of the disciples to fetch the colt on
which he will ride and he adds, Mark xi. 3 : —
And if any one say unto you, Why do ye this ? say ye'
The Lord hath need of him ; and straightway he will send him
back hither.
How far this actually represents the language of Jesus
himself, who does not elsewhere thus directly assert a
1 Ps. Sol. xvii. 36. There does not seem adequate reason for
doubting the reading. Comp. Luke ii. 11.
5 In the phrase ' king of kings and lord of lords,' Rev. xix. 16
the word seems to be somewhat differently employed.

THE 'HOLY ONE OF GOD.' 127
Messianic claim,1 must remain doubtful. It can hardly
however, be pleaded that the title here means nothing
more than 'the Teacher.' Is it, perhaps, one of the
delicate signs that the Gospel according to Mark (as
well as Luke) was written under influences proceeding
from the Apostle Paul?3
(e) When the unclean spirits fell down before Jesus,
according to Mark iii. n, they cried, saying 'Thou art
' the Son of God' In the synagogue at Capernaum, so
the same gospel relates, Mark i. 24. the man with an
unclean spirit addressed Jesus in these words, ' I know
'thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.' It is plain
from the usage of these two terms that they are
practically identical, and are both employed as designa
tions of Messiah. What is intended, then, by the title
' Holy One of God ? ' Like the corresponding designa
tion ' Son of God,' it is a survival or application of an
older phrase. The ancient meaning of the word ' holy'
seems to be that which is ' separated,' marked off from
the rest, as the clean from the unclean, the heavenly from
the earthly, the divine from the human. So it came to be
in some special sense a name of Him who transcended
all mortal weakness and sin, as when Yahweh says,
Hos. xi. 9 : —
I am God and not man, the Holy One in the midst of thee.
Hence it is often used in prophetic speech to designate
the national God. Yahweh is emphatically the ' Holy
'One of Israel.' But it was also extended to the larger
circle of superhuman beings who surrounded Yahweh's
throne and constituted his heavenly court, like the ' Sons
of God.'
1 On this subject see chap. vii. 2 See chap. viii. $ 5, 3.

128 THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
And the heavens shall praise thy wonders, O Yahweh ;
Thy faithfulness also in the assembly of the holy ones.
For who in the skies can be compared unto Yahweh ?
Who among the sons of God is like unto Yahweh ?
A God very terrible in the council of the holy ones,
And to be feared above all them that are round about him ?
Ps. lxxxix. 5-7.
Here it is plain that the 'Holy Ones' are identical with
the ' Sons of God ' or ' sons of the gods,' the angel-
powers who carry out the will of the great King who
reigns in incommunicable majesty above them all.1
From their abodes in heaven they watched the ways of
the children of men, and from time to time descended
with some message revealing the rule of the Most High,
Dan. iv. 13, 17. Out of such a band came forth Messiah,
leader and champion of the righteousness of heaven
against the demonic powers, whom he would arrest and
overthrow.2 The spirits of evil discerned in him the
consecrated agent of their doom : and as the disciples
afterwards confessed Jesus to be ' God's Messiah,' so
with earlier recognition did the demons acknowledge him
as ' God's Holy One ' or ' Son of God.'
(f) One more conception associated with Jesus in his
Messianic character must be briefly considered. Beside
1 Compare Deut. xxxiii. 2, 3, Zech. xiv. 5 (read ' with him '
instead of ' with thee,' following the Greek of the LXX), Job. v. 1,
xv. 15. It is to be regretted that in Ps. xvi. 10 (cp. Acts ii. 27,
xiii. 35) our translators have used the term 'holy' to express
another Hebrew word, better rendered ' godly,' though the Greek
version correctly employs a different term.
2 In Acts iii. 14 the word 'Holy' passes from the special
Messianic sense into the higher moral meaning, associating with
itself the further description ' the Righteous One.'

THE 'SERVANT OF YAHWEH.' 129
the ideal king whom ancient prophecy and later hope
awaited, stands another figure embodying a different
thought. The ' Servant of Yahweh,' as he is presented
to us in the prophecies of the Captivity, holds no
dominion, and is invested with no sovereignty. His
first function is that of Teacher, he is to carry forth the
truths of Israel's religion to the world, Is. xiii. 1-4 : —
Behold my servant, whom I uphold ; my chosen in whom my
soul delighteth : I have put my spirit upon him ; he shall bring
forth judgement [religion] to the nations. He shall not cry, nor
lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised
reed shall he not break, and the dimly burning wick shall he not
quench : he shall bring forth judgement in truth. He shall not
burn dimly nor be bruised, till he have set judgement in the earth ;
and the isles shall wait for his teaching.
It is not necessary now to discuss the exact scope of this
beautiful symbolic personality, in its relations either to
the different classes of captive Israel, or to mankind at
large. The Servant has many functions ; when he first
appears, it is his duty to proclaim the good news of
Yahweh's redemption of his people ; he is charged to
declare the message of comfort, grace, and hope. For
this he has been specially chosen and endowed ; and so,
from the anointed King, Cyrus,1 the divine instrument,
through Babylon's overthrow, of Israel's liberation, the
prophet turns to the anointed Teacher,3 the divine
instrument, through his word, his sufferings and death, of
Israel's justification. Now in later times, the interpreters
of the prophetic writings boldly identified the ' Servant of
Yahweh' with the Messiah. Without stopping to enquire
how far the lowly messenger of ' judgment ' could really
1 Isaiah xiv. I. 2 Isaiah lxi. I.

130 THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
blend with the kingly form of David's son, they inserted
in the traditional paraphrase used in public worship x the
word ' Messiah ' after ' my servant ' in Is. xiii. i and xliii.
io ; and the same addition was made at the opening of
the remarkable passage in Iii. 13. Nor was the identifica
tion thus effected altogether dropped in subsequent stages
of the description of the Servant's fate. The strange
name applied to Messiah in the Talmud, ' the Leprous,'
was founded on his bruised and stricken form, liii. 4, 5 ;
while his future glory, when ' he should see his seed,'
liii. 10, was to be realised 'in Messiah's kingdom.' Thus
did the Scriptures seem to portray another type of
Messianic function; and this type acquired important
prominence in the early Church. In the method of the
Teacher who sought to keep his healing acts concealed,
the believer saw the likeness of one who would not strive
nor cry, Matt. xii. 16-21. When the 'possessed' went
away sane, it was because he had taken their infirmities
and borne their diseases, Matt. viii. 17, cp. Is. liii. 4.
Nay, according to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus formally
assumed, as his first public act, the Messianic character
in this special sense. In the synagogue at Nazareth he
opened the roll one Sabbath day, and read, Luke
iv. 18 :—
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
Because he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor r
and then declared the prophetic word fulfilled in himself.2
As at the beginning, so likewise at the close of his
1 These paraphrases of the Scriptures into the vernacular
Aramean were known as Targums. Comp. Life in Pal. § 32,.
p. 107.
2 On the significance of this incident, see chap ix. § 4, 5, § 5, 3^

THE 'SERVANT OF YAHWEH: 131
ministry is the same thought implied ; for in his death,
Jesus, like the Servant, was ' numbered with transgressors,'
Luke xxii. 37. How far this aspect of Messiah's work
had been realised by popular imagination at the time of
Jesus, it is impossible to estimate. In the stream of
Apocalyptic literature it has no place at all. It is
unconnected with the doctrine of the two ages ; it is
independent of the royal line of Judah ; it seems on a
different plane from the visions of the New Jerusalem,
or the great judgment of the Son of Man. It lies
altogether apart from the expectations of those who
hoped that Messiah would 'restore the kingdom to
Israel,' Acts i. 6. Yet its presence in the Gospels is
palpable. We may not always be able to accept as
genuine the incidents or sayings through which it is
expressed. But when we try to trace it back to its
source, shall we be wrong if we ascribe it, at least
provisionally, to Jesus himself ?

3. Transformation under the Influence of
Ideas.
Here, then, are numerous elements in the Gospel story
connecting it with contemporary thought and hope.
When the life of Jesus was told under their influence, it
was inevitable that recollection should shape itself into
accord with them, and that when recollection failed,
imagination should supply its place. As ' Son of David '
his descent is traced from David, and he is born at

132 THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
Bethlehem. As 'Son of God' he is conceived by
miracle ; and his Messianic function is divinely attested
at his baptism and transfiguration. As" ' Son of Man '
he is expected to return in clouds of glory with pomp of
angels and with trumpet blast. These conceptions
worked on the actual remembrance of his words and
deeds, and where the tradition was silent, called fresh
stories into being in which the same ideas sometimes took
divers forms. That this process went on outside the
Gospels is certain : let us examine a case reported to
us by Papias, whose preference for what he supposed to
be first-hand oral testimony has been already mentioned
(chap. i. § 3, 2).
(i) Among the features which would mark the
Messianic age, prophets and poets had loved to dwell on
the sympathy of nature, typified by the increased
productiveness of the ground. Round this theme, also,
later fancy fondly played. Here is a description in the
Book of Enoch : —
In those days shall the earth be cultivated in righteousness,
and shall be quite planted with trees, and shall be full of blessing.
All trees of pleasure shall be planted on it, and vines shall be
planted on it. The vine which is planted on it shall bear fruit in
abundance, and of every seed that is sown on it shall one
measure bear ten thousand, and one measure of olives shall
produce ten presses of oil.
Once started, this idea ran to yet further and wilder
developments. The Apocalypse of Baruch, written after
the destruction of Jerusalem, apparently between the
years 70 and 119 a.d. gave still fuller promises : —
The earth shall yield her fruits a thousand-fold ; and one vine
there shall bear a thousand branches, and on one branch a

THE WONDERFUL VINE. 133
thousand clusters, and on one cluster a thousand grapes, and one
grape will yield a cor1 of wine.
Now compare with these the following description
attributed by Papias to Jesus, and quoted by Irenaeus.2
The elders who saw John, the disciple of the Lord, related that
they had heard from him how the Lord used to teach in regard
to these times and say : ' The days will come in which vines shall
' grow, each having ten thousand branches, and in each branch
' ten thousand twigs, and in each true twig ten thousand shoots,
' and in each one of the shoots ten thousand clusters, and on
' every one of the clusters ten thousand grapes, and every grape
' when pressed will give five and twenty metretes of wine. And
' when anyone of the saints shall lay hold of a cluster, another
'shall cry out, "I am a better cluster; take me, bless the
' " Lord through me." '  And these things are borne
witness to in writing by Papias, the hearer of John, and a.
companion of Polycarp, an ancient man, in his fourth book ; for
there were five books compiled by him. And he says in addition,
' Now these things are credible to believers.' And he says that
when the traitor Judas did not give credit to them, and put the
question, ' How then can things about to bring forth so
* abundantly be wrought by the Lord,' the Lord declared, ' They
' who come to these [times] shall see.'
The process in the growth of this story is highly
instructive. A somewhat vague and indistinct re
membrance of the prediction now found in the
Apocalypse of Baruch was shaped into more definite
precision of detail. Cut loose from its original source,
it was referred to Jesus, and its exaggeration was still
more exaggerated. Then came the question, ' What did
'the disciples say?' and the incredulity which would
not be repressed, was ascribed to Judas, the Apostle's
enquiry in its turn calling forth a reply from 'the Lord.'
1 About 75 gallons, 5 pints. 2 See chap. i. § 2, 2.

134 THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
Finally, in the confused state of current testimony, the
whole story was attributed to the ' disciples of the Lord.'
Irenaeus no doubt supposed that Papias had heard it
direct from John. No one believes that Papias
intentionally invented it ; but no one believes either that
he had received it from an apostle. It shows how easy it
was for the Church to mould and shape the tradition of
the sayings of Jesus under the unconscious influence of
existing ideas, and even to ascribe to him words founded
upon a book not written till long after he had passed
away. If this might happen with a tradition outside the
present Gospel range, why should it not have occurred
within their limits?1 We may doubt how far it is possible
to trace this tendency ; but we cannot doubt that it was
actually at work. Before we proceed to investigate in
detail its operation in the Gospel narratives, let us glance
at one or two similar instances of its influence in other
fields. (2) One of the biographers of Francis of Assisi, his
disciple Thomas of Celano, relates that towards the close
of his life the saint resolved to celebrate the Nativity at
Christmas tide with a real manger. The peasants from
the country round flocked into the church, and lo, within
the manger there lay the infant Jesus, asleep. In an
ecstacy of gratitude and adoration the saint bent over
him, and the babe awoke and smiled. Even so, says
Thomas, did Christ awake anew in men's hearts through
the labour and the love of Francis. The good father
tells his story, as if it were a real occurrence, and then,
in all simplicity, lets his readers into the secret ; it was,
1 On Luke xi. 49-51, Matt, xxiii. 34 sqq. see chap. x. § 3, lb.

ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI. 135
after all, only an idea translated into an event. But the
idea, once started, grew with astonishing speed, until
mediaeval Italy saw in Francis the reproduction of the
Saviour's life. All kinds of stories arose to show the
resemblance between the saint and his Lord : and these
were finally gathered up into the ' Book of Conformities,'
in which the wonders of St. Francis were set side by
side with those of Christ. The list was introduced by
an astonishing series of Old Testament parallels and
types. Concerning his birth, which had been foretold
beforehand by an angel, it was related that as Simeon
took the child Jesus in his arms, so did a pilgrim which
was an angel come to the house and ask to see and touch
the infant Francis ; and when at length, in consequence
of his importunity, the babe was brought to him, he
embraced it, and after declaring his future greatness,
straightway disappeared; nor did anyone in Assisi see
him more. Like his Master, Francis knew what was in
man ; nor did he read the human heart alone, he under
stood the animals as well, so that every creature obeyed
his sign. As Jesus ate with publicans and sinners, so
Francis, being in the forest, desired certain thieves to
come and eat with him, saying ' Brother thieves, come
' and eat with us, for we are brethren ; ' and thus he
sought and saved the lost. Before him the winds grew
calm and the air serene ; fire abated its heat, and water
turned into wine. At his touch disease disappeared;
he cleansed lepers by the laying-on of his hands ; and
through him the Lord Jesus raised more than thirty dead.
Ere his death he was transfigured, being seen by the
brethren raised aloft in the air, with his arms outspread
after the manner of a cross, and encompassed with a

136 THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
shining cloud. His prayer for participation in the
sufferings of Christ was answered by the appearance of
the marks of the nails on his hands and feet. After his
death his body could not be found ; he had risen, and he
appeared again and again to his disciples. — Was all this
only a tissue of crude inventions, of deliberate false
hoods ? By no means ; it was the manner in which
pious veneration gave form to the profound impression
which Francis made on his age. As no other man had
ever done, he renewed the Christian ideal, and revived
the impulse of the Christian life. The religious imagina
tion had no sooner perceived one analogy, than it created
another. The life of the saint must have resembled that
of his Lord not only in its spirit, but also in its details.
The force of this inference is not apparent to us ; but it
was felt with undiminished energy by generations of
disciples who shaped the legend of Francis to match the
Gospel story, without any consciousness that they passed
the bounds of truth.
(3) But, it may be alleged, in the case of Francis of
Assisi the Christian type was in the field already, and had
already possession of men's hearts. Given the Gospels,
we can understand that the devotion of ignorant and
superstitious monks should produce something bearing a
far-off resemblance to the figure they portray. But the
Gospel stories cannot themselves be explained by this
process, for the ideal which they delineate did not exist
beforehand. Is this objection conclusive ? Let us briefly
consider a parallel instance from the history of religion
in India.
More than five hundred years before the birth of Jesus,
there seems to have been a wide-spread expectation in

LEGEND OF THE BUDDHA. 137
certain portions of the valley of the Ganges, that a
'Great Man' would appear. It was believed that this
hope was founded upon the ancient Mantras or Scrip
tures ; and it was anticipated that the ' Great Man '
would fulfil one of two careers. If he chose the
ordinary life of the householder, he would become a
Universal Monarch, ruling in righteousness; but if he
resolved to leave his home and give up the world and
seek for truth, for the sake of his fellowmen, he would
become a Buddha, an Enlightened One, Teacher of
gods and men. When it was enquired how such a Being
would be recognised, the Brahmans answered that
according to their sacred books there were thirty-two
marks by which he would be distinguished. Whoever
could show that he possessed these upon his person, was
entitled to be received as the Great Man.
Now about this time a young man of good family
named Gotama did leave his home, and devote himself
to the search for truth as a wandering ascetic. After
years of penance and struggle he found what he believed
to be the secret of life. He went forth to preach it, and
disciples gathered round him. By and by he formed
them into a simple Union or Order, and then sent them
out two and two to preach and make disciples as he did
himself. Year after year he laboured ; his followers
multiplied and spread ; the Order grew ; till at last old
age and infirmity came on him, and he died.
Later generations gathered up the traditions of his
words and deeds. The theory of the Buddha was
applied to him. How much of it he appropriated to
himself we do not know. But his Order unquestionably
regarded him as fulfilling the conditions laid down in

138 THE MESSIANIC IDEA.
the sacred books. Story after story in the collection of
the discourses which they ascribed to him, relates how
some eminent Brahman, hearing of his fame, sends one
or two of his own disciples to enquire if he is really the
Blessed Buddha. The question is exactly parallel to
that which the Baptist, through two of his followers, puts
to Jesus, ' Art thou he that should come, or do we look
' for another ? ' Then Gotama engages them in earnest
talk, and by his wisdom convinces them that he is in
truth the Enlightened One ; and sometimes, ere they
depart, he reveals to them the mystic marks. Under the
influence of this conception there arose a legend of the
way in which he had attained his knowledge. The story
of his ' Great Renunciation ' when he gave up home and
wife and child, of his struggles in the quest for supreme
enlightenment, of the inner conflict before he finally
resolved to undertake the task of converting the world —
all this took shape under the influence of the idea. Nor
did love and reverence stop there. The Buddha, it was
thought, had not been born like other men. He came
down from heaven to deliver mankind from suffering
and sin ; conceived miraculously, he was born amid the
songs of angels, and as he entered the world the dumb
spake, the deaf heard, the blind saw, the lame walked,
and the fires of hell were quenched. On his name-day a
venerable sage, like Simeon in the Temple, foretold his
future greatness. When he is about to enter on his
career as Teacher, he must first vanquish the Tempter
and drive him away impotent. He is endowed with
miraculous powers, and before his death he passes
through a kind of transfiguration.
Here is a legend which shows so many corres-

LEGEND OF THE BUDDHA. 139
pondences with that of the prophet of Nazareth, as to
have given rise to the hasty conjecture that one must
have helped to shape the other. It is in the highest
degree improbable that there was any mutual influence
between India and Palestine. The essential features of
the story of Gotama were well established centuries
before the birth of Jesus, but there is no trace of their
transmission to the West. These two great pictures of
self-sacrificing love remain sublimely independent; the
ideals for which they stand, in spite of many resem
blances, are profoundly different ; their likeness, in some
outward details, is due to a common cause — the impulse
of great thoughts and impassioned reverence to invest
the simplicity of historic fact with the glory of creative
imagination.

CHAPTER V.
MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND PREPARATION.
The tendency of the Messianic idea to assume pictorial
shape is seen in its fullest operation in the narratives
prefixed to the accounts of the actual teaching ministry
of Jesus. The First Three Evangelists all bring him to
Galilee fresh from the struggle in the wilderness which
followed his baptism by John. On the Jordan's bank
does he receive the Spirit which endows him for his high
office ; in the recesses of the desert beyond does he pass
through the conflict which gives him the mastery over the
powers of evil, and completes his preparation for his
work. In its first form, that of Mark, the story of
Messiah begins here. But Matthew and Luke have yet
more to tell. They carry back Messiah's origin from the
hour when he became ' Son of God ' by the descent of
the Spirit, to the Virgin-birth at Bethlehem ; and thus
present a spiritual relation as a physical event. What
tiaces do these stories show of the influence of popular
conceptions ? Must we accept them as historical, or
may we find in them the utterances of faith and love set
free from the restraints of historical reality, and express
ing feeling rather than recording fact ?

MESSIAH'S BIRTH. 141

$ 1. The Birth Stories.

According to the Synoptic narratives the fellow-
townsmen of Jesus were in no doubt about his family :
' Is not this the carpenter's son ? ' they cried, ' Is not his
'mother called Mary?' Matt. xiii. 55, cp. Mark vi. 3,
Luke iv. 22. But Matthew and Luke ascribe to him a
more august parentage. In the language of the Apostles'
Creed, he was ' Conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of
' the Virgin Mary.' Does a comparison of the narratives
confirm this faith ?
(1) Readers of the Gospels will doubtless agree with
Dr. Westcott that ' each picture is drawn with perfect
' independence ; ' can we also concur with his view ' that
' the separate details are exactly capable of harmonious
' adjustment ? ' Let us first examine three points which
they have in common; they both represent Jesus as
sprung from the ancient line of David, as born of a
Virgin, and as entering the world at Bethlehem.
(a) It has been already remarked that the Messiah was
expected to be a descendant of David, and that Jesus
was again and again greeted as his ' Son.' The popular
cry, however, can hardly be regarded as conclusive
evidence of his ancestry; it has an official, not a historical
meaning. There is no recognition of it among the
members of the synagogue at Nazareth. Jesus never
employs it himself, and in his colloquy with the Pharisees
at Jerusalem his argument is directed against the sup
posed necessity that the Messiah must come from the
royal line.1 It was, however, undoubtedly believed by
1 Comp. chap. iv. § 2, za, p. 117.

142 MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND PREPARATION.
the early Church. Our first witness, the Apostle Paul,
describes Jesus as ' born of the seed of David according
'to the flesh,' Rom. i. 2, and in the discourses in the
Book of Acts it is emphasised both by Peter and by Paul,
ii. 30, xiii. 23. Had Paul really inquired into the
Master's lineage, and satisfied himself of the justice of
the Church's faith ? There were doubtless cases in
which the claim was acknowledged by contemporary
judgment. The famous Teacher, Hillel, who had come
to Jerusalem from Babylonia,1 belonged by general
consent to the royal house ; and so, a little later, did
Gamaliel, while the genealogies of the priests were
carefully scrutinised by a special tribunal which held its
sittings in the ' Square Hall ' at Jerusalem. But it does
not appear that any particular attention was paid to the
ancestry of the ordinary layman, though Paul knew that
he belonged to the tribe of Benjamin ; and it seems on
the whole more likely that the belief in the Davidic
descent of Jesus arose out of the conviction that he was
the Messiah, than that the popular greeting was founded
on any examination of his family pedigree.
(b) At any rate the genealogies supplied in our First
and Third Gospels must rather be taken as attempts to
give literary form to this belief than as actual justifica
tions of it. They cannot be reconciled by any ingenuity.
It is of small consequence that Matthew is satisfie<T~with
tracing the line to Abraham, on whom the promise of
royal descendants was first conferred, and thus connects
Messiah with the father of the chosen people, while
Luke, with a longer reach, carries up his origin to the
1 Life in Pal,, p. 131.

THE GENEALOGIES. 143
first man, Adam, the Son of God. Nor need any stress
be laid now on the rhythmic division into three groups of
fourteen each which marks the arrangement of Matthew,
the series of kings from David to the captivity being
crushed into this number by the unexpected suppression
of four steps (three in ver. 8, and one in ver. n). It
must suffice to observe that both lines in Matthew and
Luke are traced through Joseph, and that Joseph has
different fathers, Jacob in Matthew, and Eli in Luke.
It has been, indeed, suggested that this was a case of the
ancient custom known as the Levirate, by which the
brother of a childless man was required in case of his
death to marry the widow and ' raise up seed to his
brother.' Joseph might have been the real child of Eli,
and have been reckoned as the son of Jacob, or vice
versa. But in that case Eli and Jacob must have been
brothers, that is, they must have descended from the
same father, but at this point Matthew and Luke diverge
again. The same difficulty recurs again higher up,
where Shealtiel, the father of Zerubbabel, is derived by
Matthew from Jechoniah, and by Luke from Neri. The
harmonists of the early Church supposed that here were
two cases of half-brotherhood, where the custom of the
Levirate had been put into operation. There is no
evidence, however, that this usage ever prevailed among
sons of the same mother but of different fathers. The
reader who also observes that between Joseph and
Zerubbabel Matthew reckons nine and Luke eighteen
steps, while Matthew counts only twenty-five between
Joseph and David against Luke's forty, will see that he
has before him two independent attempts to give genea
logical expression to the faith that Jesus, as Messiah, must
by his lineage have justified the nation's hope.

144 MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND PREPARATION.
(c) The genealogies which seek to connect Jesus with
David through Joseph are, further, incompatible with the
story of his miraculous birth from Mary. The Third
Evangelist displays an uneasy consciousness of this by
inserting the curious words ' as was supposed ' into his
statement that Jesus was the son of Joseph, Luke iii. 23.
And as the pedigrees cannot be reconciled with the birth-
stories, so neither can the two birth-stories be brought
into accord together. Luke relates the solemn Annun
ciation of her high destiny to the virgin as yet unmarried;
it is immediately followed by Mary's visit to Elizabeth in
Judaea, where Elizabeth salutes her as the mother of her
Lord, and the virgin's joy breaks forth in glorious song.
How could all this have remained unknown to Joseph ?
Yet in Matthew when he discovers that she is with child,
his suspicion is excited, and he only consents to receive
her as his wife after an angel has explained the matter to
him in a dream.
(d) The two narratives meet, however, at Bethlehem,
where the Christ is born. Yet even here, once more,
their harmony is reached by different ways. /The narra
tive of Matthew implies that Bethlehem was Joseph's
home, where he lived in his own house (ii. 1, n). Not
till afterwards does he go and dwell in Nazareth (ii. 23),
his settlement there being expressly designed to fulfil a
prophecy which cannot be verified.1 Luke, on the other
hand, represents Joseph and Mary as dwelling in Nazareth
from the first ; their presence in Bethlehem being due to
special circumstances. */ As soon as the forty days of
purification are over, the babe is presented in the temple,
1 See below, 4?, p. 158..

BIRTH AT BETHLEHEM. 145
and the parents, having discharged all the demands of
the law, ' return into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth '
(ii. 39). Where, then, are the Magi, the flight into Egypt,
the massacre of the children at Bethlehem, which form
such striking incidents in Matthew's story? The calcu
lation of Herod, founded on the dates supplied by the
Wise Men, shows that a much longer time must have
elapsed at Bethlehem than Luke's account would allow,
for the King, in order to make himself safe, destroys all
children 'from two years old and under,' Matt. ii. 16.
And if Joseph and Mary carried their babe back peace
fully from the Temple to their home at Nazareth, how
is this 'detail' to be 'harmoniously adjusted' with
Matthew's statement that they took him by night into
Egypt and remained there till Herod's death ? Must it
not rather be admitted, with modern apologists like
Meyer and Weiss, that the two narratives run on different
lines, and cannot be forced into any real accord ?
(2) If they cannot be received together, can either of
them establish any special claim to preference ? Each
will be found to be embarrassed by peculiar difficulties of
its own. Let us consider Matthew's story first.
(a) Its general character has the air of legend rather
than of fact. The frequent occurrence of dream-
warnings is of itself sufficient evidence that the narrator
stands far off from the event. He uses for his agency
the Old Testament figure of ' the Angel of the Lord '
(i. 20, ii. 13, 19); and the communications are not
reserved for Joseph only, they visit the Magi as well.
There is, indeed, a certain ambiguity about them : for
the instruction to return to the land of Israel (ii. 20) only
brings the child back into the very danger from which
L

146 MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND PREPARATION.
he had been rescued, and another intimation is needed
(ii. 22) to send him into safety at Nazareth.
(b) Perplexities of another kind gather round the
arrival of the Magi and the appearance of the star in the
East. Their questions at Jerusalem rouse an excitement
which reaches Herod's ears, though it would seem that
the angels' song at Bethlehem, and the language of
Simeon and Anna in the Temple, had made no stir.
Whence the Wise Men came, the story does not tell us,
nor are we informed how they knew that the wondrous
star heralded 'the King of the Jews.' Some modern
apologists have followed the great astronomer Kepler in
his efforts to identify this portent with a 'conjunction ' of
the three planets, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, in the year
7 or 6 b.c, which would have been seen at Jerusalem.
But this ' conjunction ' has plainly no resemblance to
Matthew's star, which does not seem to have been visible
on the Wise Men's journey to the Holy City, but on their
four miles' walk to Bethlehem once more appears 1 and
goes before them, till it stands over the house which
protects the infant King. The brilliant star noted by the
Chinese chronologers in a period corresponding in our
reckoning to the year 4 b.c equally fails to fulfil the
Gospel conditions. And it is not clear why the star
should not have done its work at once, and brought the
Magi to their goal direct. Then Herod would have
known nothing more of them than he knew of the
1 The words ' lo, the star which they saw in the east,'
Matt. ii. 9, imply that they had not seen it on the way to
Jerusalem. Had it guided them all the way, it could as well
have led them to Bethlehem without the necessity of making
enquiries in the Holy City.

BIRTH AT BETHLEHEM. 147
heavenly host, or of Simeon's prophecies : and the babes
in David's city would have been unharmed. History has,
in truth, crimes enough to lay at Herod's door ; but of
the slaughter of the Innocents it says not one word. In
this, at least, his memory is clear.
(3) The narrative of Luke is in hardly less violent
conflict with physical and historic fact.
(a) Here, likewise, the peculiar style alike of incident
and story at once arouses the attention even while it
charms the soul. The visit of the angel to Mary, which
Art has loved so often to portray, who does not see that
it is the symbol of an idea, not the record of an event !
The incident, it is averred, did not become known till
long time had elapsed. The Mother of Jesus kept her
secret till her death. We must not read the gospel-
words as a dry report of a conversation between the
Virgin and her heavenly visitor ; it is a literary attempt,
when she herself has passed away, to delineate what
must have been the moment of her most solemn experi
ence. When this explanation is seriously offered by
believers in the miraculous conception,1 it is plain that
the narrative itself contains no compelling evidence of
its own truth. The affinities to Old Testament language
are specially numerous and striking in the hymns
assigned to Mary, to Zachariah, and to Simeon ; while
the manifestation of the glory of the Lord, and the
praises chanted by the heavenly host, belong to the
sphere of religious imagination, not to the earth and sky
of common life.
(b) The enrolment which gives occasion to the journey
1 Weiss, Life of Christ, vol. i. pp. 223. 227.

148 MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND PREPARATION.
of Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem, cannot
be fitted either into imperial usage, or into secular
history. Such enrolment was for purposes of taxation ;
and it is said to have embraced ' all the world.' Three
times did Augustus impose a general taxation, not
indeed, upon all the provinces of the Empire, but upon
all Roman citizens, in the years 26 and 6 b.c, and 14
a.d. The first of these occasions is too early, and the
last too late. On the second, while Herod was still
alive, Judaea and Galilee were not under Roman jurisdic
tion for such purposes at all ; and even after Herod's
death, Judaea still remained for some years outside the
circle of imperial administration until the deposition of
his son Archelaus in a.d. 6.1 Moreover, the Roman
census was always taken at the citizen's own residence.

It has been pleaded that the arrangement which sent
Joseph to Bethlehem was a concession to Jewish ideas.
But how was it possible for every householder to betake
himself to the birthplace of an ancestor a thousand years
before ? 'Everyone,' we are told, 'went to his own city/
The whole population is set in motion, in ordjr^tpjjet
Mary to Bethlehem. And the device does not even
then secure its end ; for the law did not require the
registration of the citizen's wife, still less of his betrothed.
If we accept the judgment of the profoundest of modern
students of imperial Rome, the historian Mommsen, the
enrolment, as Luke describes it, was an impossibility.
(c) While the circumstances do not accord with the-
political or legal conditions, so neither can the time be:
fitted into the chronology. The Evangelist gives us a
1 Life in Pal.\ 22, p. 75.

THE GOVERNORSHIP OF QUIRINIUS. 149
date, which is thus rendered in the Revised Version,
Luke ii. 2 : —
This was the first enrolment made when Quirinius was
governor of Syria.
Now it is known from secular history that Quirinius was
governor of Syria, and did conduct a census for taxation,
though the measure was not part of an imperial scheme.
It was this which roused the rebellion of Judas mentioned
in Acts v. 37. But this did not take place till after the
death of Herod and the deposition of Archelaus; and
as the latter event belongs to the year 6 a.d. it cannot be
set earlier than a.d. 7. The gospel phrase, however,
' the first enrolment ' implies that more than one such
census was carried out by Quirinius ; and it has been
suggested that he filled the office of governor twice, and
that the incident of Luke occurred in his previous term.
Of this there is, indeed, no positive proof; but an
imperfect inscription found at Tivoli in the year 1764 has
been supposed to confirm it. The inscription, however,
contains no name, and historians have debated to whom
it refers. High authorities are ranged on different sides,
A. W. Zumpt, for instance, believing that it com
memorated Sentius Saturninus, who is expressly stated by
Tertullian to have been governor of Syria at the birth of
Jesus, while Mommsen argues that it applied to Quirinius.
It certainly does relate to some one who was twice con
nected with the administration of Syria. But it depends
on some missing words whether this officer served twice
as ' Governor,' as Mommsen supposes, or whether on the
first occasion he filled some other post. The historian
Tacitus mentions that Quirinius gained a victory over
some Cilician tribes ' soon after ' he had held the

150 MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND PREPARATION.
consulate (in b.c 12). It is conjectured that this was
among the services for which the triumph specified in the
inscription was decreed to the unknown hero, as the
eastern part of Cilicia was attached to the province of
Syria. In spite of all these ingenious adjustments, how
ever, the learned and orthodox Meyer remained uncon
vinced of a two-fold governorship of Quirinius in Syria,
and freely surrendered Luke's statement as ' manifestly
incorrect,' though he thought that ' something of the
'nature of a census must have taken place.'1 Mommsen,
on the other hand, while regarding the earlier governor
ship as ' clearly proved,' affirms that no one cognizant
of the facts can believe that any census was carried out
by the Romans at that time, 'whatever theologians, or
those who, like theologians, talk in bonds, may have
persuaded themselves or others : ' on the contrary, it must
be admitted that Luke blended truth with error.2 Where
each element in Luke's statement is thus alternately
declared unsound, it is impossible to place much confi
dence in their joint combination. / The third Evangelist
seeks to connect the advent of the Prince of Peace with
some act of the imperial power which the new-born
King was destined to overthrow. He emphasizes at the
outset the contrast between the Caesar and the Christ ; as
his thought passes from the splendour of the palace at
Rome where decrees are issued affecting ' all the world '
to the lowly manger at Bethlehem, he combines items
of scattered reminiscence into one whole, and it is not
surprising if they do not always fit. 7
1 Commentary on Luke ii. 2, p. 322-3.
2 Res Gestae Divi Augusti, Berolini, 1883, pp. 168, 176.

MESSIAH AS 'SON OF DAVID: 151
(4) If, however, the details of the birth-stories cannot
be verified by comparison either with each other, or with
science and history, can we in any way account for them
poetically? Can we discover- the ideas and emotions
which lie behind them and play through them ? Some
points at least may be discerned through the radiant haze
of emotion encompassing the infancy of the Christ,
round which pious imagination gathered with special
force. (a) As ' Son of David,' Messiah must have been born
in Bethlehem. Prophecy demanded it, as Matthew's
story shows us ; when Herod enquired of the chief
priests and scribes where he would enter the world, they
were ready with their answer from Micah v. 2 : —
And thou Bethlehem, land of Judah,
Art in no wise least among the princes of Judah :
For out of thee shall come forth a governor,
Which shall be shepherd of my people Israel. *
The Rabbis did not trouble themselves with the circum
stance that the prophet had in view the events of his own
time;2 let Assyria marshall her invading hosts, the
deliverer would arise to throw off the foreign yoke, and a
succession of princes should establish Judah's power,
v. 5:— And this man shall be Peace.
When the Assyrian shall come into our land,
And when he shall tread in our palaces,
Then shall we raise against him seven shepherds,
And eight princes among men.
1 The reader will note that the text as quoted in Matt. ii. 6
does not altogether agree with the passage in the original.
3 The latter part of the eighth century, B.C.

152 MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND PREPARATION.
The interpretation of the synagogue passed into the
Church, and Christian thought inherited the expectations
which sprang out of their common past. How power
fully the Messianic hope attached itself to the birth of
Jesus, may be seen in the hymns which celebrate it.
' He hath holpen Israel his servant,' cried Mary, after
the salutation of Elizabeth, ' that he might remember
' mercy towards Abraham and his seed for ever.'
' Redemption for his people,' and ' a horn of salvation in
'the house of his servant David,' are the theme of
Zachariah's song when his tongue is at last unloosed-
Simeon was looking for ' the consolation of Israel ' ; the
devout Anna announced the appearance of the Saviour
to ' all them that were looking ;for the redemption of
Jerusalem.' Everything, therefore, pointed to Bethlehem
as the place of the birth of Jesus. / Luke's story, starting
from the known historic fact that Nazarath was the home
of his father and mother, has to provide an occasion for
getting them to the city of David. Matthew's narrative,
on the other hand, assumes that Messiah's parents dwelt
in the abode of his royal ancestry, and then devises
means for changing their residence to Nazareth.'/
(b) The idea of Messiah as ' Son of God,' signalised
by Mark in the story of the Baptism, is carried back by
the narratives of Matthew and Luke to his very birth.
The first ' Son of God,' Adam (according to Luke), had
appeared upon the scene fresh from his Maker's hand ;
the second, though ' born of a woman,' as the Apostle
Paul says, Gal. iv. 4, must have owed his origin to direct
divine intervention. The Hebrew Scriptures loved to
tell of Isaac and Samuel, born wondrously to the old :
marvels gathered likewise round the birth of ancient

MESSIAH AS ' SON OF GOD.' 153
heroes like Gideon and Samson. That the ideas thus
suggested tended to connect themselves with Messiah,
is clear from such parallels as the following : —
Judges vi. 12. Luke i. 28.
And the angel of :the Lord And he [the angel Gabriel]
appeared unto him and said came in unto her, and said, Hail,
unto him, The Lord is with thou that are highly favoured,
thee, thou mighty man of the Lord is with thee.
valour. Judges xiii. 3, cp. 5. Luke i. 30, 31.
And the angel of the Lord And the angel said unto her,
appeared unto the woman and Fear not Mary, for thou hast
said unto her, Behold now, found favour with God. And
thou art barren and bearest behold, thou shalt conceive in
not, but thou shalt conceive and thy womb and bear a son.
bear a son.
When it is added that ' he shall be called the Son of the
' Most High,' we hear the echo of the prophetic promise
concerning David's offspring, ' I will be his father,
'and he shall be my son,' 2 Sam. vii. 14; the gift of
' the throne of his father David,' so that ' of his kingdom
'there shall be no end,' does but realise the hopes of
ancient time, — ' I will establish the throne of his kingdom
' for ever,' 2 Sam. vii. 13; 'of the increase of his
'government and of peace there shall be no end, upon
' the throne of David, and upon his kingdom,' Isaiah
ix. 7. The Holy Spirit which is to come upon Mary is
the same heavenly agency which rested on the prophets,
dwelt in the consecrated nation, and descended on
Messiah in the moment of divine appointment to his
high function, Mark i. 10, 11. That Messiah's mother
should be yet maiden, does not, indeed, seem to have
been part of the current hope. But the tendency to lift

154 MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND PREPARATION.
the great and noble above the range of ordinary men
worked even within Judaism itself, for Talmudic legend
(of unknown date it is true) ascribed virginity to the
mother of Moses ; and the Greek translation of the
passage in Isaiah vii. 14, which Matthew follows,
contained the very word which the Church wanted. As
with the passage from Micah, a promise referring to an
immediate event — the deliverance of Ahaz and his people
from the invasion of the allied kings Rezin and Pekah —
is detached from its context, and converted into a
prediction of Messiah's birth. The Hebrew word, which
simply means ' young woman,' was rendered in the
Greek version of the Scriptures (which the Church chiefly
used) ' the virgin ; ' and Matthew reveals the purport of
his narrative by the remark, ' Now all this is come to
'pass, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the
' Lord through the prophet.' The incidents of the story
had been ready waiting seven hundred years : as soon as
Messiah appeared, they must have happened.
(c) The relation of Messiah to different classes of the
people, and to the wider circle of the nations of the
world, seems to be reflected in the personages who
gather round the babe. The misery and distress of
antiquity arose largely from oppressive misgovernment,
from shameless injustice, and the tyranny of the rich
over the poor. The ideal king was to redress all wrongs
and judge the poor with righteousness. The Magnificat
accordingly anticipates vast social changes, when princes
shall be put down from their thrones, and those of low
degree exalted. So it is to the simple shepherds that
the angel host make known Messiah's birth; and they
find the babe lying in a manger. The promise is of

THE POOR AND THE GENTILES. 155
help to the suffering, of comfort to the poor. And to
the Gentiles, whom ancient hope had embraced in one
community of religion with Israel, Messiah comes as ' a
'light for revelation,' Luke ii. 32. The imagination
which had from the earliest days discerned in light a
symbol first of the actual presence of Deity, and then of
what we call religious truth, finds still more concrete
expression in Matthew's narrative. Light shone over
Galilee in olden time, when the wonderful child for
whom Isaiah hoped, was near, Is. ix. 1, 2. Light should
shine over the new Jerusalem when it rose from
desolation and ruin, as the nations flocked to it with their
gifts, and found in it the altar for the world, Is. lx. 1-7.
So to Messiah's feet did the Magi, representative of
Gentile wealth and learning, come, guided by a heavenly
light which at length rested over him ; and they brought
the very gifts of gold and frankincense which the
prophet had foretold, Matt. ii. 11, Is. lx. 6. That the
light, instead of being vaguely diffused, took the
concentrated form of a star, was probably suggested by
the ancient words attributed to Balaam, which Jewish
hope had long applied to Messiah, Numbers xxiv. 17 : —
I see him, but not now :
I behold him, but not nigh :
There shall come forth a star out of Jacob,
And a sceptre shall rise out of Israel.
(d) Among the elements peculiar to Matthew's
narrative is the story of Herod's futile attempt to rid
himself of one who might become a dangerous rival.
It is the beginning of the struggle between the power of
the world and the power that is of God. In the
picturesque imagery of Revelation, xii. 1-6, when the

156 MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND PREPARATION.
idealised Israel-mother, crowned with twelve stars, gives
birth to Messiah, a great red dragon stands before her,
ready to devour her offspring. But the man child, ' who
' is to rule all nations with a rod of iron,' is caught away
to God, and the woman flees to a shelter in the
wilderness. The idea is the same ; only the presentment
of it differs.1 But it was not a new one. Had not
Moses, who serves so often as Messiah's counterpart,
been in like peril ? The hints supplied in the book of
Exodus had been worked out into fuller detail in the
Jewish schools ; where the question ' Why did Pharaoh
' order that the Israelite male children should be cast
' into the Nile ? ' received the following answer : —
While the affairs of the Hebrews were in this condition, the
following reason made the Egyptians more solicitous for the
extinction of our nation. One of those sacred Scribes, who are
very sagacious in foretelling future events truly, told the king
that about this time there would be a child born to the Israelites,
who if he were reared, would bring the Egyptian dominion low,
and would raise the Israelites ; that he would excel all men in
virtue, and obtain a glory that would be remembered through all
ages. Which thing was so feared by the king, that at this
Scribe's suggestion he commanded that they should cast every
male child which was born to the Israelites into" the river, and
destroy it.2
Jewish imagination, therefore, accounted for Pharaoh's
order by supposing that it was directed to secure the
death of the predicted deliverer. But as Josephus
remarks, ' No one can prevail over the purpose of
1 This passage appears to belong to the Jewish and older part
of the Revelation.
2 Josephus, Antiquities, ii. 9, 2.

DANGER AND DELIVERANCE. 157
'God,' and Moses and Messiah were alike preserved.1
That reminiscence of the ancient story has found its way
into Matthew's narrative,, may be seen from the
coincidence in the phrases describing the return of
Moses to Egypt after his flight in consequence of the
death of the Egyptian, and the return of Joseph with
Jesus into Palestine. Matt. ii. 19-21.
But when Herod was dead,
behold an angel of the Lord
appeareth in a dream to Joseph
Exodus iv. 19, 23. in Egypt, saying, Arise and
And the Lord said unto take the young child and his
Moses in Midian, Go, return mother, and go into the land
into Egypt ; for all the men are of Israel ; for they are dead
dead which sought thy life. that sought the young child's
And Moses took his wife and life. And he arose and took
his sons, and set them upon an the young child and his mother,
ass, and he returned to the and came into the land of
land of Egypt. Israel.
(e) A further element in these stories, especially in
Matthew's, has been already named, the fulfilment of
prophecy. This it was which determined Messiah's
birth in Bethlehem ; this brought the Magi thither with
their gifts under the guidance of the star. This, too, has
its part in the massacre at Bethlehem, Matt. ii. 17, 18 •
and this settled the question of the place of Joseph's
flight. For had not the prophet Hosea said ' Out of
' Egypt did I call my son ? ' It is true that the same
passage showed, Hos. xi. 1, that the son was Israel, and
1 Compare the story of King Bimbisara, Beal, Romantic
History of Buddha, p. 103-4, and note the different close due to
Buddhist ethical conceptions.

158 MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND PREPARATION.
that the summons was made at the Exodus. But the
Rabbinical method of treating the Scriptures, which
passed into the Church, was not limited by the original
sense ; it seized on any passage which seemed expressive,
and drew from it the meaning it required. The selection
of Nazareth as the future home of the Messiah was
designed in like manner ' that it might be fulfilled which
'was spoken by the prophets, that he should be called
' a Nazarene.' No such utterance can now be found in
any prophetic oracle — still less (as the plural form
implies) in more than one. It is perhaps in part
suggested by the account of Samson who was to be a
' Nazirite,' and to ' save ' Israel, as Jesus was to ' save '
his people from their sins ; and it has been thought to
contain an echo of the promise that a ' Ndzer,' or ' shoot '
should come forth out of the stock of Jesse, Is. xi. i.
But these remote allusions are vague and unsatisfactory :
yet the difficulty of explaining the phrase shows with
what eagerness the Evangelist sought the most distant
confirmation of his story in the one source of authority
which he recognized, viz. prophecy.
(5) Our inability to ascertain precisely the conditions
under which the narratives of Messiah's birth arose, need
not deter us from forming a judgment as to their poetical
and imaginative character. It is plain that their authors
were saturated with the language of the Old Testament,
both Hebrew and Greek.1 It might be supposed that
they would have arisen more easily upon Gentile ground,
1 Every reader of the first two chapters of S. Luke's Gospel
will have observed the constant recurrence of Old Testament
phraseology which gives a special char/icter to the opening of
the book.

GROWTH OF LEGEND. 159
yet their clear roots in the ideas and phrases of the
Scriptures rather suggest Jewish sources. On the other
hand, the extreme Jewish section of the Church, the
Ebionites, rejected them; and a curious piece of
linguistic evidence implies that the theory of the
miraculous conception originated among those who
spoke Greek rather than Aramean. In Hebrew the
word for Spirit, ruach, is feminine : and in the Gospel of
the Hebrews, accordingly, Jesus refers to the Holy
Spirit as his mother. On the soil of Palestine, therefore,
this agency could hardly have been supposed to play a
father's part./ Certainly these opening stories presented
fewer stumbling blocks to Gentile readers, and Justin the
Martyr does not hesitate to compare the divine origin of
Perseus with the virgin birth of Christ ; the achievements
of iEsculapius who healed the sick and raised the dead,
with the Gospel miracles ; and the rise of Bellerophon
into the sky with the ascension, y Apart, however, from
these parallels in classical mythology which a Christian
teacher of the second century did not disdain to quote,
there are other cases where similar poetic growths may
be observed, within a period of time even shorter than
that between the career of Jesus and the Gospel records.
The lives of the saints are so obviously influenced by
Christian story that it will be better to present examples
whose independence cannot be denied.
(a) The philosopher Plato lived in the full blaze of
Athenian glory, in the most brilliant era of the Greek
thought and art which still exert so deep an influence
over cultivated minds. He died, above eighty years of
age, surrounded by friends and disciples, leaving his
nephew Speusippus to suceed him as president of the

160 MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND PREPARATION.
Academy. Yet his biographers were not certain whether
he was born at Athens or in the island of ^Egina, and
even his parentage was not decided. He passed, indeed,
for the son of Ariston and PerictionS. But Diogenes
Laertius, in his Lives of the Philosophers, quoting from
the funeral discourse prounced by Speusippus upon his
uncle, and from two other authorities, mentions the report
current in Athens that the philosopher was of more than
mortal birth. Immediately upon his marriage, Ariston
was warned by Apollo in a dream that the son whom
Perictione would bear was his. This story was handed
on by Plato's own nephew in the eulogium delivered on
his death. Even within his own life-time, then, among
his fellow-citizens, in the streets and groves he daily
trod, enthusiastic affection declared him the offspring
of a god.
(b) On the throne of Rome such adulation seems in
one sense less astonishing ; yet whence came, it may be
asked, the stories which gathered round Caesar Augustus ?
In the life which his freedman Julius Marathus wrote of
his imperial master, it was related that a few months
before his birth a prodigy occurred publicly at Rome, by
which it was foretold that Nature would bring forth a
king for the Roman people. The terrified Senate,
goaded by the fear which had impelled a Pharaoh and
was to incite a Herod, passed a decree ordering the death
of every child born that year ; Marathus having to explain
as best he could why the decree was not laid up in the
archives. Another writer named Asclepiades, who had
no connection with Augustus himself, and belonged to a
generation after him, affirmed in a treatise entitled
' Theologumena,' concerned apparently with comparative

LEGEND OF THE BUDDHA. 161
mythology, that the future emperor's mother had
conceived him miraculously in the temple of Apollo, so
that the first Caesar was the son of a god. It is not to be
supposed that Asclepiades, who lived in Egypt, himself
invented the tale. He gathered it into his collection ;
had the rest of his materials come down to us, we might
have possessed still further illustrations of the rapidity with
which reverence or flattery could clothe itself in
mythologic form.
(c) A more remarkable parallel meets us in the legend
of the Buddha. The general similarity of the expecta
tion of the ' Great Man ' to that of the Messiah has been
already pointed out.1 It is noteworthy also that some of
the details which gathered round the birth of the Buddha
resemble incidents in the infancy of the Christ. When
the future Buddha made himself incarnate in his mother's
womb, an immeasurable light appeared throughout the
world. The reign of peace began : —
The blind received their sight; the deaf heard ; the dumb spake ,-
the crooked became straight ; the lame walked ; all prisoners
were freed from their bonds ; in each hell the fire was extinguished ;
the wild animals ceased to be afraid ; the illness of the sick was
allayed; all men began to speak kindly.2
On the day when the wondrous child was born, the
angel host rejoiced, saying,
In Kapilavastu, to Suddhodana the king, a son is born, who,
seated under the Bo-tree, will become a Buddha, and will found a
kingdom of righteousness.
An aged ascetic, hearing the angels' song, entered the
1 See chap. iv. $ 3, 3, p. 137.
2 Buddhist Birth Stories, translated by T. W. Rhys Davids,
vol. i., p. 64 (a few words have been left out). M

162 MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND PREPARATION.
palace and asked to see the boy. Perceiving that he
would most certainly become a Buddha, he smiled ; but
he could not, like Simeon, sing his Nunc dimittis ; as he
reflected that he would have passed into another world
before the child would have gained the fulness of
enlightenment, so that he could not be taught by him, he
wept. Four days later, the ceremony of choosing the
boy's name was performed. The Brahmans were gathered
in the palace ; eight of them knew the mystic marks of
the ' Great Man ; ' and the youngest of them, beholding
their perfection on the babe presented to him, declared
' Verily, he will become a Buddha, and remove the veils
' of sin and ignorance from the world.'
Here are again some of the familiar traits. The
Buddha is the founder of a kingdom of righteousness,
where love and truth shall reign throughout the world.
He is miraculously conceived ; his advent is heralded by
a burst of light j1 peace and goodwill prevail, not among
men, only, but among beasts as well ; angels celebrate
his birth: and sages prophetically discern his future
greatness, and declare that he will save men from their
sins. In the social conditions of the valley of the
Ganges, the absence of national enmities and the rival
claims of race, there was no place for that national
motive which plays so large a part in the Hebrew hope.
1 In the later Chinese version the marvellous light shines
again at his birth. Its symbolic meaning was perfectly well
understood, for it is observed ' now this miraculous light is one
'of the signs of Buddha's future conquest over the powers of
' darkness and sin.' And again, ' The light which appeared at
' his birth, refers to the excellency of his doctrine.' Beal
Romantic History of Buddha, pp. 43, 45.

THE SYNOPTIC NARRATIVES. 163
But the moral elements in the two great ideal figures of
the Buddha and the Christ have many traits in common.
It is not surprising, therefore, that poetic imagination
clothed them in similar forms.'-

§ 2. The Baptism.
The stories of the Birth of Jesus represent a later
stage of reflection on his person and origin than the
narratives of his Baptism. But these have in like manner
received their present shape under the influence of the
Messianic conception. A rapid examination of them
will perhaps make this clear.
(i) No marked differences exist between these brief
accounts such as render the descriptions of the Infancy
in Matthew and Luke incapable of mutual adjustment.
But when they are set side by side, more delicate
variations may be observed, which are assuredly not
without their hidden cause.
Mark i. 9-1 1. Luke iii. 21-22. Matt. iii. 13, 16, 17.
And it came to Now it came to Then cometh Jesus
pass in those days pass when all the from Galilee to the
that Jesus came from people were baptized, Jordan unto John, to
Nazareth of Galilee, that Jesus also hav- be baptized of him.
and was baptized of ing been baptized, And Jesus, when he
John in the Jordan, and praying, the was baptized, went
And straightway heaven was opened, up straightway from
coming up out of the and the Holy Spirit the water ; and lo,
water, he saw the descended in a bodily the heavens were
heavens rent as- form, as a dove, upon opened,1 and he saw
1 Omit ' unto him,' with the margin, and Westcott and Hort.

164 MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND PREPARATION.
under, and the Spirit him ; and a voice the Spirit of God
as a dove descending came out of heaven, descending as a dove,
upon him ; and a Thou art my beloved and coming upon
voice came out of Son, in thee I am him ; and lo, a voice
the heavens, Thou well pleased. out of the heavens,
art my beloved Son, saying, This is my
in thee I am well beloved Son, in whom
pleased. I am well pleased.
Among these different renderings of the same event,
Mark's, it will be seen, is the simplest, and it may,
therefore, be provisionally placed first. It describes the
endowment of Jesus as Messiah, with the Spirit which
should qualify him for the high office. So ancient
prophecy had declared that on the hero-king should
rest the sevenfold Spirit of Yahweh, Is. xi. 2-3 ; and the
same heavenly power fitted the ' Servant ' of his choice
to carry the true religion to the nations, Is. xiii. i.1
Mark, accordingly, presents Jesus as Messianically
equipped at his baptism. That is the moment when he
sees the heavens opened and he receives the Spirit. By
these symbols, it is plain, the Evangelist describes an
inward experience, not an outward event. The emblem
of the dove was a common symbol in Rabbinical theology
for the Spirit, which ¦ dove-like sat brooding o'er the vast
abyss,' Gen. i. 1, or was heard in the land amid the
flowers and birds, Cant. ii. 12. The voice that follows
speaks to Jesus only, in language founded on the royal
psalm, ' Thou art my Son,' Ps. ii. 7, and the commission
given to the anointed servant, ' my chosen, in whom my
'soul delighteth,' Is. xiii. 1. This, then, according to
Mark, is the true birth-hour of Jesus as Messiah, the
1 On these two different elements in the Messianic ideal, see
chap. iv. { 2, 2, a, e.

THE BAPTISM. 165
moment of God's election, and his own self-consecration
to the heavenly cause. But to Luke and Matthew, who
have already described his endowment with the Spirit
through his conception, and have carried back his
Messianic character to his nativity, this view of the
baptism is not possible. ' Son of God ' by nature, he
needs no divine adoption ; he is already what Mark
represents him as becoming; and though the
genealogies which assign to him a human origin,
would be naturally followed by the dedication on the
Jordan's bank, yet the stories of the wondrous birth are
not. Accordingly by slight touches the older presentation
of a private and personal sanctification is converted into a
public attestation of his office. In Luke's narrative the
opened heavens are not for Jesus only ; the Spirit comes
down ' in a bodily form,' and is therefore visible to all
the people. Matthew here seems to endeavour to
combine the two, employing Luke's phrase ' the heavens
' were opened ' with Mark's ' he saw the Spirit descend-
' ing as a dove.'1 But he leaves no doubt of the external
character of the incident, for a bold change transforms
the heavenly utterance into an address not to Jesus but
to the witnesses around, ' This is my beloved Son.'
(2) A further comparison of these narratives of the
baptism with those of other gospels will show in what
various forms the early Church expressed the thought
that this was the real beginning of the career of Jesus as
Messiah. Quoting from the ' Memoirs ' Justin reports
1 Later harmonists sought to complete this by adding the
words ' unto him.' For further evidence of Matthew's method of
occasional compilation, e.g. in the description of John the
Baptist, see chap, x., § 3, 3.

166 MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND PREPARATION.
the words of the voice in actual coincidence with
Psalm ii. 7 : —
Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee :
a variant which occurs in an early manuscript of Luke
iii. 22. The Ebionite Gospel placed this by the side of
the form now in Mark and Luke, adding that the dove
entered into Jesus. The Gospel of the Nazarenes told
the story thus : —
It came to pass when the Lord came up out of the water, that
the whole fountain of the holy Spirit descended, rested over him,
and said, My Son, in all the prophets I awaited thee, that thou
shouldest come, and I might rest upon thee. For thou art my
resting-place, thou art my first-born son, that reignest for
evermore.With this the Gospel of the Hebrews concurs, prefixing a
detail which is mentioned also by Justin, that ' when Jesus
'was being baptised, fire appeared on the water.'
(3) One more element remains to be noted. The
modifications in Matthew and Luke from the older form
in Mark, are apparently due to different conceptions of
the origin and nature of the Messianic function ascribed
to Jesus. But it was inevitable that a further question
should in due time arise. The baptism of John was a
baptism of repentance ; and those who submitted, to it
confessed their sins. If Jesus was Messiah before he
came to Jordan's bank, if he were Son of God by birth
and being, what need had he of such a baptism ? To
Mark and Luke this difficulty was not present : Mark
could not feel it : to Luke, apparently, it had not
occurred. The Fourth Evangelist seems to have quietly
avoided it by omitting the baptism altogether, Not
always, however, could it be thus escaped; and the
Gospel of the Hebrews faced it bravely thus :—

MESSIAH'S SINLESSNESS. 167
Behold the mother of the Lord and his brothers said to him,
John the Baptist baptizeth unto remission of sins, let us go and
be baptized of him. But he said to them, In what have I sinned
that I should go and be baptized by him, unless this very thing
which I say is ignorance.
The Gospel of the Ebionites presents us with another
scene, not between Messiah and his family but between
Messiah and John. After the heavenly utterance, 'This
' day have I begotten thee,' the narrative continued : —
And straightway a great light shone round about the place.
And when he saw it, John saith to him, Who art thou, Lord ?
And again a voice from heaven came unto him, This is my
beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Then John falling
down before him, saith, I entreat thee, Lord, baptise me. But he
prevented him, saying, Suffer it, for thus it is fitting that all
things should be fulfilled.
The Ebionite story attributes John's recognition of his
Lord to the declarations of the heavenly voice. The
addition in which Matthew deals with the same theme,
leaves the reader in doubt how the Baptist discerned
the real character of the applicant for his baptism,
Matt. iii. 14, 15 : —
Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan unto John, to be
baptized of him. But John would have hindered him, saying, I
have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me ? But
Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it now, for thus it
becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.
In this insertion, thrust in by Matthew through the older
tradition, have we not further evidence of the mode in
which the Messianic idea fashioned the Gospel material
to suit its needs ?

168 MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND PREPARATION.

$ 3. The Temptation.
The hour of Messiah's dedication was followed by the
season of his severest trial. Into the secrets of that
struggle, the Church sought in vain to penetrate. Con
scious that no noble mind can undertake great tasks
without conflict, it prefixed to the stoiy of the Teacher's
ministry a picture of Messiah's temptation, expanded by
later hands into a dramatic series of three acts.1 The
Messianic elements in these it is not difficult to specify.
(i) The locality was naturally the wilderness. There
was the scene of the long discipline of Israel, Yahweh's
' first-born ' son, whose forty years of trial set the
standard of number, repeated on a smaller scale in
Moses' fast of forty days upon the mount, and Elijah's
journey without food to Horeb. And the wilderness was
also pre-eminently the place of evil spirits. One of the
tasks which awaited Messiah, according to the Jewish
theologians, was to conquer Satan and overcome the
demons:2 well might Satan take fright, as they said, at
his aspect, for Messiah would cast him and all the wicked
1 The Greek word for temptation or trial, as applied to Jesus,
Mark i. 13 and parallels, Luke xxii. 28, is the same word which
occurs in the Lord's Prayer, ' lead us not into temptation.' The
idea that the righteous must be tried or proved, was familiar to
Hebrew thought. So Abraham was ' tried ' or ' tempted ' by
Yahweh, Gen. xxii. 1 ; and with Yahweh's permission Satan
similarly tests Job. Later Jewish imagination reckoned ten
temptations to Abraham, and when he had been victorious in
them all, ' the Lord blessed him in all things,' Gen. xxiv. 1.
2 On the process by which Satan came to stand at the head of
the evil spirits, see Life in Palestine, p. 62.

THE FIGHT WITH EVIL. 169
heathen into hell. This theme is presented in highly
dramatic form in the Revelation : and it greets us at the
outset of the Teacher's labours in Galilee, when the
unclean spirit in the synagogue at Capernaum cries out,
'What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth?
' Art thou come to destroy us ? I know thee who thou
'art, the Holy One of God.' The founding of the
kingdom might thus be regarded as an organized attack
on the powers of evil ; nor was there any hope, as Jesus
himself remarked, that the strong man's house could be
entered, unless the strong man were first bound, Mark
iii. 27. The earliest attempts, therefore, to portray
Messiah's fight with sin, set him alone in the wilderness
confronting Satan. True, the wild beasts were with him,
symbols, perhaps, of the hostile powers of the world, but
Messiah should tread on the young lion and the adder.
True, the angels were not far away, but waited for the
moment of victory, to offer their services and supply
Messiah's needs. Neither angel nor beast, however,
could make or mar Messiah's triumph, the peril and the
glory were his alone. So Mark sums up the crisis with
fitting brevity, i. 13 : —
And he was in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan ;
and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered
unto him.
(2) Reflection on Messiah's life, however, soon strove
to fathom the mystery of such an experience. What
kind of trials beset him ? How did Satan seek to get
him into his power ? To ask such questions was to call
forth their answers. The historical Jesus and the ex
pected Messiah had but to be contrasted, and the key to
Satan's wiles must lie in their difference. The Church

170 MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND PREPARATION.
owed its birth to a wandering teacher, sometimes house
less and hungry; when Messiah was famished, what
more vivid illustration could be conceived of the scanty
resources with which Jesus had boldly undertaken the
most tremendous task ? Well might the tempter call on
him to show that he possessed powers adequate to his
enterprize, or invite him to escape by miracle from
personal want : — ' If thou art the Son of God, command
' that these stones become bread.' When Messiah does
at length feed the hungry, it is for the crowd who have
hung upon his lips all day, and have thus learned that
man doth not live by bread alone, that his wondrous
power is exercised. That incident in the Tradition,
placed like the Temptation in the wilderness, is followed
by the demand of the Pharisees for a sign, by which
Messiah's might should be triumphantly established.
Brief as are the records, it is probable enough that
Jesus was met again and again by such demands. Out
of the memory of them sprang the temptation which
Matthew places second, to give some public demon
stration of the divine power which upheld him. Let him
but fling himself from some Temple height, and descend
unharmed amid the crowd below ! Raised on the
pinnacle of his first successes, what giddy dreams of
daring venture might not have crossed his mind ! But
no, he will not tempt Providence by quitting the
appointed way of moral endeavour. Lastly, the Church
assigned to the beginning of his career, in altered form,
the trial which historical remembrance placed at its most
critical moment. At Caesarea Philippi Peter, in the name
of the Twelve, acknowledged him the Messiah, Mark
viii. 29. The disciples looked for him to lead them to

TEMPTATION OF ZOROASTER. 171
sovereignty; he saw that his pathway pointed to death.
When Peter encouragingly rebuked him, ' this shall
' never be unto thee,' he turned with vehemence upon
him, ' Get thee behind me, Satan,' adding immediately
after, 'What doth it profit a man to gain the whole
' world, and forfeit his soul ? ' The scene remained too
firmly embedded in the Tradition to be disturbed. But
has it not suggested the temptation, which Matthew
artistically places at the climax, to grasp at worldly
power, forsaking allegiance to the only True ? ' Get
'thee behind me, Satan,' cries Jesus to Peter, as his
disciple offers him a throne instead of a cross. ' Get
' thee hence, Satan,' cries Messiah to the Devil, when he
will not purchase empire by unfaithfulness.
(3) The symbolism of Christian story is not without
parallels elsewhere ; and in proportion to the moral force
of the religious consciousness, will be the prominence
ascribed to such conflicts of legendary heroes with the
powers of evil. The Greek fable of the choice of
Herakles shows none of that passionate intensity which
marks the brief narrative of the Evangelists. But in the
records of a religion which has some striking affinities
with the faith of Israel, there are traces of a struggle not
wholly unlike that of Jesus with the ' Adversary.' The
ancient Persians embodied their beliefs in a collection of
Scriptures which have come down to us under the name
of the Zend-Avesta. The central figure of these writings
was known to the Greeks under the name of Zoroaster ;
they supposed him to have been the founder of the
religion of the Magi ; and some writers actually placed
him as early as six thousand years before the death of
Plato. It is not necessary for our purpose now to

172 MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND PREPARATION.
enquire whether such a teacher ever really lived. But it
is worth while to point out that in his character of
prophet, champion of righteousness, and revealer of the
truth, he is exposed to a trial on the same line as
Messiah's. Over against the supreme power of good,
Ahura Mazda, 'Lord all-knowing,' stands the hostile
power of evil, Angra Mainyu.1 The appearance of
Zoroaster, at whose birth ' all the creatures of the good
' creations cried out, Hail ! ' who was the first to think
good thoughts, to speak good words, and perform good
deeds,2 threatens Ahriman's sway; all his energy, there
fore, is directed against his rival. Later legends related
how from his birth to his thirtieth year Zoroaster was
exposed to continual danger by the attacks of the demons,
till his wondrous powers overcame them all, and they
ceased to beset him. But in the Avesta these conflicts,
though more obscurely related, strike a deeper note of
moral experience. The assault, indeed, is made on one
occasion, against his life.
From the regions of the North3 forth rushed Angra Mainyu,
the deadly. And thus spake the guileful one, he the evil-doer,
Ahriman, the deadly : ' Demons ! rush down upon him ! destroy
' the holy Zoroaster ! ' The demon came rushing along, the
unseen death, the hell-born.
Zoroaster chanted aloud the Ahuna-Vairya : 4 ' The will of the
' Lord is the law of holiness, the riches of Vohumano [good
' thought] shall be given to him who works in this world for
1 These names are often known under contracted forms,
Ormazd and Ahriman.
2 Sacred Books of the East, xxiii. p. 201-202.
3 Probably, that is, from hell.
4 A sacred prayer by which Ormazd himself in his first
conflict with Ahriman had beaten him back.

TEMPTATION OF ZOROASTER. 173
' Mazda [the All-knowing], and wields according to the will of
'Ahura [the Lord] the power he gave him to relieve the poor.'
The demon dismayed rushed away, the unseen death, the hell-
born. And the demon, the guileful one, said unto Ahriman : ' O
' baneful Ahriman ! I see no way to kill him, so great is the
' glory of the holy Zoroaster.' l
Foiled in the endeavour to get Zoroaster's life into his
power, Ahriman seeks to avert the impending overthrow
of his own sovereignty of evil by offering his antagonist
the glory of imperial sway.
Again to him said the guileful one, the maker of the evil world,
Ahriman -. ' Do not destroy my creatures, O holy Zoroaster.
' Renounce the good laws of the worshippers of Mazda, and
' thou shalt gain such a boon as . Zohak 2 gained, the ruler of the
¦ nations.' Thus in answer to him said Zoroaster : ' No 1 never will I
' renounce the good law of the worshippers of Mazda, though my
' body, my life, my soul, should burst.'
Finally when Ahriman enquires by whose word he will
strike and repel, Zoroaster replies, ' The word taught by
' Mazda, these are my weapons, my best weapons ! '
And after chanting once more the sacred prayer, he
exclaims, ' This I ask thee: teach me the truth, O Lord!'3
Here are substantially the same elements as in the
Gospel story; the effort of the tempter to beguile the
holy prophet from his task by offering to set him on a
throne is baffled through his reliance on the 'words
1 Zend-Avesta, pt. i, in Sacred Books of the East, vol. iv.
p. 204.
3 A legendary king who was said to have ruled the world a
thousand years.
3 Sacred Books of the East, vol. iv. p. 206.

174 MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND PREPARATION.
'taught by the All-knowing,' just as Jesus overcomes
Satan with a thrice repeated ' It is written.'
(4) The Zend-Avesta does not connect the assault of
Ahriman with any special crisis in Zoroaster's life. But
the reflective imagination which places the Temptation
of Jesus immediately after his investiture with Messianic
dignity, finds a counterpart in the Buddhist Scriptures in
the conflict between Gotama and the Evil One as soon
as he had attained supreme Enlightenment. On the night
when the young Prince made the ' Great Renunciation,'
leaving wife and child and home, to devote himself to
the quest of truth for the sake of his fellow-men, Mara,
the Indian Satan, appeared at the city gate with the offer
of world-wide rule J : —
Standing in the air he exclaimed, ' Depart not, O my Lord !
' In seven days from now the wheel of empire will appear, and will
' make you sovereign over the four continents and the two
' thousand adjacent isles. Stop, O my Lord.'
' Mara ! well do I know that the wheel of sovereignty would
' appear to me ; but it is not sovereignty that I desire. I will
' become a Buddha, and make the ten thousand world-systems
' shout for joy.'
Then thought the Tempter to himself : ' Now from this time
' forth, whenever a thought of lust or anger or malice shall arise
' within you, I will get to know of it.' And he followed him,
ever watching for some slip, as closely as a shadow which never
leaves its object.
Years afterwards, when the quest was completed and the
goal attained, Gotama sat plunged in meditation on the
mysteries which he and he alone now understood. As
he cast his eyes over the myriad forms of human
character, and thought of the stupid and indifferent, the
1 Birth Stories, translated by T. W. Rhys Davids, vol. i. p. 84,

TEMPTATION OF THE BUDDHA. 175
vain, the selfish, the greedy and passionate, who would
not hear the word, the desire arose within him to remain
silent : ' With great pains have I acquired it. Enough 1
' why should I now proclaim it ? This doctrine will not
' be easy to understand for beings that are lost in lust and
' hatred.' This was the real Temptation, to choose a life
of ease and rest in quiet seclusion in place of the cease
less toil of the Teacher. But the Buddhist Order, fixing
its thought on the official rather than the personal
character of its founder, gathered up the trials of life
long labour into one single battle with the forces of sin.
On the night when he attained supreme Enlightenment he
stood, as an ancient verse said, ' dispelling the hosts of
' the Evil One, like the sun that illuminates the sky.'1 Out
of this phrase imagination constructed a mighty army
which Mara led to the assault. But the weapons that
were hurled at him fell as garlands of flowers at his feet.
As the Buddha saw the ranks of the fiends approaching,
' Making the virtues my shield,' he thought, ' I must strike
' this host with the sword of virtue, and thus overwhelm
'it.' Baffled and defeated, at length Mara departed;
'I find no sin in him,' he said, 'and now indeed he is
' beyond my power.' Week after week went by, and the
Buddha ate no food ; the three daughters of Mara,
Craving, Discontent, and Lust, tried all their wiles against
him, but in vain ; until at length on the forty-ninth day
the king of the gods brought water for his face, and the
four guardian angels ministered unto him.2 The sym
bolism of all this is plain enough. It has been developed
1 Sacred Books of the East, vol. xiii. p. 78.
2 Birth Stories, vol. i. p. 96 foil., 106-109.

176 MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND PREPARATION.
further than that of the Gospels. But the meaning is
still essentially the same. In their temptation, as in
their nativity, the figures of the Buddha and the Messiah
embody in different forms the eternal hope of the triumph
of humanity over evil.

CHAPTER VI.
THE MIRACLES.
The value of the Gospel miracles is necessarily
estimated very differently in different schools of thought.
It is not the purpose of our present enquiry to examine
the difficulties attending the conception of miracle in
relation to the divine Order of Nature. Nor are we
concerned with their evidential aspect, with the connection,
that is, between the occurrence of certain outward events
and the demonstration of certain truths to the intellect or
the enforcement of certain principles on the conscience.
The older rationalism of Locke regarded Jesus as proved
to be the Messiah by his miracles, though even he
observed in his journal privately, as early as 1681, 'Even
' in those books which have the greatest proof of
' revelation from God, and the attestation of miracles to
' confirm their being so, the miracles are to be judged
' by the doctrine, and not the doctrine by the miracles.'
The conformity of a given Teaching with the moral and
spiritual nature of man appeared, therefore, to Locke to
possess far more significance than the external incidents
with which it was associated, and actually supplied a
standard by which they might themselves be appraised.

178 THE MIRACLES.
At a later stage of thought the most strenuous efforts
were made to explain the New Testament miracles out
of exaggerated representations of real events. The
Transfiguration, it was suggested, was due to the effect
of the setting sun upon a thunder cloud ; while the two
men whom the disciples supposed to be Moses and
Elijah, were two friends of Jesus with whom he had
appointed a secret meeting, or had even arranged a kind
of dramatic display. This method of criticism has given
way before a more careful study of the conditions of
thought under which miraculous narratives arise.
Whether or not miracles really happen, the historian
has to account for the belief that they do. He finds
that the miracles of any one place or time cannot be
considered by themselves, apart from the miracles of
other places and times. He takes note of the prevailing
character of the age and the people; he asks for
contemporary documents, for proofs of careful observation,
for the evidence of impartial judgment and correct
record. Knowing the mode in which heightened
expectation helps to give a special direction to the report
of utterance or incident, he enquires into the nature and
force of any special ideas which may affect the testimony
by powerfully exciting the imagination.1 Only when due
allowance has been made for such sources of error, can
he then attempt to ascertain the exact fact, and distinguish
it from the alleged explanation.
1 On this subject see an essay by the late Dr. W. B. Carpenter
on ' Fallacies of Testimony in Relation to the Supernatural,' in
the Contemporary Review, January, 1876, reprinted in Nature
and Man, p. 239.

ABSENCE OF DIRECT TESTIMONY. 179

§ 1. The Atmosphere of Faith.
How far do the First Three Gospels fulfil these
demands ? It is plain at once that they are the product
of an age of faith; it is the everlasting gain of the
human race that they were not written under the domin
ance of the scientific spirit. But those who search for
the historical reality which they contain, cannot excuse
themselves from testing them by the methods of scientific
enquiry. Let us ask, therefore, first, what were the
general aspects of current belief in the period when they
took shape.
(i) The mode in which the tradition of Jesus was
originally formed, has been already examined. It has
been seen that Jesus himself left nothing written. No
account of mighty work or wonder has come to us from
his own hand. And the narratives of the Evangelists, as
the enquiry into their structure will hereafter show,
constantly differ in detail, and bear no sort of attestation
to their accuracy. In directness of evidential value they
must be pronounced to be further from the events which
they describe than many records of the later Church.
Here, for instance, is the account given by William of
Thierry, one of the friends of St. Bernard, of Bernard's
treatment by his uncle Galderic and his brother Guido
after his first miracles, in 1123, when he was about
thirty-two years old.1
Neither did they spare his tender modesty, exciting him with
1 Translated by J. C. Morison, Life and Times of St. Bernard,
p. 63.

180 THE MIRACLES.
harsh words, deprecating his good deeds, making nothing of his
signs, and afflicting the meek and unresisting one even to tears
by their harshness and insults. Godfrey, the venerable Bishop
of Langres, who was a near relative of the holy man, and ever
afterwards his inseparable companion, used to say that on the
occasion of the first miracle which he ever saw him perform, the
said Guido was present. It happened as they were passing
Chateau Landon in the territory of Sens, that a certain youth
having an ulcer in his foot, begged, with many prayers, of
Bernard to touch and bless him. Bernard made the sign of
the cross, and immediately the lame was healed. A very few
days after, as they returned through the same place, they found
him whole and well. Still Guido could not be restrained, even
by the miracle, from rebuking him, and taxing him with presump
tion for having consented to touch the lad, so anxious about him
in the bond of charity was his brother.
Four and twenty years later, in 1147, Bernard's miracles,
observes Mr. Morison, astonished everybody, himself
included, so that he became quite uneasy on the subject
of his own extraordinary powers. He frequently dis
cussed the matter with certain of the brethren, and his
secretary Godfrey reports the Saint's perplexities in the
following terms : 1
I can't think what these miracles mean, or why God has
thought fit to work them through such an one as I. I do not
remember to have read even in Scripture, of anything more
wonderful. Signs and wonders have been wrought by holy men
and by deceivers. I feel conscious neither of holiness nor deceit.
I know that I have not those saintly merits which are illustrated
by miracles. I trust, however, that I do not belong to the
number of those who do wonderful things in the name of God,
and yet are unknown of the Lord.
The evidence here is derived from Bernard himself, his
1 Life and Times of St. Bernard, p. 406.

VALUE OF EVIDENCE. 181
secretary Godfrey, his relatives and friends; and the
miracles were some of them recorded at once in letters
written on the Abbot's journey to the brethren in the
monastery at Clairvaux. — When Francis Xavier was on
his way back to India after his missionary labours in
Japan, in 1551, a terrible storm overtook the ship in
which he sailed. At midnight of the second day the
ship's boat which had been secured at the stern, was
parted from the vessel with fifteen men in her. The
ship righted and got once more before the wind, but the
boat was lost to sight. When daylight came, nothing
could be seen of it. An hour later, Xavier asked the
master pilot to send a sailor aloft to look out. The
pilot and a sailor climbed to the top together, but after
half an hour they reported that nothing appeared. All
day Xavier remained in his cabin praying, while the ship
ran before the wind. At sunset he came on deck again,
and then begged the pilot and the mate to go aloft once
more. They remained up a good long time, but still
affirmed they could see nothing over the whole sea.
After moments of earnest prayer, while Xavier laid his
hand upon the bulwark, a boy seated in the shrouds
cried ' Miracle, miracle, here is our boat.' It was on the
waves, not further than a gunshot off. The sailors wept
and shouted ; they came to throw themselves at Xavier's
feet ; but he withdrew into the Captain's cabin and shut
himself up inside that no one might speak to him.
Meanwhile, the crew of the lost boat were received into
the ship. This incident is related in full by Mendez
Pinto who was on board the vessel at the time ; it was
supported by the evidence of various others, passengers
and crew, including two Portuguese noblemen connected

182 THE MIRACLES.
with the royal house, a sea captain, and the man who
went aloft to look out, who gave their testimony under
oath juridically. x There is nothing in the New Testa
ment to be compared to this for precision and detail ;
just as there is nothing in the tradition of Jesus so
explicit and so near the event as the language of Bernard
and the letters of his Secretary. But the cures may be
explained physiologically, as the result of the influence
of a potent personality aided by the patient's faith and
hope; while in the case of the restoration of the boat
and its crew we ask how long after the event was the
narrative of Mendez Pinto recorded, were the depositions
of the witnesses taken separately, why were none of
the fifteen men in the boat examined ; and since these
and other questions cannot be answered, we suspend
our judgment, without attempting to determine what
may have been the real circumstances at the bottom of
the story.
(2) Although, however, Jesus left no record, we are
not without evidence, apart from the Gospels, of the
thoughts and feelings of the age in which they arose.
The early Church, the cultivated Gentile mind, the
teaching in which Jewish education consisted, are all
known to us ; and these throw abundant light on the
contemporary modes of belief.
(a) li there be no written word from Jesus, there is
from the apostle Paul ; and he undoubtedly claims both
for himself and for the Church at large, the possession of
miraculous power.
1 See the Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier, by Henry
James Coleridge, S. J., vol. ii. pp. 352-357.

THE APOSTOLIC AGE. 188
For I will not dare to speak of any things save those which
Christ wrought through me, for the obedience of the Gentiles by
word and deed, in the power of signs and wonders, in the power
of the holy Spirit. — Rom. xv. 18, 19.
In nothing was I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I am
nothing. Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you
in all patience, by signs and wonders and mighty works.—
2 Cor. xii. 11, 12.
The character of the signs and wonders is not here
specified : it may perhaps be inferred from the
enumeration of the gifts bestowed on the Church, 1 Cor.
xii. 9, 10, 28 : —
To another gifts of healings, in the one Spirit ; and to another
workings of miracles [mighty works, as in 2 Cor. xii. 12] ; and
to another prophecy ; and to another discernings of spirits ; to
another divers kinds of tongues; and to another the interpretation
of tongues  God hath set some in the Church, first
apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles
[mighty works], then gifts of healing, helps, governments, divers
kinds of tongues.
No particulars are ever given by the apostle, but it is
plain that the most diverse elements of belief could
co-exist in his mind. Side by side with the eighth
chapter of the Epistle to the Romans stands a reference
to the extraordinary Rabbinic fancy that the rock whence
Moses drew a miraculous water-supply actually followed
the Israelites in their wanderings for forty yeare ; ' for
'they drank of a spiritual rock which followed them,'
the apostle adding triumphantly, 'and the rock was
Christ,' / Cor. x. 4. Such conceptions presented no
difficulties to him; they were easily transformed by a
glowing imagination into facts. But the account which

184 THE MIRACLES.
the apostle supplies, r Cor. xiv., concerning prophesying
and speech with tongues, which made the meetings of
the Church seem rather like assemblies of lunatics,
shows how ready he was to believe in supernatural
agencies. The excited and unintelligible utterance ' in a
tongue' appeared due to the influence of some higher
power. It was, in his view, a gift of ' the Spirit.'
(b) That signs and wonders should be expected
within the Church is not surprising, when they were
frequently happening elsewhere. Prodigies and portents
are recorded again and again by the historians of
Rome ; and instances have been already cited of the
ease with which such stories could attach themselves to
famous names. The Emperor Vespasian, so Tacitus
and Suetonius relate, gave sight to a blind man at
Alexandria. During the last siege of Jerusalem the air
seemed thick with marvels. Before it began a star
resembling a sword, reports Josephus, stood over the
doomed city. The great eastern gate of the Temple,
wrought of bronze, which could scarce be closed by
twenty men, opened of itself when firmly bolted into the
solid floor, and swung slowly back. The guards came
running to the Captain ',of the sacred house and told
him of it, and it was with difficulty shut. At Pentecost,
the priests going by night into the inner court, felt a
quaking and heard a great noise : and then came a
mighty voice saying, ' Let us remove hence.' What are
these but symbols, like the heavenly voices or the
darkness and the earthquake and the rent veil of the
Gospel story ?
(c) While Roman and Jewish thought in the age of
the evangehcal tradition was thus prone to wonders, the

THE CHURCH AND THE TALMUD. 185
later evidences of Christian belief and feeling point no
less in the same direction. Ambrose and Augustine in
the fourth century both bear their personal testimony
with a sincerity beyond dispute to marvellous cures, with
which they were directly or indirectly concerned. Nor
is the witness limited to cases of this kind. It is equally
explicit and direct respecting miracles of physical nature.
Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, 367-403 a.d.,
affirms that down to his own time the change of water
into wine was repeated in many places as a testimony to
unbelievers. He names a fountain at Cibyra in Caria
where this occurred, and specifies another at Gerasa,
adding that he himself had drunk of one, and his brother
of the other.
(d) The parallel course of the traditions of the
Synagogue embodied in the Talmud presents similar
illustrations. Students of this great collection aver that
miracles are far more common in the accounts of the
Rabbis, than they are in the New Testament. The
belief in their occurrence is one of the foundations of all
its pictures of social life. The men who by their prayers
removed diseases and other calamities, like Rabbi
Hantna ben Dosa, Nicodemus, &c, were called Miracle-
workers (literally, 'Men of work'). Again and again,
the Teacher's word is enforced by wonders. At times,
indeed, some Rabbi will refuse to grant the demand for
a sign, like the Teacher in the Gospels ; though, unlike
Jesus, he finally yields to it. Thus in the great Messianic
discussion in the Talmudic treatise Sanhedrin, the
following story is related : —
Rabbi Jos£ was asked by his disciples ' When will the Son of
' David come ? ' To this he replied, ' I am afraid you will ask me

186 THE MIRACLES.
'also for a sign.' Upon which they assured him they would not.
On this he replied, ' When this gate (viz. of Rome) shall fall,
' and be built, and again fall, and they shall not have time to
'rebuild it till the Son of David comes.' They said to him,
' Rabbi, give us a sign.' He said to them, ' Have ye not
¦ promised me that ye would not seek a sign ? ' They said to him,
' Nothwithstanding do it.' He said to them, ' If so the waters
'from the Cave of Pamias [one of the sources of the Jordan]
' shall be changed into blood.' In that moment they were
changed into blood. '
Rabbi Eliezer uproots a carob tree from its place, and
removes it one hundred cubits (some say four hundred,
adds the story) to prove the truth of his teaching ; and
when his opponents declare this to be no proof, he turns
the waters of a stream backwards. Two dumb men
received the gift of speech from Rabbi Jehudah the
Holy.2 Cures were wrought at a distance, as in the
following example : —
It happened that the Son of Rabbi Gamliel was ill. He sent
two disciples of the wise to Rabbi Hanina to ask for mercy upon
him. As soon as Rabbi Hanina saw them, he went into an
upper room and asked mercy for him. When he came down,
he said to them, ' Go, the fever has left him.' They said to
him, ' Art thou a prophet ? ' He said to them, ' I am not a
' prophet, neither the son of a prophet : but this I have received,
' that if my prayer is fluent in my mouth, I know that it is
' accepted, but if not I know that it is rejected.' They sat down
and wrote and fixed the exact hour; and when they came to
Rabbi Gamliel, he said to them, ' By the service ! you are exactly
' right. Even so it was, at that hour the fever left him, and he
1 asked of us water to drink.'
1 Edersheim, Life and Times of Messiah, vol. ii. p. 737.
2 These instances have been kindly communicated to me by the
Rev. R. Travers Herford, B.A.

CONDITIONS OF BEUEF. 187
Other Rabbis even raise the dead, and in a very singular
story concerning the visits paid to a Rabbi by the Emperor
Antoninus, the Caesar remarks ' I know that even the
' smallest among you recalls the dead to life.'
It is thus plain that the conditions of thought in which
miraculous narratives arise, existed in both the Jewish
and the Gentile world during the era in which the
Gospel tradition took its present shape. Can we, then,
point to any special causes which gathered a halo of
wonder round the person of Jesus ? It is not possible to
explain every individual marvel, or find the exact incident
whence it has sprung. But it may be possible to
discover the ideas and feelings which have helped to
create these stories, and to account for the typical forms
which special tendencies of thought have assumed. We
shall find that they are closely connected with the belief
that Jesus was the Messiah. In the glory which en
circled the great hope of the Deliverer, imagination was
not confined to fact, just as the romantic incidents of
the struggle of the Maccabees for national freedom were
adorned with pictures of heavenly powers aiding the
champions of the people of God. So fixed was the
expectation of Messiah's wonders that it is alleged that
one of the reasons for the failure of the Messianic
pretensions of the ' Son of the Star' (Bar Kokhba), in the
reign of the Emperor Hadrian, lay in his inability to
work miracles. Sickness and suffering would make a
special appeal to him. Rabbi Joshua, so runs a
Talmudic story, once asked Elijah when Messiah would
come. 'Go and ask him thyself,' replied the prophet.
' And where does he abide ? ' enquired the Rabbi. ' At
'the gate of the city.' 'And what is his sign?' 'He

188 THE MIRACLES.
' sits among the poor, the sick and the stricken, and they
' show him their sores, and he binds them up again one
' by one.'

§ 2. Cure of Demoniacs.
Many of the ' mighty works ' of Jesus were cures.
For these, as he himself again and again testifies, faith
was an indispensable element. ' Thy faith hath made
' thee whole,' is his own remark. The real force which
worked the patient's cure dwelt in his own mind : the
power of Jesus lay in the potency of his personality
to evoke this force. Where that failed, where he
could not inspire this conviction, there, as the earliest
Tradition tells us, Mark vi. 5,1 'he could do no mighty
work.' (1) Among the miracles of healing, a prominent place
is occupied by what is described as casting out devils.
It must be remembered that this was a regular practice
on the part of professional exorcists; and that the
records of the time supply ample evidence of its
occurrence both in Palestine and elsewhere.2 That the
epileptic or hysterical should have grown calm in the
presence of the Teacher, is perfectly intelligible. But
the Gospels relate these incidents in the glow of
Messianic faith. In the language ascribed to Jesus
himself they were a manifestation of that great agency
of righteousness known as ' the kingdom of God.' So
1 Comp. chap. viii. § 3, 2.
2 See Life in Palestine, § 17, p. 6l .

MESSIAH'S WAR WITH EVIL. 189
far is he, however, from claiming any exclusive control of
this power, that he distinctly recognises its possession by
others. When he is accused of casting out devils by
Beelzebub, he replies, ' By whom do your sons cast them
* out ? therefore they shall be your judges.' ' But,' he,
adds, 'if I by the finger of God cast out devils, then is
'the kingdom of God come upon you.' In his hand,
then, — so the Church believed — the expulsion of the
demons is part of Messiah's war with evil; and this
conviction, in the minds of the Evangelists, has tended to
give to these stories a peculiar form. In the first day's
teaching at Capernaum, an unclean spirit in some poor
sufferer bursts out in the synagogue, Mark i. 24 : —
What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth. Art
thou come to destroy us ? I know thee who thou art, the Holy
One of God.
And the same evening the process is continued, i. 34 : —
And he healed many that were sick with divers diseases, and
cast out many devils ; and he suffered not the devils to speak,
because they knew him.
' Knew him ' — to be what ? Luke is more explicit, iv. 41.
' He suffered them not to speak, because they knew that
' he was the Christ ' ; and later copyists added to Mark's
text the supplementary words ' to be Christ.' Thus
before Jesus has himself made any such claim, before
his followers have confessed him, or the people have
recognised him, do the evil spirits own him as their Lord.
The later faith moulds the earlier reminiscence.
(2) Other elements are sometimes taken up into such
stories. They are told and retold, with fresh applica
tions, and by degrees the details are defined under the
influence of thoughts which did not belong to the

190 THE MIRACLES.
original narrative. As they stand now in our Gospels
they are really the result of a long process, which has
obscured the facts from which it started, and has
produced a kind of fancy picture beyond the reach of
historical analysis. Thus in the story of the demoniac of
Gerasa, Mark v. 1-20, arid parallels, the fundamental
theme is Messiah's victory over the demonic powers.
The language of the Evangelists plainly shows that in its
simplest form the unhappy sufferer was ' a man with an
' unclean spirit,' Mark v. 2, cp. i. 23. Running to Jesus
from afar, he flings himself at his feet, addressing him as
Messiah. Jesus commands the unclean spirit to come
forth, Mark v. 8, Luke viii. 29. So far the story
resembles the scene in the synagogue at Capernaum.
At this point, it might have ended with the demoniac's
cure. But now, in the question of Jesus, ' What is thy
name ? ' it unexpectedly takes a fresh development.
The poor lunatic is under the delusion that a whole
'Legion 'a of devils are lodged within him.2 The single
'unclean spirit' is thus multiplied by a word four
thousandfold ; and the fantasy of madness is treated in
the rest of the story as sober fact. Under Messiah's
decree of expulsion, these demons now begin to make
terms with him. In Mark v. 10, the sufferer himself
pleads with Jesus on their behalf that he will not send
them away out of the country. But in Luke viii. 31, they
themselves entreat that he will not bid them depart
' into the abyss.' That was the destined abode of
1 A Roman legion consisted of 4000 men.
2 This has already influenced the earlier part of Luke's
narrative ; in ver. 27 he describes the man as having ' devils ' : in
ver. 29 the command of Jesus is addressed to ' the unclean spirit.'

THE DEMONIAC OF GERASA. 191
durance for the powers of evil; there would Satan be
hurled, in Messiah's triumph, and kept in bondage for
a thousand years, Rev. xx. 2, 3. The demons in Matt.
viii. 29, accordingly, objected to be tormented ' before the
time.' One way to the abyss, the underworld, cp. Rom.
x. 7, was supposed to lie through the sea; and this is
perhaps the reason why the swine into which they enter,
rush down the steep into the lake, and perish in the
waters. But were the swine real swine ? How came
they into the story ? As it stands now, some critics have
found in it a touch of grotesque humour. The stupid
devils thought to save themselves by their request that
they might be transferred to the herd pasturing on the
slope. They were miserably deceived, they only ensured
their own doom the more quickly ! The meaning of
the swine it is hard to determine. Were they originally
only the brain-sick vision of the possessed, who imagined
he saw the demons within him rushing forth in the shape
of the unclean animals ? l No definite answer can be
given. But it is possible that some such wild utterance
may have started the tale, which was elaborated afterwards
under other influences. The incident, it will be observed,
is placed in the Decapolis, on the east of the lake of
Galilee and the Jordan valley. The region was largely
heathen,2 and Gerasa appears to have been the seat of
the worship of the great goddess-mother Cybele. Now
the swine was a recognised Jewish symbol of heathen
impurities ; and we know from the Apostle Paul that the
early Christians regarded the Gentile gods as demons,
1 Comp. The Kernel and the Husk, p. 205.
2 Comp. Life in Pal. $ 6.

192 THE MIRACLES.
i Cor. x. 20. The destruction of the swine would then
be the emblem of the overthrow of false worship ; the
vanishing of the demons in the abyss at Messiah's
command is only the translation into incident of the
disappearance of the idol deities before the preaching of
the Gospel. It is hardly to be supposed that these
conceptions were consciously brought together and
combined. The story is not an elaborate invention ; it
is a gradual growth, whose several forms enable some of
its varying conceptions to be traced. All the more likely
is it, therefore, that it absorbed into itself different
symbols, drawn from various circles of ideas. But if
this be so, it will only be understood in its whole
meaning in connection with the events of a later time.
If it really contains an allusion to the subsequent victories
of Christianity over heathenism, it cannot have finally
acquired its existing shape until after the labours of the
great apostle of the Gentiles ; and the miracle of Messiah
beyond Jewish soil will thus give the seal to the mission
ary activity of Paul. Thus may allegory and history
have contributed to bring the story into its present form.1
(3) If the multitude of the demons in the Gerasene
incident be due to a misinterpretation of the sufferer's
self-chosen title, it is possible, as has been acutely
suggested,2 that a double meaning in the word pneuma
(Hebrew and Aramean ruach) ' spirit ' or ' wind ' may lie
beneath a pair of narratives of the calming of a demoniac
1 Comp. Keim, Jesus of Nazara, iv. pp. 150-158 ; Bible for
Young People, vi. pp. 284-286. — On the two demoniacs of
Matthew, see below, chap. x. § 1, 4.
2 The Kernel and the Husk, p. 220.

CONFUSION OF LANGUAGE. 193
and the calming of a storm. When Jesus ' rebukes ' the
'spirit' in the synagogue at Capernaum, Mark i. 25, he
says to it ' Hold thy peace ' (Greek ¦pmuo-theti, literally
1 be thou muzzled '). When he ' rebukes ' the ' wind '
and the sea upon the lake, Mark iv. 39, he addresses
it with the same word, 'hold thy peace' (Greek pe-
phimo-jo : the English version, missing this identity, has
' be still '). The idea of muzzling a pneuma (or ruach)
might be applied either to a rebellious spirit or to a
tumultuous wind ; the expression would be remembered ;
and then, blending with other reminiscence, would
gradually adapt itself to two wholly different occasions.
Traces of this still remain in the sequel, which relates
the obedience of the pneuma. This likewise might bear
a double significance : in the first scene the hearers
exclaim ' What is this ? With authority he commandeth
' even the unclean spirits, and they obey him ' ; while in
the second, the disciples exclaim ' Who then is this, that
' even the wind and the sea obey him ? '

5 3. Old Testament Elements.
While Messiah triumphs over the powers of evil, the
coming age will bring with it bodily renovation for the
maimed and infirm. This -was a favourite theme of
prophecy, and may lead the way, therefore, to the
consideration of the suggestiveness of Scripture thought
and language.
(1) When the apostle Paul meets the difficulty of
the Corinthians concerning the resurrection, ' But some
o

194 THE MIRACLES.
' man will say, How are the dead raised, and with what
' body do they come ? ' he deals with an objection that
was not raised at Corinth only, and he answers it with an
analogy which is curiously paralleled elsewhere. Queen
Cleopatra, it is said, asked Rabbi Meir whether the dead
would rise naked or clothed.
I will show thee this, replied the Rabbi, by a conclusion drawn
from the less to the greater, from the grain of wheat. For
behold, the grain of wheat which is buried naked, springs forth
out of the earth with many clothes : how much more the
righteous with their clothes.
Sometimes similar questions were settled by a reference
to prophesy. Another Rabbi argued thus :
It is written, Behold I will gather them from the coasts of the
earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with
child and her that travaileth with child together ; and in another
place it is written, Then shall the lame man leap as a hart and
the tongue of the dumb sing. How is this possible ? They shall
rise with their defects, but then be healed.
Such passages as these here quoted seem to have been
often in the minds of the disciples of Jesus, and tended
to colour the tradition of Messiah's activity, especially
when it was detached from special cases of individual
cures, and generalised into descriptions of whole series
and kinds. Thus when Jesus sits upon the mount to
heal, as he had formerly sat to deliver the law of the
kingdom, we are told, Matt. xv. 30, 3 1 : —
There came unto him great multitudes, having with them the
lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and they cast them
down at his feet ; and he healed them : insomuch that the
multitude wondered when they saw the dumb speaking, the
maimed whole, and the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and
they glorified the God of Israel.

LANGUAGE OF PROPHECY. 195
Sometimes the influence of prophecy and the desire to
show Messiah's conformity with its demand, is still more
clear,1 it is in factj openly avowed; as in the following,
Malt. viii. 16, 17 : —
And when even was come, they brought unto him many
possessed with devils ; and he cast out the spirits with a word,
and healed all that were sick : that it might be fulfilled which was
spoken by Isaiah the prophet saying, Himself took our infirmities
and bare our diseases.
The application of such prophecies, thus interpreted, to
Jesus, at once created a special expectation of his heal
ing energy; and this, seizing on the actual material
supplied by apostolic recollection, gradually moulded
the details into congenial forms.
(2) This process was no doubt promoted by the
tendency to convert symbols into actual incidents and
turn figures into facts. 'They that are whole,' said
Jesus, in reply to the critics who objected to his associa
ting with publicans and sinners, 'have no need of a
'physician, but they that are sick.' Here was a
metaphor all ready for use. The Teacher was the great
healer of the sores and wounds of men's hearts and lives :
and moral cure easily associated with itself the idea of
physical restoration. In ancient Hebrew thought the
two orders, the material and the spiritual, were so closely
related, that the one might constantly stand for the other.
So Jesus describes himself in the words of Isaiah as
anointed 'to preach good tidings to the poor and to
'proclaim recovering of sight to the blind,' Luke iv. 18;
and the Apostle Paul is sent to the Gentiles 'to open
1 Comp. chap. iii. § 4, 3, p. 90.

196 THE MIRACLES.
'their eyes,' Acts xxvi. 17.1 The blind who lead the
blind, the deaf who have ears but will not hear, the halt
and maimed who have stumbled and fallen upon the
way, all stand for various forms of moral and spiritual
impotence, which tradition has sometimes transmuted
into physical infirmity. Thus when the messengers of
John the Baptist carry to Jesus their master's question
' Art thou he that cometh, or look we for another ? '
Jesus replies, Matt. xi. 4, 5 : —
Go your way and tell John the things which ye do hear and
see : the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers
are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and
the poor have good tidings preached to them.
The last clause, reminding us of the language of the
Servant of old, Is. lxi. 1, 2, already quoted, proves that
the passage is throughout symbolic. But the Third
Evangelist did not so understand it: he translates the
words of Jesus into bodily reality, inserting the following
statement to justify the Teacher's answer, Luke vii. 21: —
In that hour he cured many of diseases and plagues and evil
spirits ; and on many that were blind he bestowed sight.
Both Gospels contain the phrase ' the dead are raised
up.' Life and death were immemorial emblems of
good and evil,2 and they constantly occur in that sense
in the New Testament. ' This my son was dead and is
' alive again,' says the prodigal's father. The symbolism
runs all through the thought of Paul, as he addresses the
1 So in the Book of Enoch as quoted above, p. 116, when the
sheep were gathered into the 'sacred house, ' the eyes of all were
1 opened, so that they saw the good, and there was not one
' among them that had not sight.'
2 See Deut. xxx. 15, 19, &c.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 197
believers who were once dead in trespasses and sins, but
are now risen with Christ and alive unto God. It passed
into an early hymn, where sleep and death stand as twin
figures side by side, Ephes. v. 14 : —
Awake, thou that sleepest,
And arise from the dead.
The Synoptical narratives present but one instance in
common of raising the dead, — viz. the little daughter of
Jairus ; and in this case Mark relates that Jesus expressly
told the mourners that she was not dead but sleeping,
v. 39. Luke, however, prefixes to the message brought
by the Baptist's disciples the beautiful story of the
raising of the widow's son at Nain, vii. 11- 17. No other
Evangelist reports it: Jesus bears in it the Messianic
title 'the Lord,' ver. 13: the incident is placed at Nain
on the slope of the same mountain on which Shunem lay,
where Elisha had raised, so ancient legend told, an only
son. The incident seems to owe its place in the
narrative to the Evangelist's desire to prepare the way
for the statement in ver. 22, 'the dead are raised up';
and the language of its sequel, ver. 1 6, implies that it has
been modelled on prophetic example.
(3) This points to a third element in the circle of
early Christian conceptions, viz. the influence of
Scripture types. Instances of this have been traced
already in the story of the Annunciation ; J but they are
not confined to the legends of the Birth. Of the great
personalities of the Old Testament two were especially
connected with the Messianic hope, Moses and Elijah.
Moses, as the giver of the first law, stood as the counter-
1 See chap. v. $ 1, 4 b, p. 153.

198 THE MIRACLES.
part to the king and judge who should issue and
administer the second ; and Elijah had long since been
designated as the forerunner who should prepare the
way for the great and dreadful day of the Lord.1
Accordingly, in one of the sections of the Revelation, in
which Jewish conceptions are most prominent, these two
figures appear with their former powers to shut up the
heavens, to turn waters into blood, and smite the earth
with every plague, as often as they desire, Rev. xi. 3-6.
In the Transfiguration the same pair stand on either side
of the Son of God. Thus they belonged to the imagin
ative atmosphere which invested the Messianic ideal;
and their own features are sometimes reproduced in him.
As Moses had fasted forty days upon the mount, and
Elijah in the desert on the way to Horeb, so does
Messiah spend forty days without food in the wilderness.
Moses fed Israel on the wanderings, and Jesus feeds the
multitude in the desert place. Elijah multiplied the
widow's oil, and Jesus multiplied the five loaves and two
fishes. Elijah raised the widow's son at Zarephath ;
'the Lord' does the same at Nain. Thus, by written
prophecy, by symbolic language, and by heroic types,
does the influence of the Old Testament help to call into
being the wonders of the New.

§ 4. Language of Parable and Hymn.
If single words sometimes carried in them elements
that could take literal and material shape, so might
1 Mai. iv. 5.

USE OF IMAGINATIVE LANGUAGE. 199
parable and hymn. The language of imagination and
feeling is constantly in danger of being materialized by
minds of duller insight and feebler emotion.
(i) The story of the cursing of the fig-tree1 appears to
owe its origin to some such confusion. As Jesus goes
in from Bethany to Jerusalem with the disciples, he
hungers, and seeks fruit from a fig-tree by the road side.
It was not the time for figs, observes Mark, and he
found nothing but leaves : ' No man eat fruit from thee
' henceforward for ever,' said Jesus. Passing by the
same way the next day, Mark xi. 20, they saw the
fig-tree withered away from the roots.2 Was this a real
fig-tree ? Did the Teacher really curse it because it did
not bear fruit out of season ? And did it actually shrivel
up, either on the instant or even within four and twenty
hours ? The biographers of Jesus who have pleaded for
the literal character of the incident, have not succeeded
in relieving the Son of God from the charge of unreason
able violence against an innocent and unconscious tree..
But a comparison with the Third Gospel points to a way
out of the difficulty. This story does not appear in
Luke ; but, on the other hand, he relates a parable of a
fig-tree planted in a vineyard, on which the owner looks
for figs and finds none, xiii. 6-9. After three successive
years he proposes to cut it down; but the vine-dresser
entreats that it may have one more chance. The mean
ing of the parable is plain. The vineyard and the vine
are the ancient prophetic symbols for the people of Israel,
1 Mark xi. 12-14, 20-21, with parallel in Matt. xxi. 18-20.
2 Matthew, xxi. 19, heightens the miracle by making the fig-
tree wither away at once, before their eyes, cp. chap. viii. § 3, 2.

200 THE MIRACLES.
cp. Is. v. 1-7, Ps. Ixxx. 8-15. Why not the fig-tree also?
Hosea had actually used the very image, ix. 10 : —
I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness,
I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig-tree at her first
season. '
So the parable describes Israel's unworthiness to receive
the kingdom, it does nothing but cumber the ground.
If it cannot show itself fit, it must perish. The same
essential idea has become materialised in the story. The
fig-tree has a fine show of leaves, like the outward
decoration of Israel's piety: but the true fruit of
righteousness does not ripen amid all this display, and
the barrenness of the people draws its own doom upon
them. What that doom would be, ancient prophecy did
not leave doubtful. Its latest word was a promise that
before the great and dreadful day of the Lord, Elijah
should come to reconcile fathers and children, lest the
Lord himself should come and smite the land with a
curse.2 Upon the vineyard of the unfaithful nation its
divine owner would pronounce sentence that it should be
laid waste ; no pruning hook nor hoe should be applied
to it ; the very clouds should be commanded to withhold
their rain. s There was the fate of the fig-tree already
prefigured ! Like the righteous king who was to slay
the wicked with the breath of his lips,4 so does the true
sovereign of Israel smite it with the rod of his mouth !
At his word its worthless professions are stricken with
blight, its pomp and glory shrivel, and only its naked
branches show what it might have been. The symbol
1 Comp. Jer. xxiv. 2-10.
2 Mai. iv. 6. 3 Is. v. 6. 4 Is. xi. 4.

THE CURSING OF THE FIG TREE. 201
was not hard to understand.1 But the report of the
Teacher's word, as it was passed from hand to hand,
dropped one detail on its transit in one direction, took
up another along a different line, and thus gradually
split into two distinct shapes. In one of these the mean
ing of the parable was clearly retained. The other was
remembered as a story, — a fig-tree in full leaf — a doom
— a withering, — but its significance was gone : it became
a mere anecdote which of course attached itself in time
to Jesus.2 Then it was fitted with a place and date, due
possibly to some actual reminiscence, and in this shape
it was incorporated into the traditions. But in sifting
the materials available for his work, the Third Evangelist
had sufficient insight to choose the parable.
(2) These processes of necessity imply some lapse of
time. But they operated upon stories which certainly
might have had some real nucleus of saying or incident.
In other cases the influences at work belong to the cycle
of feeling which could only be active after the death of
Jesus. The emblematic language of the Hebrew
1 In Buddhist legend a converse miracle took place. As the
great minister Basita stood at the gates of the Lumbini garden
when the infant Buddha was born, he saw the trees and flowers
bursting into life. 'See,' he obse rved to his colleagues, ' how all
' the trees are blossoming as if the season had come.' The
wondrous verdure had its own meaning. ' It referred,1 said the
narrator, ' to the faith which those were able to arrive at who
'heard the first teachings of the sage.' Beal, Romantic History of
Buddha, pp. 45, 46.
2 Great importance is ascribed in Talmudic stories to the
curse of a Rabbi, which possesses a mysterious and terrible
pcwer, and is even said to have been regarded as infallibly fatal.
It is called the serpent of the Rabbis, whose bite is incurable.

202 THE MIRACLES.
Scriptures was constantly in the hearts and upon the lips
of the Christian believer; and when the Church portrayed
its hours of peril and deliverance, they were presented in
the figures which Israel's poetry supplied. There it was
that the divine power was described as ' treading upon
' the waves of the sea,' Job ix. 8, or as having his way
in the sea and his path in the great waters, Ps. lxxvii. 19.
In days of persecution the Church saw itself tossed like a
ship upon a sea of troubles, and words of ancient song
came peacefully to the believer's heart, Ps. cvii. 28-30 : —
Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble,
And he bringeth them out of their distresses.
He maketh the storm a calm,
So that the waves thereof are still.
Then are they glad because they be quiet,
So he bringeth them unto the haven where they would be.
The Christian hymns might well have contained the same
image : they too might have sung —
Thy way is in the deep, O Lord 1
E'en there we'll go with thee :
We'll meet the tempest at thy word,
And walk upon the sea !
Out of some such utterance of trust1 has probably come
the story of the disciples on their passage across the lake
distressed by a contrary wind, Mark vi. 48. Jesus had
remained alone behind to pray : but in the fourth watch
of the night, as they labour at the oar, they see him
walking past them on the waves. Supposing it is an
apparition, they cry out in fear ; answering ' It is I, be
' not afraid,' he joins them in the boat, and the wind
1 See this idea worked out in Onesimus by the author of
Philochristus, p. 276.

CALMING THE STORM. 203
ceases. It is noteworthy that the Third Evangelist omits
the story altogether, regarding it probably as only a
varying duplicate of another episode on a voyage the
opposite way, Luke viii. 22-25, Mark iv. 35-41. The
fear of the disciples gives occasion to a lesson in faith,
and this is obviously the significance of the anecdote
which Matthew adds to the night voyage of Mark.
When Peter recognises his Master's voice he cries, Matt.
xiv. 28, 'Lord, if it be thou, bid me come to thee upon
' the waters.' Through the raging of the storm he hears
the word ' Come.' Descending from the boat, he seeks
to walk upon the waves, but when he sees the wind he is
afraid, and begins to sink. Do we not all know the
meaning of the tale ? Have we not all, in temptation or
danger, cried ' Lord, save us ? ' Have we not all felt
the outstretched hand supporting us, and known the
encouragement mingling with the rebuke, ' O ye of little
' faith, wherefore did ye doubt ? ' Of such a story, Peter,
foremost in impulse and in promise, who alone followed
Jesus on the fatal night of trial and then denied him,
might well become the hero; and in his person the
Church recorded its own experience.
(3) It is the less difficult to believe that these tendencies
have been at work in the Gospel tradition, when they can
be shown in operation elsewhere. Buddhist imagery
often employed the sea or the stream to typify the place
of conflict across which all must pass. The delivered,
the saved, were those who stood upon the other side.
The Buddha conveyed his disciples thither ; by the
causeway of the Noble Path they traversed the shallows
of lust and ignorance and delusion, whilst ordinary men
sought to get across by means of rites and ceremonies,

204 THE MIRACLES.
gifts and sacrifices, which were no more solid than mere
rafts of baskets. That is the symbolism which lies
behind the following verse :
They who cross the ocean drear,
Making a solid path across the pools —
Whilst the vain world ties its basket rafts —
These are the wise, these are the saved indeed.
When was such a verse uttered ? The Tradition found
an occasion for it when the Teacher once came to the
Ganges with his disciples. The river was full, and there
was no boat. There were others seeking to cross by
hastily made rafts of wood and basket-work; but the
Blessed One ' vanished from this side of the river, and
' stood on the further bank with the company of the
' brethren.' Then as he beheld the people looking for
the rafts, he brake forth into the song.1 The moral idea
that the Buddha and his disciples were those who had
'crossed,' has been materialised into the story of his
miraculous transport of them over the river. If the
Blessed One was not there himself, an act of faith might
enable the believer to make the passage in another way.
The following story is told of such a disciple : —
One day going to Jetavana (where the Teacher was staying) to
hear the Truth, he came in the evening to the bank of the river
Aciravati. When he reached the landing place, however, he saw
no boat, so taking a joyful confidence in the Buddha, he went
down into the stream. His feet did not sink in the water.
Walking as on the ground, by the time he got into the middle he
saw waves. Then his confidence in the Buddha became slack,
and his feet began to sink. But he made his joyful confidence in
' See Buddhist Suttas, translated by Professor T. W. Rhys
Davids, Sacred Books of {the East, vol. xi., p. 21.

WALKING ON THE WATER. 205
the Buddha firm, and, proceeding on the surface of the water,
came to Jetavana. '
There is no mystery here. Every Christian reader will
discern in the story a transparent allegory of the faith in
the Buddha which enables the earnest heart to cross
the stream on the other side of which lie truth and
deliverance. An instructed Buddhist, meeting the story
of Peter's attempt to walk upon the lake, would at once
regard it as an allegory of like faith in the Christ. Shall
we not freely admit that he would be right ?

$ 5. Allegorical Composition.
Between parable and allegory it may sometimes seem
difficult to draw a line. There are some narratives which
appear to be due to the desire to present certain ideas
and conceptions in pictorial form as episodes in
Messiah's career. By this means a kind of sanction was
secured for the truths or usages with which they deal.
1 Jataka, ii. p. in. This passage was pointed out by Mr. H.
Wenzel in the Academy, Jan. 12, 1889. Compare the story of
King Mahakappina and his thousand nobles, who, by faith in the
virtues of the Buddha, ride across three rivers successively, in
each of which ' the surface of the water becomes like a stone slab,
' not even the hoofs of their horses were wetted.' Subsequently
the Queen and the wives of the thousand nobles come to the
same three rivers, and ' fixing their faith in the virtues of the
' Buddha, the Teaching, and the Order,' drive across in their
carriages in the same way. — Buddhaghosha's Parables, translated
from the Burmese by Captain T. Rogers, pp. 82, 85.

206 THE MIRACLES.
This character is strongly impressed on some of the
descriptions in the Fourth Gospel; it is, perhaps, not
absent even in the First Three.
(i) To this class we may probably assign the account
of the miraculous draught of fishes, related in Luke v. i-i I,
and in Luke alone, though an analogous story appears
at the end of the Fourth Gospel, John xxi. 3-1 1. The
Galilean ministry of Jesus opens, according to Mark
i. 16, Matt. iv. 18, with the call of Simon and Andrew,
by the lake side ; and this is followed by a similar call to
James and John the sons of Zebedee. Luke, with a
different representation of the first incidents, omits this
twofold summons ; though in the subsequent narrative he
follows Mark, and describes Jesus as entering into the
house of Simon, iv. 38, while he has not yet told his
readers who Simon is.1 The call, however, in Luke's
arrangement, is only postponed, and is appended, v. 10,
to the story of the multitude of fishes, which seems
rather to embody an idea than to describe an occurrence.
It opens with a picture of Jesus entering a boat, which is
then pushed off a little from the beach, to teach the
crowd which has gathered upon the shore. Mark and
Matthew relate this incident likewise; but with them,
Mark iv., Matt, xiii., it stands as the introduction to the
parable of the Sower, which Luke postpones till viii. 4,
allotting it to some unnamed place upon a missionary
-tour. Here, therefore, we already have evidence of fresh
and artificial arrangement. When the teacher has
finished, he bids Simon put out into the deep, and let
¦down his nets for a draught. Though he had toiled all
1 On this dislocation of order, see chap. ix. § 1, 3. -

THE DRAUGHT OF FISHES. 207
night and taken nothing, this time a vast number are
enclosed, and the nets begin to break. Smitten with
amazement, in which James and John, his partners,
shared, he falls at Jesus' knees : but Jesus bids him not
to fear, and adds ' From henceforth thou shalt catch
men.' When they come to shore, Simon and James and
John leave all and follow him. This conclusion shows
plainly that Luke designs this story as an equivalent for
the double call which he has omitted. Mark, with whom
Matthew agrees, reported the symbolic saying of Jesus in
these terms : ' I will make you to become fishers of men.'
The idea is the same, and the difference of form is slight.
There are other small variations which are not in favour
of the credibility of Luke's account. According to
Matthew and Mark, Simon was associated with his
brother Andrew; while James and John worked with
their father Zebedee, whose operations were large enough,
according to Mark, to require the additional help of
'hired servants.' Luke, however, ignores Andrew, and
represents James and John as partners with Simon.
Zebedee, if he still lived, is at any rate not named. All
these divergencies excite our suspicion, and imply some
purpose. That purpose lies embedded in the story,
whose real theme is ' catching men.' As Jesus teaches
from the boat, the true fishing is already begun : at the
close, Simon, James and John, are his ' take.' But there
is more than this. The intervening miracle, placed in
such unhistorical juxtapositions, contains a wider
application of the same thought. ' Fishers of men ! '
Who are the men far out in the deep ? The meaning is
suggested by a parable ascribed to Jesus, Matt.
xiii. 47 : —

208 THE MIRACLES.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast
into the sea, and gathered of every kind.
The deep is the world, where there are men of every race.
Simon's disinclination to let down the nets finds its
explanation in the unwillingness of the Jewish party to
open the Gospel to the heathen. This is why Simon,
James, and John, are partners : we know from the
Apostle Paul that they were the three leaders of the
' circumcision,' Gal. ii. 9. When the attempt is made,
the broken meshes are the symbol of the resulting
dangers and discords in the Church. This miracle is not
named in the Fourth Gospel, but a similar narrative in
John xxi. describes a corresponding occurrence after the
resurrection. There, too, the disciples have toiled all
night and have taken nothing. There, too, Jesus
commands one more cast of the net. And there, too, it
captures a multitude of fish. But this time, the net is
not broken, it is drawn to shore, to the feet of Christ.
The difficulties connected with the admission of the
Gentiles have been overcome ; Catholic unity has not
been disturbed ; and Jew and Greek are joined in
undivided allegiance to their Lord. The two narratives
provide the same theme with the same setting of
general circumstance. The slight differences of detail
alone betray that they belong to successive periods in
the history of the Church.1
(2) Is not the same imaginative play of thought and
feeling to be discerned in the story of the wondrous
feeding of the five thousand? Mark and Matthew
relate, indeed, two incidents of this kind, Mark vi. 35-44,
1 Comp. Bible for Young People, v. pp. 163-165.

FEEDING THE MULTITUDE. 209
viii. 1-9, Matt. xiv. 15-21, xv. 32-38, while Luke,
apparently regarding the second as a duplicate of the
first, is content with one, ix. 12-17, and with this con
clusion most modern critics, including even apologists
like Weiss, agree. Like the walking on the waves, the
miracle involves a command over material objects and
forces which gives rise at once to a whole host of
difficulties. How strongly these press on the believer,
and how urgent is the necessity of escape from them
somehow, may be inferred from the following attempt
of the writer just named : — J
Although it has been a subject of discussion, we may regard it
as sufficiently evident that the bread did not increase in the
hands of the people or the disciples. But we find no answer to
the question whether each of the five loaves grew under the
hands of Jesus until a fifth part of the multitude was provided
for, or whether after the existing bread was used, he had new
miraculously at hand. The latter idea is indeed compatible with
the theory of a creative miracle, but there is no support for it in
the text itself, since that apparently leads only to the first con
ception, which is a really monstrous one.
Dr. Weiss, accordingly, suggests as the real solution —
That his power over the mind of all who had any provision
with them, moved them to hand it over to him who was ready to
be their host : or else that particularly among those who were
already prepared for the Passover journey to Jerusalem, there
were not a few still supplied with bread and fish. If so much
was really collected that there was more than enough for the
wants of all, we have here a series of divine dispensations which
contributed to bring about a great result.
This explanation is substantially that of the older
rationalism ; it eliminates entirely the idea which the
1 Life of Christ, ii. p. 384,

210 THE MIRACLES.
text itself implies in a futile endeavour to supply a
possible version of an actual event. The interpretation
of the story as a materialisation of the Teacher's
ministry of the word, the 'bread of life,' through the
confusion of a symbol with a fact, is far more in
accordance with modes and tendencies of thought which
have been already exemplified.1 It seems more probable,
however, that the narrative is due to the blending of
various imaginative impulses, in which suggestions from
different sources working, it may be, on some actual
reminiscence, have been moulded together into one
whole. The Old Testament already supplied its
counterparts. Had not God, through Moses, fed Israel
in the wilderness day by day for a whole generation?
Did not Elijah multiply the widow's oil? Did not
Elisha, in famine time, make twenty barley loaves suffice
for a hundred of the sons of the prophets, so that ' they
'did eat and leave thereof? How much more, then,
should Messiah give bread to the hungry, and still take
up baskets full ? Such examples, however, needed some
closer connection with the actual work of Jesus, to have
much real share in calling forth a corresponding incident.
Is there any evidence which may link this story to some
thought or usage derived from him? The Fourth
Gospel appends to it a discourse on the bread of life,
vi. 26-58, on eating the flesh of the Son of Man and
drinking his blood, which has been commonly understood
to refer to the doctrine of tbe Eucharist or Thanksgiving
at the Lord's Supper. Would this application have been
1 Comp. Bible for Young People, v. p. 189; The Kernel and the
Husk, p. 215.

FEEDING THE MULTITUDE. 211
made if the narrative contained nothing to suggest it?
Seeing what use was made by the Apostle Paul of the
most remote analogies, we cannot affirm that the Fourth
Evangelist must have already found the idea in the
event. But it is quite possible that he simply expands
and elaborates a meaning which it already contained.
We know that in the early Church the Lord's Supper was
celebrated at a common meal, which was preceded often,
if not always, by worship and teaching. The brethren
brought their bread, wine, and fish ; in later days the
wealthier faithful added meat, poultry, cheese, and honey.
They sat in order at tables, and at some period in the
meal a loaf was blessed and broken by the president, and
a cup sent round as the ' cup of blessing.' These were
distributed by the deacons. So Jesus had blessed and
broken bread as he sat at supper on the last night with
his disciples. Was that the only time ? inquired imagina
tion. Gradually the Church conceived the picture of its
own usage in the wilderness. There, too, the brethren
had heard the word. There, too, in the Teacher's
presence, they had ' sat down ' as at tables in orderly
array. There, too, had been brought the simple gifts of
bread and fish. There, too, the blessing or thanksgiving
had been offered, Mark vi. 41, viii. 7, the loaf had been
broken, and the food carried round. Thus had Messiah
sanctioned the Church's feast of love. If this be so,1
the story has a practical significance. Under the veil
of poetry or allegory, it finds for the religious and social
customs of a later day a point of contact with the life
of Christ.
1 This explanation is derived from Dr. Pfleiderer.

212 THE MIRACLES.

% 6. Growth of Religious Legend.
The causes which generate miraculous narratives
round great Teachers are manifold and complex. Most
surprising, perhaps, is the speed with which they work.
In an age where all classes received with the greatest
eagerness the most diverse kinds of supernatural tales,
where every sort of magical wonder found ready belief,
the lapse of a generation affords ample time for the
growth of pious marvels. The instances which have
been already offered from the legends of Plato and
Augustus, show how quickly ideas were invested with
narratives to match. One or two modern instances may
supply additional illustrations.
(i) The journals and correspondence of Wesley, in
the first half of the year 1739, relate an outbreak of
violent demonstrations at the meetings of the Society
for Scripture-exposition and prayer. Loud cries,
paroxysms of anguish, convulsions, all seemed to
indicate that the sufferers were possessed by evil spirits.
They even occurred in the street ; they seized upon
people in their own homes. Wesley regarded them as
the work of the devil, which could only be overcome
by the divine work of grace. ' We continued in prayer
' till past eleven,' he wrote, describing the cases of two
young women, ' when God in a moment spoke peace to
' the soul, first of the first tormented, and then of the
' other, and they both joined in singing praises to him
' who had stilled the enemy and the avenger.' After the
next summons we read in due course, 'All her pangs
' ceased in a moment. She was filled with peace, and

WESLEY AND THE DEMONIACS. 213
' knew that the son of wickedness had departed from
' her.' Let such scenes occur among the uneducated,
unchecked by Wesley's strong sense or the need of
contemporary record ; let the idea of supernatural
guidance — whether, as with Wesley, by Biblical divina
tion and the lot, or by other means — enter at all points,
and the elements for a religious legend are at once
at hand.
(2) Contemporary with Wesley in the East of Europe
was Israel Baal-Shem (' Lord of the Name ') founder of
the remarkable community among the modern Jews
known as the ' Chassidim ' (or the ' Pious '). They are
now spread through Wallachia, Roumania, Galicia, and
South Russia, and are believed to number more than
half a million. Israel was born about the year 1700 in
the village of Bukovina, then belonging to Roumania.
He was early devoted to the study of the Law, over
which he attained such mastery that while still quite
young he was known for the learning and impartiality
with which hejgave decisions in disputes. His know
ledge secured for him, in spite of his poverty, the
daughter of an eminent Rabbi in marriage ; together
they endured hardship and privation ; he dug lime in the
ravines among the Carpathian mountains, and she con
veyed it for sale to the nearest town. By and by his wife
was established by her brother in a remote village inn ;
and Israel spent most of his time in meditation in the
adjoining forest. There he gathered a few chosen
disciples round him ; and with their help he devoted the
last twenty years of his life to spreading his views through
Wallachia. In the year 1761 he died. His teaching
sought to show that religion really consisted in a

214 THE MIRACLES.
personal relation between the soul and its Maker ; and
he threw the whole force of his nature into opposition to
the legalism and casuistry of the Rabbis. Faith in God,
love towards men, these were his watchwords. Israel
wrote nothing: but his disciples began to collect his
sayings, and about 1780 a vigorous Chassidic literature
was started, which has since become tolerably extensive.
It was founded on a compilation by his son-in-law,
entitled ' the Praises of Israel Baal-Shem,' which was
not printed till the year 1814. In this work the legend
of Baal-Shem is already complete. His birth was
announced to his father Rabbi Eliezer by the prophet
Elijah. Eliezer and his wife, who was already a hundred
years old, were childless ; but they were told that she
should bear a son, who should be called Israel, for he
should enlighten the eyes of all Israel, and in him should
the Scripture be fulfilled, ' Thou art my servant, Israel,
' in whom I will be glorified.' Even as a boy, he
overcame Satan, who appeared as a were-wolf to frighten
him, when he conducted the children younger than
himself to the Synagogue. When he grew up, he cast
demons out of men and animals ; he made the lame
dance and the blind see ; the sick were healed, and the
dead were raised. The ' Praises ' are full of these
stories. He cures a noble lady whose hands are
withered. He gives a son to a childless pair ; the boy
dies, and he brings him back to life. Alone in the
forest on a winter night, he has but to touch a tree with
his finger-tips, and flames burst forth. When he desires
to cross a stream, he spreads forth his mantle upon the
waters, and, standing upon it, passes safely to the other
side. His spirit even wanders through the angelic

ISRAEL BAAL-SHEM. 215
spheres ; and he obtains access to Paradise for millions
of pining souls who have waited without for thousands
of mournful years.1
Thus can modern Judaism still invest one of its
teachers with a robe of wonder. It has not been woven
from deliberate fiction : it is the product of imagination
brooding over ancient types, and pouring itself forth in
reverence and love. Just as the feats of exorcism were
prolonged in the Christian Church in the second century,
so among the Chassidim at the present day, it is firmly
believed that their ministers, the ' Tsaddiks,' continue to
work marvels. There is no difficulty in separating
Israel's teachings from his miracles. In the same way,
while many of the Gospel narratives express with
undying beauty the impression made by the personality
of Jesus, it will be found that his religion is not
involved in the stories of his mighty works. These
cannot all be separately explained ; it is not possible to
determine the precise nature of each cure, or to be
certain that the right key of prophecy and symbol, of
parable and allegory, has been applied. But it is possible
to account for their growth as a class. They cannot be
distinguished from narratives of the same kind which
have arisen in other places and at other times. In form
and feature they may bear a loftier stamp; but their
origin is due to the same tendencies in the human mind;
they correspond to the same stage in the education of
the race.-
1 See The Chassidim, by S. Schechter, reprinted from the
'Jewish Chronicle.'
2 The myth-making tendency is not extinct even in modern
Europe. An article by Dr. Mannhardt, in MSlusine, vol. i. 1878,

216 THE MIRACLES.
p. 567, gives some curious details of the legend of Garibaldi as a
religious hero. In 1848, medals, bearing his portrait, were worn
as amulets, and at Parma sick children were brought to him, that
he might lay his hands on them and heal them. The Lombards
affirmed that during the campaign of 1859, night after night,
especially on the eve of an engagement, the mysterious figure of
a white lady visited the general in his tent or in the forest
solitude: it was the spirit of his mother, bringing him counsel
from another world. And a Calabrian peasant related that when
Garibaldi and his men were terribly exhausted after a long day's
march among the mountains by heat and thirst, he fired a cannon
against a rock, and a stream of pure fresh water immediately
burst forth.

CHAPTER VII.
THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
The enquiry into the hopes which were concentrated in
'the coming of the Son of Man' is among the most
difficult in the whole field of Gospel study. It involves
delicate and complicated questions to which precise
answers cannot always be given. The evidence for the
mighty works of Jesus may be tested by considerations
drawn from various sources. The origin and character
of the different elements in the testimony concerning
them may be compared; they may be examined in
their relation to each other ; they may be tried in the
light thrown upon them by the existence of similar
beliefs elsewhere; they may be set side by side with
the steadfast Order of Nature. But the investigation
of the language of Jesus must be conducted without
the control of any external standard. Our Synoptic
Gospels present us with three versions of the Teacher's
sayings, and their variations often point the way to
important facts. But there is no rule or norm by which
to judge of their positive value, beyond our ideas of

218 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
what will harmonise with such conceptions of his
character as we have already formed. These ideas
are necessarily vague and liable to error. Our notions
of the aims and methods of Jesus may be incorrect, or,
even if they are approximately true, we may fail to see
the special links of thought and feeling which may really
connect utterances seemingly incapable of reconciliation.
The attempt, however, must be made. The questions
which demand some kind of reply are these : — Did Jesus
regard himself as the Messiah, and if so, in what sense?
What is the meaning of the; language ascribed to him
concerning the coming of the Son of Man ? How far
were the Gospel sayings really his, and how far do they
express instead the expectations of the Church ? One
single passage opens up all these topics, the scene
between Jesus and the Twelve at Caesarea Philippi,
Mark viii. 27-ix. 1, and its parallels.

§ 1. At Caesarea Philippi.
What was the situation when Jesus asked his disciples,
' Who do men say that I am ? '
(1) The Gospel of Mark, more clearly than either
Luke or Matthew, represents it as a crisis in the Teacher's
career. When the Baptist appeared in the wilderness,
his message was summed up in the call ' Repent ye, for
'the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' With profound
differences of inner conception, the first preaching of
Jesus was expressed in the same exhortation, Matt. iii. 2,
iv. 17. He moves to and fro as Teacher, he speaks in

THE MINISTRY OF THE KINGDOM. 219
the Synagogue or by the Lake : he sows the seed broad
cast and knows that some will fall upon good ground ;
he watches, like the husbandman, for the blade, the ear,
the ripened grain ; he perceives the leaven of truth and
love working silently and penetrating whole masses of
the people; the great moral and spiritual change which
he calls ' the Kingdom ' is on its way, and will work
vast social transformations when it comes ; but in all this
he makes no personal claim, and assumes no Messianic
function. In the early parables he has no other place
than the scatterer of the word. When he sends forth
the Twelve, their task is not to proclaim him, but to
' preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.'
Even when John despatches his messengers, Jesus sends
back no definite reply to his anxious question. He is
content to describe his method, and leave the Baptist to
draw his own conclusions. Doubtless as time went on,
and Jesus came into closer relations with different classes
of his countrymen, as he saw the welcome which his
' good news ' received among the weary and the suffer
ing, and noted the increasing hostility roused in the
champions of the Law by his bold elevation of human
needs and inward tests above ritual demands and legal
obligations, he felt himself more and more compelled to
define, at least in his own thought, his position towards
the Kingdom and towards his nation. The necessity was
emphasized by the death of John. The first preacher of
the Kingdom had perished. Was the same fate to over
take the second ? Fresh conflicts with the Pharisees and
Scribes from Jerusalem heightened his danger and made
a retirement desirable. In the ' borders of Tyre and
Sidon ' he found a retreat upon Phoenician soil beyond

220 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
Jewish power, though his purpose of concealment was
not wholly realised, for he ' could not be hid,' Mark vii.
24. By a long circuit through the North and East, he
returns once more to the Sea of Galilee through the
midst of the region of the Ten Cities, Mark vii. 31 ; and
finally withdraws again from the scene both of his
successes and his conflicts, to the murmuring springs
of Caesarea Philippi at the sources of the Jordan
beneath Mount Hermon.
(2) During all these wanderings he had been pondering
on the future. What prospect was there for him and his
cause ? So far, he had been the Teacher ; he had pro
claimed the rule of God ; he had shown how its
principles must be found within the heart ; he had stated
without reserve the kind of changes it would make in
life. Was this to be all ? Was he merely to go the
round of the synagogues in Galilee, with an occasional
excursion beyond its borders ? Had God nothing more
for him to do ? Dim plans began to shape themselves
in his mind. The more clearly he felt the difference
between his own ideas of the Kingdom and those round
about him, the more conscious was he of their essential
and imperishable truth, and the more emphatically did
they appear to him a trust, a commission, from the Father
in heaven. Such a trust really involved the whole future
of religion for his people; and through them for the
world. But it could not be wholly discharged in his
northern home. It would involve a complete re-constitu
tion of the modes in which the hereditary faith of his
nation expressed itself. It must be announced in the
very centre of the great tradition by whose representatives
he had been again and again attacked. The appeal

JESUS AND THE MESSIAHSHIP. 221
must be made to Israel, it must be made in the Temple,
to the priests and teachers who professed to sit
in Moses' seat. In other words, he must go to
Jerusalem. (3) Such a resolution could not be hastily formed.
It involved the gravest issues, for failure could mean
nothing but death. And before it could be decisively
taken, another question must be settled. What was his
own real function ? Was he simply a Rabbi, without the
technical training of the schools, who had some new
and original views of the scope of the Kingdom and its
transcendence over the Law ? Or had he some higher
office, corresponding to the larger sweep of his ideas,
and the clearness of his insight into God's purpose for
the world ? As his thought played around this problem,
it could find but one answer. Did it not dawn upon
him, at first, perhaps, with an awful joy, that the Father's
choice had fallen on him; the foundation of the Kingdom
was to be his work : he had been elected to announce
the good tidings, he was the Messiah ? What swift
alternations of mighty hope, of trembling wonder, of
lowly self-suppression, would pass through his mind
beneath the stars. How severely would he not test
himself, ere he would admit, even to himself, so great a
call. Only by slow stages would it take clear shape ;
and when the conviction was at length formed, it could
not be lightly avowed. It presented many difficulties, it
involved many dangers. For it demanded a complete
reversal of all current expectation. Popular hope was
fixed eagerly on the ' Son of David ' who should break
the Roman yoke, and raise Israel to the empire of the
world. But Jesus made no claim to royal ancestry, and

222 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
his argument with the Pharisees about Messiah's descent1
seems to have been intended partly to explain his own
position as Messiah, yet not David's son. Nor did he
aspire to rule the nations, to lead the army of the saints
against the last onset of the heathen powers, and then to
mount the throne as sovereign and judge. In the
relations which he discerned between God and the soul,
God and the world, these ideas could have no place.
If the image of kingship entered his mind at all, it took
a wholly different form. It was not the lordly warrior,
who trampled on his foes till their blood stained his robe
with crimson, Is. lxiii. 1-6; it was the gentle prince,
' lowly and riding upon an ass,' 2 the emblem not of
military pomp, but of civil peace. But the royal Messiah
was not, as we have seen, the only type which the
Synagogue had discovered in the ancient Scriptures.
Messiah might be ' chosen ' to teach rather than to
govern. The 'spirit' might be 'put upon him' that he
might ' carry forth religion truthfully.' 3 He might raise
no banner, and sound no war-cry ; but though he should
not cause his voice to be heard in the streets, none the
less should he establish justice in the earth, and on his
teaching should far-off countries wait. He was anointed
specially to preach the good news, to proclaim that the
year of the Lord's good pleasure had arrived, to
announce to Zion 'thy God hath become king.'
Between these two pictures of Messiah Jesus had to
make his choice. They could not be combined, at
1 Mark xii. 35-37, and parallels. Comp. chap. iv. § 2, 2a,
p. 117; chap. v. § 1, la, p. 141.
2 Zech. ix. 9. a See above, chap. iv. § 2, 2/, p. 129.

JESUS AND THE MESSIAHSHIP. 223
least in his person. The reconciliation which the
Church afterwards attempted by postponing the assump
tion of his sovereign glory, does not seem to have entered
his mind. But the more he pondered on the relation
which he bore to the kingdom of his hope, the more
clearly did he see that relation portrayed in the sublime
figure of the ' Servant ' whom the Synagogue had
identified with the Christ. Some hint of this high
thought may have shaped his answer to the messengers
of John. When they reported the Baptist's question,
' Art thou he that cometh, or look we for another ? '
Jesus replied, Matt. xi. 4, 5 : —
Go your way and tell John the things which ye do hear and
see ; the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers
are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and
the poor have good tidings preached to them.
These were the very functions of the ' Servant ' of old.
He had been chosen to 'open the blind eyes; 'x he had
been anointed to preach good tidings to the poor ; 2 to
his day belonged the promise that the eyes of the blind
should be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped,
that the lame man should leap as an hart, and the
tongue of the dumb sing. 3 By these symbols, therefore,
Jesus pointed to the character which he had not yet
formally assumed. But now the time was ripe, the hour
was come. As his ideas became more definite, the
action to which they led could no longer be deferred.
He had already discerned that the battle for the true
religion must be fought out in Jerusalem, and he had
adopted in his own heart the function of Messiah.
1 Is. xiii. 7. 2 Is. lxi. 1. 3 Is. xxxv. 5, 6.

224 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
Must he not, then, prepare the disciples for the journey
to the capital ? Must he not ascertain from them the
nature of the common talk about him, the support he
would be likely to receive, and their own view of his real
office? At Csesarea Philippi the moment had arrived.
Turning to the Twelve, among the olive-groves and
poplars beneath the slopes of Mount Hermon, he
enquires, ' who do men say that I am? ' x The answers
vary : John the Baptist, they tell him, Elijah, Jeremiah,
one of the old prophets risen again. ' But,' continues
Jesus, ' who say ye that I am ? ' And Peter replies
without hesitation, ' Thou art the Messiah.' 2 The word
has been uttered, the title confessed, and the Teacher has
not rejected it. Jesus does, in fact, accept it ; yet it is so
liable to misconstruction, so little essential to his present
work, that he will have nothing said about it. It carried
with it to the popular ear, nay, as the sequel showed, to the
disciples themselves, expectations which he could not
sanction ; it roused hopes and passions which he desired
above all to avoid. Yet no other name seemed in the
least adequate. He was no forerunner of a mightier yet
to come. The Kingdom was already there : ' it is within
you,' he said ; his part was to secure its recognition and
teach men to discern its laws. He was the Messiah, but
yet ' he charged them that they should tell no man
'of him.'
1 So Mark viii. 27, Luke ix. 18. Matt. xvi. 13, however, repre
sents Jesus as already claiming the Messianic function. The
variations of the text, ' Who do men say that the Son of Man
is ? ' or ' that I the Son of Man am,' show that the simpler form
of the question is the original.
2 On the peculiar addition in Matt.-x.vi. 17-19, see chap. x. § 4, 6.

WARNINGS OF DANGER. 225
(4) It remained to announce to the Twelve the new
development of his plans. They put their own
interpretation, doubtless, upon the intended journey to
Jerusalem. The question 'Wilt thou at this time
'restore the kingdom to Israel?' was always in their
hearts and sometimes on their lips. But if they failed
to understand the dangers which might await them, it
was not for want of preparation. The Gospels contain
a whole series of warnings, again and again repeated,
which show how Jesus sought to open their eyes to the
risk he had resolved to run. They are cast into a
common mould, which has plainly received its form
from later recollection; and they are in part the
unconscious plea by which the Church sought to avert
the reproach of Messiah's death ; he had himself fore
seen and announced it; he had proclaimed it as the
indispensable condition of his glory ; had he not, by so
doing, robbed it of its sting ? So we read such passages
as these, from the Gospel of Mark : —
viii. 31. And he began to teach them that the Son of Man
must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, and the
chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days
rise again.
ix. 31. He taught his disciples and said unto them, The Son
of Man is delivered up into the hands of men, and they
shall kill him ; and when he is killed, after three days he
shall rise again.
x. 33, 34. Behold we go up to Jerusalem ; and the Son of
Man shall be delivered unto the chief priests and the scribes ;
and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him unto
the Gentiles : and they shall mock him, and shall spit upon him,
and shall scourge him, and shall kill him and after three days
he shall rise again. Q

226 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
The precise detail of these predictions, tracing before
hand the stages of Messiah's passion, is surely due to
subsequent events. The tradition does not conceal
that the Twelve did not understand them, Mark ix. 32;
it is clear, therefore, that they were much less definite,
for such explicit language could not have been
misinterpreted. Had Jesus repeatedly foretold his
resurrection within three days after his death, the
collapse of the disciples first, and their incredulity after
wards, would have been alike unaccountable. But
behind the later form of these utterances, we may discern
the undoubted historic fact that at Caesarea Philippi
Jesus first began to lay stress on the danger which
attended the effort he proposed making at Jerusalem.
The conflicts in which he had been already involved
with the Pharisees might have been themselves sufficient
to awaken apprehension as to what might befal him in
the capital. And this foresight was strengthened by
reference to the great prophetic figure in which he saw
the type of his own destiny : the Servant-Messiah had
been cut off from the land of the living; for the
transgression of his people the stroke had fallen on him.
But the Twelve are busy with quite other hopes, and
Peter, in the glow of anticipated triumph, boldly rebukes
the Teacher. The severity of the reproof which he thus
drew down upon himself, betrays the intensity of the
strain in the mind of Jesus. This was his real trial hour;
Messiah himself needed all his strength to fulfil his
resolve; to attempt to dissuade him was to take the
<evil's part ; ' Get thee behind me, Satan.'1
1 Comp. chap. v. § 3, 2, p. 171.

TAKING UP THE CROSS. 227
(5) The passage which follows, Mark viii. 34-36,
contains words in which Christendom has long recog
nised the ' secret of Jesus : '
If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and
take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever would save his
life shall lose it ; and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and
the gospel's shall save it. For what doth it profit a man to gain
the whole world, and forfeit his life ?
The close agreement of all the Synoptic Gospels here
shows how deeply these sayings were stamped upon the
heart of the Church. Yet it may well be doubted if they
were addressed, as Mark and Luke represent, to the
multitude. Jesus was not on a missionary tour ; he had
sought retirement, and was not engaged in public
teaching. Nor would the ordinary hearer be prepared
for the difficult thoughts wrapped in the language of
' losing life.' To the Twelve, on the other hand, already
warned that death is hanging over their Master, the
condition laid down for his followers would have a deep
meaning ; and the statement of Matt. xvi. 24, that the
words were addressed to the disciples is probably,
therefore, the more correct. Yet even for them what
would be the significance of ' taking up the cross ? ' Not
yet had this become the symbol of fellowship with
Messiah's sufferings, as it appears in the language of
Paul. Have we not here, too, a later transfiguration of
the words of Jesus, in which the original thought has
become pointed by the recollection of the instrument of
his death?1 From this austere law of the believer's life,
1 Another Pauline touch is probably to be discerned in the
addition, peculiar to Mark, ' for my sake, and the gospel's,' see
chap. viii. $ 2, 4 ; 5, 3.

228 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
the words ascribed to Jesus leap suddenly forwards to
the future, Mark viii. 38, ix. 1 : —
For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in
this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man also shall
be ashamed of him, when he cometh in the glory of his Father
with the holy angels. And he said unto them, Verily I say unto
you, There be some here of them that stand by, which shall
in no wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God come
with power.
Who is the Son of Man, and when will he come?
Reserving for the present the attempt to ascertain
whether Jesus used this language, and, if so, with what
meaning, let us first of all indicate how it was understood
by the Evangelists and their contemporaries.

§ 2. The Faith of the Church.
Two points only need be noted now. The great
difficulty which the first Christians encountered in
presenting the claim of their Master to be the Messiah,
was the fact that he had suffered and died. To the
Greeks, Messiah's cross was foolishness: to the Jews
it was worse, it was a stumbling-block. This difficulty
might be overcome in two ways. It might be shown that
he had himself foretold his decease, and that it con
formed to prophecy. And it might be shown that he
would come again in glory.
(1) That Jesus sought to strengthen the apostles to
face opposition and danger in Jerusalem is without
doubt historically true. Let it be observed, however, that
in the warnings already cited, § 1, 4, he does not speak

JESUS THE MESSIANIC SON OF MAN. 229
of himself in the first person ; he is always described in
the third person as the ' Son of Man.' This title
appears with peculiar frequency in this connection.
Mark for instance, supplies the following additional
instances : —
ix. 9. And as they were coming down from the mountain,
he charged them that they should tell no man what things they
had seen, save when the Son of Man should have risen again
from the dead.
ix. 12. And he said, Elijah indeed cometh first and restoreth all
things : and how is it written of the Son of Man, that he should
suffer many things and be set at nought ?
xiv. 21. The Son of Man goeth, even as it is written of him :
but woe unto that man through whom the Son of Man is
betrayed. The ' Son of Man,' there can be no doubt, is identical
in these passages with Messiah. Bnt why should this
designation recur so persistently? Why does it in
variably stand instead of Christ? The explanation is
not hard to find. Jesus did not himself employ the
name Messiah ; he forbade his disciples to mention it ;
he only accepted it under strict reserve. To represent
him, therefore, as deliberately selecting it for repeated
use, would have been too gross a violation of historical
reminiscence. But on the other hand, he freely spoke
(so our texts tell us) of the coming of ' the Son of Man.'
By this phrase the Church unquestionably supposed that
he foretold his own return 'in the glory of his Father
' with the holy angels.' He was, therefore, identified as
Messiah with this mysterious figure; embodied in his
own sayings, the term was unhesitatingly applied to
himself ; and a twofold belief arose, (1) that as Son of
Man he had predicted his own death in accordance with

230 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
Scripture, and (2) that in the same capacity he would
come again to take his power and reign.
(2) This latter expectation, known by the Greek name
as the ' Parousia,' or under a Latin title as the second
'Advent,' flourished with extraordinary vigour among
the first believers. It pervaded their thought and
regulated their action, and was ascribed with the most
obvious sincerity to Jesus himself. His last words at
Caesarea Philippi have been already quoted : observe
the form in which they are presented in Matthew :
Mark ix. i.. Matt. xvi. 28.
Verily I say unto you, There ¦ Verily I say unto you, There
be some here of them that be some of them that stand
stand by, which shall in no here, which shall in no wise
wise taste of death, till they taste of death, till they see the
see the kingdom of God come Son of Man coming in his
with power. kingdom.
Jesus then would himself return during the lifetime of
some of the apostles. As the years rolled by, and the
Gospel spread, the hope was carried far and wide to Asia
and to Greece. And when one after another of the
faithful died, and still Messiah had not appeared, the
fear arose that they would miss their share in the future
glory, and he would be welcomed by the survivors only.
Concerning this apprehension the Apostle Paul wrote to
the community at Thessalonica, / Thess. iv. 15-17 : —
This we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that
are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in
no wise precede them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord
himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of
the archangel, and with the trump of God : and the dead in
Christ shall rise first : then we that are alive, that are left, shall
together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord
in the air : and so shall we be ever with the Lord.

RETURN OF JESUS IN GLORY. 231
To the Corinthians he makes a similar, though less
explicit statement, / Cor. xv. 51-52 : —
Behold, I tell you a mystery ; We shall not all sleep, but we
shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at
the last trump : for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall
be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. . . . Maran
atha, our Lord cometh. — xvi. 22.
And years after he writes from his prison at Rome across
the blue waters to Philippi, Phil. iv. 4-5 : —
Rejoice in the Lord alway : . . . The Lord is at hand.
' Behold I come quickly,' ' The time is at hand,' are the
encouragement and the warning of the Apocalypse.
Tribulation might for a while overcast the golden glow
of the great hope, but it would shine once more when
the cloud was past, and then, like the fruits of the earth,
the Church's harvest should appear, James v. 7-8 : —
Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.
Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the
earth, being patient over it, until it receive the early and latter
rain. Be ye also patient ; stablish your hearts ; for the coming
of the Lord is at hand.
' The end of all things is at hand,' says the writer of the
First Epistle of Peter, iv. 7: but it does not arrive, and
the writer of the Second finds himself face to face with
mockers who ask ' Where is the promise of his coming ? '
iii. 4. He has to apologise for the delay; one day is
with the Lord as a thousand years; and that all may
have an opportunity of repentance, the moment of
irrevocable doom had been put off. But it will come :
the heavens shall pass away with a great noise : the
elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat: and the
earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
And so from one end of the Testament to the other do
various tones reiterate the promise.

232 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.

$ 3. The Transfiguration.
Closely connected with the conception of Jesus as
Messiah, and likewise linked with his approaching death,
is the narrative of the Transfiguration.1 Before pro
ceeding, therefore, to ask what justification there was in
the language of Jesus for the expectation of his return as
Son of Man in clouds of glory, it may be well to enquire
the real meaning of this story.
(i) Six days after the scene at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus
takes Peter and James and John on to a high mountain
apart. There he is transfigured before them : his face
shines as the sun, and his garments become white as the
light. As the three disciples gaze, they see Moses and
Elijah talking with him : they spoke, says Luke, ' of his
' decease which he was about to accomplish at Jeru-
' salem.' The modern English biographers of Jesus,
Farrar, Geikie, and Edersheim, have all accepted this as
an account of literal fact. Meyer, observing that though
Elijah had been carried up to heaven and had a
resurrection body, Moses still lay in his unknown
sepulchre, suggests that while the change in Jesus was
real, the two prophets were not actually present, they
were seen only in a vision. This division of the
incident into two parts of varying character does not
commend itself to other apologists. From Tertullian
to Weiss it has been often proposed to treat the whole as
a 'subjective' appearance. It is believed that it was
dark, and Peter and his comrades, weary with their
1 Mark ix. 2-8, and parallels.

DIVERGING INTERPRETATIONS. 233
climb, were heavy with sleep. Might not what they saw
have belonged to the visions of the night ? In that case
they must each have dreamed at the same moment
the same dream : and there is little less difficulty in
comprehending how they could all three simultaneously
behold the same figures with the inner eye, than in
understanding how Moses and Elijah could have been
present in bodily shape as two men. Moreover the
language of the Third Evangelist, in whichever form we
interpret it, leaves no room for the supposition. Our
Revisers' text tells us that they saw neither the glory of
Jesus nor the two who stood with him till they were fully
awake : the margin states that they forced themselves to
keep awake and never yielded to the desire for slumber.
The theory of a waking vision in no way eases the
miracle. No less unsatisfactory have been the efforts to
explain the incident out of natural possibilities. At
sunset the crest of the mountain was lit up with a golden
glow, reflected on the person of Jesus. Shadows, such
as may be seen from a Swiss peak projected with huge
dimensions on a transparent mist, wore rainbow hues,
and were mistaken by excited imagination for the two
prophet forms. Or two friends, perhaps Essenes, had
been summoned by Jesus to secret conference; and
when the thunder cloud enveloped them, and the divine
voice pealed forth, they disappeared, so that Jesus was
found alone. The absence of the mythology of nature
from the Gospels — save in the rebuke addressed to the
wind and sea — renders the first of these suggestions in
the highest degree unlikely, to say nothing of its
inadequacy to account for the moral elements of the
scene : while the collusion attributed to Jesus, at least

234 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
by the grosser forms of the second, needs only to be
mentioned to be at once dismissed. Has modern
rationalism no other explanation ?
(2) Let it be noted first of all how many points of
contact the story shows with the Old Testament. The
'high mountain'— we need not try to decide whether
it be Tabor or Hermon— whither Jesus guides Peter,
James, and John, is the counterpart of the sacred
mountain which Moses climbed, followed by Aaron,
Nadab, and Abihu. The face of Jesus shining as the
sun was not brighter than that of the great lawgiver,
which shone — so said Rabbinic writings— before his
death as the sun, and, when he descended from the
mount with the tables in his hands, sent forth beams or
rays, Exod. xxxiv. 29 (margin). The luminous cloud
had settled with smoke and fire over the peak where the
prophet stood : when the Dwelling-place1 was reared in
the wilderness, the cloud descended on it and abode
thereon :2 as the priests came out of the holy place in
the Temple after they had deposited the ark in the
oracle within, the cloud so filled the house, that they
could not stand at the altar for their ministry.3 Out of the
cloud on Sinai came the solemn voice announcing the
Ten Words which stood as the foundation of the
ancient code.4 So on the Mount of the Transfiguration
did the voice out of the cloud proclaim a lawgiver if not
a law, 'This is my beloved son, in whom I am well
1 The name given to the ' Tent of Meeting ' in the Levitical
legislation, Exod. xxv. 9.
2 Exod. xl. 34-35. 3 / Kings viii. 10-11.
4 Exod. xix. 16-18, Deut. v. 22.

THE TRANSFIGURATION. 235
'pleased: hear ye him.'1 Suggestions of divers utter
ances blend in these few words. They recall, Matt.
xvii. 5, the declaration of the Baptism, which Matthew
reports in the third person, iii. 17, founded originally on
the Messianic poem, Ps. ii. 7 ; they remind us in Luke's
version, ix. 35, 'my chosen,' of the Anointed Servant,
Is. xiii. 1, who is Yahweh's choice, in whom he takes his
pleasure ; and in the final command ' hear ye him,' they
point to the description, in Deut. xviii. 15, of the
prophet who should be raised up like unto Moses,
concerning whom it was added ' him shall ye hear.'
(3) But these elements need some central thought to
combine them and hold them in continuous union.
They would not have assembled of themselves ; they are
too fragmentary to constitute a whole, though they are
sufficient to enrich and adorn a conception which can
bind them together. What is that conception? The
two figures of Moses and Elijah are plainly the repre-
1 The divine Voice is the equivalent here of the well-known
' Bath-Kol,' which in Talmudic legends utters declarations from
heaven. In the great discussion on Messiah already quoted, p. 185,
are the following stories, Edersheim, Life and Times of Messiah,
ii. p. 736 : ' Rabbi Joshua, the son of Levi, saw Elijah, who stood
'at the door of Paradise. He said to him, "When shall the
'" Messiah come ? " He replied, " When that Lord shall come,"
' (meaning God). Rabbi Joshua, the son of Levi, said, " I saw two
'" (himself and Elijah), and I heard the voice of three " (beside the
' former two the voice of God). Again he met Elijah standing at
'the door of the cave of Rabbi Simon, the son of Jochai, and
' said to him, " Shall I attain the world to come ? " Elijah
' replied, " If it pleaseth to this Lord." Upon which follows the
' same remark, " I have seen two and I have heard the voice of
'"three."'

236 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
sentatives of the Law and the Prophets : J may it not be
said that the Transfiguration is an attempt to express in
pictorial form the relation of Messiah to the two great
powers of the Jewish Church ? Was this simply one of
fulfilment? or did the new dispensation supersede the
old ? That was a question of great moment for the first
believers ; it was a question which was most closely
connected with the scope of the gospel, and the terms
on which the Gentiles could be admitted to the kingdom.
The Apostle Paul, at any rate, had no doubt about it.
The glory of Moses, after all, was being done away;
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God was to
be discerned in the face of Jesus Christ. The minis
tration of death and the letter vanished before the
ministration of the spirit and life.2 What, then, was the
agency by which the power of the law was broken ? It
was by Messiah's death and resurrection. As long as he
was in the flesh, Jesus remained under the law ; but the
cross set him free from these limitations; risen and
glorified he belonged no more to Israel only, he was the
representative of spiritual humanity ; he was the second
man, the Lord from heaven. It was the aim of Jewish
Christianity to accommodate the new force beside the
old. ' Let us make three tabernacles,' cries Peter, ' one
' for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.' This
was the ideal of the narrower section of the Church : let
the Kingdom abide between its two guardians and
supports, with Law on the one hand, and Prophecy on
the other. But that was not the view of Paul at all.
1 On the connection of Elijah with Messiah, see chap. vi. § 3,3,
p. 197.
2 Comp. 2 Cor. iii. 7 — iv. 6.

THE TRANSFIGURATION. 237
'The law was a tutor,' he argued,1 'to bring us unto
Christ,' but once with Messiah, it was needed no more.
The heavenly voice, therefore, declares ' This is my Son,
' hear him : ' when the cloud passes, Moses and Elijah
have disappeared, and Jesus is found alone. Law and
Prophecy have done their work : the religion of humanity
needs them no more. That the exaltation of Jesus as
spiritual Son of God should be portrayed under the
figure of light, harmonises with the repeated tendency
of Old Testament imagery. Light is the first divine
creation, as the spirit of God broods over the darkness
of the deep. Light was the robe with which God
clothed himself as with a garment. Light beamed from
Moses' face after his solemn communing with Deity upon
the mount. Light filled the sky when the Saviour of the
world was born : and as in the book of Enoch God's
raiment was brighter than sun or snow, so did Messiah's
vesture 'became glistering, exceeding white,' while his
face shone as the sun. Under such impulses has poetic
imagination sought to give shape to the thought of Paul
and portray the significance of Messiah's death.2
(4) Once more does Indian legend supply a parallel
to Christian thought. Death to the Buddha was no hour
of humiliation and defeat, it was the final goal which
released him from the last elements of attachment to
material things, so that he passed away and ceased to be.
The Messiah, about to die, sees in the suggestion that his
fate shall be averted, a temptation of Satan ; but in the
moral necessity of securing the triumph of his cause, he
1 Gal. iii. 24.
2 This explanation is founded on Dr. Pfleiderer's : see his
Urchristenthum, pp. 387-390.

238 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
is expected to live again and return in his followers'
lifetime to establish his power. The Buddha, on the
other hand, suffers an inverse trial. No sooner has he
qualified himself, by the attainment of supreme insight,
to reach the goal, than the Evil One proposes to him to
escape the weariness of preaching the truth, and die at
once. ' I shall not die,' he cries, ' till this pure religion
'is well proclaimed among men'; and he resists the
tempter, and lives and toils for more than fifty years.1
At length the hour of release arrives. Three months
before does he announce to the brethren that the time is
at hand. On the last night, ere he has completed his
journey, a rich young disciple brings a robe of cloth of
gold and lays it on him. But the person of the Buddha
shines so clear, so exceeding bright, that the burnished
vesture seems no better than a blotch. 2 Later story told
how his body glowed like a flame, and his appearance
was beautiful above all expression. ' It is true,' said the
Blessed One, when the disciple whom he loved observed
it : ' the shining light is a certain forerunner of my
decease.' Truth and light corresponded in Indian as in
Hebrew thought, and reverence for the Buddha chose the
same symbol to express his greatness which Christian
piety employed for Messiah. For the spiritual imagination
is not bound by limitations of race, of country, or of time;
it freely borrows out of Nature's store the fittest emblems
of its ideas. When these conceptions are in inward
harmony, it is not wonderful that they should be clothed
in kindred forms.
1 Buddhist Suttas, p. 53.
2 Buddhist Suttas, p. 81. I give the literal meaning of the phrase.

DISCOURSE ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 239

§ 4. The Last Things.
The Transfiguration is not directly connected with the
Second Advent ; but they both belong to the conscious
ness of the Churoh, and are linked together by Messiah's
death. The fullest expression of the expectation of
Messiah's return is found in the great discourse attributed
to Jesus as he sat on the Mount of Olives, reported in
Mark xiii., Luke xxi., Matt. xxiv.
(i) The First Three Evangelists unite in ascribing to
Jesus a detailed prediction of the last things which should
immediately precede the ' coming of the Son of Man.'
But they do not quite agree either in their statements of
the circumstances of its delivery, or in their record of
important passages of tbe prophecy.
(a) The occasion is variously related, though all three
connect it with an utterance about the Temple. Accord
ing to Mark, Jesus is leaving the sacred house and is on
his way back to Bethany, when one of the disciples
remarks on the massiveness of the stones and the
splendour of the vast pile of buildings. Jesus replies
' There shall not be left here one stone upon another
' which shall not be thrown down.' On his return over
the Mount of Olives, he sits down in full view of the
Temple confronting him across the valley, and there
Peter and James and John and Andrew gather round
him and ask him privately, ' Tell us when shall these
'things be.' Luke reports the declaration of Jesus, and
the question of the disciples, but as he does not mention.
that Jesus quitted the city, both the original remark and
the discourse which follows are apparently quite con-

240 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
tinuous; and the location of the prophecy within the
Temple precincts is much less appropriate than Mark's
arrangement. Matthew affirms that Jesus had already
gone out from the Temple, when some city-disciple
familiar with its wonders comes to the Teacher from
Galilee and offers to guide him round the sights. All
three concur in the prediction of the great overthrow:
and the subsequent story confirms the utterance. The
evidence offered at the trial included words about the
destruction of the Temple, Mark xiv. 58, Matt. xxvi. 61 ;
and with a Roman fortress alongside it, the Teacher's
foresight might well have discerned the end. But
Matthew, in repeating the disciples' question, gives it
quite a new form :
Mark xiii. 4. Luke xxi. 7. Matt. xxiv. 3.
Tell us, when shall When therefore Tell us, when
these things be? and shall these things be ? shall these things
what shall be the and what shall be the be ? and what shall
sign when these sign when these be the sign of thy
things are all about things are about to coming and of the
to be accomplished ? come to pass ? end of the world.
In Mark and Luke the inquiry is concerned only with the
indications which will precede the fall of the sanctuary.
Matthew converts it into a request for information about
Messiah's second coming, the end of the existing age,
and the inauguration of the age to come.
(b) If the occasion of the discourse is thus variously
stated, it is the less surprising that the discourse itself
should not be always recorded in the same terms. It will
be pointed out immediately, that many sayings are
embodied here which reappear elsewhere in Matthew and
Luke ; and it may suffice now to quote only two instances

DISCOURSE ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 241
of modification which betray the conscious or un
conscious influence of the events and thoughts of later
days. Mark and Matthew contain a mysterious allusion
to the 'abomination of desolation'; standing, says one,
where he ought not; standing, says the other more
precisely, in the holy place. But to Luke, this obscure
reference to the language of Daniel was unintelligible ;
and he converts it into the desolation of Jerusalem,
thus : —
Mark xiii. 14. Matt. xxiv. 15-16. Luke xxi. 20-21.
When ye see the When therefore ye But when ye see
abomination of deso- see the abomination Jerusalem compassed
lation standing where of desolation, which with armies, then
he ought not (let him was spoken of by know that her deso-
that readeth under- Daniel the prophet, lation is at hand.
stand), then let them standing in the holy Then let them that
that are in Judaea place (let him that are in Judaea flee
flee unto the moun- readeth understand), unto the mountains.
tains. then let them that
are in Judaea flee
unto the mountains.
With this may be compared the detailed description
which Luke alone supplies of the great tribulation that is
to come, xxi. 24 : —
And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led
captive into all the nations : and Jerusalem shall be trodden down
of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
In general effect it may be said that Matthew's version
stands nearer to Mark than Luke's, which contains some
obviously later elements; yet there are some minute
and delicate indications which imply that in its final form,
Matthew's discourse may be the last of all.1
1 Attention may be directed to the allusions in Matt. xxiv.
10-11, to discords within the Church, and the rise of false
R

242 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
(2) The central thought of the discourse has been
already indicated. It predicts the approach of disorders
social and religious, involving the disciples in danger,
from which they will be at length compelled to seek
escape by flight from Judaea ; Luke explicitly announc
ing the siege and fall of Jerusalem, and the dispersal of
its people as slaves. The tribulation of those days will
be followed by more disorders, by portents in the skies
above — eclipse of sun and moon, stars falling from their
places, the shaking of the powers of heaven. Let them
not fear, however ; ' then shall they see the Son of Man
• coming in clouds with great power and glory.' In this
declaration all three reports agree; and in the con
clusion their concurrence is once more complete, Mark
xiii. 30, 31 :—
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.
Thus in the clearest manner does Jesus, according to the
united testimony of the Synoptic Gospels, announce the
overthrow of Jerusalem, and declare that it will be
followed, in the lifetime of his hearers, by the ' coming
' of the Son of Man ' in clouds of glory. By this the
teachers ; to the decline of faith, ver. 12, and the postponement of
the ' end ' till the gospel has been preached to all the world, ver. 14,
cp. chap. x. $ 4, 5. On the other hand, these are combined with
a distinctly early touch, the expectation of the Parousia ' imme
diately,' ver. 29, this word being absent in Mark xiii. 24, and Luke
xxi. 25. This is one of several indications that our First Gospel
though the latest to assume its present form, nevertheless often
preserves its materials in a relatively older shape. Comp.
chap. viii. $ 2, 4 ; chap. x. § 2, 2 d, and § 3, 1 a.

CONNECTION WITH THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. 243
Church has universally understood him to predict his
own return in heavenly splendour with angelic hosts.
But the verdict of histoiy cannot be evaded. That did
not happen : Jesus did not come back. If this be the
only interpretation of his words, they have passed away.
It has been supposed, accordingly, that his royal advent
is still future, though he was present invisibly when the
city fell. Dr. Geikie thus paraphrases his meaning1 : —
When, therefore, soon after my departure from you, you see
all these wars, and hear all these rumours of wars of which I have
told you, know that I, the Messiah, am near in my first coming,
as ye know that the summer is close when ye see the branches of
the fig tree swell and put forth their buds. For it is I who come
unseen to judge Jerusalem and the Temple as I shall in the end
come visibly to judge all mankind.
The idea of two comings is thus imported into the
passage which throughout speaks only of one. Dr.
Farrar endeavours to get at the same result by another
method. He suggests2 that there were two horizons, one
near and one remote, which corresponded to two
meanings in the Greek word genea. It is true its usual
sense is that of a ' generation ;' but might it not signify
the Jewish ' race ? ' and might not Jesus really have
meant ' the Jews shall not cease to be a people till these
' things are accomplished ? ' As there is no sign that
the Jews, however widely dispersed, will ever lose their
characteristics of religion and nationality, the indefinite
postponement of the Second Advent is vindicated out
of the meaning of a Greek word. The proposed
1 Life and Words qf Christ (1877), vol. ii. p. 447.
2 St. Luke (Cambridge Bible), note on xxii. 32. Life of Christ,
vol. ii. p. 259.

244 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
interpretation has only two objections against it, but it
does not overcome them : in the first place, Jesus did
not speak Greek : in the second, the Greek word cannot
bear the significance required.1 Dr. Edersheim has
more fully recognised the facts of the case2 : —
The language of the Synoptists seems to indicate that they
had not clearly understood the words of the Lord which they
reported, and that in their own minds they had associated the
' last signs ' and the Advent of Christ with the fall of the City.
Thus they may have come to expect that blessed Advent even in
their own days.
Franker still in his concession is Dr. Weiss 3 : —
All attempts to deny away the fact that Jesus looked forward to
an immediate return, which would enable Him to finish his work,
are wrecked on that great speech on His second coming in which
He anticipated that that would be directly connected with the
approaching catastrophe in Judsea.
The inquiry, then, has a twofold direction. On the one
hand, it must be asked, did Jesus really deliver the
discourse here set down for him ? On the other, if he
predicted the coming of the Son of Man, did he intend
by that to foretell his own return in clouds of glory ; and
if not, is it possible to ascertain what he did mean?
(3) Even a casual reading of the speech suffices to
suggest that it has gathered up into itself diverse
elements. What has the shaking of the powers of
heaven to do with the missionary preaching of the
gospel ; how are wars and rumours of wars connected
with the trial of the believer before governors and kings ?
1 See Meyer on Matt. xxiv. 34, and Mark xiii. 30.
2 Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. ii. p. 450.
3 Life of Christ, vol. iii. p. 89.

THE DISCOURSE A COMPILATION.

245

And whence come so many reminiscences of earlier
words, echoes of disjointed sayings that are here
combined, nay, actual sentences and paragraphs that
are used twice over in separate discourses ? A closer
study shows that the address is in reality a compilation.
For example, Mark and Matthew repeat with some
variations in the latter part material already presented in
the earlier, thus : — Mark xiii. 21, 22, cp. Matt.
xxiv. 23, 24.
And then if any man shall say
unto you, Lo here is the Christ;
or Lo, there; believe it not, for
there shall arise false Christs
and false prophets, and shall
show signs and wonders that
they may lead astray if possible,
the elect.
The passage in Mark xiii. 9-13, describing the dangers
that will beset the faithful, is practically identical with
Matt. x. 17-22, where it is addressed to the Twelve on
their first Mission.

Mark xiii. 5, 6, cp. Matt.
xxiv. 4, 5.
Take heed that no man lead
you astray. Many shall come
in my name, saying, I am he ;
and shall lead many astray.

Mark xiii. 9-13.
But take ye heed to yourselves :
for they shall deliver you up to
councils, and in synagogues
shall ye be beaten ; and before
governors and kings shall ye
stand for my sake, for a testi
mony unto them. And the
gospel must first be preached
unto all the nations. And when
they lead you to judgment, and
deliver you up, be not anxious

Matt. x. 17-22.
But beware of men ; for they
will deliver you up to councils,
and in their synagogues they
will scourge you ; yea and
before governors and kings shall
ye be brought for my sake, for
a testimony to them, and to
the Gentiles. But when they
deliver you up, be not anxious
how or what ye shall speak :
for it shall be given you in that

246

THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.

beforehand what ye shall speak ;
but whatsoever shall be given
you in that hour, that speak ye :
for it is not ye that speak, but
the holy Spirit. And brother
shall deliver up brother to death,
and the father his child ; and
children shall rise up against
parents, and cause them to be
put to death. And ye shall be
hated of all men for my name's
sake : but he that endureth to the

hour what ye shall speak. For
it is not ye that speak, but the
Spirit of your Father that
speaketh in you. And brother
shall deliver up brother to
death, and the father his child :
and children shall rise up against
parents, and cause them to be
put to death. And ye shall be
hated of all men for my name's
sake : but he that endureth to
the end, the same shall be
saved.

end, the same shall be saved.
The correspondence here is much closer than it is with
the section which occupies the same relative place in
Matt. xxiv. 9-14. Other sections in Mark and Matthew
reappear in fresh connections in Luke, thus : —
Mark xiii. 15, 16. Luke xvii. 31.
Let him that is on the house In that day, he which shall
top not go down, nor enter in, be on the housetop, and his

to take anything out of his
house : and let him that is in
the field not return back to take
his cloke. Matt. xxiv. 27.
For as the lightning cometh
forth from the east, and is seen
even unto the west ; so shall be
the coming of the Son of
Man. xxiv. 28.
Wheresoever the carcase is,
there will the eagles be gathered
together.

goods in the house, let him not
go down to take them away :
and let him that is in the field
likewise not return back.
Luke xvii. 24.
For as the lightning, when it
lighteneth out of the one part
under the heaven, shineth unto
the other part under heaven,
so shall the Son of Man be in
his day. xvii. 37.
Where the body is, thither
will the eagles also be gathered
together.

THE DISCOURSE A COMPILATION. 247
All Three Evangelists, therefore, show such peculiarities
of combination and distribution, as to prove that they
dealt freely with the elements, whether traditional or
literary, at their disposal; and this increases the
probability that the report of the words of Jesus has
been enlarged by the incorporation of other materials.
Is there any distincter evidence of such a process ?
(4) Closer examination of the discourse may yield
further results. It seems readily to fall apart into
sections, dealing on the one hand with the future of the
Christian community, and on the other with vast social
commotions and terrible prodigies of nature. The
following table shows how these different themes are
interlaced by Mark.
xiii. 5, 6, appearance of false
Messiahs. xiii. 7, 8, wars and earth
quakes.
9-13, persecutions for preach
ing the Gospel. 14-20, tribulation in Judaea.
21-23. Renewed warnings
against false Messiahs. 24, 25, portents in heaven.
26-37, the coming of the Son of Man.
The language concerning wars and earthquakes, eclipses
and disturbances in the skies, reminds us at once of the
stream of Apocalyptic literature which had been flowing
ever since the appearance of Daniel under the oppression
of Antiochus Epiphanes. It does not resemble anything
else in the teachings of Jesus. Is it possible that it was
not due to him at all ? What is the meaning for example

248 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
of the singular allusion to the ' abomination of desola
tion,' which Luke silently omitted ? And what, above
all, is the significance of the parenthetic exhortation
which follows, ' let him that readeth understand'? These
last words could not have formed part of a prediction
uttered by Jesus in private to four disciples. They do
not refer to anything spoken at all ; they are a warning to
a reader. Concerning what ? The answer is indeed not
without difficulty. The ' abomination of desolation '
standing in the holy place is plainly an allusion to Daniel
xi. 31 (cp. ix. 27, xii. 11) ; and in its first use it referred
to the statue of Olympian Zeus erected by Antiochus
Epiphanes on the altar of burnt offering in the Temple
at Jerusalem. Is it still employed with a like signifi
cance? Presumably; the meaning of the symbol was
doubtless known well enough in Judaea. What statue,
then, is in the writer's mind ? It is something which is
not yet, indeed, established ; though it is expected soon.
Some critics have found in it an allusion to a possible
statue of Titus, set up after the city fell ; or even to one
of Hadrian, after the ill-starred revolt of Bar-Kokhba
about 130 a.d. But of the first of these nothing is
known, and the second seems altogether too remote. It
appears, however, that about the year 40 a.d., the
emperor Caligula purposed to place his statue in Jeru
salem. The Jews, always restive under Roman
supremacy, were especially excitable, as the incident
of Pilate and the Roman ensigns proved,1 over what
they regarded as violations of the command against
idolatry which was part of the very essence of their
1 See Life in Palestine, { 23, p. 76.

DISCOURSE ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 249
religion. From this time onwards, in truth, till the
outbreak of the fatal war in 66, the population of the
capital was never quiet. Be it observed, however, that
the word is not addressed to them. Neither Mark nor
Matthew mentions Jerusalem or speaks of its siege. It
is to the dwellers in Judaea, not in the city, that the
warning comes, Mark xiii. 14-16, Matt. xxiv. 16-18.
Vague apprehensions during all this period filled the air.
The Parthian wars, — the earthquakes such as those at
Laodicea in 60, and Pompeii in 62, — the famines (two
occurred under Claudius and Nero) — the popular risings
as under Theudas, — the false prophets, like the Egyptian
who led his followers to the Mount of Olives to see the
walls of the city fall, — all these events seem mirrored in
the group of passages which describe the terrors of
nature and the violence of men. Taken together with
the reference to a written document, do they not suggest
that some little Apocalypse, produced probably in the
seventh decade of our era, has been worked into the
tradition of the words of Jesus ? That occasional fly
leaves of current prophecy passed at this time from hand
to hand may be reasonably inferred from a statement of
the historian Eusebius, who tells us that before the fall of
Jerusalem the Christians quitted the doomed city and
fled across the Jordan to Pella, in accordance with a
certain oracle. Such a broad-sheet of contemporary
warning, conceived in the spirit of earlier literature,
might well have called especial attention to its secret
dread by the veiled words ' let him that readeth
understand.' (5) The incorporation of passages from external
literature into reports of the sayings of Jesus is not

250 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
really so unlikely as may at first sight appear. An
instance has already been cited from early tradition
outside the Gospels, in which a prediction from the
Apocalypse of Baruch was ascribed to the Teacher, an
incredulous question was assigned to Judas, and finally
an appropriate rebuke was administered by the Lord.1
Evidence will be offered by and by, 2 which will render
it probable that the concluding portion of the great
invective of Jesus against the Scribes and Pharisees,
Matt, xxiii. 34-39, in which he declares that he sends
against them prophets and wise men and scribes, some
of whom they shall crucify, is really a quotation from
a lost book entitled the ' Wisdom of God.' 3 What has
happened once, may have happened more than once.
The more carefully the records are examined, the more
plain does it become that materials from various sources
have been brought together ; and in making a collection
of sayings of Jesus concerning the future of his country
under Roman hands, the possible dangers to his cause
and representatives, and the final triumph of God's
purposes, the Gospel editors may certainly have em
ployed documents of whose origin and first application
they were ignorant, especially if they could be easily
attached to other sayings of the Teacher by any
coincidences of phrase or thought.
(6) The preceding argument has aimed at showing
that it is not necessary to ascribe to Jesus the whole of
the great discourse on the Last Things. The plea may
1 See chap. iv. § 3, 1, p. 133. 2 See chap. x. § 3, ib.
3 Or at least a book in which the ' Wisdom of God ' was the
chief speaker.

COMPARISON WITH OTHER TEACHINGS. 251
be enforced by the consideration of the incongruity of
some of its language with teachings elsewhere attributed
to him. Thus the Gospel of Matthew presents a curious
discrepancy between two passages concerning the time
of the great manifestation known as the coming of the
Son of Man. When the apostles are first sent out to
preach, they are charged to address only their own
countrymen, Matt. x. 5 : —
Go not into any way of the Gentiles, and enter not into any
city of the Samaritans ; but go rather to the lost sheep of the
house of Israel.
The apparent reason for this limitation is found in the
expectation that the Son of Man will actually arrive
before they have been able to traverse even all their
native land, ver. 23 : —
Ye shall not have gone through the cities of Israel till the Son
of Man be come.
But on the Mount of Olives a much wider extension is
given to the apostolic preaching. Not Israel only, but
all peoples, are to have an opportunity of hearing the
truth; and a corresponding time is demanded for the
evangelising of mankind, Malt. xxiv. 14 : —
And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole
world for a testimony unto all the nations : and then shall the
end come.
It is quite possible that neither of these predictions may
be exact reproductions of the words of Jesus ; but we
can hardly suppose that he uttered both. Again, many
of the ideas connected wifh the future manifestation of
the kingdom, Luke xxi. 31, are wholly unlike the sayings
in which all Christendom has found the finest expressions
of the Master's spirit. When the Son of Man sends

252 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
forth his angels with a great trumpet blast, Matt. xxiv. 31,
what resemblance is there in this vast scenic display to
the sower scattering the seed, or the leaven silently at
work within the dough ? When we hear of the lightning
flashing through the sky, we ask if this fell from the lips
which declared 'the kingdom of God is within you:'
amid the marvels of heaven and earth, distress of
nations, and the raging sea, who could 'receive the
' kingdom of God as a little child ? ' Nay, more, it is
the express purpose of the discourse to declare what
are the indications of 'the end of the age,' 'the sign
• of the Son of Man in heaven.' Yet again and
again the Teacher had refused a similar demand.
When the Pharisees sought of him a sign from heaven,
'he sighed deeply in his spirit,' Mark viii. 12, and
answered, ' Why doth this generation seek a sign ?
' Verily I say unto you, there shall no sign be given
' unto this generation.' ' The kingdom of God cometh
' not with observation.' Which of these two is the
real Jesus ?

§ 5. The Coming of the Son of Man.
It remains, in the last place, to ask whether all, or
any, of the language concerning the ' Coming of the
' Son of Man ' is due to Jesus ; and, if so, what mean
ing it bore on his own lips.
(1) Great as are the variations among the First Three
Evangelists in their reports of the discourse on the Last

DID JESUS PREDICT IT? 253
Things, it is noteworthy that they all meet at the close in
a common prophecy : —
Mark xiii. 26. Matt. xxiv. 30. Luke xxi. 27.
Then shall they Then .... shall Then shall they
see the Son of Man they see the Son of see the Son of Man
coming in clouds Man coming on the coming in a cloud
with great power clouds of heaven with powerand great
and glory. with power and glory.
great glory.
Did this utterance stand alone, it might be open to
criticism through its connection with so much of
doubtful authenticity in the speech which precedes it.
But it is supported by evidence derived from two other
occasions, first at Caesarea Philippi, and secondly at the
trial. Can the record of these last proceedings be
trusted? None of the disciples, indeed, were present
when Jesus was arraigned before the high priest and the
council, and there was no friendly hand to report the
Teacher's words, much less was there any official record
of them. But it is difficult to believe that the charges
brought against Jesus, and his replies, were not pre
served in tolerably accurate remembrance; and in
gathering up the tradition of the Master's dying hours,
the apostles would have ample opportunity afterwards
of learning upon the spot what he had actually said.
Accepting the report, then, as substantially correct, we
find that the high priest inquired of Jesus whether he
was the Christ. The three forms of his answer all agree
that he admitted the charge; and the Evangelists add —
Mark xiv. 62. Matt. xxvi. 64. Lnke xxii. 69.
Ye shall see the Henceforthyeshall From henceforth
Son of Man sitting seethe Son of Man shall the Son of Man

254 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
at the right hand of sitting at the right be seated at the right
power, ' and coming hand of power, ' and hand of the power
with the clouds of comingon the clouds of God.
heaven. of heaven.
This reply strikingly confirms the announcement on
1 So much confusion is apt to arise from the misunderstanding
of language which is really poetic, that it may be worth while to
linger over this phrase. The word ' power ' should rather be
rendered ' the Power,' i.e. as Luke interprets, ' the power of God.'
This attribute was frequently employed in Jewish speech in place
of the holy name. The 'right hand' of God is obviously a
survival, like the other terms 'face,' 'eyes,' 'arm,' 'feet,' &c,
from the ancient conception of the gods as possessed of human
form. When the poet, addressing the king, says, 'At thy right
' hand doth stand the Queen in gold of Ophir,' Ps. xiv. 9, he
refers to the literal presence of the royal consort beside the
sovereign. But when the same phrase is used of Yahweh and
the king, 'Yahweh's oracle touching my lord, Be enthroned at
* my right hand,' Ps. ex. 1 (Cheyne's Psalms), it denotes no
physical relationship, but, as the context shows, the secure
establishment of the king on Mount Zion. In ver. 5 of the same
Psalm the divine protection is indicated by describing the Lord,
i.e. God, as at the king's right hand, cp. Ps. xvi. 8. The
language is, of course, as much imaginative and metaphorical as
that of Ps. ii., where the newly installed king is said to be
Yahweh's son, begotten that day. In Psalm Ixxx., which some
critics ascribe to the Maccabean period, Israel is designated,
ver. 17, as 'the son of man whom thou didst choose thee'
(Cheyne's rendering) ; and in the same verse is also called ' the
' man of thy [God's] right hand,' with reference to the ancient
' vine ' (another symbol) ' which God's right hand planted,'
ver. 15, when the nation originally established itself in Canaan.
May not the ' sitting of the Son of Man at the right hand o£ the
power ' be a symbolic representation of the assured establishment
of the kingdom of God in the holy people, of which the lordly
form ' like unto a son of man ' was Daniel's image ?

THE TRIUMPH OF THE KINGDOM. 255
the Mount of Olives. The harmony of the two sets of
passages in the Synoptics is nearly complete. May we
not conclude that here, if anywhere, we are on the track
of the Teacher's thought and speech ?
(2) What, then, is the thought which expresses itself in
this peculiar figure ? Does Jesus identify himself with
the Son of Man ? So far as these passages go, certainly
not. He never says 'Ye shall see me coming.' The
invariable employment of the third person, on the other
hand, suggests that he intended to draw a clear distinction
between himself and his own function, and the event
which he designates by this emblematic name. It has been
already shown that in the book of Daniel the ' coming
' of one like unto a son of man with clouds of heaven '
is simply a picture of the establishment of the kingdom
given to the saints of the Most High, in contrast to the
brute shapes of successive empires which arose from
no heavenly origin, but from the sea, and were all
doomed to pass away.1 It had there no individual
significance. It is a symbol of the triumph of God's
cause in the people of his choice. Why should not
Jesus have used it in the same imaginative sense ? Why
should it have a personal application on his lips which it
has not in the Book of Daniel? Familiar as we know
him to have been with the sacred books of his race, he
might easily have adopted such an expression to denote
what it denotes in its author's vision, the victory of truth
and equity, the goal of good, the consummation of God's
purposes. This interpretation of the phrase occurs,
indeed, in the Gospels themselves. At the close of the
1 See chap. iv. § 1, 2, p. 106.

256 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
discourse following his recognition as Messiah by the
Twelve, we find these words, according to Matt. xvi.
28:— Verily I say unto you, There be some of them that stand here
which shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Son of
Man coming in his kingdom.
This is in close correspondence with the declarations in
the prophecy of the last things, Mark xiii. 30, and
parallels. In Mark and Luke, however, the equivalents
stand thus : —
Mark ix. 1. Luke ix. 27.
Verily I say unto you, There But I tell you of a truth
be some here of them that There be some of them that
stand by, which shall in no stand here, which shall in no
wise taste of death, till they wise taste of death, till they
see the kingdom of God come see the kindgom of God.
with power.
The ' coming of the Son of Man,' then, is the ' coming
' of the kingdom of God.' It is not the appearance of
a person, it is the emblem of a great moral crisis, in
which the divine forces of love and truth will be
displayed among men.
(3) A parallel case in Israel's history may help us to
disengage this thought more clearly from its imaginative
form. When the nation was still captive in Babylon the
eyes of its prophets eagerly followed the movements of
Cyrus, and recognised in him the power — divinely
guided — which should break their bonds. They called
on Jerusalem to arise from the dust ; over the mountains
of their ancient land rang the voice that brought the
glad news ' Yahweh hath become king 1 '
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that

THE REIGN OF GOD. 257
bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good
tidings of good, that publisheth deliverance, that saith unto
Zion, ' Thy God hath become king 1 ' Hark ! Thy watchmen |
They lift up the voice, together do they sing, for eye to eye shall
they see when Yahweh returneth to Zion.
The same thought seems to lie at the core of a group of
Psalms which celebrate, with more or less distinctness,
the restoration after the captivity, or some other great
'divine event,' e.g. Pss. xciii., xcvi., xcvii., xcviii., xcix.
They declare that Yahweh ' has become king,' that he
'has come to judge the earth.'1 The judgment has
begun, and its first act is the overthrow of Babylon and
the liberation of the people of Yahweh. This great
historic doom was the manifestation of Yahweh's
sovereignty and righteousness. Here was the verdict of
the great world-assize between Yahweh and the heathen
deities. By this Israel realised that he was their king ;
they felt his ' kingdom ' established in and through the
' mighty act ' which set them free. Thus was his word
fulfilled, his justice demonstrated to the nation. The
author of the Book of Daniel, expecting the downfall of
the Syrian power, looked in like manner for the
dominion of the holy people to succeed it, as the visible
embodiment of the rule of God. Through them would
equity, peace, and goodwill prevail ; the reign of
righteousness would once more set in, beneath the
acknowledged sovereignty of the Most High. Whether
Jesus expected any such national event, we cannot tell.
But it would at least appear possible that he felt that the
spiritual kingdom would not fully come till the
unspiritual worship of the temple passed away : and the
1 See Cheyne on Ps, xcvi. io, 13.

258 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
destruction of the centre of Jewish ritual left the scene
clear for the new edifice of faith and love. This may be
the reason why the discourse which ends with the
• coming of the Son of Man ' begins with the overthrow
of the sacred house. The very forces beneath which it
fell might be the agents of the triumph of the future
power through which God's royal sway should be
revealed. In this Jesus claims no personal place. He
leaves his own fate in the Father's hands. His work is
done; Messiah has proclaimed the good news; he has
preached the kingdom ; he has shown men how to
recognise it already in their own hearts and enter in :
God, its true Lord, will make known its glories fully in
his own good time.
(4) This is the meaning of a passage where another
Daniel-symbol seems to lie in the back-ground, the
conclusion of the parable of the murderous husband
men. The parable is an epitome of Israel's history, by
which Jesus compels his opponents to pass doom upon
themselves.1 At its close, he quotes the description of
the stone, in Ps. cxviii. 22, which the builders had
rejected, but which was made the head of the corner.
The poet had used the figure to represent the destiny of
Israel, once spurned and trodden under foot, and at
length by its restoration to its ancient home equipped for
its true religious function as the corner-stone of the
world's great sanctuary.2 But the seer in Daniel had
1 Its present form, with the pointed reference to the fate of the
' son,' and the emphatic declaration of the rejection of Israel, is
probably due to later influences.
2 Another interpretation explains it of the family of the
Maccabees, once lightly esteemed, but afterwards unexpectedly-
raised to power.

THE KINGDOM WITHOUT MESSIAH. 259
likewise beheld a stone, mysteriously cut out without
hands, which smote the kingdoms of the earth and broke
them in pieces, Dan. ii. 34-44. So Matthew and Luke
add:— Matt. xxi. 44. ' Luke xx. 18.
And he that faileth on this Every one that faileth on
stone shall be broken to pieces, that stone shall be broken to
but on whomsoever it shall fall, pieces, but on whomsoever it
it will scatter him as dust. shall fall, it will scatter him
as dust.
What is this stone ? It is the equivalent, under another
image, of the ' Son of Man,' for Daniel explains its
appearance thus, ii. 44 : —
The God of heaven shall set up a kingdom which shall never
be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another
people; but it shall break in pieces and consume all these
kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.
It is in accordance with this exposition that Matthew
interprets the stone of Ps. cxviii. The kingdom pro
claimed by Jesus has been rejected by the builders of
Israel ; it will be made the corner-stone for the mightier
house where the Gentiles shall all worship, Matt*
xxi. 43 :—
Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken
away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the
fruits thereof.
Jesus, therefore, like one after another of the ancient
prophets, looked for some great divine manifestation of
the eternal powers of justice and truth, before which the
world's selfishness and violence should pass away.
Those powers lived in every heart, they were involved in
1 It should be observed, however, that the verse here is of
doubtful authenticity.

260 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
all the relations of men, they constituted the very essence
of human society. But they were only imperfectly
discerned in the turmoil of passion and the race for ease
and gain. He had perceived them and proclaimed
them ; he had come to Jerusalem to test the religious
institutions of his country by them ; if the struggle went
against him, he was ready to lay down his life for them.
Yet their victory could not be long delayed. All things
were ripening for their triumph ; the hour was nigh,
when God would vindicate his purposes. That he should
"describe this mighty revolution under the personal figure
which Daniel put into his hands, is the less surprising
when we find analogous language elsewhere. On the
return of the Seventy Disciples from their mission, Jesus
portrayed the rapidity of the triumph of the Gospel over
the powers of evil under the image of Satan's fall with
lightning-flash out of the sky: — 'I beheld Satan fallen
' as lightning from heaven.' No one supposes that this
was a physical occurrence : it was the concentration in
one vivid figure of the struggle whose end Jesus expected
to be swift and sure, but which we have learned to be
enduring as humanity itself. It is the same with the
' coming of the Son of Man.' Through whatever external
incidents it is manifested, it is in its essence not an
outward event, but a mighty spiritual change. It is the
poetic expression for the final establishment of God's
kingdom, on earth as it is in heaven. What social trans
formations this would involve, may be in part gathered
from the teachings of Jesus, and the rules which he laid
down for the conduct of those who lived beneath its sway.
Of the outward form which it would assume, he tells us
nothing. This kingdom was not identical with the royal

THE KINGDOM WITHOUT MESSIAH. 261
power sometimes ascribed to Messiah, though that
might be an instrument, more or less enduring, for
achieving God's destiny for Israel and the world.1 But
if Messiah came in the guise of the Anointed Servant, he
would assuredly claim no sovereignty for himself; his
failure to secure what he never sought could cause him
no pang : while the diffusion of the word, and each fresh
soul brought back from sin, would be the witness of
ultimate success. Secure in his principles, he could face
opposition without the sickening feeling that every new
difficulty begot a secret misgiving of himself in his own
breast. Nay, like his great prototype, he would be
prepared if necessary to go ' like a lamb to the slaughter ' ;
and the thought might even flash across his mind that he
might make his life an offering for his people's sins.
His own death might thus itself hasten the redemption of
his nation. At any rate, in the supreme hour, there is
no doubt in the mind of Jesus, either of himself or of his
cause. Through oppression and judgment he might be
taken away; he, at least, had considered that he might
be cut off out of the land of the living.2 The Christ
might perish; perhaps in that very moment he might
render to his people a service which his life could give
no more.
1 In Rev. xi. 16, 17, God 'takes his great power and reigns.'
The apostle Paul contemplates a time when the Son ' shall deliver
' up the kingdom to God, even the Father,' and ' be subjected to
¦him .... that God may be all in all.' The thought of the
kingdom without a Messianic king offered no real difficulty to the
higher imagination, as the Psalms of the ' accession ' already cited
p. 257, show, and as the Book of Daniel itself proves.
2 Is. liii. 8.

262 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
But right is right, for God is God,
And right the day will win.
' Are you the Messiah ? ' asks the high priest. ' I am,'
answers Jesus. ' Do upon me your worst ; you will yet
' see God's high intent fulfilled : his power is sure : the
' kingdom is at hand : the Son of Man will come with
' clouds of heaven.'
(5) May we not then clear away from the Teacher all
those charges of fanatical delusion which have been
founded on the supposition that in predicting the
' coming of the Son of Man ' he foretold his own return
in clouds of glory ? J May we not say that they rest
upon a misinterpretation of his meaning, and a
consequent perversion in many cases of his actual words?
The process by which the phrase which has been the
source of so much confusion, became personalised and
applied in a Messianic sense to him, may be traced
elsewhere.2 There can be no doubt that long before the
Gospels were written, the belief in his Second Advent
had obtained full currency in the Church.3 It is only
necessary to observe the addition which Matthew, and
Matthew alone, appends to the disciples' question on the
Mount of Olives, xxiv. 3, 'What shall be the sign of thy
' coming, and of the end of the age ? ' In these words
lies the clearest proof how the Church overlooked its
1 It should be considered also that these confident expectations
cannot be harmonised, when thus understood, with the anguish of
struggle in Gethsemane, in which all Christendom has united to
recognise a historical experience.
2 See Appendix.
3 See the language of Paul already quoted, § 2, 2, p. 230.

MESSIAH'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 263
founder's guarded speech, and concluded that by the
' coming of the Son of Man ' he meant his own. Yet
had Jesus no personal hope for the future ; did he drop
no hints of his own share in the kingdom ? It is note
worthy that in the parable of the murderous husbandmen,
the son of the owner of the vineyard, Messiah, is slain
and cast forth. When the lord of the vineyard comes, is
he in his train ? No function of judgment is committed
to him : God himself executes his own decrees. Jesus
claims no office in the coming age ; Messiah gives place
before him who sent him. But the Gospels are full, as
we have seen, of the most explicit declarations that the
Son of Man after death will rise again. The details of
their present form are doubtless due to the shaping of
the Church : yet they may well have had their origin in
sayings of Jesus himself. For he, like others of his
countrymen, looked forward to 'the resurrection.'1 From
its glories he would assuredly not be shut out. Was not
the Servant-Messiah promised that he should see his
seed and prolong his days ? Would he not, after all,
behold the travail of his soul, and be satisfied ?2 In the
anticipation of the speedy triumph of the kingdom, the
language of Jesus may have followed the type of Hosea
vi. 2, ' After two days will he revive us : on the third day
' he will raise us up, and we shall live before him.' He
confronts death, therefore, with full confidence in the
Father's purposes. In his keeping are the destiny of the
kingdom and his own : and so beneath the olive trees of
Gethsemane he prays the prayer ' Thy will be done ' in
which the disciple has ever since found the personal
1 See chap. iv. § 2, id, p. 114. 2 Is. liii. 10, 11.

264 THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
application of the larger hope, ' Thy kingdom come, on
' earth, as it is in heaven.'
The results which it has been attempted to establish
in the foregoing chapter, and in chap. iv. § 2, 2e, may
be formulated more briefly as follows.1
(i) The Messianic doctrine in the time of Jesus presented a
two-fold type, one regal, the other prophetic. Popular expectation
and Apocalyptic literature were concerned wholly with the first.
But the tradition of the Synagogue supplied a distinct basis for
the second, though the prominence of the national hope threw it
into obscurity.
(2) Jesus did not at the outset of his teaching claim any precise
function. (3) When forced, however, by external circumstance and by
inward spiritual need, to define his position, his thoughts turned
to the prophetic picture of the Anointed Servant, and he accepted
the name Messiah in this sense ; but to avoid misconception he
sought to keep it in the back-ground.
(4) By the ' Kingdom of God ' he did not mean a kingdom of
Messiah ; but he employed the term to denote the rule of God
within the heart, which would be externally realised by a
reconstitution of society in righteousness. Messiah's part was to
reveal the kingdom within men, and to announce the character and
the approach of the changes which it would involve. The
advent of the kingdom in the holy people he designated by the
symbolic language of Daniel as the ' coming of the Son of Man.'
But that term had no reference to himself.
(5) How these changes would be brought about in actual life
Jesus did not specify. They would result, in individuals, from an
altered state of the heart towards God, viz : repentance. For
the nation at large he may have connected them, like the
prophets of old, with altered political relations : he may possibly
have thought that the worship of Israel could not be spiritualised
as long as the Temple existed ; and that its destruction must
1 Comp. Appendix.

RESULTS. 265
precede the triumph of the Kingdom. But he was certain that
the changes were imminent ; they would happen in the life-time
of his friends. The Son of Man would come in their
generation. (6) For himself, when he resolved to go to Jerusalem and there
proclaim the anti-legal character of the true religion, and the
inward nature of the sovereignty of God, he foresaw the
probability of a collision with the authorities, in which he would
perish. This did not shock his faith in his Messiahship, for
the same fate had overtaken the Anointed Servant. Out of his
language on this subject the detailed predictions of his death
contained in our gospels, were shaped by the Church.
(7) As the situation became increasingly dangerous, he
continued to proclaim the speedy ' coming of the Son of Man.'
When asked on his trial if he was Messiah, he admitted it, and
he was executed for the claim, which was of course interpreted
in the popular and unspiritual sense. But even when facing
death, he was still confident that the kingdom would be soon
established ; and he probably hoped to share in the resurrection
and behold its triumph.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK.
Which of our Gospels was written first? Were they
originally composed as we now have them, or did earlier
and simpler documents precede them, out of which our
longer books have grown? How is it that in some
passages, few, indeed, and brief, they agree almost word
for word ; and how is it that in others they differ so
much ? If they are all reporting the same teachings and
relating the same events, why do not the discourses and
the narratives come out the same ? Some general
answers to these questions have been already indicated in
the discussion of the influences affecting the apostolic
traditions about Jesus. But we have now to examine our
First Three Gospels separately, and try to ascertain the
circumstances under which they successively took their
present shape.
$ 1. The Relations of the First Three Gospels.
(i) When we first hear of our Gospels by name, they
are mentioned in the order in which they now stand in

RELATIVE ORDER AND AGE. 267
our New Testament.1 Why they were placed in this
order we cannot determine with certainty. It probably
represents an early belief about their origin and their
relation to apostolic sources. Matthew, it was supposed,
came direct from an apostle's pen. Mark represented
the recollections of another apostle, Peter, recorded by a
disciple, and so removed a stage from actual apostolic
authorship. Luke, again, issued from a wider range of
investigation, and implied a comparison of various forms
of the tradition. It stood, therefore, latest among the
three. Modern enquiry, however, has not been satisfied with
this simple account of the relations of our First Three
Gospels. The study of their resemblances and
differences has raised a large number of intricate and
perplexing questions. Enormous labour has been
expended, and the most complicated schemes have been
devised, in the endeavour to solve these difficulties.
Every conceivable order has been advocated. Each
gospel has been in turn placed first, second, or third ; it
has been supposed that they were all written independ
ently, or that the later works were founded on the earlier;
and they have been assigned to every sort of date during
the hundred years from the missionary activity of the
Apostles to their recognition by the Church in the second
half of the second century.
All these solutions cannot possibly be correct, and it
may be that none of them is. The materials at our
command may- be too scanty, our information too
imperfect, to enable us to arrive at any very definite
1 See chap. i. $ 2.

268 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK.
results. But the discussion has not been without value.
It has brought into clear prominence certain important
facts. Firstly, all Three Gospels contain numerous
common elements. Not only do they all alike view the
Ministry of Jesus in the same general way, and narrate
the same incidents, such as the Baptism, the mission of
the Twelve, the last Supper, but they sometimes report
the sayings of Jesus in almost verbal harmony. The
mutual agreement of the Synoptics is the first and most
obvious fact. Secondly, each gospel is marked by
distinct peculiarities of its own. Each gospel includes
some sayings or incidents recorded nowhere else, some
times of a highly significant character. Each gospel
reproduces certain sayings noted by all in special
forms exclusively its own. And each gospel, while
conforming to a common type, presents divergences of
order and arrangement which often bear the appearance
of deliberate design. These two groups of resemblances
and differences run through the First Three Gospels from
beginning to end, and any attempt to explain the
relations of these gospels must deal with them.
(2) It is naturally more easy to account for the
resemblances than the differences. The traditions which
gathered up the memory of the Master's words and
deeds, supplied the original material for the Gospel
narratives. The incisive sayings, the parables, the crises
of the Teacher's career — these were stamped deep on
recollection; and served as the nucleus around which
fresh incidents and utterances might be grouped. In
due time these were arranged in a more or less definite
order, and thrown into little collections of illustrative
anecdote. The causes which might tend to modify them

DEPENDENCE ON COMMON SOURCES. 269
on the way have been already mentioned ; and the work
of imagination continued long after the earliest elements
of the Gospel story were reduced to writing. Now a
comparison of the First Three Gospels soon reveals that
behind some of their narratives and discourses there lies
a common source. Sometimes there is a nearly verbal
agreement between all three for several verses. Some
times two run close together, while the third takes another
course apart. Now our Gospels are written in Greek,
while Jesus taught in Aramean. If the compilers of our
Gospels had been translating independently from an
Aramean source, it is not likely that they would have each
used the same words in the same order, especially where
we find Greek words or idioms of a peculiar kind. Their
translations would have varied in the arrangement and
choice of their words, just as two translations which have
come down to us of the Book of Daniel into Greek vary,
or as different versions of the New Testament by different
English scholars vary. This derivation from a prior
Greek form is proved beyond doubt by the triple
occurrence of the same misquotation from the Hebrew
Scriptures.1 Had the Gospel writers taken the passage
from the original separately, they would not all have made
the same mistake. We may assume, then, (i) that the
general resemblances are due to the fact that the First
Three Gospels all deal with the same kind of subject-
matter, drawn ultimately from the apostolic traditions ;
and (2) that the verbal coincidences are due to one of
two causes — either the Gospel which was produced first
was employed by ,the authors of the other two, or all
1 See chap. iii. $ 4, 2, p. 88.

270 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK.
three Gospels were based upon some common Greek
sources. This latter view seems best to meet the
conditions of the case. Whether these common sources
were still unfixed in writing, and were only passed from
one to another in oral teaching, or whether they had
already been invested with some primitive literary form,
is open to question. It is perhaps more important to
enquire which of our present Gospels seems to stand
nearest to them in order of time. The answer which is
given with increasing clearness and decision by scholars
approaching the problem along very different lines, finds
the earliest of our Thfee in 'the Gospel according to
' S. Mark.'

§ 2. The Priority of Mark.
In attempting to ascertain the relation of Mark to
Matthew and Luke, we might first of all call up the
witnesses of the Church in the second century, and ask
what, was the opinion of their time. But it will soon be
seen that the testimony of ecclesiastical tradition is of less
importance than the comparison of the Gospels among
themselves. All theories of their relations, whether old
or new, must give way before the facts.
(i) For example, it was readily observed that Mark is
distinguished among the Synoptical Gospels by the large
proportion of material belonging also to the other two,
together or separately. / That which is peculiar to Mark
alone may all be packed in some twenty-eight or thirty
verses. Only here and there do we alight on parable or

NOT COMPILED FROM MATTHEW AND LUKE. 271
story unrepresented in Matthew or Luke, such as the
parable of the husbandman and the seed, iv. 26-29, or
the cures of the deaf man with an impediment in his
speech, vii. 32-36, and the blind man, viii. 22-26.-7 It was
accordingly supposed that our Second Gospel was simply
a compilation from the First and Third. The advocates
of this view could not explain for what end such a com
pilation was made, or why important passages — such as
the Sermon on the Mount — should have been left out.
But they did not realise what their theory required. It
has been shown, for instance, by Dr. Abbott,1 that the
Greek of Mark xii. 1-11 contains all the words (save four
which are unimportant) common to the parallel passages
in Matt. xxi. 33-44 and Luke xx. 9-18. Now supposing
Mark had been really borrowing from Matthew and Luke,
imagine the process by which alone this result could have
been brought about. The compiler must have put the
two documents side by side, and noted the words
belonging to both. Then he must have proceeded to
write a narrative full of vigour and independent touches,
which should embrace all the words already marked as
common to the other two. A short instance of another
kind in English will help to show the difficulty which
such piece-work involves. Here are the directions given
by Jesus to the two disciples sent to fetch the colt for his
entry into Jerusalem :
Mark xi. 2-3. Matt. xxi. 2-3. Luke xix. 30-31.
Go your way into Go into the village Go your way into
the village that is that is over against the village over
over against you, and you, and straightway against you; inthe
1 Encyclopaedia Britannica, article ' Gospels.'

272

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK.

ye shall find an ass
tied, and a colt with
her ; loose them, and
bring them unto me.
And if any one say
ought unto you, ye
shall say, The Lord
hath need of them,
and straightway he
will send them back.1

which as ye enter ye
shall find a colt tied,
whereon no man ever
yet sat ; loose him,
and bring him. And
if any one ask you,
Why do ye loose
him ? thus shall ye
say, The Lord hath
need of him.

straightway as ye
enter into it, ye shall
find a colt tied,
whereon no man ever
yet sat; loose him,
and bring him. And
if any one say unto
you, Why do ye this?
say ye, The Lord
hath need of him,
and straightway he
will send him back
hither.
The passage in Mark may be represented thus : — Let the
ordinary type stand for Mark's own contribution, spaced
type for what he borrows from Matthew, and italics for
what comes from Luke.
Go your way into the village that is over against you
and straightway as ye enter into it, ye shall find a
colt tied whereon no man ever yet sat : loose him and
bring him. And if any one say unto you, Why do
ye this ? say ye, The Lord hath need of him, and
straightway he will send him back hither.
This case is rather different from Dr. Abbott's ; it is an
attempt to show the method by which, it is supposed,
Mark's narratives have been sometimes built up. The
epitomiser has endeavoured to combine the two stories,
by taking a clause from one, and two words from the
other, alternately. Can anything be more artificial?
Dr. Abbott's remarks on the former case are equally
applicable to this :
1 The Greek word here is the same as that translated ' send
.back ' in Mark.

NOT COMPILED FROM MATTHEW AND LUKE. 273
The difficulty of doing this is enormous, and will be patent to
any one who will try to perform a similar literary feat himself.
To embody the whole of even one document in a narrative of
one's own without copying it verbatim, and to do this in a free
and natural manner, requires no little care ; but to take two
documents, to put them side by side and analyse their common
matter, and then to write a narrative, graphic, abrupt, and in all
respects the opposite of artificial, which shall contain every word
that is common to both — this would be a tour deforce even for a
skilful literary forger of these days, and may be dismissed as an
impossibility for the writer of the Second Gospel.
The kind of bald outline which would be produced by
the process of epitomising may be seen in the last twelve
verses appended to the Gospel by some later hand. How
meagre is the reference, for example, in Mark-xv'i. 12-13,
to the afternoon walk of Cleopas and his friend to
Emmaus ! How scanty is the brief allusion to the
ascension, xvi. 19 ! The difference in style becomes at
once apparent, and supplies proof enough that the
Gospel which precedes was no mere compound or
abstract from two larger works, but an original production
on independent ground.
(2) If Mark, then, was not put together out of Matthew
and Luke, is there any literary evidence as to the order
of their composition? What place does it hold in
comparison with the other two? This must be
determined, in part at least, by general considerations.
For example, a number of elements have been already
pointed out implying later or more developed forms in the
Third Gospel. It is in Luke that we find the descent of
the spirit in bodily shape like a dove at the Baptism. 2 It
is in Luke that the saying of Jesus 'I will make you
1 See chap. v. $ 2, 1, p. 165.

274 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK.
'fishers of men' gives occasion to an illustrative or
allegorical miracle, the draught of fishes.1 It is in Luke
that the return of Messiah — once awaited with such
eagerness — is obviously postponed.2 We may infer,
provisionally at any rate, that Mark, in which these things
are not related, took shape first. The relationship to
Matthew is at first more difficult to decide. This Gospel
contains so many indications of great originality and of
early date, that we are tempted at the outset to give it the
first place in time which it has in our Testament. But the
examination of its contents proves that these older
elements are at present combined in very artificial forms.
There are groups of sayings constituting small collections,
like the Sermon on the Mount, v.-vii., the sequence of
parables in xiii., the series of denunciations hurled
against the Scribes and Pharisees in xxiii. Interlaced
¦with these are corresponding groups of incidents, sets of
miracles, arranged with certain obvious numerical
adjustments. These have an undoubted air of later
adaptation.8 Now none of the First Three Gospels have
disposed their contents in precisely the same order. But
it may be said broadly that if Mark's order be put in the
middle, with Matthew and Luke on either side, it will
serve as a standard of comparison explaining them both.
The divergences of each can be referred to this as the
original type. If this be so, Mark must have preceded
the other two.
(3) This may be seen on a larger scale in Mark's
general division of the career of Jesus into two main
1 See chap. vi. § 5, 1, p. 206. 2 See chap. vii. § 4, ib, p, 241.
3 On this subject more details will be found in chap. x. { 1, 2, 3.

VIEW OF THE GALILAEAN MINISTRY. 275
sections, (i) his work as a Teacher in Galilee, i.-ix., and
(2) his journey, and the last days in Jerusalem, x.-xvi.
It may also be traced in detail through the record of the
northern ministry, up to the question of Jesus at
Caesarea Philippi. It must suffice, however, to point
now to the more historical character of Mark's narrative
in its general delineation of the position assumed by
Jesus in relation to the Messiahship, when compared
with Matthew. This is in fact indicated at the outset in
the two narratives of the Baptism. The utterance of the
heavenly voice, according to Mark i. 11, is addressed to
Jesus only : in Matt. iii. 17 it is an attestation of his
function in the third person, intended as a public
designation of him as Messiah. This has important
consequences on the subsequent representation. Mark's
account is much simpler; the distinctively Messianic
elements lie in the back-ground, and are emphasised only
by the powers of evil. The temptations of Messiah are
not specified. The description of his preaching, i. 39,
confines his fame to Galilee : whereas Matthew even at
the opening brings together a vast multitude of people
from North to South, from ' Syria ' to Judaea, iv. 24, 25.
Immediately after this, Matthew places the great discourse
upon the Mount. It is in fact the charter of the kingdom.
It is to be for the new dispensation what the legislation of
Sinai had been for the old ; and Messiah takes the place
of Moses as the giver of the new law. Towards the
close, a noteworthy passage (which has no counterpart in
the discourse in Luke vi.) displays Jesus in the attitude
of Messianic judge, deciding who shall enter the kingdom
of heaven, vii. 22, 23 :
Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not

276 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK.
prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out devils, and by
thy name do many mighty works ? And then will I profess
unto them, I never knew you ; depart from me, ye that
work iniquity.
It is not by accident that these last words ' Depart from
me' coincide with the sentence with which the Son of
Man, seated on the throne of his glory, dismisses the
condemned to their doom on the judgment day, xxv. 41.
They imply a fully developed Messianic consciousness ;
they describe Jesus as having unhesitatingly advanced
this claim from the first. On the other hand, Mark has
preserved many traits which clearly contradict this view.
The Jesus of our Second Gospel asserts no such right.
Even when his character is discovered by the demoniacs,
they are again and again charged not to make him
known, e.g. i. 34, iii. 11, 12, passages which Matthew
abbreviates ; and though some echo of the prohibition
still remains in his pages, e.g. xii. 16, in other cases, as
Mark v. 43, vii. 36, it is omitted altogether. The
statements of Mark are an endeavour to harmonise the
traditional notion of the Teacher as Messiah with the
fact that during the first part of his ministry he nowhere
assumed that function. The discourse to the apostles in
Matt, x., bears many marks of the Messianic conception,
but in the brief report of their mission in Mark vi. 7-13,
these have no place. Finally, at Caesarea Philippi when
Jesus puts the decisive question 'Whom say ye that I
am,' the silence imposed on the disciples after Peter's
recognition m of him as Messiah proves clearly that the
name was then conferred upon him by his followers for
the first time. Neither they, in his inner circle, nor the
people who had followed him from place to place, had so

VIEW OF THE GALILAEAN MINISTRY. 277
regarded him before. Bijt in Matthew's narrative he had
been hailed as ' Son of David ' by the blind men at
the way-side, ix. 27 : after the cure of a demoniac the
multitudes cried, ' Is this the Son of David,' xii. 23 ;
even the Syro-Phcenician woman appeals to him by the
same title, xv. 22. Popular support, then, was not
wanting, and there was no need for him to enquire of the
Twelve what men said of him. Still less was it necessary
for him to ask what they thought. Had they not already
done homage to him when he walked across the waters
and went up into their boat, xiv. 33, saying ' Of a truth
' thou art the Son of God ? ' Why did no word of
blessing fall at that moment from Messiah's lips like that
which afterwards greeted the utterance of Peter's faith,
xvi. 17 ? In Matthew, then, there is no real development
in the ministry of Jesus. The end is assumed at the
beginning. He asserts at the outset the rights which
only the future will realize.1 But in Mark, the preacher
who begins by announcing that the kingdom of God is at
hand is forced by degrees to consider his relation to it.
So far from claiming the Messianic function at the
opening of his career, he only slowly realizes it ; and
even when he finally accepts it, he resolutely refuses to
make it known, viii. 30.2 This representation appears to
be far more in accordance with historical probality —
outward and inward — than that of Matthew. It is not
likely that Jesus would have been long allowed to proclaim
the royal dignity which the assumption of the Messianic
1 This is also the view of the Fourth Evangelist, e.g. John i. 41,
42, 49, 50 ; iv. 26, &c. Reasons have been already given for not
accepting these details as historical. See chap. ii. § 3, 3.
2 Comp. chap. vii. { 1, p. 219.

278 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK.
character involved in the eyes both of the people, and of
their Roman over-lords. Nor does it seem consistent
with his early teaching about the kingdom that he should
have taken up at the outset any sort of official connection
with it. The title which he at length accepted, was
rather thrust upon him by circumstance than deliberately
chosen. It was adopted with reluctance, and an anxious
avoidance of publicity ; it involved so much which he
could not share ; it failed to express so much that he
desired ; yet no other designation spoke in the same way
either to his own soul, or to the heart of his time. But
if this be the significance of Mark's narrative, is it not
clearly older than that of Matthew ?
(4) This conclusion, however, by no means shuts out
the possibility that Matthew may in many instances have
more nearly preserved the earlier form of the Teacher's
sayings. It is quite conceivable that many elements in
Matthew's gospel may be of high relative antiquity,
though the narrative in which they now lie may be the
latest of our Three. When the traditions were first
formed, their core was constituted out of the Master's
words ; and if the later belief of the Church, that Matthew
made a collection of his ' oracles,' be correct, it is not at
all improbable that much of this may have been
incorporated in the Gospel now bearing his name.1 How
subsequent influences might introduce minute changes
may be seen from the following small group of passages.
When Jesus first took up the work of the preacher in
Galilee, his opening message, according to Matt. iv. 17,
was identical in form — whatever may have been its
difference in spirit — with that of John : —
1 See chap. x. § 5, 3.

EARLIER FORMS IN MATTHEW.

279

Repent ye ; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
But in Mark i. 15ft is amplified with new phrases : —
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand ;
repent ye and believe in the gospel.
The fulfilment of the appointed time carries us into the
thought of the Apostle Paul, comp. Gal. iv. 4 ; and the
use of the term ' the Gospel ' as a summary of the
teachings of Jesus, coupled with the demand for faith —
not in God (xi. 22) but in it — warns us that we have here
the language of the apostolic age. This same touch
meets us elsewhere : —

Mark viii. 35.
For whosoever
would save his life
shall lose it ; and
whosoever shall lose
his life for my sake
and the gospel's shall
save it.
Mark x. 29, 30.
Jesus said, Verily
I say unto you, There
is no man that hath
left house.orbrethren,
or sisters, or mother,
or father, or children,
or lands, for my sake,
and for the gospel's
sake, but he shall
receive a hundred
fold now in this time,
houses and brethren,
and sisters, and
mothers, and child-

Matt. xvi. 25.
For whosoever
would save his life
shall lose it ; and
whosoever shall lose
his life for my sake
shall find it.
Matt. xix. 28, 29.
Jesus said unto
them, Verily I say
unto you  every
one that hath left
houses or brethren,
or sisters, orfather, or
mother, or children,
or lands, for my
name's sake, shall
receive a hundred
fold, and shall inherit
eternal life.

Luke ix. 24.
For whosoever
would save his life
shall lose it ; but
whosoever shall lose
his life for my sake,
the same shall save it.
Luke xviii. 29, 30.
And he said unto
them, Verily I say
unto you, There is
no man that hath
left house, or wife, or
brethren, or parents,
or children, for the
kingdom of God's
sake, who shall not
receive manifold
more in this time,
and in the age to
come eternal life.

280 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S, MARK.
ren, and lands, with
persecutions, and in
the age to come
eternal life.
In the last passage, a second addition, 'with persecutions,'
again seems to betray the later hand of one who had,
indeed, found anew in the hearts and homes of believers
the dear relationships which he had himself surrendered,
but who knew likewise at what price of danger and
suffering they must be won.1

§ 3. The Representation of Jesus.
The earlier date of Mark's general narrative seems
further confirmed by many features in its picture of the
Teacher. (i) It has been already shown that Mark really implies
that Jesus did not assume the function of Messiah at the
beginning of his ministry. Rightly interpreted, this
account reveals the fact that there was a distinct growth
in his feeling on the subject. It is quite true that the
Evangelist represents him as marked out for that dignity
at the Baptism/ But it is observable, in comparison with
the other two Gospels, that Mark apparently regards this
as the moment when he was divinely appointed to that
office. By the descent of the Spirit upon him did he
1 Mark ix. 38-41, breaking the connection of vv. 37, 42, seems to
have been added from some other source, comp. Luke ix. 49-50.
The reference in ver. 41 to the Christian name again seems a
mark of the time when it had come into use.

LIMITATIONS OF MESSIAH'S POWER. 281
become ' Son of God.' Up to that date he had been in
no way distinguished from other men. Hence Mark has
no story of the miraculous conception, or the wonders of
the birth. Either he knew them and omitted them, not
wishing, as has been surmised, to embarrass his narrative
with disputable matter; or they were not yet circulated in
the community for which he wrote.
(2) The many touches implying some limitations in the
Teacher's power and knowledge, confirm the view that
when our Second Gospel was written the title ' Son of
God ' had not yet been translated into a story of physical
parentage. In spite of his control over outward nature,
he is not omnipotent : in spite of his endowment with
the spirit, he is not omniscient. On the evening of the
first day of preaching in Capernaum, when ' all the city
' was gathered together at the door,' bringing their
sufferers from possession and disease, he ' healed all
'that were sick,' says Matthew, viii. 16; 'he laid his
' hands on every one of them,' affirms Luke, iv. 40, with
still greater emphasis, ' and healed them.' But Mark,
more guardedly, simply says, i. 34, 'he healed many.'
Were there, then, some obstinate cases which baffled his
power ? Certainly that is the Evangelist's explanation of
the failure at Nazareth, vi. 5-6 : —
And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his
hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. And he marvelled
because of their unbelief.
Later reverence for Messiah would not admit this
inability; and Matthew hints — though the passage will
bear a double meaning — that the men of Nazareth saw
no great wonders at the prophet's hands, in punishment
for their faithlessness, xiii. 58 : —

282 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK.
And he did not many mighty works there because of their
unbelief. When the twelve are sent forth to preach, Mark simply
describes them as invested with 'authority to cast out
devils,' iii. 1 5 ; but Matthew, enlarging the scope of
their power, adds 'and to heal all manner of disease
'and all manner of sickness,' x. 1. In the story of the
fig-tree x a comparison of Matthew with Mark shows how
Matthew palpably heightens the wonder. Mark, after
recording the doom pronounced by Jesus, simply adds
' and his disciples heard it,' xi. 14. Not till the next
day, xi. 20, on their way into the city from Bethany, do
they discover that the fig-tree has withered. But in
Matthew the tree shrivels before their eyes, and the
astonished disciples proceed to ask how it happened,
xxi. 19-20. In a similar way the knowledge as well
as the power of Messiah is on a somewhat lower
range in the Second Gospel, for we read in Mark
xiii. 32 : —
Of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels
in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.2
Luke escapes the difficulty by omitting the passage
altogether. In Matt. xxiv. 36, the reading varies : if
the words originally stood there, they were early found to
1 See chap. vi. § 4, 1, p. 199.
2 In this remarkable passage ' the Son,' who is clearly placed
above men and angels, though inferior to 'the Father,' seems
to be different both from the ' Son of Man,' and from the
human Jesus, who nowhere else so designates himself in Mark.
Comp., however, Luke x. 22, Matt. xi. 27. In the related pair
'the Son,' 'the Father,' may we not trace the influence of
Pauline thought ?

CHARACTERISTICS OF JESUS. 283
be out of harmony with the feeling of the Church, and
some scribe silently omitted them. One other difficulty
was solved by the same method. The oldest tradition
preserved clear traces of the fact that the family of Jesus
had not understood him, nay, they actually regarded him
as mad, and purposed to put him under restraint. Even
his mother joined his brothers in this plan. As he sits in
the house at Capernaum, the message is brought to him
through the crowd, ' Behold thy mother and thy brethren
' without seek for thee.' All Three Evangelists relate the
incident, Mark iii. 31-32; Matt. xii. 46-47; Luke viii.
19-20, but Mark alone explains its cause, iii. 20-21 : —
And he cometh into a house, And the multitude cometh
together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread.
And when his friends heard it, they went out to lay hold on him .-
for they said, He is beside himself.
The brothers of Jesus might have been excused such
want of comprehension ; but how, it was asked, could
the mother who knew the secret of his birth have so
failed to read its lessons ? The purpose attributed to her
was in too violent conflict with the later reverence for
Mary as well as for Christ to hold its ground ; Matthew
and Luke, therefore, quietly pass it by.
(3) Our Second Gospel further abounds in traits
implying the rich and full humanity of Jesus, from the
time when he first summons Simon and Andrew to
follow him, promising to make them ' fishers of men.'
The following instances are all peculiar to Mark. At the
very opening of his ministry, after the first day's labour
in Capernaum, he seeks in silence and retirement the
divine support without which all his toil would be of no
avail, i. 35 :—

284 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK.
And in the morning, a great while before day, he rose up and
went out, and departed into a desert place, and there prayed.
With a simple principle of the broadest application for
human service, he cuts through the legal tradition of the
Rabbis, ii. 27 : —
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
The persistent and inhuman narrowness of his opponents
stirs his wrath even in the synagogue, iii. 5 : —
And when he had looked round about on them with anger,
being grieved at the hardening of their heart, he saith unto the
man, Stretch forth thy hand.
Wearied with teaching, as the boat crosses the lake, he
falls asleep, while the storm rages round him, till his
impatient followers awake him with reproach for his
indifference to their peril, iv. 38 : —
And he himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion ; and
they awake him, and say unto him, Teacher, carest thou not that
we perish ?
Yet he is full of tenderness for their needs ; and when,
after their return from missionary toil, they are well nigh
overpowered by the crowds around the. Master, he is the
first to lead the way into retreat and peace, vi. 3 1 : —
And he saith to them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert
place, and rest awhile. For there were many coming and going,
and they had no leisure so much as to eat.
When the Pharisees try him with their demand for a sign,
he cannot repress some bitterness of heart, viii. 12 : —
And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, Why doth this
generation seek a sign? Verily I say unto you, There shall be no
sign given to this generation.
The rebuke of the disciples who would keep the children
from him, that he might be shielded from their impor-

CHARACTERISTICS OF JESUS. 285
tunities, draws down on them a rebuke of another kind,
x. 14 : —
When Jesus saw it, he was moved with indignation, ahd said
unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me ; forbid
them not ; for of such is the kingdom of God.
With the quick eye of affection, he discerns in the rich
young man, who sought to know how to inherit eternal
life, the possibility of the highest, x. 21 : —
And Jesus, looking upon him, loved him, and said unto him,
One thing thou lackest.
So, too, the Scribe who has approved the selection of
commandments to which Jesus has given the first and
second places in the code of the kingdom, wins the
Teacher's sympathetic commendation, xii. 34 : —
When Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him,
Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.
It is noteworthy that the terms ' law ' and ' lawyer '
never once occur in the whole Gospel, still less is there
any assertion of the binding character of all Mosaic
ordinances. The Pharisaic tradition is set aside in
contrast with the. commandment of God ; and the life
of the heart is lifted above all external ordinance and
usage. / The Gospel is not so much a biography,
deliberately planned, and intended to present its subject
under a particular aspect, as it is a collection of anecdotes
strung more or less skilfully on to a thread of narrative,
in which the incidents follow with an artless simplicity,
and the crises are marked with the force of natural
development. Ih short, the Jesus of Mark is a man,
with a man's wrath and disappointment. He cannot do
everything, he does not know everything. But he is the
founder of a 'new teaching,' in virtue of which the

286 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK.
troubled and restless in body and mind come to him and
are healed. He proclaims the rule of God in the world,
received and stablished in the heart of man. In the
innocence and unconsciousness of childhood he finds the
nearest approach to the realisation of this rule. Child
like obedience to God, and brotherly love towards men,
are the two great ideas with which he will win over the
sinful and regenerate the world. Difficulty cannot over
power him, or danger daunt, or opposition suppress him.
He may perish, but his cause is eternal. The kingdom
will triumph ! the Son of Man will come !

§ 4. Traits of Authorship and Date.
Assuming, now, that Mark was the first of our
Synoptical Gospels to take permanent literary shape, can
we find in it any marks throwing light on the character
of the author or his readers, or the place and time of its
composition ?
(i) The various graphic touches which distinguish
this Gospel have been often observed by students.
The little series of descriptions of the feelings and
demeanour of Jesus already presented1 might seem to
proceed from the recollection of some disciple who
cherished the memory of his very look and tone. The
succession of incidents marking the first Sabbath at
Capernaum — a succession which Matthew ruthlessly
breaks up — has all the air of the reminiscence of an
1 See above, $ 3, 3, p. 284.

RECOLLECTIONS OF A DISCIPLE. 287
eye-witness. Trifling details are scattered across the
page which vanish from the other narratives. There is
the ' little boat ' which he arranges ' to wait on him
' because of the crowd,' iii. 9. In taking refuge in
Phoenicia, he ' would have no man know ' where he is ;
but, remarks the narrator simply, vii. 24, ' he could not
' be hid.' When he sends for the colt to ride in to
Jerusalem, it is noted that the disciples found it ' tied at
'the door without in the open street,' xi. 4. No other
Evangelist recalls that when the money-changers were
driven from the temple, Jesus would not even suffer any
man to carry a vessel through the courts, xi. 16. This
Gospel alone describes Peter on the fatal night, as seated
' with the officers ' in the court of the high priest, and
4 warming himself in the light of the fire,' xiv. 54 ; and
while Matthew uses the name Peter freely before record
ing how it was bestowed, Mark carefully adheres to the
Jewish Simon till he mentions, iii. 1 6, that in appointing
him one of the Twelve to be with him, Jesus surnamed
him Peter. / Only Mark identifies Simon of Cyrene, who
was compelled to bear the cross for Jesus, as the father
of Alexander and Rufus, xv. 21. Who were these two
persons ? Why should they be named ? They must
have been known in the community for whom the Gospel
was written, and the author must have supposed it would
interest his readers to learn that their father had rendered
such service to the dying Lord. Rufus is a Latin name. /
Is it unreasonable to connect it with the Church at Rome, /
Rom. xvi. 13?
(2) If we may believe that some of the freshness of
personal observation which many have found in this
Gospel, is due to the remembrance of one of the

288 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK.
Master's followers, it becomes easy to understand how
the writer should be familiar with the actual speech of
Palestine. He alone reports the very words of Jesus, as
by the couch of the daughter of Jairus, ' Talitha cumi,'
v. 41 ; or ' Ephphaiha ' addressed to the deaf and dumb
man, vii. 34; or 'Abba, Father,' in Gethsemane, xiv. 36.
He alone mentions that Jesus surnamed James and John
'Boanerges, which is, Sons of thunder,' iii. 17. But
these phrases, be it noted, are all carefully interpreted.
In this narrative only do we find names and customs
explained, such as Corban, vii. 1 1 ; Bartimaeus, x. 46 ;
the Preparation, xv. 42 ; the washing of hands and
vessels, vii. 3, 4./ All this implies that the circle of
readers for whom the Gospel was designed was far from
the original scene of its events. Those who needed
such explanations could not have themselves been
resident in Palestine : nay, probably, they were not Jews
at all, they were Gentile Christians to whom Jewish
usages were strange. That will account for a circum
stance already mentioned, the absence of the term ' law,'
and of any discussions about its validity. And the
same reason shows us why the applications of prophecy
should be proportionately few. They were not of the
same interest to those who did not know the Hebrew
Scriptures. %J
(3) The evidence which thus points us to a Jewish
author, writing for Gentiles at a distance from his native
land, is confirmed by some peculiarities in the language
of the Gospel. It is Greek ; but it is not Greek of the
literary and polished style which the author of our Third
Gospel was well able to employ./ It contains sometimes
Greek words of a low sort, such as might be heard in the

EVIDENCE OF LANGUAGE. 289
mongrel talk of the slaves or poor freedmen who formed
the first congregations in the great cities of the Mediter
ranean, and especially at Rome. Noteworthy is it, also,
that in the parallel passages of Matthew and Luke other
words are sometimes found. This is in itself an
indication of advancing date; the Gospel stories must
be fitted to ears that would not relish these ignoble
terms ; but no writer would mar his composition by the
deliberate substitution of coarse words for refined./
Moreover, in addition to Latin names, like census,
centurion, or praetorium, brought by the Roman govern
ment to Palestine, and occurring elsewhere in the New
Testament, peculiar Latin idioms, rendered direct into
Greek, suggest a western origin for the Gospel. And
a curious little piece of evidence helps to confirm this
view. The words ascribed to Jesus in x. ii, 12,
forbidding re-marriage after divorce, imply that the
wife might herself seek the separation. But this was
not permitted to the Jewish woman, and the Teacher's
language would refer to a case impossible among his
countrymen. It was, however, allowed by the Roman
law; and it would seem likely, therefore, that the
principle of Jesus has been extended under the influence
of Latin custom. Here is another link connecting this
Gospel with Rome.
(4) Few indications point distinctly to any time. The
most decisive are those in the little Apocalypse in chap.
xiii.1 The anticipated tribulation in ver. 19 is already
matter of retrospect in ver. 20 ; the terrors of the destruc
tion of the temple and the fall of the city are over. The
1 See chap. vii. § 4, 4, p. 249.

290 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK.
hope of the coming of the Son of Man is still vivid ; but
the commotions which will herald the event are no longer
expected 'immediately,' ver. 24, as in Matt. xxiv. 29.
These conditions carry us at least to the year 70 a.d. H
Alexander and Rufus, sons of Simon of Cyrene, were
really alive when our author wrote, we should have
further warrant for placing the Gospel about this date, in
which several eminent recent critics of diverse schools
concur. It appears by no means necessary to follow
Keim and others in assigning it to the year 100 a.d. or
some later time in the second century.

$ 5. The Witness of Tradition.
The peculiarities of our Second Gospel have led us to
ascribe it to some one who had access to first-hand
reminiscences of Jesus, well acquainted with Palestine,
its languages and usages, writing for Gentile readers, in
an atmosphere where the Greek was not always of a
literary type, and where Latin idioms and Roman law
prevailed. What support is offered to these conclusions
by the testimony of the Church ?
(1) Our earliest information is derived from a passage
in the writings of Papias1 preserved by the historian
Eusebius. The statements of Papias are founded on the
information of the Elder, John, and are thus translated
by Dr. Westcott : —
This also the Elder used to say. Mark, having become Peter's
interpreter, wrote accurately all that he [Mark] remembered (or
1 See chap. i. $ 3, 2.

THE RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER. 291 .
all that he [Peter] mentioned), though he did not record in order
that which was either said or done by Christ. For he neither
heard the Lord, nor followed him, but subsequently attached
himself to Peter, who used to frame his teaching to meet the
wants [of his hearers], but not as making a connected narrative
of the Lord's discourses. So Mark committed no error, as he
wrote down some particulars just as he recalled them to mind
(or as he [Peter] narrated them). For he took heed to one
thing, to omit none of the facts that he heard, and to make no
false statement in his account of them.
The main things here stated are two-fold: (i) Mark's
source of information lay in Peter's reminiscences; and (2)
the words and deeds of Jesus were not related in order.
First of all, then, who was Mark, and how were he and
Peter connected ? The Book of Acts relates that his first
name was John, and that his mother Mary lived at Jerusalem,
where he doubtless first became acquainted with Peter,
adi. 12. When Barnabas and Saul returned to Antioch
after bringing the contribution of the Church there to the
poor brethren at Jerusalem, xi. 29, 30, they took Mark
(who seems to have been cousin to Barnabas) with them,
xii. 25. He started with them on their first missionary
journey, but on their arrival at Perga in Pamphylia, he
returned to Jerusalem, xiii. 13. To the Apostle Paul
this sudden withdrawal seemed like an abandonment of
the cause : and when Barnabas proposed that he should
accompany them on their second journey, Paul objected
so strongly, xv. 37-39, that it was found better for
Barnabas to go alone with Mark to Cyprus.1 In later
1 This is the account in the Book of Acts. It is, however,
possible that the estrangement between Paul and Barnabas was
really due to another cause ; comp. Bible for Young People, vol. vi.
jp. 253-261.

292 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK.
days, it would seem, the breach between them was
healed. When Paul was a prisoner at Rome, Mark was
among his few fellow-workers; he counts him among
the men who 'have been a comfort ' to him, Col. iv. io,
ii, Philem. 24. Whether Mark was associated with
Peter also, in Rome, the New Testament does not enable
us to determine. It has been supposed that Mark joined
Peter, possibly on some journey to Asia Minor; and the
first Epistle ascribed to Peter, v. 13, mentions 'Mark,
' my son.' Was this John Mark ? and was he son of
Peter in the flesh or in the spirit ? We cannot tell. The
authorship of the Epistle and the meaning of the words
are alike too uncertain.
Other testimony in the second century, however,
beside that of Papias, shows a general belief that our
Second Gospel was in some way linked with Peter.
Justin the Martyr,1 quoting the name Boanerges — which
occurs only in Mark — seems to refer it to the Memoirs
or Recollections of Peter. Irenaeus3 places the com
position of the Gospel after Peter's death, the date of
which, however, is not precisely known : s
Since the decease of these [Peter and Paul], Mark, the disciple
and interpreter of Peter, himself also handed down to us in
writing the things which were preached by Peter.
As the tradition goes on, it becomes more and more
precise. Clement of Alexandria affirms that Mark wrote
during Peter's lifetime, and the Apostle, when he was
aware of this, took pains neither to hinder nor to
encourage him in the work. Finally, Eusebius in the
1 See chap. i. $ 3, 1. 2 See chap. i. § 2, 2.
3 Tradition assigns it to the persecution of Nero, 64 a.d.

ADDITIONAL MATERIALS. 293
fourth century declares that Peter sanctioned the writing
for the use of the Church by express revelation.
(2) Is our Gospel the work which Papias knew and
referred to Mark? This has been variously decided
according to the interpretation put upon the statement
that the words and deeds of Jesus were not related in
order. The study of our Mark reveals a very clear and
intelligible order, preferable, indeed, to that of either
Matthew or Luke. It is possible that the phrase may apply
to the divergence noticed by Papias between our existing
Mark and the collection of ' the Lord's oracles ' which he
assigned to Matthew, and had just described before his
account of the work of Mark. Beside such a collection
the reminiscences gathered up in Mark might have
seemed dislocated or defective.
These questions, however, are not, after all, of great
consequence. It is more important to notice that other
elements must have been blended in our present narra
tive with the recollections of Peter. Small groups of
anecdotes present themselves, not linked together by
sequence in memory, but designed to show the attitude
of Jesus under various circumstances of criticism and
opposition; e.g. the succession of stories in ii.-iii. 6,
where the two Sabbath stories in particular, ii. 23-iii. 6,
are evidently put side by side on purpose to illustrate
each other. Similarly, short series of sayings occur, in
which it is difficult to trace any inner cohesion, such as
iv. 21-25, X1- 23-25 ; they seem to stand where they are
because their original occasion was no longer known, and
the author had no better place for their record. Again
the duplicate tradition of the feeding miracle, viii. 1-9,
omitted in the Third Gospel altogether, cannot proceed

294 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MARK.
from apostolic reminiscence. Room must thus be made
for the gathering of material from a wider range.
(3) Mark had lived at Jerusalem ; he had belonged to
the inner circle of disciples there, who had made his
mother's house their meeting-place. He must have
doubtless heard again and again stories of the Master's
life and teaching told and re-told, in the very centre
where the traditions were first formed, and these might
well mingle with his recollections of Peter's discourse.
But Mark had also been in intimate relations with the
apostle Paul; he had travelled with him, he had
worked with him in Rome. The study of the Pauline
theology has disclosed to some scrutinising eyes similari
ties of thought between the Second Gospel and the
Epistles, which may be due to the special opportunities of
personal intercourse, or may also be due to the larger
effect of Paul's general conceptions upon that branch of
the Church which was in contact with the Gentiles. The
peculiar use of the term ' gospel ' in Mark has been
already noted ; it is found also in the writings of Paul.
In the emphasis laid again and again on faith, in the
language concerning self-denial and the taking of the
cross, in the story of the Transfiguration, in the symbol
of the Temple- veil rent at the death of Jesus, xv. 38, so
that the sanctuary was flung open to all, cp. Rom. v. 1-2,
Ephes. ii. 14, traces of Pauline influence, more or less
definite or obscure, have been detected. These sur
mises cannot, however, be demonstrated ; they may be
established with some degree of likelihood ; they cannot
attain the rank of certainty.
How Peter's reminiscences were shaped into our Mark
we cannot tell. The view of Irenaeus — that Mark did

TRACES OF PAULINE INFLUENCE. 295
not write till after Peter's death — is quite consistent with
the date to which the Gospel has been referred. But the
statements of the second century must not be received
with too absolute a confidence./ At any rate, it remains
probable that the main facts of our Second Gospel
were derived from Peter ; the baptism, the ministry in
Capernaum and on the lake, the choice of the disciples,
the enlarging work, the opposition and the conflict, the
confession of Messiahship, the journey to Jerusalem, the
entry into the capital, the last days of gathering danger,
the fatal night of anguish and desertion — of all these he
may have spoken. The leading outlines of the immortal
story are drawn from the life. Here Jesus thinks, prays,
feels, speaks, acts, as a man. No books in the world
have ever wrought so great a change in human aspiration
and endeavour as the Gospels. In reducing to writing
the loose material of reminiscence and tradition, the
author of the oldest Gospel gave shape and continuance
to a new moral ideal. He secured for the Christian life
the means of exerting its enduring and diffusive power.
He set firm the foundation-stone of the Christian Church.
We do well to inscribe upon it the names of the two
greatest of the Apostles, Peter and Paul.

CHAPTER IX.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.
This Gospel has always been felt to possess a peculiar
significance for Christianity, for it contains so many
unique elements which have entered into the very heart
pf our religion. Whatever may be their source and their
historical value, as a spiritual interpretation of the
principles of Jesus they have for us imperishable worth.
At the very outset we are struck by a new feature
to which nothing in Mark or Matthew corresponds.
The Third Gospel begins with a preface. This is in
itself a mark of literary style : and it is, moreover, written
in excellent Greek. What does it tell us concerning the
sources of the work which it introduces ?
Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative
concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us,
even as they which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and
ministers of the word, delivered them unto us, it seemed good to
me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from
the first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus :
that thou mightest know the certainty concerning the words
wherein thou wast instructed.

THE PREFACE. 297
Several important facts may be inferred from these
words, (i) There were already ' many ' narratives in
existence dealing with the life and teachings of Jesus.
Whether our author intended to blame the writers (for
we may persume that they were written) for rashness
in undertaking the task, or for failure to accomplish it,
is perhaps uncertain; it is clear that he is not satisfied
with what they have done. Yet how thankful we
should be if some of these early works had been
preserved ! (2) The compilers of these narratives were
not themselves apostles. They could only deal with
what they had themselves received ; they arranged and
handed on what was ' delivered ' to them ; they simply
recorded a tradition. The sources of this tradition are
not named. It is somewhat vaguely said to have
proceeded from those who were eye-witnesses from the
beginning (meaning apparently the baptism, Acts i.
21-22), but through how many intervening stages it had
passed we are not told. (3) The writer was not himself
one of these eye-witnesses ; he has no other channel
of information than his predecessors. He, too, depends
on what has been ' delivered,' whether by the ' ministry
' of the word ' or by writing. He stands, therefore, at an
unnamed distance from the events which he is about to
describe. But he claims for his narrative certain special
merits. He has prepared himself by careful study to
make it complete in its scope, exact in its details, and
faithful in its arrangement. (4) The traditions which he
thus embodies were already the subject of regular oral
teaching. The English term 'things,' ver. 4, should
rather (as the margin indicates) be rendered ' words ' ;
denoting the portions of the ' word,' ver. 2, which were

298 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.
imparted to the Christian disciple, cp. Gal. vi. 6,
Acts xviii. 25.
Let us now enquire how far the Gospel really carries
out the aim expressed in the Preface.

§ 1. Its Relation to Mark.
Was Mark among the narratives already composed,
and are there any traces that it was among Luke's
sources ?
(1) There is, in the first place, a general harmony of
arrangement and contents. Most of the materials of
Mark find parallels in Luke. A few passages remain, as
has been already observed,1 unrepresented in either
Luke or Matthew. Otherwise, the bulk of Mark's anec
dotes appear likewise in Luke. One section, indeed,
is entirely omitted by the Third Gospel, Mark vi. 45-
viii. 26. It begins with the second Lake miracle, which
Luke probably regarded as a variant of the first calming
of the storm.2 It records a discourse with the Pharisees
on sitting down to eat with unwashed hands, vii. 1 foil.
which Luke appears to present in another form, and on a
different occasion, xi. 37 foil. It contains the story of
the Syrophoenician woman, dealing with the question of
the scope of the Gospel, which is one of the prominent
themes of Luke's narrative, and is brought forward again
and again elsewhere, with greater emphasis and a more
1 Chap. viii. § 2, 1, p. 271. 2 Chap. vi. § 4, 2, p. 203.

PARALLELS WITH MARK. 299
decided breadth.1 And it relates a second feeding
miracle, which Luke's accuracy discerned to be a
duplicate of the preceding, such as might easily spring
up with slight variations of number or locality.3 This is
followed by a demand from the Pharisees for a sign, and
a warning from the Teacher against their leaven, which
Luke reports in other connections, e.g. xi. 16, 29, 30, xii.
1. — With these exceptions the elements of Mark's
narrative may be traced again in Luke. If this be so,
may we say that Luke actually employed our Second
Gospel ? Two circumstances seem to make it highly
probable that though he did not follow it closely, he still
chose it as a kind of base for his own work.
(2) In many of the passages common to the Second
and Third Gospels, the verbal agreement is very close.
Sometimes the parallels are all but exact; sometimes
little touches seem to have been added by Luke to
enlarge or modify or explain his source. Compare, for
instance, the following passages at the opening of the
ministry in Capernaum, to which Matthew shows no
parallel. Mark i. 23-28. Luke iv. 33-37.
And straightway there was And in the synagogue there
in their synagogue a man with was a man which had a. spirit
an unclean spirit ; and he cried of an unclean devil ; and he
out, saying, What have we to cried out with a loud voice,
do with thee, thou Jesus of Ah ! what have we to do with
Nazareth ? Art thou come to thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth ?
destroy us ? I know thee who Art thou come to destroy us ?
thou art, the Holy One of God. I know thee who thou art, the
And Jesus rebuked him, say- Holy One of God. And Jesus
1 See below, § 4, 5, p. 324. 2 Comp. chap. vi. § 5, 2, p. 209.

300

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.

ing, Hold thy peace, and come
out of him. And the unclean
spirit, tearing him and crying
with a loud voice, came out of
him. And they were all
amazed, insomuch that they
questioned among themselves,
saying, What is this ? a new
teaching! with authority he
commandeth even the unclean
spirits, and they obey him.
And the report of him went
out straightway everywhere,
into all the region of Galilee
roundabout.

rebuked him, saying, Hold thy
peace, and come out of him.
And when the devil had thrown
him down in the midst, he
came out of him, having done
him no hurt. And amazement
came upon all, and they spake
together, one with another,
saying, What is this word ? for
with authority and power he
commandeth the unclean
spirits, and they come out.
And there went forth a rumour
concerning him into every place

of the region round about.
Here are two more taken from the last days at Jerusalem,
the equivalents in Mark and Luke of the great invective
in Matt, xxiii.

Mark xii. 38-40.
And in his teaching he said,
Beware of the Scribes, which
desire to walk in long robes,
and (to have) salutations in the
market-places, and chief seats
in the synagogues, and chief
places at feasts ; they which
devour widows' houses, and for
a pretence make long prayers ;
these shall receive greater
condemnation.

Luke xx. 45-47.
And in the hearing of all the
people he said unto his dis
ciples, Beware of the Scribes,
which desire to walk in long
robes, and love salutations in
the market-places, and chief
seats in the synagogues, and
chief places at feasts, which
devour widows' houses, and for
a pretence make long prayers ;
these shall receive greater
condemnation.

Both Gospels then relate in almost identical words the
story of the widow's gift, which Matthew omits altogether.
(3) In the case just quoted, either Luke must have
reproduced Mark's anecdotes, with such slight changes

CORRESPONDENCE OF ORDER. 301
as he thought desirable (observe that words in direct
speech appear in the closest agreement), or both Mark
and Luke must have derived them from a common
source. Which seems the more likely ? The proba
bility that Luke drew some of his material from Mark,
is increased by this fact — the general order of Mark
reappears in Luke. It is occasionally dislocated, but
the outlines of the Galilaean ministry, with its brief close
in Jerusalem, are clearly reproduced. And where the
arrangement of the Second Gospel is disturbed, the
Third Gospel still seems to pre-suppose it. Thus, after
the synagogue scene just quoted, we read : —
Mark i. 29. Luke iv. 38.
And straightway, when they And he rose up from the
were come out of the synagogue, synagogue, and entered the
they came into the house of house of Simon.
Simon and Andrew, with James
and John.
The reader of Luke, asking himself ' Who was Simon ? '
finds no answer till the next chapter, v. 3, 10. Luke has
transposed the account of the call of Simon, James and
John, which Mark places before the synagogue incident
and the visit to Simon's house, to an indefinitely later
period. The mention of Simon's name, therefore, is
wholly unexpected, and no reason appears why Jesus
should go to his house. But a comparison with Mark
makes it all plain. Presumably, therefore, Mark's
narrative lay under Luke's hand. — Here is another
instance of apparent borrowing and adaptation. The
conversation with the Scribe in the temple about the
First Commandment, related by Mark, records the
Scribe's approving remark, xii. 32, 'Teacher, thou hast

302 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.
' well said,' &c, and concludes with the statement that
by this answer Jesus effectually silenced all further
persecutors, xii. 34 : —
And no man any more durst ask him a question.
In the Third Gospel the incident is given in another
form, and assigned to a different place and time, x. 25,
foil. But the compiler, finding Mark's conclusion and
desiring not to lose it, has to arrange an appropriate place
for it. It is accordingly appended to the reply to the
Sadducees concerning the resurrection, xx. 27-40 : —
But that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed .... And
certain of the scribes answering said, Teacher, thou hast well said.
For they durst not any more ask him any question.
These coincidences seem best explained by the literary
dependence of Luke on Mark.

$ 2. Its Relation to Matthew;
It might be sufficient to argue that Luke could not
have employed Matthew's Gospel, because his preface
implies that the works with which he was acquainted
did not bear the names of apostles or eye-witnesses of
the deeds of Jesus. But without resorting to this plea, let
us examine the indications of the documents themselves.
The comparison of Luke with Matthew introduces us to
a more intricate problem. Most readers will have
observed that besides the contents common to all three,
there is a large amount of matter belonging to Matthew
and Luke, which is not found in Mark. The report of
the preaching of the Baptist, the account of the

PARALLELS IN ALL THREE GOSPELS. 303
Temptation, the great Sermon, belong to this group
of narratives. These are evidently closely related.
Other stories, however, though dealing with the same
themes, are obviously independent, if not irreconcilable,
like the legends of the Birth, and the manifestations
after the Resurrection. What evidence as to the relation
of our First and Third Gospels may be derived (i) from
their respective treatment of elements included in the
Second also, and (2) from the occurrence in them of
sayings or incidents common to them alone ?
(1) Two questions arise in connection with the
elements in which all three agree; one concerns the
inner form of the separate items; the other enquires
after their general arrangement.
(a) In the first place the examination of parallel
passages between Mark and the other two Gospels will
show instance after instance in which Luke does not
contain additions or insertions now found in Matthew,
and stands, therefore, much nearer to Mark. Consider,
for example, the following cases.
Mark ii. 17. Luke v. 31, 32. Matt. ix. 12, 13.
And when Jesus And Jesus answer- But when he heard
heard it, he saith ing said unto them, it, he said, They that
unto them, They that They that are whole l are whole ' have no
are whole ' have no have no need of a need of a physician,
need qf u physician, physician but they but they that are sick.
but they that are that are sick. I am But go ye and learn
sick; I came not to not come to call the what this meaneth.
call the righteous, righteous but sinners I desire mercy, and
but sinners. to repentance. not sacrifice ; for /
came not to call the
righteous but sinners.
1 Mark and Matthew have the same Greek word ; Luke uses
another.

304

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.

Here Matthew inserts a quotation from Hos. vi. 6, which
he attributes to Jesus a second time, xii. 7. Luke,
however, while making his own little addition to Mark's
words, ' to repentance,' ignores the prophetic reference
of Matthew both in this passage, and on its subsequent
occurrence.

Mark ii. 25-28.
And he said unto
them, Did ye never
read what David did,
when he had need
and was an hungred,
he, and they that
were with him ; how
he entered into the
house qf God when
Abiathar was high
priest, and did eat
the shew -bread, which
it is not lawful to
eat save for the
priests, and gave also
to them that were
with him ?

And he said unto
them, The Sabbath
was made for man,
not man for the
Sabbath 1

Luke vi. 3-5.
And Jesus answer.
ingthem said,Haveye
not read, even this,
what David did,when
he was an hungred,
he, and they that were
with him : how he
entered into the house
of God, and did take
and eat the shew
bread, and gave also
to them that were
with him, which it is
not lawful to eat save
for the priests alone.

And he said unto
them,

Matt. xii. 3-8.
But he said unto
them, Have ye not
read what David did,
when he was an
hungred, and they
that were with him ;
how he entered into-
the house of God and
did eat the shew
bread, which it was
not lawful for him
to eat, neither for
them that were with
him,but foi the priests
alone ? Or have ye
not read in the law
how that on the
sabbath day the
priests in the temple
profane the sabbath
and are guiltless? But
I say unto you that
a greater thing than
the temple is here.
But if ye had known
what this meaneth, I
desire mercy, and not
sacrifice, ye would
not have,.condemned

INDEPENDENT OF MATTHEW. 305
so that the Son qf The Son of Man is the guiltless. For
Man is lord even of lord of the sabbath. the Son of Man is
the sabbath. lord of the sabbath.
If Luke had had Matthew's Gospel before him as well as
Mark's, why should he a second time pass over the
quotation from Hosea ? Does it not seem more probable
that he was unacquainted with it ? A similar inference
will be suggested by other instances, such as Mark x. 29,
Luke xviii. 29, Matt. xix. 28; or Mark xii. 10, 11, Luke
xx. 17, 18, Matt. xxi. 42-44.
(b) While Luke thus stands nearer to Mark in his
version of their common matter, a further proof of his
independence of Matthew may be found in this
circumstance : where Matthew departs from Mark's order,
besides adding to his words, Luke takes no more notice
of the variation in the arrangement than he does of the
insertions in the discourse. Luke has, it is true, his own
divergences, but they are produced by a different cause.
For example, Matthew, desirous of putting his summary
of the new legislation as early as possible, breaks up
Mark's whole story of the first sabbath at Capernaum,
which Luke closely follows. Some of the incidents he
omits altogether : some he introduces elsewhere. In like
manner, the subsequent group of anecdotes, illustrating
the early missionary work of Jesus, which run side by
side in the Second and Third Gospels, are distributed
over a wide range of other material in the First.1 The
impression of the sequence of Luke on Mark, and his
independence of Matthew, is thus confirmed.
(2) But does not Luke agree with Matthew in many
passages which do not occur in Mark at all ? Assuredly.
1 Comp. chap, i., $ 2, I. V

306 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.
How, then, is this concord to be explained ? Did Luke
derive them from Matthew, or Matthew from Luke?
Or did they each employ separately the same common
source ? It will be sufficient for the present if it can be
shown to be probable that the Third Evangelist did not
borrow them directly from the First.
(a) The common matter peculiar to Matthew and
Luke sometimes occurs in parallel strips, such as the
report of the Baptist's preaching, or the narrative of the
Temptation (save for a change in the order of the second
and third trials). But in other cases, it is very differently
placed. For instance, almost the whole of Matt. xi. will
be found in Luke, but in half-a-dozen fragments of
diverse length and unexpectedly fresh connections. The
following table shows their dispersion.
Matthew Luke
xi. 2-1 1 = vii. 18-28.
12-13 = xv'- x6.
14 not in Luke.
15 = viii. 8, xiv. 35.
16-19 = v»- 3I"35-
20-24 = x. 13-15,
25-27 = x. 21-22.
28-30 not in Luke.
Which seems the more likely, that Luke, finding
Matthew's discourse as a whole, shivered it to pieces and
lodged the fragments up and down his narrative, omitting
altogether its remarkable close, or that Matthew, who so
constantly masses the utterances of Jesus, gathered
sayings from various sources into a continuous address ?
The evidence, as regards Matthew's literary method, will

ELEMENTS IN COMMON WITH MATTHEW. 307
be made more complete hereafter:1 may it not be said
at present that the priority does not seem to lie with the
First Evangelist ?
(b) If the arrangement of the common matter appears
sometimes to be of earlier date in Luke, compared with
Matthew, is it possible to draw any conclusions with
respect to its forms? Such evidence is no doubt of a
most delicate character, and the same signs will be
interpreted differently by different readers. But some
illustrations may be offered for consideration. In
the passage quoted above from Matt. xi. 2-1 1, a
remarkable addition will be noticed in the parallel in
Luke vii. 2 1 : —
In that hour he cured many of diseases and plagues and evil
spirits ; and on many that were blind he bestowed sight.
It has been already observed that this statement translates
into outward physical miracle the symbolic language in
which Jesus was wont to describe inward moral change.2
This points undoubtedly to a later date, at a farther
remove from the Teacher's words, when the spiritual
imagination had lost the key to their secret, and a dull
and literal interpretation demanded that they should be
visibly confirmed. In this case the form in Matthew
must be judged the older ; though, as in corresponding
parallels between Matthew and Mark,3 this is not
decisive with respect to the whole narratives in which
they lie. — The parable of the Talents, again, occurs both
in Matthew and in Luke. The theme is the same, though
its treatment varies ; in the First Gospel different sums
are allotted to different servants, five talents, two, and
1 See chap. x. \ 1, 2. 2 See chap. vi. § 3, 2, p. 196.
3 See chap. viii. § 2, 4, p. 279.

308

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.

one, Matt. xxv. 15; in the Third all alike receive a
single mina, Luke xix. 13. In the results there is some
divergence ; but the sentence on the servant who made
no use of the money entrusted to him, shows that the
stories have sprung from a single root. Luke xix. 20-26.
And another came, saying,

Matt. xxv. 24-29.
And he also that had received
the one talent came and said,
Lord, I knew thee that thou art
a hard man, reaping where thou
didst not sow, and gathering
where thou didst not scatter :
and I was afraid, and went
away and hid thy talent in the
earth : lo, thou hast thine own.
But his lord answered and
said unto him, Thou wicked
and slothful servant, thou
knewest that I reap where I
sowed not, and gather where I
did not scatter ; thou oughtest
therefore to have put my money
to the bankers, and at my coming
I should have received back
mine own with interest. Take
ye away therefore the talent
from him, and give it unto
him that hath the ten
talents. For unto every one
that hath shall be given, and
he shall have abundance ; but
from him that hath not, even
that which he hath shall be
taken away.

Lord, behold, here is thy
pound, which I kept laid up in
a napkin : for I feared thee,
because thou art an austere
man ; thou takest up that thou
layest not down, and reapest
that thou didst not sow. He
saith unto him, Out of thine
own mouth will I judge thee,
thou wicked servant. Thou
knewest that I am an austere
man, taking up that I laid not
down, and reaping that I did
not sow ; then wherefore gavest
thou not my money into the
bank, and I at my coming
should have required it with
interest. And he said unto
them that stood by, Take
away from him the pound, and
give it unto him that hath
the ten pounds. And they
said unto him, Lord, he hath
ten pounds. I say unto you
that unto every one that hath.
shall be given : but from him
that hath not, even that which
he hath shall be taken away
from him.

ELEMENTS IN COMMON WITH MATTHEW. 309
The agreement here proves the original identity of the
parables. The sequel, however, presents a startling
discord : —
Matt. xxv. 30. Luke xix. 27.
And cast ye out the unprofit- Hcwbeit these mine enemies,
able servant into the outer which would not that I should
darkness : there shall be the reign over them, bring hither,
weeping and gnashing of teeth. and slay them before me.
What is the cause of this sudden leap in the story
according to the Third Evangelist ? It is in reality the
conclusion of another story, which Luke has combined
with the parable of the Pounds, — the story of the noble
man who went into a distant country ' to receive for
'himself a kingdom, and to return,' ver. 12. But he
was not left to assume his power undisturbed, for it is
added, ver. 1 4 : —
His citizens hated him, and sent an ambassage after him,
saying, We will not that this man reign over us.
And it is on these rebellious subjects that the royal doom
is now pronounced. There is nothing like this in
Matthew; and it becomes apparent that Luke, besides
adopting an independent version of the main idea, has
blended with it some touches from a different parable,
which can no longer be recovered in its integrity.1 Between
1 It is possible that one of these, the fate of the king's
' enemies,' has suggested a touch in another story in which
Matthew shows a decided advance in complexity over Luke, the
marriage feast, Matt. xxii. 2-14, cp. Luke xiv. 16-24. Luke's host
becomes a king in Matthew : the great supper is turned into the
wedding of the king's son : and to the rude behaviour of the
invited guests is added the murder of the servants charged with
the announcement that all is ready. This draws down on the
murderers an invasion by the king's armies which destroy

310 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.
the Talents and the Pounds it might be difficult to settle
the claim of priority : but there can be little doubt that
Matthew's simple form represents an earlier type than
the compound narrative of Luke. But in other instances,
the priority seems as clearly to belong to the Third
Gospel. Compare, for example, the two versions of the
Lord's Prayer.1
Matt. vi. 9-12. Lukexi. 2-4.
Our Father which art in Father,
heaven, Hallowed be thy name, Thy Hallowed be thy name.
kingdom come. Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done, as in
heaven, so on earth.
Give us this day our daily Give us day by day our
bread. daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as And forgive us our sins, for
we also have forgiven our we ourselves also forgive every-
debtors. one that is indebted to us.
And bring us not into tempta- And bring us not into
tion, but deliver us from evil. temptation.
The form in Luke is much shorter than that of Matthew.
Is the difference due to growth, or to omission ? Now it
cannot be denied that in the version we habitually use, an
important addition has been made. What is known as
them, ver. 7, as the ' enemies ' are slain in Luke xix. 27. The
episode has been obviously imported into the simpler story as
related by Luke, for after the burning of the city, the wedding
feast is still ready, and fresh guests have to be found. The
entry of the man without a wedding garment who is then
expelled, Matt. xxii. 11 -14, is an additional trait, showing the
later character of Matthew's version.
1 On the additions made by early Christian scribes to the form
in Luke, see chap, iii, page 69.

ELEMENTS IN COMMON WITH MATTHEW. 311
the Doxology, ' For thine is the kingdom, &c.,' has been
appended to the close of the prayer as it now stands in
our oldest texts. This addition was the work of the
Church; it was possibly in oral use at an early date,
though it was not incorporated in the manuscripts till a
much later time. But if such clauses could be attached
when reverence for the words of Jesus might have been
supposed strong enough to guard his own prayer from
unauthorised supplements, much more was it possible for
the separate petitions to be amplified with explanatory
phrases when the tradition was still elastic. The words
' thy will be done ' are an interpretation of the prayer for
the coming of the kingdom, and they are, as it were,
sanctioned by having dropped from the lips of Jesus in
Gethsemane. Similarly the final clause, ' but deliver us
' from the evil,' has manifest reference to the temptation
or trial into which the disciple desires not to be brought.
It seems more likely that the brief prayer of the Teacher
was thus expanded by the piety of believers, than that its
fuller clauses were curtailed by imperfect memory or
deliberate intent. — In the case just discussed, the spirit of
the two prayers is identical. But it sometimes happens
that changes in the form involve considerable changes in
the meaning. Few casual readers would be able to name
the differences between the Blessings as they are recorded
by Matthew or by Luke, yet they are of high significance
and interest. The following Beatitudes prefixed to the
Great Sermon are doubtless derived originally from
Jesus. Yet, as we study their variations, we cannot help
asking ourselves which represents more nearly the
Master's words.1
1 Compare chap. iii. § 4, 4, p. 95.

312 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.
Matt. v. 3, 5, 4. 11. Luke vi. 20-22.
Blessed are the poor in spirit ; Blessed are ye poor : for yours
for theirs is the kingdom of is the kingdom of God.
heaven.
Blessed are they that hunger Blessed are ye that hunger
and thirst after righteous- now : for ye shall be filled.
ness : for they shall be filled.
Blessed are they that mourn: Blessed are ye that weep now:
for they shall be comforted. for ye shall laugh.
Blessed are ye when men shall Blessed are ye when men shall
reproach you and persecute hate you, and when they
you, and say all manner of shall separate you from their
evil against you falsely for company, and reproach you
my sake. andcastout yournameasevil,
for the Son of Man's sake.
The four blessings in Luke are followed by four woes,
pronounced on the rich, the satisfied, the laughing, and
the men of good repute, to which nothing corresponds at
all in Matthew. They are all concerned with the
contrast, which runs right through the Third Gospel
between the poor and the rich ; and they are addressed
with direct utterance to the men who thronged around
the Teacher. But in Matthew the whole tone is changed.
The ' poor ' are no longer the suffering and down
trodden, the godly men of the Psalms, tormented at the
hands of wealthy and brutal persecutors, and longing for
redress : they are the poor in spirit, and the hungry after
righteousness. This change is accompanied by another :
the transformed blessings are not pronounced on any one
in particular. They are reflective utterances founded on
spiritual experience; not the impassioned cry of the
prophet who beholds great wrongs and boldly declares
that they shall be set right. Judgment between these two
versions is difficult, and interpreters are divided. But if

LARGE QUANTITY OF UNIQUE MATTER. 313
on the whole, the report of the Great Sermon in the
Third Gospel seems to contain fewer elements of later
thought and feeling than that of the First, may we not
believe that we approach nearer to the heart of Jesus, or
at least to the impression left by him on the first
disciples, through the Blessings and Woes of Luke, than
through the Beatitudes of Matthew? In that case we
shall again infer that the Third Evangelist was not
acquainted with the First.

$ 3. Peculiarities of Arrangement.
The inquiry so far has suggested the probability that
among the authorities for his narrative Luke employed
our Mark, and some other collection of the sayings of
Jesus also used independently by our Matthew. The
peculiarities of the Third Gospel are, however, very
imperfectly accounted for by these assumptions. Some
further distinguishing features deserve consideration.
(i) Among the most prominent of these is the large
quantity of unique matter which it contains. If the total
contents of the several Gospels should be represented by
ioo, then it has been calculated that the peculiar
elements in the First Three Gospels would be repre
sented by these proportional numbers : — 1
Matthew  42
Mark  7
Luke  59
1 Westcott, Introduction, p. 195.

314 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.
The amount of matter without parallel in the other two
Gospels is thus much greater in Luke than in Matthew.
Every reader will recollect the beautiful birth stories of
John the Baptist and of Jesus, with the hymns which
have expressed for so many generations the prayers and
praises of the Church. And how many more narratives
do we not owe to the same writer — the description of the
opening of Jesus' ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth,
the stories of the widow of Nain, of Mary and Martha, of
Zacchaeus, of the journey to Emmaus, and the
Ascension. What a picture-gallery has been drawn for
us in the parables, the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal
Son, the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Dishonest Steward,
the Unjust Judge, the Pharisee and the Publican! These
figures all belong to the Third Gospel : what hand first
sketched them ? Like so many other questions, this,
also, is more easily asked than answered.
(2) It has already become plain that the Third
Evangelist employed at least two sources ; it is probable
that the number was greater. Attention has already
been called, in another discussion, to the repetition of the
same saying on different occasions.1 To the parallels
then presented from Mark and Luke, the following
duplicates may be added within Luke alone : —
ix. 23-24. xiv. 27.
And he said unto all, If any Whosoever doth not bear his
man would come after me, let own cross, and come after me,
him deny himself, and take up cannot be my disciple.
his cross daily, and follow me. xvii. 33.
For whosoever would save Whosoever shall seek to gain
his life shall lose it ; but who- his life shall lose it : but who-
1 Chap. iii. § 3, 2 b, pp. 77-79.

PLURALITY OF SOURCES. 315
soever shall lose his life for my soever shall lose his life shall
sake, the same shall save it. preserve it.
xi. 43. xx. 46.
Woe unto you Pharisees, for Beware of the Scribes, which
ye love the chief seats in the desire to walk in long robes,
synagogues, and the salutations and love salutations in the
in the market-places. market-places, and chief seats
in the synagogues, and chief
places at feasts.
xiv. 11. xviii. 14.
For every one that exalteth  For every one
himself shall be humbled ; and that exalteth himself shall be
he that humbleth himself shall humbled ; but he that humbleth
be exalted. himself shall be exalted.
How are such duplicates to be explained ? It is, of
course, possible that Jesus uttered the same or similar
sayings again and again to fresh groups of listeners.
But the fact that the same words sometimes occur in
such diverse connections that their application and
meaning become quite changed, points to another cause.
The remembrance of their original significance, or of
the occasion which called them forth, became confused,
and they were grouped in one way by one collector,
while a second assigned them to another group. The
Third Evangelist gathering all available material
together, sifting, separating, and combining, as he
thought best, did not reject the duplicate maxims as
he dropped the duplicate miracles, but inserted them
from the various forms of the tradition with which he
was acquainted into the places which seemed to suit
them best. Other evidence points to a similar inference.
The lawyer's question, x. 25, leads to the selection by
him of the same two commandments which in Mark
xii. 28 are chosen by Jesus as the greatest of all ; but

316 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.
the scene on the journey after the return of the Seventy
has no other resemblance to the Temple incident of our
Second Gospel. The demand for the seats on either
hand of Jesus, preferred by the sons of Zebedee, is
omitted by Luke ; but he does not wholly fail to report
the exhortation which it called forth. It is transferred
to his account of the Last Supper, xxii. 24-27. How
should such a place have been suggested for it, had he
not found some tradition which disposed it there ?
(3) It has been said above1 that the arrangement of
the Third Gospel is in general harmony with that of the
Second. This statement, however, needs some qualifica
tion. It is true that Luke, like Mark, describes Jesus as
preaching in Galilee and as crucified in Jerusalem. But
his Gospel does not fall apart in the same way into two
sections, the months of labour in the north and the days
of peril and suffering in the capital, bound together by a
journey on the Eastern side of the Jordan. Luke has his
own view of that journey. After following Mark through
the record of the Galilaean ministry, he represents Jesus
as ' steadfastly setting his face to go to Jerusalem,' ix. 51.
But Jesus does not go through Peraea, but through
Samaria. This is the opening of a new and unexpected
act in the great drama. The story of it occupies many
chapters which contain a large proportion of the
elements already noted as peculiar to this Gospel ; and
it only falls into the common narrative with the blessing
bestowed on the children, xviii. 15. A journey from
Galilee to Jerusalem through Samaria would occupy but
a few days. But this is made the occasion for a great
task of missionary zeal, the despatch of the Seventy
1 See § 1, 1, p. 298.

ITS THREE DIVISIONS. 317
Disciples, x. i. After a visit to Martha and Mary —
whom later tradition placed at Bethany, — he is still,
xiii. 22, on his way to Jerusalem : while later yet,
xvii. n, he is 'passing through the midst of Samaria
' and Galilee.' The geography of the narrative is plainly
in confusion;1 its ideal significance will be explained
directly ; it is enough now to observe that this arrange
ment, special to Luke, divides his Gospel into three
portions, instead of two, whose successive scenes are in
Galilee, in Samaria, and at Jerusalem. It is in accord
ance with the artistic method of the writer that each
division is introduced by a reference to those who would
not receive the ' good news.' At Nazareth, the new
Teacher, whose first sermon has roused the townspeople's
wrath, is in danger of his life. The people of the
Samaritan village refuse him a night's lodging because
he is on his way to the mother-city of their hereditary
foes. As he rounds the declivity of the Mount of Olives
and confronts the glittering array of temple and palace
and tower, he weeps over the doomed capital which
knew not the things which belonged unto peace.
Beneath these varieties of form lies one common
thought; but they are symbols of feeling, rather than
reports of fact.
' It is hardly necessary to add that no one approaching
Jerusalem through Samaria, would go so far out of his way
as to descend into the Jordan valley and pass through Jericho,
xviii. 35.

318 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.
§ 4. Characteristics of Thought and Feeling.
More important than these external differences, though
in some respects more difficult to grasp, is the new
presentment of Christ and Christianity.
li) The power of Messiah is displayed on a broader
scale. The hints of human limitation, still traceable in
Mark, have dropped away; no inability to perform
mighty works hangs a burden on his efforts ; no
ignorance of the day and the hour veils the future
from him.
(a) This higher glory is especially displayed in the
added significance now attached to the term ' Son of
God.' In the oldest tradition the official meaning of
the name was carried back to the Baptism ; that was the
hour when the divine choice was signalised. But the
growth of loyalty and reverence was not satisfied to stop
on Jordan's banks. The title suggested a closer
relationship than that effected by the descent of the
Spirit on to the man Jesus. Not by appointment or
adoption only was he 'Son of God;' he must have been
so by birth itself, i. 35, and his appearance in the world
must have been hailed by prophecy and celebrated by
the songs of angels. Into this relation no other could
enter ; Jesus might indeed promise the faithful disciples
that they should be ' sons of the Most High,' vi. 35,
cp. i. 32 ; but he remained in unapproachable grandeur
as ' the Son ; ' to him have all things been delivered by
the Father ; he alone knoweth who the Father is, he
alone has power to reveal the Father to whomsoever he
wills, x. 22.
(b) The special manifestation, in our Third Gospel,

GREATER EMINENCE OF MESSIAH. 319
of this more exalted eminence of the Christ, may be
traced in the greater emphasis laid on his triumph over
evil. The temptation at which Mark briefly hints, is set
forth by Luke with a triple conquest over the Adversary.
Baffled and disappointed the devil departs from him ' for
' a season ; ' but no danger can harm Messiah till his
time has come, xxii. 37. So at Nazareth he passes
calmly through the infuriated villagers, eager to hurl
him from the cliff, and goes his way, iv. 30 : and when
Herod would kill him, he marches on fearlessly to
Jerusalem, xiii. 31-33. His ministry is a kind of warfare
between the powers of good and evil. The Twelve
receive authority over all devils, ix. 1 ; when the Seventy
return, he announces to them that the victory is complete,
the Adversary is overthrown: 'I beheld Satan fallen
' as lightning from heaven,' x. 18. But the crisis,
though it may be delayed, cannot be evaded. Satan,
even if fallen, is still powerful. He finds an instrument
in Judas, whose treachery is now ascribed to him,
xxii. 3. He will, indeed, no more succeed in the long
run through Judas than through Peter, xxii. 31; for the
road to death (ix. 44, xviii. 31) is also the road to the
risen life ; and when Jesus starts for Jerusalem, on the
fatal journey, it is with the full end in sight, the joy
of being 'received up' into heaven, ix. 51, xxiv. 51,
Acts i. 9, 11.
(c) Messiah's authority, accordingly, comes more fully
into view. He distributes to his servants in the Church
their powers and duties till he comes again, xii. 42 foil.,
xix. 1 1 foil. : and, above all, new stress is laid on the
Resurrection, for which a sequel is provided in the
Ascension. The meagre account of Mark, so scanty in

320 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.
detail, and so abrupt in its close, in which Jesus himself
is not seen at all,1 is replaced by a narrative of
manifestations, first to Cleopas and his companion, and
then to the Eleven, on the way to Emmaus and at
Jerusalem. The purpose of Messiah's suffering is
vindicated, xxiv. 26 ; it was the necessary pathway to his
glory. But there is something more : he has a charge to
lay upon them, and a gift to impart. They are to preach
repentance and remission of sins in his name to all the
nations ; he will send forth the promise of his Father on
them. So, in the act of bestowing on them his last
blessing, he is parted from them, and borne up to
heaven. How startling is this development in advance
of Mark?
(2) Side by side with the increased significance of the
person of Jesus as Messiah, there is a more brilliant
light upon his character as the embodiment of the
divine pity for sinners, the actual symbol and channel of
the redeeming power of grace. In this Gospel do we
first hear the word ' Be ye merciful, even as your Father
' is merciful,' vi. 36. Here is the story of the woman
who loved much and was much forgiven ; here stand the
figures of the Prodigal and of the Publican who could
only cry ' God be merciful to me a sinner ; ' here, the
eagerness of Zacchaeus to amend his ways draws forth
the declaration of Messiah's true function, ' to seek and
' to save that which was lost ; ' here, Peter is won back to
'The Gospel of Mark in the oldest MSS. ended at xvi. 8.
It may, however, be thought that the language in ver. 7, ' He
' goeth before you into Galilee, there shall ye see him,' points to
some account of a subsequent manifestation of Jesus himself.

THE SINNERS AND THE POOR. 321
compunction by his Lord's look ; here the penitent thief
is the first-fruits that Jesus will carry into Paradise ; here,
the duty entrusted to the disciples, the great function of
the Church, is to proclaim to all the world the forgive
ness of sins. It is in harmony with this aspect of
Christianity that the type of character which the
Evangelist most loves to depict is that of the quiet
peaceful inward life. He marks the home at Nazareth
where the mother ponders over the wondrous things
that befall her son ; he lifts the curtain of the chamber
where Mary sits in her choice of the good part; he
dwells on the tender ministrations of the women who
gathered round the Teacher ; and he recalls his word
of tenderness for the daughters of Jerusalem in his
last hours.
(3) Beside the sinners who most need his love, and
who often most deserve it, there is another class for
whom this Gospel has a special word," the suffering poor.
The lowly, the oppressed, the ignorant, are never far
from the writer's view. It was for these that the good
tidings were first designed ; to them the prophet spoke
most clearly of promise and of hope. The earliest to
greet the infant Saviour are the country shepherds to
whom the angels brought the joyful news ; they, rather
than the wise men from the East, are the first to find
and recognise the Lord. Not to the wealthy and the
learned are the chief places in the kingdom given.
The Great Sermon opens with Woes upon the rich and
Blessings on the needy; and the parable sends the
rich man to torments while the poor beggar at his
gate passes to Abraham's bosom. To succour poverty
thus becomes one of the first duties. To the disciples w

322 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.
generally, and not to the rich young man only whom
Jesus sought to persuade to follow him, is the command
addressed ' Sell that ye have, and give alms,' xii. 33,
comp. xviii. 22 ; while Zacchaeus marks his penitence
and devotion by giving half his goods to the poor,
xix. 8.
(4) This sympathy with the needy appears in a more
emphatic form in a group of passages which have been
sometimes supposed to bear the stamp of that extreme
Jewish section of the early Church whose very name, the
Ebionites or the ' Poor,' implied their acquaintance with
poverty and suffering. The story of the rich man and
the beggar at his gate, xvi. 19-31, is founded on the
contrast between want and wealth. No moral reason is
assigned for the different lots of the rich man and
Lazarus in the next world ; their positions are reversed
on the simple principle that the one received ' his good
things ' in his earthly life, the other evil ; and this
inequality must be redressed. The story has many
peculiar features which mark it off from the parables
of the Teacher. The designation of the beggar by
name is a unique departure from the habit of presenting
only types ; the description of the realms beyond death
is without parallel in the reserve with which the
conditions of the future are elsewhere veiled ; and the
allusions to Jewish unbelief and Messiah's resurrection
point distinctly to a later time. If suffering here may be
supposed to qualify the patient for comfort hereafter, it
may in like manner be viewed as constituting a claim on
the divine attention which may be pressed with urgency
till it is heard. So the persecuted faithful, waiting
Messiah's advent, and not seeing it, cry day and night to

THE CLAIMS OF THE SUFFERING. 323
God to avenge them. Let them pray and not faint;
even the unrighteous judge yielded to the widow's
importunity ; how much more shall God avenge his own
elect, xviii. 1-8. The obvious reference of this parable
to the delay in Messiah's coming withdraws it at once
from the cycle of the original sayings of Jesus ; and
thus relieves his teaching about the Father from what
many have felt to be a most disturbing comparison
between God and the godless officer. If it be urged
that there is here no identity suggested, but a contrast,
even the contrast implies the lawfulness of a demand
quite unlike the spirit with which Jesus himself faced
impending death, ' Thy will, not mine, be done.' By
the side ot the picture of the unjust judge hangs a
sketch from the same hand, xi. 5-8, in the description
of the householder called up at night by a neighbour
in search of bread to set before a traveller who has just
arrived. He will not rise to serve a friend ; he gets up
only that he may the more quickly sleep again. The
affinity between the two passages is so strongly marked
as to render it clear that they spring from the same
tendencies of thought and feeling. Beneath the latter,
at least, there probably lies a genuine recollection of
some words of Jesus, for the sequel clearly proceeds
from him : but the unspiritual imagination has distorted
its form, and left only a perverted image of the Master's
thought.1 1 With these peculiar elements in Luke is usually classed the
parable of the Unrighteous Steward, xvi. 1-9. This passage,
like those already mentioned, must be studied as a whole to
understand its full significance : it is no elaborate allegory in
which each detail has a meaning, and there is no need to identify

324 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.
(5) One more noteworthy characteristic of this Gospel
is linked so closely to what may be described as its
general aim, that it might seem hardly necessary to
mention it here ; viz., its universal scope. Whether the
Gospel should be limited to the Jews, or whether it
should be addressed also to the Gentiles, was a question
of tremendous importance in the early Church. It is a
sign of the early character of much of Mark's material,
that it seems so little influenced by the cleavage which
took place on this dispute. One incident there is,
indeed, that of the Syrophoenician woman, where Mark's
version does not exhibit the harshness of Matthew's
story, omits the uncompromising words there assigned
to Jesus, ' I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the
' house of Israel,' Matt. xv. 24, and prefixes to the bitter
saying 'It is not meet to take the children's bread and
' cast it to the dogs ' the less exclusive phrase ' let the
' children first be filled,' Mark vii. 27. J This whole
occurrence Luke ignores altogether. On the other
hand, he intimates from the very outset that his
the rich man with either God or the devil ! The lesson of it lies
in ver. 9, that worldly wealth must be employed in alms, so as to
secure entry into the dwelling-places of the coming age. Th&
moral quality of the Steward's proceedings does not come into.
view: he simply serves as an illustration of worldly wisdom. In
its present form the story seems plainly to belong to that section
of the Church which viewed wealth as ' unrighteous,' and found
merit in poverty. This is closely connected with the conception
that the suffering are entitled to compensation, which is seen in
the story of the rich man and Lazarus.
1 Later on, in the discourse on the last things, it is said that th&
Gospel must first be preached unto all the nations, xiii. 10.

ITS UNIVERSAL SCOPE. 325
conception recognises no such limits. This is the
meaning of the opening incident at Nazareth, which
announces by a symbolic narrative the rejection of the
Gospel by the Jews and its proclamation to the Gentiles.
This is the key to the allegory of the marvellous draught
of fishes. This explains the references to the Gentile
cities of Tyre and Sidon which would have repented had
they seen the mighty works wrought on the Galilaean
shore, x. 13. This breaks out in the glorious promise to
those who ' shall come from the east and west, the north
' and south, and sit down in the kingdom of God,' xiii.
29. And this presents us with the type of gratitude
in the Samaritan leper, xvii. 15, 16, and the type of
true neighbourliness in that other Samaritan to whom
Christendom has awarded the title ' Good.' Thus in its
outlook upon the world the Third Gospel stands for the
widest human sympathy, and the broadest interpretation
of the purposes of God.

$ 5. Its General Aim.
The question just raised concerning the scope of the
Gospel as it is presented by Luke, leads to the con
sideration of the general aim of his work, in relation on
the one hand to the system of Judaism with its legal
obligations, and on the other to the needs of the
Gentiles. What view is here taken of the attitude of
Jesus to the Law, with reference to the claims of those
who required that its demands should be fulfilled before
believers should be admitted to the privileges of the

326 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.
kingdom ; and what sanction does Jesus give by
anticipation to the labours of the Apostle Paul ?
(i) It is not surprising that a Gospel founded on
varied sources should contain utterances of varied tones,
and should not, indeed, be always entirely self-consistent.
There are, in fact, diverse elements in Luke which seem
only imperfectly harmonised. Some passages are
strongly impregnated with Jewish expectations ; not only
is the ' kingdom of God ' represented under the familiar
figure of a banquet or great supper, as in xiv. 15-24, but
at the farewell meal Jesus promises the Twelve (in
cluding, apparently, Judas) posts of authority over their
nation in the future glory, xxii. 28-30 : —
Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations ;
and I appoint unto you a kingdom, even as my Father appointed
unto me, that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom ;
and ye shall sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
How different is this from the word 'the kingdom of
' heaven is within you.' — That Jesus should be regarded
as the destined fulfiller of prophecy, was of course
natural to those who received him as the Messiah for
whom their race had longed. The function is assigned
to him at Nazareth when he reads in the synagogue the
passage from Isaiah beginning
The spirit of the Lord is upon me,
Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor,
and then announces ' To-day hath this Scripture been
'fulfilled in your ears,' iv. 18-21. And after the
resurrection the prophetic proof of the necessity of his
Sufferings is twice made the subject of his discourse,
xxiv. 25-27, and 44-46. This motive, however, nowhere
assumes in Luke the prominence allotted to it in Matthew.

RELATION TO JUDAISM AND THE LAW. 327
Greater importance, in view of later struggles within the
Church, attaches to the declaration of the universally
binding character of the law. Two verses now stand
side by side in perplexing neighbourship, in which
apparently opposite principles are laid down. First it is
affirmed, xvi. 16, that 'the law and the prophets were
' until John.' The Baptist was the last in the great
succession of representatives of the old system : with the
actual foundation of the kingdom that system has done
its work of preparation and disappears, cp. Matt. xi.
11-13. But what is abolished by one phrase is imposed
again by the next, xvi. 17 : —
But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one
tittle of the law to fall.
One of Luke's sources, therefore, described Jesus, like a
Rabbi of the austerest type, as enforcing the strictest
perpetuity of the Law. In the parable of the Rich Man
and Lazarus the testimony of Moses and the prophets is
of at least equal weight with that of one risen from the
dead, xvi. 29-31. So the infant Messiah is treated
precisely as the law demands, in full recognition of
Paul's principle that when the fulness of time came, God
sent forth his son, born under the law, Gal. iv. 4. There
is, indeed, on the other hand, a consciousness that Israel
has failed, and must, like the barren fig-tree, be rooted
out. But the love of ancient order was not only
intelligible, it deserved a reverent regard ; and a tender
little apology for those who could not at once accept the
full consequences of larger principles belongs to this
Gospel only. ' New wine,' says the Jesus of all Three
Evangelists, ' must be put into fresh wine-skins.' Luke
alone adds, v. 39 : —

328 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.
And no man having drunk old wine desireth new, for he saith,
The old is good.
The true attitude, however, of the narrower past to the
broader future is seen in the beautiful figure of Simeon,
in whom Hebrew piety makes ready with joy to give
place to the new light.
(2) The great champion of freedom in the early
struggles about the obligations of the Law was, of course,
the Apostle Paul. The relation of the Third Gospel to
his teaching was expressed in ecclesiastical tradition, at
the end of the second century, by the theory that Paul
had stood to Luke in a connection similar to that of Peter
with Mark. It was even supposed that when the Apostle
wrote of ' his gospel,' he referred to the book bearing
Luke's name. Few critics of eminence now believe that
he had any share in its composition; but that such a view
should have been possible, is sufficient clue to certain
harmonies of thought. There are even occasional corres
pondences of phrase. The account of the Last Supper
given in / Cor. xi. 23-25, the earliest written record we
possess, stands in nearest accord with that in Luke xxii.
19-20. In the discourse addressed to the Seventy
disciples charged with the gospel-mission, a principle is
laid down of high importance to those who laboured
among the Gentiles. If they were offered food, must
they enquire whether it had been first sacrificed to an
idol, and, in that case, refuse it? The difficulty arose, for
instance, at Corinth. When the faithful were invited to
dinner by an unbeliever, courtesy to their host might
clash with the commands of their religion. The Apostle's
instructions dealt with the matter thus, 1 Cor. x. 27 : —
If one of them that believe not biddeth you (to a feast), and ye

RELATION TO PAUL. 329
are disposed to go ; whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no
question for conscience sake.
In similar terms does Jesus, in Luke alone, despatching
the disciples beyond Jewish soil, direct them thus, x. 8 : —
Into whatever city ye enter, and they receive you, eat such
things as are set before you.
The conversation with the Sadducees about the resur
rection is reported by all our Synoptists ; Luke only adds
to the argument of Jesus ' God is not the God of the
' dead but of the living,' xx. 38, the explanatory remark
'for all live unto him.' Have we here an echo of Pauline
words, ' in that he liveth, he liveth unto God,' Rom. vi.
10; ' none of us liveth to himself, and none dieth to him-
'self; for whether we live, we live unto the Lord, or
' whether we die, we die unto the Lord,' xiv. 7, 8 ? The
language of justification, Luke xvi. 15, xviii. 13-14,
reminds us of Paul's great argument ; at the beginning of
the Gospel the genealogy of Jesus is traced up to Adam,
and thus the ' first ' and the ' second man ' of Paul's
system have an earthly connection ; and at the close, in
xxiv. 34, an appearance of the risen Jesus to the Twelve
is recorded by Luke only, which appears to correspond
with that mentioned by the Apostle in / Cor. xv. 5.
(3) More important than these slenderer indications is
the emphatic sanction provided in this Gospel for the
Mission to the Gentiles. The Sermon at Nazareth,
placed out of order J so as to secure for it a place at the
beginning, is a kind of formal plea for the admission of
1 This is shown partly by comparison with Mark's narrative,
and partly by the circumstance that the story itself contains a
reference to things done in Capernaum, iv. 23, while Luke's
narrative places these events later, iv. 31-41.

330 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.
those beyond the pale of Israel to the privileges of the
kingdom. The same programme is again set forth in the
symbolic miracle of the draught of fishes. But most
noteworthy of all is the account of the despatch of the
Seventy, x. i . The time and the place are alike remark
able. Jesus is on his last journey, ix. 51 ; and he has
already entered Samaria. He was but two or three days'
march, by the usual route, to Jerusalem ; and there was
not scope among the villages through which he would
pass upon the way for so large a band of preachers, two
and two. An examination of the instructions given to the
disciples shows that they are in part derived from an
exhortation elsewhere addressed, Matt, x., to the Twelve.
This is, indeed, implied later on by Luke himself. The
Seventy are warned, x. 4, to carry no purse, no wallet,
and no shoes. But the conversation with the Apostles at
the Last Supper shows that it was really the Twelve who
were thus confided to their hearers' good will, xxii. 35 : —
And he said unto them, When I sent you forth without purse, and
wallet, and shoes, lacked ye anything ? And they said, Nothing.
Somewhat similar directions had, indeed, been given to
the Twelve, according to our Evangelist, ix. 1-5. But the
scanty report on this occasion shows that the Mission of
the Seventy was really, in his view, of much greater
significance, so that he was justified in applying to this
new enterprise the language which his traditional sources
associated with the first labours of the original companions
of the Teacher. What, then, was its real meaning ? The
number itself partly discloses it. As the number of the
Twelve was early connected in the Church — if not so
designed by Jesus himself — with the twelve tribes of Israel,
so that ofthe Seventy corresponded with the Jewish reckon-

THE PREACHING TO THE GENTILES. 331
ing of the nations of the world. There were seventy
peoples, it was calculated, on the basis of the table of the
distribution of the human race, in Genesis x.1 And these
seventy peoples spoke seventy languages, which the Rabbis,
with their quaint love of numerical correspondences,
supposed the seventy members of the Sanhedrin under
stood ! The Seventy Disciples were thus the symbol of
the appeal of Christianity to the whole world. That there
was no actual mission may be inferred from the fact they
are no sooner sent out than they return, x. 17, and not a
single sign remains of where they went. They had been
despatched into every city and place whither 'the Lord'
himself would come. The title here applied to Jesus
already suggests that it is not an earthly advent that the
Evangelist intends. He has in view the Christ who is
going to be 'received up'; it is the risen and glorified
Messiah who thus speaks not to Israel only but to
humanity at large, and ' comes,' as the kingdom spreads,
in the person of his faithful disciples, x. 1 6, or takes up
his abode in the believer's soul, comp. Ephes. iii. 17.
The Mission of the Seventy is thus an allegory of the
preaching to the Gentiles. It provides the approval of
Jesus for the work of Paul and his followers ; and sets
beside the Twelve, as of almost equal authority, the
wider Apostolate of which so many traces meet us in the
early Church.
(4) If thus the tendencies of opposite parties are
recognised and conciliated, may it not be said that it
was the writer's purpose to give peaceful expression to
1 Corresponding to the seventy peoples are the seventy
shepherds, i.e. the Gentile princes, in the passage already quoted
from Enoch, p. 115.

332 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.
divergent views ? The vehemence of early conflict has
subsided. The development of events has brought its
own lessons. The Church has grown ; and it has grown
largely by extension among the Gentiles. The terms
on which these should be admitted had in the course
of time settled themselves. When Jerusalem had fallen,
and the temple was destroyed, the view of the obliga
tions of the Law was modified. The Church began to
accommodate itself to new conditions. Planted from
place to place along the Mediterranean, embracing divers
nationalities and languages within its fold, it aspired to
be in practice what Paul had declared it to be in spiritual
fact, one and catholic. This aim is reflected in the
Third Gospel. The first season of difficulty has been
surmounted ; the desire to combine softens the bitterness
of party feeling ; and the Evangelist seeks to haimonise
the Christianity of Jew and Gentile through personal
allegiance to their common Lord.

§ 6. Time, Place, and Author.
It remains to ask whether the Third Gospel supplies
us with any definite clues to the time or place of its
composition. (i) The argument which has, on general grounds,
placed Luke after Mark, is confirmed by many indica-.
tions of much later date. The preface implies that the
day of eye-witnesses is past. The only source of know
ledge is the tradition which they have transmitted, and
which is already shaped into material for regular instrac-

DATE OF COMPOSITION. 333
tion. The new elements of the doctrine of the Christ
point in the same direction. Still more significant is the
repeated reference to the delay in Messiah's second
coming. That is the real meaning of the parable of the
Unjust Judge, xviii. 1-8 ; that is the avowed thought
lying in the combined story of the Talents, and the
Nobleman who went away to a distant land, to ' receive
'for himself a kingdom and return,' xix. 11-12. The
fullest expression is given to this in the modification of
the language in the discourse on the Last Things. The
fall of Jerusalem is no longer the prelude to the great
catastrophe which shall precede the coming of the Son
of Man : the announcement of the impending 'tribula
tion ' is withdrawn : the city will lie desolate for a period
of unnamed length, till the nations are ripe for their
doom, xxi. 24 : —
And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the
times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
The writer's view seems to embrace a clear retrospect
of the siege, which he alone, with circumstantial detail,
places in the mouth of Jesus, xix. 41-44. In several
passages describing the dangers of confession before
rulers and kings and governors,1 the voice of the Church
seems to be heard rather than that of the Teacher,
Uttering encouragement and quickening endurance in
his name. These conditions could hardly have been
realised before the year 80 a.d. If, as some eminent
critics have thought, the consciousness of peril to liberty
or life points to the days of the Emperors Domitian or
Trajan, the composition of the Gospel will be brought
1 Compare vi. 22, xii. 11, xxi. 12.

334 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.
down to the year ioo a.d., or later still, a period perhaps
more suitable to the advance of tradition, the heightened
conception of the person of Messiah, and the tendency
to represent views once in bitter conflict as in peace
ful accord.
(2) The geographical confusion into which the writer
is betrayed in his account of the journey of Jesus to
Jerusalem through Samaria and Galilee, implies that he
was not himself familiar with Palestine. He has been
assigned by different investigators to many lands, to
Asia Minor, Macedonia, Achaia, Rome itself. These
various guesses refute each other ; they prove, in fact,
that the Gospel itself contains no sign by which to
identify its author's home. His occasional explanations
show that he has taken praiseworthy pains to acquaint
himself with localities which he did not personally know.
He can inform his readers that Nazareth and Capernaum
are ' cities of Galilee,' i. 26, iv. 31. He inserts into the
statement (borrowed apparently from Mark xi. 1) describ
ing the advance of Jesus to Jerusalem, xix. 29, the
explanatory phrase ' the mount that is called the mount
' of Olives'; he makes a note that the feast of unleavened
bread is termed the Passover, xxii, 1 ; he mentions that
Arimathea is 'a city of the Jews,' xxiii. 51, and knows
the distance of Emmaus from Jerusalem, xxiv. 13 ; but
neither of these places has been satisfactorily identified.
The vague phrase, ' a city of the Jews,' suggests that
the writer was himself not a Jew. He was a Gentile
writing for Gentiles, whose claims he takes every
¦opportunity of establishing. But he was acquainted
with Jewish writings ; he refers to their Scriptures ; the
opening chapters, especially the first, are largely

TRADITIONS CONCERNING LUKE. 335
modelled on the Old Testament; and the beautiful
hymns which Christendom loves to call by their Latin
names, the Magnificat, the Benedictus, the Nunc
Dimittis, whether adapted or composed by him, are
saturated with Hebrew thought and expression.
(3) That the Third Evangelist was a man of superior
education and of literary skill, is evident from the
polished style of his preface. His language is dis
tinguished by the avoidance of common terms or
awkward repetitions. Thus in the story of the paralytic
who was brought to Jesus on his bed, while Mark
employs the vulgar word krabatton four times over,
Luke uses no less than three equivalents, and never
has to resort to krabatton at all. His acquaintance
with secular history may not be very accurate,1 but his
attempts to bring the story of Jesus into connection
with the larger circle of the world's events, ii. 1, iii. 1, 2,
imply that his readers were such as might be expected
to take interest in the endeavour to fix Christian dates
by the standard of Imperial Rome.
From the time of the Canon of Muratori and of
Irenaeus,2 the Third Gospel has been attributed to
Luke. In the New Testament Luke is known only
through the designation of him in Cor. iv. 14, as 'the
'beloved physician.' The authenticity of this Epistle
has been questioned by many critics whose judgment
deserves respect. If it is genuine, it was probably not
written till after 61 a.d. Supposing Luke had then been
with the Apostle Paul in Rome as a young man, he
might quite well have composed the Gospel in 80, or
1 See chap. v. $ 1, 3, b, c. 2 Chap. i. § 2, 1,2.

336 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. LUKE.
90 a.d., or even later. But this seems hardly to give
time for the production of the numerous though im
perfect narratives mentioned in the Preface. Moreover,
the problem is complicated by the authorship of the
Book of Acts, which is closely connected with this
Gospel. And this book seems to stand at a much
further remove from the Apostolic age than we should
expect from a writer who had known Paul's generation.
How much he derived from his various sources, how
much he supplied from his own creative activity, it is
impossible to decide. Later tradition described him as
a painter. Assuredly the Evangelist who drew the im
mortal pictures of the Annunciation and the Nativity %
who sketched in ineffaceable strokes the figures of the
woman which was a sinner, of Priest, Levite, and
Samaritan, of the Prodigal, his father and his brother,
of the Pharisee and the Publican; and who portrayed
in a few touches the home of Mary and Martha, and
the supper table at Emmaus — deserves to be regarded as
the father of Christian Art.

CHAPTER X.
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
The questions connected with our First Gospel are no
less intricate than those arising out of the Third. They
have, as before, a two-fold character. They deal first
with the problems of literary form, as the enquiry is
directed towards the comparison of the elements common
to this and one or both of the other Gospels, and to the
order in which they are arranged. And they are con
cerned, secondly, with the aim and characteristics of the
work, with the modifications apparently introduced into
older material, and the tendencies which mark the new.
Broadly speaking, the First Gospel may be said to show
signs of close relation to the other two, or at least to
much of their contents; but while nearly the whole of
Mark is in some way or other represented in Matthew, a
large part of Luke remains without equivalent. Further,
the method of Luke in laying seeming contradictions
peacefully side by side, is observable again in Matthew,
in spite of a different emphasis on the diversities to be
reconciled. Here are elements both of the earliest and
x

338 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
the latest date; here are the narrow and the broad, the
conservative and the reforming, the legal and the
spiritual, the Judaean and the universalist.

$ 1. Its Framework.
A brief examination suffices to show that the First
Gospel is marked by certain structural peculiarities
which distinguish its treatment even of the matter
common to the other two.
(i) In his general view of the ministry of Jesus,
Matthew sides with Mark's distribution of it into two
parts as against Luke's into three.1 The active labours
of the Teacher are expended upon Galilee. He
journeys thence to Jerusalem only to die. The route
along which he passes is the Eastern road through
Peraea. When the crowds gather, he will not, indeed,
refuse to teach or heal; but he undertakes no new
missionary toil, and despatches no band of messengers
to announce his coming. The identity of arrangement
here between Mark and Matthew may be seen from the
following passages : —
Mark x. I. Matt. xix. i.
And he arose from thence And it came to pass when
and cometh into the borders of Jesus had finished these words,
Judsea, and beyond Jordan : and he departed from Galilee, and
multitudes come together unto came into the borders of Judaea
him again ; and as he was beyond Jordan ; and great
wont, he taught them again. multitudes followed him; and
And there came unto him he healed them there. Andthere
Pharisees, &c. came unto him Pharisees, &c.
1 See chap. viii. § 2, 3, p. 275 ; chap. ix. { 3, 3, p. 316.

VIEW OF THE MINISTRY. 339
The crisis which leads to this development is placed by
Matthew as by Mark at Caesarea Philippi, where the
Master's adoption of the title Messiah tendered to him
by Peter is followed immediately by the announcement
of the fate awaiting him at the capital. That this
constituted for our Evangelist the second great resolve
in the mind of Jesus, corresponding to that which
first sent him forth to preach, may be inferred from
the parallel phrases with which these two sections of
the narrative begin : —
Matt. iv. 17. Matt. xvi. 21.
From tkat time began Jesus From tkat time began Jesus
to preach, and to say, Repent to show unto his disciples
ye ; for the kingdom of heaven how that he must go unto
is at hand. Jerusalem.
There is more here than a mere verbal coincidence,
there is reflection; the biographer calls attention to the
fact that he has formed a view of his subject and
is deliberately expressing it. It is, perhaps, a further
note of this plan that each division opens with a call
to discipleship, iv. 19, xvi. 24, the second summons
imposing the fresh condition of the cross; and these
in turn are followed by two great mountain scenes, in
the first of which Jesus issues the new law of the
kingdom, while in the second his authority is confirmed
by the divine voice, ' Hear ye him.'
(2) In filling in his framework the First Evangelist
again and again adopts the plan of grouping the sayings
of Jesus into continuous discourse. These collections
are almost without parallel in Mark, save in the succes
sion of parables delivered from the boat on the lake side,
or the prophecy of the last things on the Mount of

340 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
Olives. It has already been shown how the discourse
delivered after the Baptist's disciples have brought their
message of enquiry, is distributed in Luke over a wide
variety of occasions.1 /The most important example of
this process is to be found in the Sermon on the Mount.
No one probably would now maintain that this was
uttered as it stands, in one stream of speech.^ It is
placed by Matthew at the opening of Messiah's career as
the great summary of his teaching ; it forms the guide
to the life of the disciple ; it presents in the briefest
compass the essence of the legislation of the kingdom.
The materials of which it is composed will be briefly
considered hereafter (\ 3, 2) ; it must suffice now to
point out that it embraces several subordinate collections
within the larger whole; the Blessings, v. 3-12, the
Contrasts between the Old commandments and the
New, v. 21-48, the Warnings against popular piety
marked by the rhythmic refrain 'Thy Father which
'seeth in secret shall recompense thee,' vi. 1-18, the
exhortation against Worldliness, vi. 19-34, for which
Luke finds another place-Ahese are so many little
sermons, which the editor has here combined into an
oration that has moved the world."/ The address to
the Twelve in chap. x. has again the air of a compilation,
one section of it, vv. 17-22, appearing slightly modified
in the discourse on the last things, Mark xiii. 9-13,
Luke xxi. 12-17.3 In the series of seven parables in
chap, xiii., founded on the three in Mark iv., the
alternations between public teaching and private explana
tion show the different layers of traditional deposit;
1 See chap. ix. § 2, 20, p. 306.
3 Comp. chap. vii. { 4, 3, p. 245.

COLLECTIONS OF SAYINGS. 341
while the method of the collector is betrayed in the
introductory formula three times repeated, vv. 24, 31,
33, the parables in the appendix being linked together
by the word ' again,' w. 45, 47.1 The Evangelist reserves
for a final invective at Jerusalem the denunciations
against the Scribes and Pharisees, which Luke partially
reports elsewhere; he masses them into a seven-fold
' Woe,' xxiii. 13-39, and attaches them to an exhoration
addressed to his immediate followers. Conscious, how
ever, of some inappropriateness in this connection, he
warns his readers at the outset of the double character
of the discourse to come by saying, ver. 1, ' Then spake
' Jesus to the multitudes and to his disciples.'
(3) To these little chains of parable and saying
correspond in the first half of the Gospel similar groups
of incidents. The Great Sermon is followed by a
collection of anecdotes which show the Teacher no
longer on the heights of authority, but moving with
untiring sympathy among the common needs of men.
Ten of these illustrative stories are related in succession,
and then the editor brings his narrative to a pause with
a summary which he has before employed : —
ix. 35. iv. 23.
And Jesus went about all the And Jesus went about in all
cities and the villages, teaching Galilee, teaching in their
in their synagogues, and synagogues, and preaching the
preaching the gospel qf the gospel of the kingdom, and
kingdom, and healing all healing all manner of disease
manner qf disease and all and all manner of sickness
manner qf sickness. among the people.
1 Note the formulae of transition from the collections of sayings,
vii. 28, xi. 1, xiii. 53, xix. 1, xxvi. 1.

342 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
Another series of incidents in chap, xii., showing the
gathering opposition of the Pharisees, is thrust in between
two long discourses in xi. and xiii. So far the narrative
of the ministry has been composed of alternate sections
of speech and act, though the acts have sometimes
carried with them appropriate utterance. But from chap.
xiv. onwards this method of arrangement is abandoned,
and the order followed, though with large additions, is
much closer to that of Mark.
(4) One more external peculiarity must be noted. The
occurrence of duplicate sayings has been already observed
in Luke,1 though the Third Evangelist seemed to have
rejected some duplicates of occurrences. In Matthew
these doublets are even more prominent. It is interest
ing to find them sometimes in the long addresses which
we have seen reason to think were in part compiled out
of material more or less scattered and unattached. Let
the following instances be examined : —
Matt. v. 29-30. Matt, xviii. 8-9.
And if thy right eye causeth And if thy hand or thy foot
thee to stumble, pluck it out, causeth thee to stumble, cut it
and cast it from thee : for it is off, and cast it from thee ; it is
profitable for thee that one of good for thee to enter into life
thy members should perish, maimed or halt, rather than
and not thy whole body be having two hands or two feet
cast into Gehenna. And if to be cast into the eternal fire.
thy right hand causeth thee to And if thine eye causeth thee
stumble, cut it off and cast it to stumble, pluck it out, and
from thee, &c. cast it from thee, &c.
v- 32- xix. 9.
x- 22- xxiv. 9, 13.
And ye shall be hated of all And ye shall be hated of all
1 See chap. ix. { 3, 2, p. 314.

'DUPLICATE SAYINGS AND INCIDENTS. 345
men for my name's sake ; but the nations for my name's sake.
he that endureth to the end, . . But he that endureth
the same shall be saved. to the end, the same shall
be saved.
x. 38-39. xvi. 24-25.
xxiii. 11. xx. 26.
But he that is greatest Whosoever would become
among you shall be your great among you shall be your
servant. servant.
In like manner there is an occasional repetition of
incidents. Twice is the demand for a sign dismissed
with the reply that no sign shall be given save that of
Jonah, xii. 39, xvi. 4. Twice (as in Mark, but not in
Luke) are the multitudes wondrously fed. And the
duplication extends even into detail. Twice do two
blind men receive their sight, ix. 27-30, xx. 30-34, the
first story being omitted by the other Evangelists
altogether, and the second, as reported by Mark and
Luke, containing but one cure. Two demoniacs, in
the same fashion, meet Jesus near Gadara ; two animals
are brought to him at the Mount of Olives, and he rides
into Jerusalem on both.

i 2. Relation to Mark.
(1) The comparison of the Second Gospel with the
First has already shown that almost the whole of the
contents of the earlier have some equivalent in the later.
The order of Mark's opening chapters is, however,
entirely shattered by Matthew, as the following table
indicates : —

Mark

Matthew

i. 14-15

iv. 12, 17

i. 16-20

iv. 18-22

i. 21-28

wanting

i. 29-34

viii. 14-17

'• 35-39

iv. 23

i. 40-45

viii. 1-4

ii. 1-12

ix. 1-8

ii. 13-17

ix. 9-13

ii. 18-22

ix. 14-17

ii. 23-28

xii. 1-8

iii. 1-6

xii. 9-14

iii. 7-12

iv. 24-25

iii. 13-19

x. 1-5

iii. 20-30

xii. 22-32

'»• 3J-35

xii. 46-50

344 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.

1. — Jesus begins to preach
2. — Call of Simon, &c.
3. — In the synagogue at Capernaum
4. — Cure of Simon's wife's mother
5. — Preaching through Galilee
6. — Cure of a leper
7. — Cure of a paralytic
8.— Call of Levi
9. — Why the disciples need not fast
10. — In the cornfields on the Sabbath
11. — Healing on the Sabbath
12. — The gathering multitude
13. — The choice of the Twelve
14. — A house divided against itself
15. — Mother and Brethren
Nevertheless, in spite of the new distribution of the
material, the separate sections in Matthew will be found
to be often in very close verbal agreement with the
parallel passages in Mark. In the second half of the
gospel, from Matt. xiv. onwards, the correspondence of
order, as already mentioned, is much more complete.
(2) The relation of the individual elements common
to Mark and Matthew will be differently judged from
different points of view, and most readers will probably
be convinced that no single rule can embrace them all.
(a) It may be noted, in the first place, that there are
some passages, occasionally of considerable length, in
which the language is remarkably similar, not only in
the reported words of Jesus, but in the narrative as well.
Here is a brief instance : —
Mark i. 16-18. Matt. iv. 18-20.
And passing along by the sea And walking by the sea of
of Galilee, he saw Simon and Galilee, he saw two brethren

VERBAL AGREEMENT WITH MARK. 345
Andrew the brother of Simon Simon who is called Peter, and
casting a net in the sea; for Andrew his brother, casting u
they were fishers. And Jesus net into the sea ; for tkey were
said unto them, Come ye after fishers. And he saith unto
me, and I will make you to them, Come ye after me, and I
become fishers of men. And will make you fishers qf men.
straightway they left the nets And they straightway left the
and followed him. nets and followed him.
The narrative of the Last Supper and the Agony in
Gethsemane, Matt. xxvi. 20-46, may be compared with
that in Mark xiv. 17-42. For the most part the variations
are few and insignificant. Only the addition in Matt.
xxvi. 25, to which there is no parallel either in Mark or
Luke, attracts attention : —
And Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Is it I,
Rabbi ? He saith unto him, Thou hast said.
It is obviously improbable that Jesus should have
identified the traitor at table in the presence of the rest ;
and even Meyer gives up the incident as unhistorical.
But the accord of the remainder of the two passages is
too close, and extends over too great a length, to be due
to independent reproduction from an oral source. Some
kind of literary connection there must be, and Matthew's
form is presumably the later ; but it does not necessarily
follow that the First Evangelist borrowed from the
Second ; he might be quoting from a common source.
Still, as we know of no document preceding our Mark,
it seems safer to infer that his authority lay there.1

1 An interesting case of apparent literary dependence will be
found in the first description of the teaching of Jesus. Mark
attaches it to the Synagogue scene at Capernaum ; Matthew,

346 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
(b) Other cases show a tendency to abbreviate the
story by the omission of some detail more or less
significant, as in the account of the paralytic, ix. 2 : —
And behold they brought to him a man, sick of the palsy,
lying on a bed : and Jesus seeing their faith saith unto the sick of
the palsy, Son, be of good cheer ; thy sins are forgiven.
What special proof of faith had here been offered ?
Matthew has left out the striking circumstances by which
the sufferer was brought into the Teacher's presence.
Unable, because of the crowd, to enter the house, the
bearers carried their burden to the roof, broke up the
tiling round the court, and let him down into the space
below. The story, told with fullest detail by the Second
Evangelist, and condensed by the Third, positively loses
its point as curtailed by the First. Through similar
treatment the narrative of the Gadarene demoniacs
becomes unintelligible. In Mark's version (which Luke
here follows), the poor lunatic, when asked his name,
answers ' My name is Legion, for we are many,' v. 9.
who omits this altogether, appends it to the report of the Great
Sermon : Mark i. 22. Matt. vii. 28-29.
And they were astonished at And . . the multitude
his teaching; for he taught were astonished at his teaching ;
them as having authority, and for he taught them as having
not as the scribes. authority, and not as their
scribes.
It will be shown below that Matthew's representation of the Great
Sermon must be regarded, taken altogether, as later. Does it not
seem, then, as if he had borrowed Mark's words for his close, much
as Luke adapted Mark's words on another occasion, Luke xx. 39,
40, and Mark xii. 32, 34 ; cp. chap. ix. § 1, 3, p. 302.

MODIFICATION OF MATERIAL IN MARK. 347
Out of this reply grew the belief that Jesus cast out from
him a multitude of devils, which were afterwards per
mitted to enter the swine.1 But Matthew, converting the
solitary madman into two, viii. 28, is obliged to suppress
the name he wildly laid upon himself, and gives no
explanation, therefore, how it was that enough devils
could issue from the two demoniacs to enter into a whole
herd of swine. A study of Matthew's narrative will show
that it really presupposes a longer form of story, such as
is now found in Mark or Luke. Similar abbreviation will
be observed elsewhere, as in the account of the cure of
the woman with an issue of blood, Matt. ix. 20-22,
compared with Mark v. 25-34.
(c) Yet more significant is the occasional modifica
tion of some important circumstance in the midst of
narratives otherwise substantially identical. The suppres
sion of the inability of Jesus to do any mighty work at
Nazareth, as chronicled by Mark, has been already
noted.2 In the following case two eminent apostles are
in part, at any rate, relieved of the charge of ambition,
by transferring to their mother the request which in
Mark's account is addressed to Jesus by them.
Mark x. 35-39. Matt. xx. 20-22.
And there came near unto Then came to him the
him James and John, the sons mother of the sons of Zebedee
of Zebedee, saying unto him, with her sons, worshipping
Teacher, we would that thou him, and asking a certain thing
shouldest do for us whatsoever of him. And he said unto her,
we shall ask of thee. And he What wouldest thou ? She saith
said unto them, What would unto him, Command that these
1 Comp. chap. vi. § 2, 2, p. 190.
2 See chap. viii. § 3, 2, p. 281.

348 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
ye that I should do for you ? my two sons may sit, one on thy
And they said unto him, Grant right hand, and one on thy left
unto us that we may sit, one hand, in thy kingdom. But
on thy right hand, and one on Jesus answered and said, Ye
thy left hand, in thy glory. know not what ye ask. Are
But Jesus said unto them, Ye ye able to drink the cup that I
know not what ye ask. Are am about to drink ? They say
ye able to drink the cup that I unto him, We are able.
drink ? or to be baptised with
the baptism that I am baptised
with? And they said unto him,
We are able.
Here, the First Evangelist, by preserving the original
form of the Teacher's reply, ' Ye know not what ye ask,'
betrays the fact that the petition was originally presented
by the two brothers. But when the Twelve gathered
round them at the hands of later generations a reverence
second only to that paid to Christ, the desire to shield
the reputation of the distinguished pair worked on the
tradition so as to represent the request as instigated and
preferred by their mother. ¦/
(d) Most startling of all are the unique additions which
Matthew's narrative alone contains. To the story of the
stormy night upon the lake, when Jesus walked across
the waves to the disciples, Matthew appends the striking
anecdote of Peter's effort to do likewise, his danger and
deliverance. The poetic significance of this picture as
an allegory of faith has been already illustrated.1 It is
only necessary now to point to the slight literary modifica
tion made necessary by Matthew's episode, and the new
conclusion which he supplies, in direct contradiction of
the older tale.
1 See chap. vi. { 4, 2, p. 203.

ADDITIONS TO MATERIAL IN MARK. 349
Mark vi. 51. Matt. xiv. 32.
And he went up unto them And when they were gone
into the boat; and the wind up into the. boat, the wind
ceased : and they were sore ceased. And they that were
amazed in themselves ; for they in the boat worshipped him,
understood not concerning the saying, Of a truth thou art the
loaves, but their heart was Son of God.
hardened.
Another Peter story appears in the First Gospel, thrust
into the very midst of a totally different narrative of the
Second, — the legend of the piece of money found in the
fish's mouth. The reader who will compare the follow
ing sequences, will see with what violence Matthew's
addition has been accommodated in the text now repre
sented by Mark.
Matt. xvii. 24 — xviii. I. Mark ix. 33, 34,
And when tkey were come to And tkey came to Capernaum;
Capernaum [they that received and when ke was in the house
the half -shekel, &c]. And when he asked them, What were ye
he came i»to the house  reasoning in the way ? But
they held their peace ; for they
In that hour came the disciples had disputed with one another
unto Jesus, saying, Who then in the way, who was the
is greatest in the kingdom greatest.
of heaven.
One more instance may be quoted from the narrative of
the Passion, all the more significant because in the entire
record of the last events from the Paschal Supper,
through the Trial, to the Crucifixion, Matthew and Mark
are found again and again in harmony, while Luke
pursues a highly independent course. The death of
Jesus is followed in the First as in the Second Gospel by
the symbolic rending of the Temple-veil.1
1 In Luke xxiii. 45, 46, the order is reversed.

350 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
Mark xv. 37, 38. Matt, xxvii. 50, 51.
And Jesus uttered a loud And Jesus cried again with a
voice, and gave up the ghost. loud voice and yielded up his
And the veil of the temple was spirit. And behold the veil of
rent in twain from the top to the temple was rent in twain
the bottom. from the top to the bottom.
At this point Matthew interrupts Mark's narrative with
this remarkable insertion : —
And the earth did quake ; and the rocks were rent ; and the tombs
were opened ; and many bodies of the saints that had fallen asleep
were raised ; and coming forth out of the tombs after his resurrec
tion they entered into the holy city and appeared unto many.
It is hardly necessary to apply serious criticism to this
marvellous embellishment of the solemn scene. It is
not, like the rending of the veil, the imaginative expression
of what was believed to be a great spiritual event. It
is pure wonder, of palpably late and legendary character.
All that it is needful to observe is the manner in which
the older narrative was adapted to it.
Mark xv. 39. Matt, xxvii. 54.
And when the Centurion Now the Centurion and they
Which stood by over against that were with him watching
him, saw tkat he so gave up the Jesus, when they saw the earth-
ghost, he said, Truly this man quake and the things that were
was the Son of God. done, fearedexceedingly.saying,
Truly this was the Son of God.
These facts of agreement, abbreviation, change of details,
and insertion, seem plainly to indicate that our Gospel
presents the bulk of the materials common to it with
Mark in a later form than that in which they appear in
the Second Gospel. It has been already pointed out
that this is not, indeed, invariably the case.1 But these
and similar instances do not impair the probability that
1 Comp. chap. viii. § 2, 4, p. 278, chap. vii. $ 4, 1 b, p. 241, note.

FORMS OF MATERIAL COMMON TO LUKE. 361
Matthew derived a large amount of narrative either from
Mark, or from some evangelical source resembling it.

$ 3. Relation to Luke.
The relation of the First Gospel to the Third is even
more intricate than that of the First and Second. They
contain important matter in common, yet the arrangement
of it varies greatly, and each is distinguished by no less
important elements which the other has not. Moreover,
where they deal with a common theme, such as the Birth
and Infancy or the Resurrection, their narratives prove on
comparison incapable of reconciliation, and appear to
have been coined in different mints.1
(i) The theory of the dependence of Matthew on
Luke, or Luke on Matthew, has not only to explain the
remarkable omissions of either in borrowing from the
other, but also what appear the conflicting facts that in
their common matter each seems at times to have the later
form, and that neither can always claim to show the best
arrangement, first one and then the other combining or
distributing with the greater probability.
(a) It has already been shown, for example, that the
miracles interpolated by Luke in the account of the
reception by Jesus of the Baptist's messengers, vii. 21,
have arisen out of a misinterpretation of the symbolic
language of Jesus.2 On the face of the matter, we should
judge Matthew's simpler narrative to be the older. The
The two stories have undoubtedly a common source, or
else, one Evangelist borrowed from the other. If Matthew
1 Comp. chap. v. § 1, 1-3. 2 Comp. chap. vi. $ 3, 2, p. 196.

352

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.

borrowed from Luke, why did he — who elsewhere indulges
in a superfluity of wonders — omit these miracles ? Is it
likely they have been added to Luke since Matthew was
written ? There is no evidence of such an interpolation ;
though as we know that similar additions did find their
way into the Third Gospel afterwards (e.g. the appearance
of the Angel in Gethsemane, xxii. 43, 44, the words
'Father, forgive them' on the cross, xxiii. 34),1 it cannot
be said that it is impossible. — But here is an opposite
case : the consideration of the following passages will
show that the insertion may be on the side of Matthew.
Luke xi. 29, 30, 32. Matt. xii. 38-41.
And when the multitudes Then certain of the Scribes
were gathering together unto and Pharisees answered him,

him, he began to say, This
generation is an evil generation,
it seeketh after a sign ; and
there shall no sign be given to
it but the sign of Jonah. For
even as Jonah became a sign
unto the Ninevites, so shall
also the Son of Man be to
this generation.2

The men of Nineveh shall
stand up in the judgment with
this generation, and shall
condemn it ; for they repented
at the preaching of Jonah; and
behold, there is more than
Jonah here.
1 Comp. chap. iii. \ 2, 4 b, p. 71.
2 On this verse see Appendix, p. 395.

saying, Teacher, we would see
a sign from thee. But he
answered and said unto them,
An evil and adulterous genera
tion seeketh after a sign ; and
there shall no sign be given
to it but the sign of Jonah the
prophet : for as Jonah was
three days and three nights in
the belly of the whale ; so shalt
the Son cf Man be three days
and three nights in the heart
of the earth. The men of
Nineveh shall stand up in the
judgment with this generation
and shall condemn it ; for they
repented at the preaching o£
Jonah ; and behold, there is
more than Jonah here.

FORMS OF MATERIAL COMMON TO LUKE. 353
We do not need the aid of Manuscripts to show us that
the interpretation of the sign of Jonah in Matt. xii. 40
comes from the hand of some later annotator. Jesus is
in the full tide of the Galilaean success. Not a word has
yet been said of failure or death. The allusion would
have been wholly unintelligible, just as the announce
ment — viewed in the light of prophetic prediction — is
incorrect, for no version of the story of the resurrection
which has come down to us, represents Jesus to have
been three nights in the grave. — Here then seem un
doubted instances where each Gospel in turn exhibits an
earlier form of materials belonging also to the other.
How can this be explained if Matthew always borrowed
from Luke, or Luke from Matthew ? If we may say that
Luke was not acquainted with Matthew,1 are we obliged,
on the other hand, to conclude that Matthew was
acquainted with Luke ?
(b) The same results seem to follow from the examina
tion of the combination or distribution of their common
matter. The parallels to the discourse in Malt. xi. have
been already noted;2 their union by the compiler of the
First Gospel appeared to bear a later air than their dis
persion by the editor of the Third. In the next case,
however, the presumption may be read the other way.
When some friendly Pharisees warned Jesus to quit
Galilee and escape from Herod's power, Luke, who
alone reports the incident, adds to the reply of Jesus the
well-known lament, xiii. 34, 35 :
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 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 own brood under
1 Comp. chap. ix. § 2, 1, p. 305 2 See chap. ix. $ 2, 2a, p. 306.
Y

354 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
her wings, and ye would not ! Behold, your house is left unto
you desolate ; and I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until ye
shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
It is startling, at first sight, that such a lament over the
ancient city should be put into the Teacher's mouth in
Galilee : it would have seemed more in place upon the
spot. That is actually the locality assigned to it by
Matthew, who attaches it to the close of the denunciation
of the 'Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,' xxiii. 37-39.
But what is the meaning of the strange words ' how often
* would I have gathered thy children together ? ' Must
we suppose, as many writers have done, that there is here
an allusion to frequent visits of Jesus to the capital, such
as the Fourth Gospel describes ? Be it observed that the
passage in Matthew is the sequel to another, xxiii. 34-36,
in which Jesus is represented as sending prophets and
wise men and scribes, some of whom will be killed and
crucified, while he winds up with what seems to be a
reference to the murder of Zachariah by the Zealots in
the Temple-court, two years before the destruction of
Jerusalem by the Romans.1 / Plainly these words were
not spoken by Jesus. But the same passage reappears in
Luke, xi. 49-51, introduced by these words : 'Therefore
' also said the wisdom of God.' The whole now becomes
clear. The entire passage is a quotation from some lost
visions in which the divine Wisdom was the speaker.
Wisdom sent forth the prophets and the scribes ; Wisdom
desired again and again to gather the children of the
1 Another interpretation, however, supposes that the Zechariah
here mentioned is the priest whose death by the order of
Joash is related in 2 Chron. xxiv. 20-22. But his father was
named Jehoiada.

ARRANGEMENT OF MATTER COMMON TO LUKE. 355
mother-city beneath her shelter, but they would not. y
Matthew rightly joins what Luke divides ; or rather, Luke
wrongly separates what Matthew offers as continuous.
Each throws light upon the other : the First Evangelist
shows us that the passages belong together : the Third
supplies the important fact that they form a quotation
from some vanished book:1 but it is difficult to believe
that this peculiar arrangement could have come about
directly through either writer's use of the other's work.
(2) If the facts seem thus conflicting on the theory of
direct dependence upon either side, is it possible to find
any evidence as to priority or later date in the character
of Matthew's additions to their common matter ? When
the two reports of the Great Sermon are set side by side,
it is at once apparent that Matthew's is much the longer
of the two. What is the nature of the material he thus
incorporates ? The whole discourse as edited by the
First Evangelist follows the general order of the shorter
version of the Third. Attention has been already called
to the differences between the Blessings : no such varia
tion, however, attaches to the statement of the demands
on the disciple's love, which follows immediately in Luke,
vi. 27-36, and forms in Matthew the closing contrast
between the Old Law and the New, v. 38-48. At this
point Matthew inserts two short collections, now contained
in Matt. vi. The first of these sets forth the Christian
view of the three forms of pious observance on which the
Church of later times laid stress, almsgiving, prayer, and
fasting. The thrice-repeated refrain, vv. 4, 6, 18, 'and
1 For another instance of the ascription to Jesus of words out of
a later book, see chap. 4, $ 3, 1, p. 132.

356 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
' thy Father which seeth in secret shall recompense thee,'
has. a kind of rhythmic air, unlike the primitive reports of
the Teacher's speech. The insertion of the Lord's
Prayer at this point, as part of a continuous address,
seems much less natural than the account given by Luke
of the request which drew it forth, and its more developed
form points to a subsequent expansion.1 Moreover, the
directions concerning private prayer in the previous verses
are marked by an indescribable difference in tone, when
compared, for example, with the brief words in Mark xi.
24, 25. They seem rather to deal with recognised usage
— from an elevated point of view, indeed — than to possess
the freshness and spontaneity of the great prophet of the
religion of the spirit. The instructions about fasting are
even more out of accord with what is attributed to Jesus
elsewhere. ' Why do not thy disciples fast like us ? '
cried the followers of John. ' Men do not put new wine
' into old wine-skins,' replied Jesus, Markix. 18, 22. Old
forms cannot accommodate new principles and impulses.
How the Church afterwards sought the Teacher's sanction
for the practice, has been already shown in the addition
to Mark ix. 29.2 Have we not here also a similar
reflection of ecclesiastical piety? — The discourse against
worldhness, which forms Matthew's next section, vi.
19-34, can mostly be traced without difficulty in Luke,
but not in his report of the Sermon. The correspondence
is especially close in Matt. vi. 25-33 an(^ Luke xii. 21-31.
And here a piece of minute evidence must be allowed to
carry weight. While Mark and Luke speak of the
1 See chap. ix. § 2, 2 b, p. 310.
3 See chap. iii. § 2, 4 b, p. 69, $ 4, 4, p. 96.

LATER ADDITIONS COMPARED WITH LUKE. 357
' Kingdom of God,' and never of the ' Kingdom of
Heaven,' Matthew habitually employs the latter term (34
times). The occurrence of another form of the phrase,
therefore, arrests attention. Three times only does
Matthew employ ' kingdom of God,' two of his passages
having equivalents in Mark or Luke,1 and being pre
sumably, therefore, derived from them, or from the
sources they employed. Now in the parallels just cited
occur the following passages : —
Luke xii. 31. Matt. vi. 33.
Howbeit seek his kingdom But seek ye first kis kingdom,
and these things shall be added and his righteousness, and all
unto you. these things shall be added
unto you.
Matthew has certainly taken over the words either from
Luke or from Luke's documents. — In Matthew's con
cluding section a noteworthy addition should be examined
by the side of a counterpart from Luke : —
Luke xiii. 25-27. Matt. vii. 21-23.
When once the master of the Not every one that saith
house is risen up, and hath unto me, Lord, Lord, shall
shut to the door, and ye begin enter into the kingdom of
to stand without, and to knock heaven ; but he that doeth the
at the door saying, Lord, open will of my Father which is in
to us ; and he shall answer and heaven. Many will say to me
say to you, I know you not, in that day, Lord, Lord, did we
whence ye are ; then shall ye not prophesy by thy name, and
begin to say, We did eat and by thy name cast out devils,
drink in thy presence, and thou and by thy name do many
didst teach in our streets ; and mighty works ? And then will
he shall say, I tell you I know I profess unto them, I never
1 Matt. xii. 2B=Luke xi. 20 ; Matt. xix. 2%=Mark x. 25, Luke
xviii. 25 ; Matt. xxi. 43.

358 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
not whence ye are ; depart from knew you : depart from me, ye
me all ye workers of iniquity. that work iniquity.
Different as these passages may seem at first sight, their
common close shows that they are really related. They
both declare the rejection of certain persons who will
claim admission to the kingdom. But they are not the
same persons in the two Gospels. The Third Evangelist
has in view the unbelieving Jews who will plead too late
that they were old acquaintances, for it was in their midst
that Messiah had lived and taught ; but the First applies
the doom of Jesus to some of his own professing
followers, who have even been distinguished by prophetic
gifts and the power to do mighty works. Our translation
here veils a significant fact. The word rendered 'iniquity'
in Matt. vii. 23 is not the same Greek word as that again
represented by the same English, Luke xiii. 27; it is
properly 'lawlessness.' Who are these who can prophesy
in Christ's name, and work wonders — but are yet guilty
of living without the law ? Are they not followers of the
Apostle Paul, who refused to recognise the claim raised
by the Jewish Christians for their ancient code ? Inde
pendently then of the early assumption of Messianic
authority which suggests that this passage is the utterance
of the Church rather than of the Teacher, this reference
to the strife of parties in an after day compels us to see in
this, as we have seen before, a later handling of Luke's
material by Matthew.1 It may be observed, further, that
Luke's sequel, in which Jesus announces to the Jews
1 A similar case of the working up of earlier material into new
forms is probably to be found in the parable of the Virgins, Matt.
xxv. 1-13, the germ of which lies in the thought expressed in
Luke xii. 35-36.

LATER ADDITIONS COMPARED WITH LUKE. 359
the admission of the Gentiles to the privileges which they
have rejected, is unsuitable to Matthew's purpose, as he
is dealing with the contrast between true and false
professing Christians. He consequently transposes it
elsewhere, assigning it to the incident of the centurion
when Jesus has descended from the mountain and
reached Capernaum.
Luke xiii. 28-29. Matt. viii. 11-12.
There shall be the weeping And I say unto you, that
and gnashing of teeth, when ye many shall come from the east
shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and the west, and shall sit
and Jacob, and all the prophets, down with Abraham, and Isaac,
in the kingdom of God, and and Jacob, in the kingdom of
yourselves cast forth without. heaven : but the sons of the
And they shall come from the kingdom shall be cast forth
east and west, and from the into the outer darkness ; there
north and south, and shall sit shall be the weeping and
down in the kingdom of God. gnashing of teeth.
Matthew introduces this sentence on the ' sons of the
kingdom ' with the statement ' Verily, I say unto you, I
' have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.' But
the grounds for the statement are not obvious. Jesus
had just healed a leper, who had shown the needed
faith : he had been followed by crowds from every part
of the country, even the most distant south : his career so
far had been one series of triumphant displays alike of
the belief of the people, and of his own power, Matt. iv.
23-25. Are not these words, therefore, placed by the
First Evangelist too soon; are they not more fittingly
assigned by the Third to a subsequent stage in the
Teacher's career; and do we not thus find additional
evidence of the priority of Luke's representation ?

360 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
(3) Hitherto we have dwelt with the treatment by the
First Evangelist of materials now occurring in the works
of the Second, or the Third. But there are some
passages in Matthew which appear to combine in the
most singular manner elements of both Mark and Luke
together. The parable of the mustard-seed, for instance,
Matt. xiii. 31-32, begins in the narrative style of Luke
xiii. 18-19, anc* en(^s Wltn a description similar to that in
Mark iv. 31-32. The account of John the Baptist, Matt.
iii. 4-12, falls curiously apart into two portions, w. 4-6,
parallel with Mark. i. 6, 5, without counterpart in Luke,
and vv. 7-10, parallel with Luke iii. 7-9, without counter
part in Mark. Thus : —

Mark i. 6, 5.
And John was
clothed with camel's
hair, and had a
leathern girdle about
his loins, and did eat
locusts and wild
honey. And there went
out unto him all the
country of Judaea,
and all they of Jeru
salem ; and they
were baptised of him
in the river Jordan,
confessing their sins.

Matt. iii. 4-12.
Now John himself
had his raiment of
camel's hair, and a
leathern girdle about
his loins ; and his
food was locusts and
wild honey.
Then went out
unto him Jerusalem,
and all Judasa, and
all the country round
about Jordan ; and
they were baptised
of him in the river
Jordan, confessing
their sins.
But when he saw

Luke iii. 7.9.
He said therefore

many of the Phari- to the multitudes
sees and Sadducees that went out to be
coming to his bap- baptised of him,

COMBINATION OF ELEMENTS IN MARK AND LUKE. 361
tism, he said unto
them, Ye offspring Ye offspring
of vipers, who warned of vipers, who warned
you to flee from you to flee from
the wrath to come? the wrath to come.
Bring forth therefore Bring forth therefore
fruit worthy of re- fruit worthy of re
pentance: and think pentance, and begin
not to say within not to say within
yourselves, We have yourselves, We have
Abraham to our Abraham to our
rather: for I say father: for I say
unto you that God unto you that God
is able of these is able of these
stones to raise up stones to raise up
children unto Abra- children unto Abra
ham. And even now ham. And even now
is the axe laid unto is the axe also laid
the root of the trees : unto the root of the
every tree therefore trees : every tree
that bringeth not therefore that bring-
forth good fruit, is eth not forth good
hewn down and cast fruit, is hewn down
into the fire. and cast into the fire.
The narrative of the Temptation in Matthew is obviously
in close accord with that of Luke. The variation in the
order which gives the last place in Matthew to the offer
of universal empire, forms a close so much more striking
that it is difficult to see why the Third Evangelist, had he
been borrowing from the First, should have weakened the
effect by transposing it. But in reality, the dependence
seems the other way. The conclusion in Matthew runs
thus, iv. ii : —
Then the devil leaveth him ; and behold, angels came and
ministered unto him.

362 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.

This agrees with the statement in Mark i. 12,' and the
'angels ministered unto him.' Either, therefore, Mark,
omitting the specific trials, borrowed Matthew's ending,
while Luke adopted the narrative of the trials, but
substituted another conclusion ; or Matthew combined in
this case, as in the account of the Baptist, elements out
of two different documents. Some such process of
harmonising must assuredly have occasionally been
attempted, for the following singular mixture can hardly
have resulted from chance : —

Mark iii. 24-27.

If a kingdom be
divided against itself,
that kingdom cannot
stand : and if a house
be divided against
itself, that house will
not be able to stand.

Matt. xii. 25-30.
And knowing their
thoughts,hesaiduntothem, Every king
dom divided against
itself is brought to
desolation ; and every
city or house divided
against itself shall
not stand : and if
Satan casteth out
Satan, he is divided
against himself; how
then shall his king
dom stand ?

And if I by Beel
zebub cast out devils,
by whom do your
sons cast them out ?
Therefore they shall
be your judges. But
if I by the spirit of
God cast out devils,

Luke xi. 17-23.
But he, knowing
their thoughts, said
unto them, Every
kingdom divided
against itself is
brought to desola
tion ; and a house
divided against a
house faileth : and
if Satan also is
divided against him
self, how shall his
kingdom stand? Be
cause ye say that I
cast out devils by
Beelzebub. And if I by Beel
zebub cast out devils,
by whom do your
sons cast them out ?
Therefore they shall
be your judges. But
if I by the finger of
God cast out devils,

COMBINATION OF ELEMENTS IN MARK AND LUKE. 363
then is the kingdom then is the kingdom
of God come upon of God come upon
No one can enter you. Or how can you 
into the house of the one enter into the
strong man and spoil house of the strong
his goods, except he man and spoil his
first bind the strong goods, except he first
man, and then he bind the strong man,
will spoil his house, and then he will
spoil his house. He He that is not
that is not with me with me is against
is against me ; and me ; and he that
he that gathereth not gathereth not with
with me scattereth. me scattereth.
The text of the First Gospel here seems to be com
pounded from material now presented to us in the
Second and Third. It is difficult to believe that the
minute verbal correspondences between Matthew on the
one hand and alternate passages from Luke and Mark
(or corresponding antecedent documents) on the other
are the result of parallel traditions current in different
Churches. They point rather to literary dependence and
deliberate design, and further illustrate the method of
combination characteristic of the First Gospel.
(4) The arguments by which the later character of our
Matthew is rendered probable, are further confirmed by
the remarkable additions which the First Gospel makes
to their common story. Some instances of this have
already been presented in comparing parallel passages
of Matthew and Mark, and of Matthew and Luke. But
they occur on a larger scale at certain points in the
narrative, which all three relate, and have sometimes a
very peculiar character. In the account of the Passion,
for example, Matthew alone specifies the terms of the

364 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
bargain of Judas for the betrayal of Jesus, xxvi. 14-16;
and Matthew only reports his suicide, xxvii. 3-10.1 To
this Gospel, likewise, belongs the application of the Jews
to Pilate for a guard upon the grave, xxvii. 62-66, with
its sequel, xxviii. 11- 15, obviously intended as an answer
to the charge still circulated when these stories were
incorporated by the Editor, that the grave was found
empty because the disciples had stolen the body of their
Lord. And in the narrative of the Resurrection, fresh and
startling episodes are followed by an unexpected con
clusion. At the tomb, in presence of the two women, an
earthquake occurs — such as had happened, according to
the same Gospel, two days before beside the cross. The
instructions to go into Galilee, xxviii. 7, concur with
Mark, as against Luke. But while Mark affirms that
' they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid,' and
Luke states that they returned and told the eleven, who
' disbelieved them,' Matthew describes an actual meeting
on the way with the risen Lord, who renews the promise
that the brethren shall see him in Galilee. Ignoring,
then, the description of the manifestation in Jerusalem
that same afternoon, which leads direct in the Third
Gospel to the Ascension, the First concludes with the
solemn scene on the mountain in Galilee where Jesus
imparts to them his final charge, xxviii. 16-20.2 — Com
pared with the greater simplicity of Mark and Luke, these
1 On this passage, see below, § 4, 2, p. 370. Observe in ver. 8
the words ' unto this day,' which imply a long lapse of time, and
clearly point to a date below the Apostolic age : cp. Deut. iii. 14, '
Josh. iv. 9, 1 Sam. xxx. 25, &c, and Matt, xxviii. 15.
2 That this is the first appearance of Jesus to the eleven accord
ing to Matthew, is plain from the remarkable statement that some
of the disciples ' doubted.'

ADDITIONS TO THE COMMON MATTER. 365
additions have the air of later legendary elaborations :
and they confirm the conclusion which emerges from the
examination of the literary relations of the Synoptics, that
the editor of Matthew employed Mark, perhaps in an
early shape together with documents now embodied in
Luke, though his acquaintance with the Third Gospel
must be considered doubtful. Matthew, therefore, in its
present form, is presumably the latest of the three.

§ 4. The Person and Teachings of Messiah.
The enquiry which has led through many difficulties to
the result just stated, deals with only one branch of the
investigation-. It remains to be asked whether the pre
sentation of the person and teachings of Jesus is such
as to require or even to permit the belief that Matthew
followed instead of preceding Mark and Luke.
(i) Many indications will be found scattered through
the First Gospel, heightening the general effect of
Messiah's personality, emphasising his claims, and
increasing the wonder of his deeds.
(a) The apparent independence of the Birth-story has
been already noted. It seems to have no point of contact
with Luke's. Is it possible to form any judgment as to
its relative age ? It may be observed that it appears to
assume some previous acquaintance in the reader with the
circumstance that Bethlehem was the birth-place of Jesus,
ii. i. The narrative of the Infancy may be said to have
a wider range. Not only the poor unlettered shepherds
from the country round greet the infant Christ. Wise

366 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
men from the far East bring their costliest gifts.
Messiah's future triumph over the secular forces of wealth
and learning is heralded at the outset by these repre
sentatives of Gentile lands ; and the homage thus offered
by the world is contrasted with the simplicity of the
home, and the hostility and violence of the civil power.
The scope of thought seems larger in Matthew's story ;
but it is more clearly under the control of certain leading
motives, notably the fulfilment of prophecy;1 it has,
consequently, a more artificial, a less spontaneous,
character. It is the product not so much of spiritual
imagination giving poetic form to great emotions, as of
conscious reflection working out certain definite ideas.
Does not this process arise at a later stage ?
(b) It has been already pointed out that the First
Gospel differs from the Second in describing Jesus as
fully conscious of his Messianic dignity from the outset.8
But Matthew alone among the Synoptics ascribes the
recognition of it to John the Baptist. This, as we have
seen,8 is the meaning of the remarkable passage added to
his narrative of the baptism, in which John pleads, ' I
'have need to be baptised of thee, and comest thou to
' me ? ' The heavenly voice no longer speaks to Jesus
only : it describes him in the third person to the world at
large, ' This is my beloved Son.' As in Luke, unfavour
able incidents are omitted ; no longer do mother and
brothers seek to lay him beneath restraint ; the absence
of miracle at Nazarath is the result not of impotence but
choice. The wonders he performed grow more wonder
ful; the daughter of Jairus is dead ere first her father
1 See below, 2, p. 369. 2 See chap. viii. § 2, 3, p. 275.
3 See chap. v. § 2, 3, p. 167.

NEW ELEMENTS IN MESSIAH'S STORY. 367
comes to him ; Peter is saved by him upon the waves ;
the fig-tree which he curses withers at once under his
word ; when the money-changers are expelled from the
temple, there is room for the blind and the lame, and he
heals them there, xxi. 14. There is, therefore, in
Matthew no progress or development in the work or
thought of Jesus. The whole is announced at the begin
ning. He declares upon the mount that |he has come to
fulfil the law and the prophets, v. 17, and he already
foresees the day when he will judge the world, vii. 22.
He is thus more than a new Moses issuing a second Law :
he is more than the Son of David, sprung from the
ancient line : he speaks from first to last as Son of God.
Such a being could not with truth put aside the title
'good,' and the gentle deprecation of the Teacher in
Mark and Luke no longer befits the Christ of Matthew.
The following parallels will show that the alteration by
the First Evangelist of the rich man's question as reported
by the Second and Third, betrays after all the older
form that lay behind : —
Mark x. 17, 18.
And as he was
going forth into the Matt. xix. 16, 17.
way, there ran one And behold, one
to him, and kneeled Luke xviii. 18, 19. came unto him and
to him, and asked And a certain ruler said, Master, what
him, Good Master, asked him, saying, good thing shall I
what shall I do that Good Master, what do that I may have
I may inherit eternal shall I do to inherit eternal life ? And
life? And Jesus eternal life? And he said unto him,
said unto him, Why Jesus said unto him, Why askest thou
callestthoumegood? Why callest thou me me concerning that
None is good, save good? None is good, which is good? One
one, even God. save one, even God. there is who is good.

368 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
Here Matthew omits the title ' good ' addressed to the
Teacher, but inserts it into the substance of the
interrogation itself, ' What good thing shall I do ? ' The
change is insufficient. The answer of Jesus, even as
preserved by Matthew, shows that the enquiry to which
he was replying concerned good persons, not good things.
It was too deeply fixed in the tradition to bear modifica
tion to suit the diverted application of the word ' good.'
Do we not see here, in the very middle of their operation,
the forces of later reverence moulding and shaping the
older outlines of the Christ ?
(c) This process is most palpably at work in the
miraculous embellishments of the events upon the cross
and at the grave, and the same tendency creates the
final scene upon the mount in Galilee. There Jesus
comes to the disciples, declares that all authority has
been given to him in heaven and on earth, sends them
forth to baptise in the name of Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, and promises to be with them alway, even to the
consummation of the age.1 He is not, then, parted from
them, as in Luke, and borne up into the sky : he remains,
a perpetual presence with the faithful believer. What,
then, was his ' coming ? ' Nothing, indeed, is said about
clouds of glory ; but Jesus is here invested with the rule
which had been promised in Daniel to the mysterious
1 The late character of this Baptismal Formula is well-known.
It was not in use at the time of the compilation of the Book of
Acts, ii. 38, viii. 16, &c. Outside the New Testament the three
terms first appear associated in the writings of Justin Martyr, and
the ' Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,' where the injunction runs
' Baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
' Holy Spirit,' chap. vii.

NEW ELEMENTS IN MESSIAHS S1VRY. 369
figure ' like unto a son of man.' Nowhere in the Second
or Third Gospel is the identification of Jesus with the
Messianic Son of Man so completely effected in the
words put on his lips as in the First. When Matthew's
Jesus, then, comes after death to his followers, endowed
with the sovereignty of the world, and directs his apostles
to gather in the nations beneath his perpetual sway, the
Second Advent is already here. But how long a time
must have elapsed, before such an interpretation of the
Church's hope could have been possible, and still more
before it could thus clothe itself in symbolic form !
(2) The Messianic character of Jesus, which supplies
so prominent a theme in this Gospel, is naturally
approached from the Jewish side. The writer, therefore,
keeps constantly before him the vindication of this claim
from prophecy. Incident after incident occurs 'that it
'might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the
1 prophet.' Here lies the secret of the virgin-birth, i. 22.
This was the reason which set the nativity in Bethlehem,
ii. 5, and carried the parents with their son in flight to
Egypt, ii. 1 5 ; while the same cause settled him at
Nazareth, ii. 23, and in due time drew him to Capernaum,
iv. 14, 15. The prophets had already determined the
character of his ministry, xii. 16, 17, ensured him the
lordship over disease, viii. 17, and provided that he should
teach in parables, xiii. 34, 35, so that the dull ear should
hear but not understand, xiii. 14. There lay the
warnings of his impending fate, and the promise of his
future triumph, xvi. 21 ; there was the prediction of his
entry into Jerusalem amid the popular acclaim, xxi. 5,
and there the warrant for his arrest, xxvi. 56. Even
Messiah's price had been arranged beforehand, xxvii. 9,
z

370 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
and a mistranslation seems to have led to the story of the
purchase of the potter's field, xxvii. 7.1 Finally this
motive led the executioners ignorantly to offer him wine
mingled with gall, instead of the kindly stupefying
myrrh ; and to keep the prophets' time the earth opened
and yielded up Messiah's form. The whole biography
of the Christ, then, from birth to death, the scene of
his labours, the scope of his power, the method of his
teaching, the reception of his message, the hour of
-welcome and the day of doom, was written beforehand
in the Scriptures, for those who held the key to their
mysteries. It was only necessary to put the passages
together, and the incidents followed in due course. The
framework of the wondrous story was prepared before
hand; the lines of Messiah's life were shaped; the
great acts of the drama were laid out already; even
the details fell into the prescribed order ; and prophecy
thus not only became the standard by which the claims
of the Christ might be tested, it generated the very
occurrences which satisfied its own demands.
(3) The Gospel which thus views Messiah as belonging
to the Jews rather than to mankind, naturally describes
his appeal as presented first exclusively to them. At the
outset the kingdom is to be preached to them alone ; and
the disciples are despatched with injunctions designed to
secure the salvation of Israel, even though the rest of the
world perish, x. 5-7, 23 : —
Go not into any way of the Gentiles, and enter not into any
•city of the Samaritans ; but go rather to the lost sheep of the
1 The whole passage, xxvii. 3-10, is full of difficulties,
independently of the circumstance that it does not agree with
another version of the fate of Judas, Acts i. 18.

THE APPEAL TO THE JEWS. 371
house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of
heaven is at hand  Verily I say unto you, Ye shall not
have gone through the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man be come.
The Syrophoenician woman is informed that her daughter
is beyond the pale of his healing help, xv. 24 : —
I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
On the other hand, Messiah's rejection at the hands of
his own people, and their consequent exclusion from the
kingdom, are announced almost from the beginning,
immediately after the Great Sermon, through the incident
of the Centurion, viii. 11, 12 ; while it is emphasized in
an explanatory addition, peculiar to Matthew only, at the
close of the parable of the vineyard and the husband
men, xxi. 43 : —
Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken
away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the
fruits thereof.
The effect produced by the indifference or hostility of the
Jews is further heightened by the singular proceedings
before Pilate's judgment seat. The procurator's wife
sends a message interceding for the prisoner, because
she has 'suffered many things in a dream because of
him.' The incident, considering the eminence and
public repute of the victim, cannot be pronounced
impossible, — yet its probability is strained until it snaps
by the immediate occurrence of a second, the public
disavowal of all responsibility by the supreme repre
sentative of law and order, in the symbolic act of washing
his hands. The method of Roman adminstration, and
the known character of Pilate, stamp this detail as a
pictorial expression of the desire to acquit the Gentile
power of a share in Messiah's death, and fix the guilt or

372 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
Israel. Matthew, and Matthew only, attributes to the
crowd the passionate cry ' His blood be on us and on
'our children ! ' xxvii. 25.
(4) While Messiah comes to fulfil the law and the
prophets, his own people will not receive him, and the
privileges of the kingdom are bestowed elsewhere. A
kind of contradiction is thus set up between Jew and
Gentile, which is naturally reflected in the conditions
laid down for the life of the believer. When Matthew's
Jesus speaks as the flower and consummation of the
purposes of God for Israel, he recognises the permanence
of the Law, and even enforces the observance of the vast
mass of traditional ordinances connected with it by the
diligence of the Rabbis, v. 17, 18, xxiii. 2, 3 : —
Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets ; I
came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you,
Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one title shall in no
wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished.
The Scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; all things,
therefore, whatsoever they bid you, these do and observe.
The discharge of legal obligation by Messiah himself is
implied in the story of the payment of the Temple-tax
by the shekel found in the fish's mouth, xvii. 24-27. To
those who neglect or repudiate its claims, no mercy will
be shown, not even though they possess gifts of prophecy
or healing, vii. 23.1 Its abolition was the signal for the
abandonment of all restraints; those who thus caused
others to offend were no better than the tares ; at the end
of the age they must be gathered up and burned. The
parable in which this doom is pronounced, xiii. 41, on
all who do ' lawlessness,' appears to be a development of
1 Comp. p. 358.

LEGALISM AND UNIVERSALISM. 373
the simpler form in Mark iv. 26-29. But it has been
adapted to a different moral condition. The growth of
the kingdom is impeded ; the fair field of the Church is
no longer, as in its first days, the scene only of faithful
endeavour; it is disturbed by disorders, weeds have
grown apace ; the ' enemy ' has marred, he cannot wholly
ruin, Messiah's work ; and the true believers must wait in
patience for the event which will release them from the
companionship of the ' lawless ' and secure the victory for
the legally good. Like the ' dogs,' the ' swine,' and the
'false prophets' of the Great Sermon, vii. 6, 15, the 'tares'
speak of the difficulties and dangers of the later Church.
(5) But the other motive of the Gospel, in which the
logic of events is recognised, and the Gentiles are
welcomed into the kingdom, gives a broader scope to
Messiah's work, and pleads for a piety of a different type.
Even round his cradle at Bethlehem the Wise men from
the East do homage. When he settles at Capernaum,
among the mingled population round the lake, this is in
the writer's mind as he justifies Messiah's choice by a
prophetic reference to 'Galilee of the Gentiles,' where
' the people which sat in darkness saw a great light,' iv.
15, 16. The Gentiles are not unwilling to respond ; for
when the report of the new preaching goes forth beyond
the Galilaean hills into ' all Syria,' the crowd that gathered
round the Teacher is reinforced from the dwellers in
the Gentile cities of the Decapolis, iv. 24, 25. The
Centurion's faith draws forth in Capernaum the promise
including the whole world from east to west ; and when
Messiah, coming after death, sends forth his disciples a
second time, it is with the comprehensive charge to
'make disciples of all the nations,' xxviii. 19. The scope

374 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
of the Gospel is thus enlarged from Israel to embrace
humanity. This may be called Evangelical Universalism.
That this represents the true thought of Jesus, whatever
be the symbols by which it is conveyed, cannot be
doubted. And accordingly this Gospel also contains
the broadest utterances regulating the conduct of believers
as men, apart from all questions of nationality, of divine
election, of special privilege, or the requirements of the
Mosaic code. The standard of conformity to the
demands of Scribes and Pharisees is withdrawn as
insufficient, v. 20 : —
Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of
the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall not enter into the kingdom
of heaven.
The doctrine of the Great Sermon is indeed a doctrine
of righteousness by works rather than of righteousness
by faith. But the ' works ' are those of justice, mercy,
and peace, instead of tithes of mint and anise. Twice
does Jesus state the essence of ' the law and the prophets,'
it lies in active beneficence, vii. 12, in the love of God
and man, xxii. 37-40. These constitute the fair wedding
garment which every guest must wear at Messiah's
marriage-feast, xxii. n, 12, cp. Rev. xix. 7-9. And
when, at the great judgment-day, all nations are gathered
before the Son of Man, neither is faith in Christ the test
of acceptance, nor observance of the Law. ' How have
' you ministered to human need ? ' is the only question :
' have you seen in each sufferer a brother man, and done
' to him a brother's part ? ' In this lies the proof of
faithfulness ; here is the fullest statement of Ethical
Universalism. Truly has the First Gospel been called a
' Gospel of contradictions.'

THE CHURCH. 375
(6) Matthew, then, like Luke, has sought to harmonise
opposing tendencies : and the words of the Teacher in
the First Gospel even more clearly than in the Third
reflect the conflicts of succeeding times. It is not
surprising, therefore, that we should actually meet, in
Matthew only, with the word by which the Christian
communities were afterwards known, viz. the ' Church.'
The idea is in some sense present in the background
much oftener than the term itself appears. It lurks in
the description of the usages of piety, alms, prayer, and
fasting. It hides behind the indications of growing
corruption, of waning faith, of false teaching, of the
necessity of making terms in some way with the world's
wickedness until the end of the age. But it becomes
explicit in the provision made for the treatment of
offenders who refuse penitence or submission and must
be cast out, xviii. 17 ; and it acquires especial prominence
in the startling passage added by Matthew only to the
common tradition in Mark and Luke, after Peter's
acknowledgement of Jesus as the Messiah, xvi. 17-19: —
And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou,
Simon Bar-Jonah ; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it to
thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I also say unto
thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my
church ; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. 1
will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven : and
whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven : and
whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
This is one of the peculiar incidents, like the attempt to
walk upon the waves, or the piece of money in the fish's
mouth, of which Peter is the hero in the First Gospel.
It is the culmination of them all, constituting him, in
some sense, the foundation of the Church, and conferring

376 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
on him the special right of pronouncing admission into
the kingdom of heaven. In this passage lies the germ of
what was afterwards to be known in the Roman Church
as the Primacy of Peter, to be developed in our own day
into the Vatican Decrees. Many circumstances tend to
show the unhistorical character of this passage. The
surname Peter, according to Mark iii. 16, was really
conferred at a much earlier date. The position of rule
here assigned to the Apostle, is in reality opposed to the
reiterated teaching of the Master, ' whosoever would
' become great among you shall be your minister.' It is,
indeed, in part neutralised by a subsequent saying where
all the Twelve are empowered to ' bind and loose,' xviii.
1 8, so that Peter's prerogative was to be -shared by all,
and it is wholly inconsistent with the fact that Jesus
immediately after designates him ' Satan.' It is in
striking contrast with his later conduct, his denial of Jesus
at Jerusalem,, his weakness in abandoning the Gentile
cause at Antioch, Gal. ii. 11-12. Paul, certainly, knew
nothing of such a claim. He affirms his own equality
with the Twelve in the clearest terms; and when he
disapproved of Peter's conduct, he relates that he
' withstood him to his face.' Not till later times was the
Church regarded as built on the foundation of prophets
and apostles; and the first external testimony to the
existence of these words on the part of other writers does
not reach us until shortly before the year 200 a.d.1 They
1 They occur in the little treatise against gambling, De
Aleatoribus. The early date of this work has been recently
demonstrated by Dr. Harnack, who has ascribed its composition
to Victor, Bishop of Rome, 188-199 a.d. See Academy, Dec. 28,
1889, p. 424.

THE CHURCH. 377
arose, it would seem, in the course of the second century,
when the growing pretensions of the Bishop of Rome
sought sanction at the hands of the divine Lord of
the Church.

$ 5. Date and Authorship.
(i) The Gospel according to S. Matthew has revealed
on examination the presence of manifold elements among
its contents. It has been aptly described as a kind of
' primitive Gospel harmony.' Its Editor seems to have
employed among his sources documents now known to
us through Mark and Luke, if not these Gospels them
selves. Drawn from various quarters, its materials are
marked by different tendencies, and the whole compila
tion is on one side Jewish and legal, on the other
moral, humanitarian, and universal. Yet the prominence
assigned to Jewish motives and thoughts implies that
the writer was himself a Jew, and that he addressed those
among his own nation who might yet be won for the
kingdom, or who had already entered its fold. The
character of Jesus as Son of David, emphasised in the
preliminary genealogy by tracing his descent through the
line of kings, is brought again and again into view. The
institutions of the established religion are mentioned with
a certain tenderness ; Jerusalem is the city of the great
king, v. 35; the temple service is superior to all rule of
days, xii. 5 ; but the disciple in danger of his life must
still respect the Sabbath, xxiv. 20. Jewish usages, there
fore, need no elaborate explanation, they will be under
stood by those who have been trained to the knowledge

378 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
of the Law. But the words of ancient prophecy or of
native speech are not so intelligible ; the Hebrew
Immanuel, i. 23, the Aramean Golgotha, xxvii. 33, the
verse of the Psalm uttered upon the cross, xxvii. 46, all
need interpretation. The Jews and Jewish Christians
for whom the First Evangelist thus retells the sacred
story, are not themselves resident in Palestine ; they
belong to the Dispersion ; they speak the Greek of the
Mediterranean lands. The idea of the Theocratic
kingdom for Israel has nearly faded away ; only once do
its echoes sound in the words with which Matthew's
Jesus alone assures the disciples that their sacrifices shall
not go unrecognised, xix. 28 : —
Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me, 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
(2) Few direct indications help in any way to mark the
Gospel's date. The discourse on the last things in chap.
xxiv. seems to preserve much of the old language of the
little Apocalypse written shortly before the fall of
Jerusalem.2 The statement in the parable that the king
' destroyed those murderers and burned their city,' xxii.
7, appears to allude to the Roman capture, and we are
thus carried down at the earliest to the year 70 a.d. But
indirect evidence points us to decades later still. There
is the growth of legend, such as that of the earthquake at
the crucifixion, or the death of Judas. There is the
rising ecclesiastical consciousness, which needs warnings
against false teachers and heretical sects, which arranges
1 Comp. Luke xxii. 30 ; and see above, chap. ix. % 5, 1, p. 326.
2 Comp. chap. vii. § 4, 1 b, p. 241.

ELEMENTS OF LATE DATE. 379
pentitential discipline, and admits the primacy of Peter.
There is the broad view of universal human morality,
which, being implicit in the thought of the Teacher, has
become explicit and capable of application to 'all the
nations.' There is the baptismal formula with its three
holy names, advancing on the experience of the Apostle
Paul who was ' baptised into Christ ' and the usage of
the apostolic baptism 'into the name of Christ.' And
lastly, side by side with the most vivid expectation of
Messiah's advent, before the disciples should have gone
over the cities of Israel, x. 23, before those standing round
the speaker should have tasted death, xvi. 28, 'im
mediately ' after the tribulation of those days, before
this generation pass away, xxiv. 29, 34 — side by side
with all this is the decline of the hope of an external
and visible arrival, and its gradual transference into a
present spiritual experience, 'Where two or three are
' gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst
' of them,' xviii. 20, ' Lo I am with you alway, even unto
'the end of the age,' xxviii. 20. These signs of later
date, appearing in the repeated modification of older
material, and the addition of new, need not all, however,
be attributed to one age, or to one hand: they may
represent tendencies of different times, and their
incorporation in the older contents of the Gospel may
have taken place by degrees.
(3) The external testimony, scanty as it is, really points
in this direction, for Papias is reported by Eusebius to
have made the following statement, on the authority,
apparently, of the Elder John : —
Matthew composed the oracles (of the Lord) in the Hebrew
dialect, and each one (i.e. each reader) interpreted them as he could.

380 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
The peculiar term ' oracles ' (logid) is commonly sup
posed to denote a collection of the sayings of Jesus.
But it can hardly have been limited merely to his spoken
words, for these would often have been unintelligible
without some reference to the circumstances of their
utterance. How much in the shape of narrative con
cerning occasion and event may have been connected
with them, we cannot tell : but they do not seem to have
been arranged in any special sequence, and can hardly
have attained the scope of even the briefest of our
Gospels, which relates Messiah's ministry with well-
established order. The compilation was made in the
vernacular Aramean. No regular translation for Greek
readers accompanied it, every one was obliged to
translate it for himself as best he could. Now no one
doubts that our Matthew is not a translation, but an
original Greek work ; whether Papias, however, was
acquainted with it, and regarded it as one of the
translations, or supposed it to have superseded all other
independent versions, is unknown. In our ignorance of
the real character of Matthew's ' oracles,' we can frame
no judgment of the stages between the first collection
and our Gospel. Certain it is that the work in its
present form is not apostolic. Its artificial arrangement,
its occasional vague expressions — so different from the
precision of an eye-witness1 — its indications of a later
stage of doctrine and Church-life — all forbid us to
identify the First Evangelist with one of the com
panions of Jesus. It may be that the Gospel now
1 ' Their scribes,' vii. 29, ' their cities,' xi. 1, as if the writer in
no way belonged to the country.

COLLECTION OF THE LORD'S SAYINGS. 381
bearing Matthew's name embodies much or indeed all
of his collection of the Master's sayings. As one or
another rendered it from Aramean into Greek, additions
would be recorded, and these may in time have been
gathered up and re-cast under the editorial plan which
can be so clearly traced in the present Matthew. But
the steps of this process can be no longer followed ; and
the first decisive evidence of the existence of the Gospel,
much as we know it now, is in the writings of Justin
Martyr in the second century.
(4) Connected with an apostolic name, the First
Gospel possessed a certain distinction in the early
Church ; and some dim recollection of the story of its
growth may have also helped to mark it out as the
place of deposit for successive layers of the evangel
ical tradition. The history of the Old Testament affords
abundant illustration of this method. When piety was
still fresh and creative, its products were again and again
ranged under honoured names, and added to recognised
collections, rather than left to struggle for acceptance by
themselves. Time after time were new laws inserted in
the Mosaic code ; new Psalms were assigned to David ;
new Proverbs allotted to Solomon ; new Prophecies
ascribed to Isaiah. The modern hymn-collector does
not scruple to omit or alter or add, so as to bring the
poems he selects into accord with the doctrinal concep
tions and the religious sentiments of the worshippers
who will use them. The Gospel tradition was treated
in the same way in the early Church. It was a great
collection of devotional material, and it was a work of
piety to expand its contents as fresh elements appeared,
or to combine them in new forms, and modify them for

382 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO S. MATTHEW.
unexpected needs. Thus the story of Jesus, re-told
again and again, passed out of the hands of a single
author or editor. It expressed the feelings not of the
individual narrator, but of the community. It took
up into itself seeming contradictions, and as years and
generations went on, it gave them a shelter beneath the
memory of the Master in which their antagonisms died
away. The sublime figure of the Christ, portrayed to us
by the First Three Evangelists, was, in a certain sense,
created by the Church. But if, in turn, we ask what was
the moral and religious power by which the Church was
created, only one answer is possible; it was the person
ality of Jesus, his faith, his truth, his love.

APPENDIX.
The Term ' Son of Man ' in the Synoptic Gospels.
It has been shown above that there are a number of
passages in the First Three Gospels in which the term
' Son of Man ' stands in obvious relation to the vision of
Daniel ; and it has been argued that in using this term
Jesus employed it in its original meaning, so that the
' coming of the Son of Man ' was the symbol of the
realisation of God's kingdom through a holy people.
That interpretation has been applied to these passages: —
Mark xiii. 26. Then shall they see the Son of Man coming in
clouds with great power and glory.
Mark xiv. 62. Ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right
hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.
There is, however a large group of other passages in
which this meaning is inappropriate, in fact impossible.
Here is one bearing strong affinity to those just quoted : —
Mark viii. 38. Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my
words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man
also shall be ashamed of him when he cometh in the glory of his
Father with the holy angels.
In this passage the ' Son of Man ' cannot have an

384 APPENDIX.
emblematic and collective meaning: the judicial function
ascribed to him can be exercised only by a person. That
person is, no doubt, in the Evangelist's view, Messiah.
The same meaning is plainly intended in the series of
utterances in which Jesus is represented as predicting
his sufferings, his death, and resurrection. The follow
ing instances are found in Mark.
viii. 31. And he began to teach them that the Son of Man
must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, and
the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and after three
days rise again.
ix. 9. And as they were coming down from the mountain, he
charged them that they should tell no man what things they had
seen, save when the Son of Man should have risen again from
the dead.
ix. 12. And he said unto them, Elijah indeed cometh first and
restoreth all things : and how is it written of the Son of Man, that
he should suffer many things and be set at nought ?
ix. 31. He taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son
bf Man is delivered up into the hands of men, and they shall kill
him ; and when he is killed, after three days he shall rise again.
x. 33, 34. Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man
shall be delivered unto the chief priests and the scribes; and
they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the
Gentiles; and they shall mock him, and shall spit upon him,
and shall scourge him, and shall kill him; and after three days
he shall rise again.1
The origin of these passages in the actual warnings of
Jesus has been already considered.2 Let a little attention
be now directed to their form. Their precise detail,
including the trial before the Sanhedrin, and the succes
sive incidents of the Passion, seems plainly due to later
1 Compare further Mark xiv. 21, 41.
2 See chap. vii. § 1, 4, p. 225.

THE TERM ' SON OF MAN.' 385
recollection of actual events. ' We may, without irrever-
' ence,' says Dr. Edersheim,1 ' doubt whether on that
' occasion He had really entered into all those par-
' ticulars.' But why is Jesus invariably represented as
speaking in the third person ? Why does he not say,
' / shall suffer, they will condemn me ? ' Why is it
always ' the Son of Man ? ' Because we have here the
Church's apology for Messiah's death. The 'stumbling-
block ' of a crucified Christ was removed, if it could be
shown that he had himself predicted his end in con
formity with ancient prophecy. ' O foolish men,' said
the risen Jesus to Cleopas and his friend, ' and slow of
' heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken.
' Behoved it not the Christ to suffer these things and to
' enter into his glory ? '2 This group of passages, there
fore, issues from the consciousness of the Church, and
brings into clear light in utterances attributed to Jesus,
the method of reply to the criticisms of Jewish adver
saries on the Messianic claim. But why should Messiah
be here designated 'Son of Man?' Because in the
formation of the tradition the language assigned to
Jesus accommodated itself to his historic utterances.
Now the Synoptic Gospels never represent him as
describing himself as the Messiah. He does not
repudiate the title when it is offered him ; but he care
fully refrains from assuming it ; the official designation
is never on his lips. It was impossible, then, that the
Church should exhibit Jesus as habitually employing a
name which he carefully avoided ; and the Messianic
feeling, therefore, had to embody itself in some other
1 Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, ii. p. 345.
2 Luke xxiv. 25, 26. A A

386 APPENDIX.
term, which could find a sanction in his own practice.
Such a term was ready in the name 'Son of Man,'
which had been employed by Jesus to describe the
immediate advent of the ' kingdom ' in which God's
will should be done on earth as it was in heaven.
Filled with the conviction that Jesus was the Messiah,
the early Church identified the ' Son of Man ' with him.
The expression was immediately narrowed from the
ideal sense in which Jesus had employed it to the
individual sense in which the Evangelists employ it.
The language ascribed to him at once began to undergo
unconscious transformation in this direction. In the
belief that God had appointed a day in which he would
judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he
had ordained,1 the conception of the Son of Man as
judge acquired increasing distinctness, and generated
a series of sayings and parables in which he appears
as the arbiter of human destiny and lord of the worlds
Different versions of the words attributed to Jesus seem
to show this process in different stages. Thus after
laying down the condition of self-denial as the law
of discipleship, Jesus adds, according to Mark and
Luke: — Mark ix. I. Luke ix. 27.
Verily I say unto you, There But I tell you of a truth,
he some here of them that stand There be some of them that
by, which shall in no wise taste stand here, which shall in no
of death, till they see the king- wise taste of death, till they
dom of God come with power. see the kingdom of God.
But the equivalent in Matt. xvi. 28 runs thus : —
Verily I say unto you, There be some of them that stand here
1 Acts xvii. 31.

THE TERM 'SON OF MAN.' 387
which shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Son of Man
coming in his kingdom.
The ' coming of the Son of Man ' w the coming of the
kingdom of God; though in Matthew's version of the
saying the additional touch ' in his kingdom ' reveals
that the symbolic is already converted into the personal
Messianic sense. In other phrases the symbolic meaning
remains unchanged, as when Jesus tells the Twelve,
Matt. x. 23, ' Ye shall not have gone through the cities
' of Israel till the Son of Man be come,' or again, Luke
xvii. 22, ' The days will come, when ye shall desire to
' see one of the days of the Son of Man, and ye shall
* not see it.' When the ' Son of Man,' however, was no
longer recognised as the emblem of a great moral and
spiritual event, but was interpreted as the person who
should introduce it, his identification with Jesus led to
such modifications of his language as the following
variants display, both having probably sprung from
some simpler form : —
Mark viii. 38. Matt. xvi. 27.
For whosoever shall be For the Son of Man shall
ashamed of me and of my come in the glory of his Father
words in this adulterous and with his angels; and then shall
sinful generation, the Son of he render to every man accord-
Man also shall be ashamed ing to his deeds.
of him when he cometh in
the glory of his Father with
the holy angels.
A marked case of this modification appears in Matthew's
version of the question put by Jesus to the disciples at
Caesarea Philippi, xvi. 13, 'Who do men say that the
' Son of Man is ? ' Mark and Luke concur in a simpler
form, ' Who do men say that I am ? ' The later date o f

388 APPENDIX.
Matthew's enquiry is betrayed by its occurrence in two
persons, the first and third, many ancient authorities
reading ' Who do men say that I the Son of Man am ? '
The Jesus of Mark and Luke makes no claim : he only
desires to ascertain what is the common talk about him.
Matthew's Jesus, on the other hand, in harmony with the
whole presentment of the Gospel, assumes the Messianic
dignity, and seeks to know how far it is generally recog
nised. Can there be any doubt that this is really the
most developed version ?
The foregoing discussion has aimed at showing how
the term ' Son of Man ' as an equivalent for Messiah
found its way into language attributed to Jesus. The
influence of subsequent conceptions on the form and
matter of an earlier tradition is familiar to the student
of Buddhism, who finds all the discourses of the Teacher
couched in the mould of later faith about his person and
function, so that the official formulae of after times are
invariably placed in his own lips. Similar tendencies
are to be traced in the Gospel ; the question really is to
what extent they can be detected. If the appearance of
the title 'Son of Man,' as applied to Jesus Messianically
in the announcements of his passion, be due to the
transformation of his language by the Church, is it not
possible that its occurrence elsewhere really springs from
the same cause ?
There is an important group of the Teacher's sayings
in which many writers have found the term employed in
a widely different way ; cognate, perhaps, to its prophetic
use by Ezekiel : or touching a still higher significance,
and designating the supreme representative of humanity,
whether in the absolute sense of man in his relations to

THE TERM ' SON OF MAN: 389
God, or in his actual condition of lowliness and suffer
ing. Here the name has been thought to bear a moral,
a humanitarian, an ideal meaning, instead of being
an official designation. What account can be given
of these?
In the first place, it may be said that we should hardly
expect Jesus to use the same term in senses so widely
divergent as the symbol of the establishment of God's
kingdom among a holy people, and the type of lowly
and suffering humanity commonly recognised in the
phrase ' The Son of Man hath not where to lay his
head.' These conceptions seem too far apart to find
shelter in one mind under a common name. But when
the title had been once applied to Jesus by the Church,
and had entered his sayings concerning his probable
fate at Jerusalem, may it not in like manner have found
its way into other utterances, which tradition interpreted
in a Messianic sense, or gradually shaped under Messianic
conceptions in their present form ? Let some of these
cases be considered.
The story of the paralytic let down through the roof is
common to all the Synoptics, Mark placing it early in the
ministry in Galilee, on the return of Jesus to Capernaum,
after his first missionary journey, Mark ii. 1-12. The
narrative, as it stands, is plainly founded on the idea that
the patient's malady is the result of his sin ; his cure,
therefore, is to be effected by declaring his sins forgiven.
That involves the conception of a causal connection
between the sin and the disease which it is difficult to
believe that Jesus really entertained ; it is entirely
contrary, for example, to the view implied in his question
about the eighteen on whom the tower of Siloam fell.

390 APPENDIX.
But an examination of the structure of the story shows
that the whole passage about the forgiveness of sins has
been wedged into the original narrative, which seems to
have read simply, Mark ii. 5a, 11 : —
And Jesus, seeing their faith, said unto the sick of the palsy, I
say unto thee, Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thy house.
The colloquy with the Scribes reveals itself as an
addition by the awkward way in which the words
addressed to them by Jesus, ver. 10, are suddenly
diverted to the cripple, with the parenthetic repetition
of the original phrase 'he saith to the sick of the
palsy.' The story must, indeed, have assumed its
present form at an early date, for the incident occurs
in all the Synoptics, and in each with precisely the
same declaration : —
But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power [or
authority] on earth to forgive sins, &c.
The term ' authority ' is used again and again of
Messianic power, just as it is employed in Dan. vii. in
connection with the Son of Man. When Jesus rebukes
the spirit in the Synagogue at Capernaum, after it has
addressed him Messianically as the ' Holy One of God,'
the beholders exclaim 'With authority he commandeth
' even the unclean spirits, and they obey him,' Mark i.
27. When the risen Christ meets the disciples on the
mount in Galilee, he declares ' All authority hath been
'given unto me in heaven and on earth,' Matt, xxviii. 18.
The affirmation, therefore, that the Son of Man hath
authority on earth to forgive sins, expresses the Church's
faith in Messiah's power, just as the Evangelist, con
trasting Messiah's teaching with that of the accredited

THE TERM 'SON OF MAN' 391
representatives of religion in his day, describes him as
teaching ' with authority, and not as the Scribes.'
The next passage in Mark where the term occurs,
stands at the close of the discussion with the Pharisees,
who complained that the disciples violated the Sabbath
by plucking the ears as they went through a cornfield.
Their objection is met in our present text upon two
grounds. The first is the historical instance of disregard
of the law on the part of David and Abiathar; the
second is the enunciation of the principle that human
need and service supersede legal rule and institution,
Mark ii. 27 : —
The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.
This it might seem is complete in itself; but another
clause follows, ver. 28 : —
So that the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.
What is denoted here by the term ' Son of Man ? ' The
Evangelist intends undoubtedly to imply that Jesus was
superior to the whole Sabbath legislation so carefully
elaborated by the Rabbis. But in what capacity? In
his function as Messiah. In that case the statement
is exceedingly unsatisfactory. It is made to emerge as
a consequence of the general principle that social and
religious usage is subservient to man's needs. Jesus,
however, was not implicated. He had committed no
offence: and to vindicate himself from an attack made
upon him under cover of his disciples does not seem
after the manner of the Master. The expansion of the
discourse in Matthew shows plainly that the words can
hardly be original, Matt. xii. 6-8 : —
I say unto you that there is something greater than the temple
here. But if ye had known what this meaneth, I desire mercy and

392 APPENDIX.
not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless, for the
Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.
The introduction of the quotation from Hosea peculiar
to Matthew, and already applied in the same Gospel
in another connection, ix. 13, seems here altogether
inappropriate, and Baur long ago declared the con
cluding words, introduced by the inferential 'for,' to
be a gloss of the Evangelist.
Once more only does the term 'Son of Man' occur in
Mark, in the rebuke addressed to the indignant disciples
after the request of James and John, Mark x. 43-45 : —
Whosoever would become great among you, shall be your
minister; and whosoever would be first among you shall be
servant of all. For verily the Son of Man came not to be
ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a. ransom
for many.
This passage is omitted by Luke altogether, though he
has a parallel to the thought, and indeed to the very
words, in the scene which he places at the Last Supper,
when there was a dispute among the disciples as to
which should be accounted the greatest. Matthew, how
ever, reports it in almost complete verbal agreement with
Mark, only introducing the saying about the Son of Man
with ' even as ' instead of ' for.' But the very fact that
the phrase receives this introduction awakes the suspicion
that we are presented rather with a comment or reflection
of the narrator than with a word from Jesus : and it
contains a reference to the mystic efficacy of his death
which shows at once what is the significance of the name
' Son of Man,' and appears to be due rather to the inter
pretation of the Church than to the word of the Teacher.
The equivalent in the Third Gospel, Luke xxii. 27, 'I

THE TERM ' SON OF MAN: 393
'am in the midst of you as he that serveth [ministereth],'
is much more direct. That Jesus met the dissensions
among the disciples by such a reference to his own aim
and example, we may readily believe : what appears
highly uncertain, and even improbable, is that he
clothed it in the form of a description of Messiah's
life and death.
How easily the term ' Son of Man ' might enter the
tradition through misunderstanding and consequent
perversion of the language of Jesus, may be seen by
comparing a remarkable passage in Mark, where it
occurs in the plural, with the corresponding passages
in Luke and Matthew, where it is applied in the singular
to Messiah. After repudiating the charge that he cast
out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils, Jesus
says, Mark iii. 28 : —
All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and their
blasphemies wherewith they shall blaspheme, but whosoever shall
blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgivenness, but is
guilty of an eternal sin.
This appears in Luke xii. 10 (with which Matt. xii. 32
agrees) in this form : —
Every one who shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it
shall be forgiven him ; but unto him that blasphemeth against the
Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven.
There is only one other passage in the New Testament
where the phrase ' sons of men ' occurs in the plural :
but it is a common idiom in the LXX., and there is
no reason for rejecting it here simply because it is not
found elsewhere in Gospel or Epistle, save in Ephes. iii,
5. On the other hand, the language concerning abuse
of the Son of Man is not confirmed by another passage,

394 APPENDIX.
Mark viii. 38, where Jesus is represented as denouncing
those who are ashamed of him, and declaring that the
Son of Man will be- ashamed of them when he comes in
heavenly glory. There seems no cause why one offence
should be forgiven and the other punished, just as it is
difficult to understand what is the distinction between
speaking against the Son of Man, and speaking against
the Holy Spirit, of which Messiah was, in a sense,
the visible organ and embodiment. May it not be
said, then, that this passage contains another instance
of the erroneous ascription of the term ' Son of Man '
to Jesus?
Elsewhere we cannot, indeed, trace the emergence of
the phrase out of another and wider. But the indica
tions are strong of what has been already noticed —
viz. its tendency to appear in clauses of an explanatory
character, beginning with the word 'for.' Thus in
Luke xi. 29, Jesus remarks : —
This generation is an evil generation ; it seeketh after a sign,
and there shall be no sign given it, but the sign of Jonah.
How was Jonah a sign? The text itself answers,
ver. 32 : —
The men of Nineveh shall stand up in the judgment with this
generation, and shall condemn it : for they repented at the preach
ing of Jonah ; and behold, there is more than Jonah here.
But the connection of thought was not fully appre
hended, and accordingly, after the first allusion to
Jonah, Luke adds : —
For even as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so shall also
the Son of Man be to this generation.
This is plainly a gloss, and a gloss of curious weakness
and indecision, leaving the problem after all where it

THE TERM ' SON OF MAN.' 395
found it. A bolder hand, therefore, in Matthew inserted
a more precise interpretation, Matt. xii. 40 : —
For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the
whale, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in
the heart of the earth.1
Such instances show with what ease interpolations and
additions could take up the title, and read it into the
speech of Jesus.
There is a somewhat similar growth observable in
another case, the very stages of which can be traced by
textual criticism. After the proposal of James and John
to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritans who
would not receive their Master on his way to Jerusalem,
Jesus, it is related, Luke ix. 55, turned and rebuked
them. ' What did he say ? ' cried some eager hearer, as
the story was told. The text was silent, but by and by
an appropriate answer sprang out of the consciousness
of the Church, ' Ye know not what manner of spirit ye
' are of.' Yet even this did not suffice, and a smaller
and later group of authorities added the comment, ' For
' the Son of Man came not to destroy men's lives but to
' save them.' It is not a little surprising that Archdeacon
Farrar should invert the case, and accuse the copyists of
deliberately suppressing an utterance with which they
did not sympathise. 'This glorious utterance,' he
remarks,2 ' is omitted in « A B C ' [it may be added that
the second part is omitted in D also]. 'There were
1 Comp. chap. x. $ 3, 1 a, p. 352. Such additions might creep
in quite late. The language of Justin, Dial, with Trypho, 107,
108, shows acquaintance with an interpretation of the Jonah sign,
out of which this verse might have arisen, but not apparently
with this verse itself.
2 Expositor, April, 1889, p. 249.

396 APPENDIX.
' Scribes so ignorant, and so steeped in the Elijah-spirit
'of persecution, as to regard it as dangerous.' This
charge seems to be really without foundation. The
evidence points to gradual accretion rather than to
intentional omission.
This tendency to accretion may be illustrated from
another passage, Matt, xviii. n, where the words 'For the
' Son of Man came to save that which was lost ' have
found their way in, apparently as a gloss, suggested by a
reminiscence of Luke xix. io. The Third Evangelist
employs it as the conclusion of the Zacchaeus incident : —
To-day is salvation come to this house, forasmuch as he also is
a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save
that which was lost.
Here is another saying introduced by this explanatory
particle 'for' which has effected the transition to so many
of the Evangelistic interpretations of the aim and spirit
of the Teacher. Is it not possible that this is a case of
the same sort? It cannot, indeed, be proved, but it
seems not improbable that some original utterance of
Jesus has been cast by the Church into this form, and
that the phrase has grown out of the effort to portray
Messiah as the world's redeeming power, the Saviour even
of the lowest of mankind.
With a brief remark on two more passages common to
Matthew and Luke this review of the principal instances
may close. Luke vii. and Matt. xi. contain the discourse
of Jesus concerning John, in which the place of the
Baptist is defined in relation to the kingdom. The
relative distribution of the materials of this discourse in
the two gospels has been already examined ;l it is only
1 Chap. ix. § 2, 2 a, p. 306.

THE TERM ' SON OF MAN.' 397
necessary to quote the words common to both, in which
the prophet and the Son of Man are compared and con
trasted, Luke vii. 33, 34, Matt. xi. 18, 19 : —
For John the Baptist is come neither eating bread nor drinking
wine ; and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of Man is come
eating and drinking ; and ye say, Behold, a gluttonous man, and a
wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners !
That this discourse is penetrated with Messianic concep
tions is plain from the opening quotation applied to John,
which contains so curious a perversion of the original
text to make it fit Messiah's coming, ' Behold I send my
' messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way
' before thee.'1 By the term ' Son of Man,' therefore, in
this case, the Evangelist, doubtless, means the Messiah ;
but whether Jesus himself employed the term in that
sense seems highly questionable, — nay, whether he really
employed it at all. There is another passage which may
be set beside this; it is of kindred character, Luke ix. 58,
Matt. viii. 20 : —
The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests ;
but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.
Here it is true that the interpretation of the Son of Man
as 'the humble self-abasing servant of humanity ' (to use
Keim's words) would give a suitable meaning. But
Luke, who combines the incident with two others, seems
clearly to have the Messianic sense in his mind, each of
the other two anecdotes having express reference to the
kingdom of God. And the Messianic meaning is at least
as suitable. The Scribe who would join the company of
the inaugurator of the kingdom, is warned what to
1 Comp. chap. iii. § 4, 2, p. 88.

398 APPENDIX.
expect, homelessness and privation, for even Messiah
himself has less comfort than the beasts of the field.
This passage is, in fact, the only one which does not
require the Messianic interpretation ; but it surely allows
it, and even receives from it a greater force ; while the
presumption established by the comparison of other cases
appears to heighten the probability almost to certainty,
that here, too, this is the intended significance of the
name. If it be true that Jesus did not claim the dignity
or function of Messiah, at least at this period of his
ministry, do we not find in this title one more reflection
on to the Teacher's speech from the glory with which the
Church invested him? The incidents may have occurred
much as they are narrated : but the colouring of the
language issues from the faith of a later age.
This enquiry suggests the following conclusions : —
(i) Jesus employed the term Son of Man in the
symbolic sense in which it is used in Daniel vii., as an
emblem of the kingdom of righteousness to be established
by a great divine manifestation among a holy people.
(2) His followers understood it in a personal sense,
and, after his death, impressed with the conviction that he
was the Messiah, they identified him with the Son of
Man. In elaborating the remembrance of his warnings
of his impending fate into a sort of justification for his
passion, this name, impressed on their memory by his own
use of it, acquired an important Messianic significance
and was employed in preference to any other.
(3) Hence it became incorporated in statements des
criptive of the function of Jesus, now current in the shape
of comments, explanations, and glosses, though in many
cases founded on his own thought.

THE TERM ' SON OF MAN.' 399
(4) It was further embodied in sayings now woven into
the anecdotes and discourses of Jesus, the first germs of
which may well be authentic, though In their present
sense they are likewise Messianic.
(5) Wherever, therefore, the term is individualised and
used Messianically, we have evidence of the later influence
of the Church. Jesus never used it to designate himself.

INDEX TO PASSAGES IN THE GOSPELS.

Matthew.

Matthew

— continued.

Page.

Page.

i. 8, ii

• H3

iv. 15-16.

- 373

20

• 145

17 III, 2

'8, 278, 339, 344

22

• 3^9

18

. 206

23 •

• 378

18-20.

¦ 344

ii. 1

- 144. 365

18-22.

344

5

3^9

'9

• 339

6 .

i5>

23

341. 344

7 •

• 17

23-25-

¦ 82, 359

9 •

146

24:?5 •

275, 344, 373

11

• 144, 155

v. — vii. .

72. 274

13 •

•45

v. 3-5 •

312

15

369

3-12.

• 95, 340

16

• 145

1 1

• 95.312

17-18.

• 157

14-16.

• 78

19 .

145

'7

• 3^7

19-21 .

• «57

17-18.

• 372

20

145

17-19.

. . 98

22

. 146

20

• 374

22-23 •

. • 89

21-22.

69

.. 23 ¦

144, 369

21-48.

• 340

iii. 2

in, 218

29.30.

342

4-12.

- 3<5o

3 =

• 342

«3 •

. 163

35 ¦

• 377

H-I5-

. 167

. 38-48.

• 355

16

42, 163

vi.

• 355

17 .16

3. 235. 275

vi. 1-18.

96, 340

iv. 11

• 361

4, 6, 18 .

70, 355

12 . . .

• 344

9-12.

¦ 3"°

14-15.

• 3^9 '

13

. . 69

402

INDEX TO PASSAGES IN THE GOSPELS.

Matthew-

—continued.

Matthew

— continued.

Page.

Page.

vi. 19-34 .

• 340, 356

x. 23 99,251,370 37v, ;X

25-33 •

356

25-26

. . 78

.. 33

357

38-39

¦ 343

vii. 2

79

xi.

342, 353, 396

6

• 373

xi. 1 .

. 341, 380

12

• 374

211

306, 307

iS

9<5. 373

4-5

196, 22T

21-23 .

• 357

9-10

; 88

22

96, 367

11-13

• 327

22-23

"5, 275

12-13

. 3°6

23 " •

¦ 358, 372

14 •

• 306

2S

• 34i

>5 -

79, 306

28-29

¦ 345

16-19

• 306

..29

380

18-19

397

viii. 1-4

• 344

20-24

• 3°6

11-12

359, 37i

25-27

• 306

14-17

• 344

27 .

. 1 18, 282

16 .

281

28-30

• 306

16, 17 .

195

xii.

• 342

17

130, 3^9

xii. 1-8

• 344

20

397

3-8

¦ 304

28 .

• 347

5 ¦

. 377

29 .

. 191

6-8

• 39i

ix. 1-8

344

7 ¦

• 304

2 .

¦ 346

9-13

75

9-13

• 344

9-14

• 344

12-13

3°3

16

. 276

13 •

• 392

16-17

• 3^9

14-17

• 344

16-21

• 130

20-22

• 3+7

22-32

• 344

27 .

• 277

23 •

• 277

27-30

• 343

25-3°

. 362

35 •

• 34i

28 .

• 357

X.

• 276, 330

32

"3,393

X. I

. 282

36.

. "5

i-5

• 344

38-39

79

5 ;

99, 251

38-41

• 352

5-7

• 570

39 •

87, 343

6 .

• 99

40 .

• 353, 395

17-18

• 95

41 •

. . . 87

17-22

245, 3 JO

46-47

. 283

22 .

• 342

46-50

• 342

INDEX TO PASSAGES IN THE GOSPELS.

403

Matthew — continued. Page.
xiii. 72, 73, 206, 274, 340, 342
xiii 12

xiv.
xiv .

24-3024, 31- 33, 45,
31-32 34-3536
4147 5355 58
15-2 28
32 33
34-36 4
22 .
24 ¦
3°-3I
32-38 1, 2a, 4
1-12
4 •
13 •
16-1817 ¦
17-19
21 .
24 .
24-25 25 •

47

2728
xvii. 5 .
20 .
24-27
24-xviii
xviii. 8-9

79
369 74
34i 360
• 369
¦ 74
• 372
. 207
• 34i 141
. 281
342, 344
. 209203
349 277 46
¦ 13
125, 277
3U, 371 194
. 209
¦ 79
46
• 343
224, 387 44
• 277
224, 375
339, 369
227, 339
• 343
¦ 279
H5,387
230, 256, 379, 386
• 235
• 69
• 372
¦ 349
"4,342

Matth ew — continued.

xvm. 1 1 .
15-1817 ¦
18
20 .
xix. 1 .
9 •
16-17
24 .
28
28-29
xx. 18-19
20-2226 . '
30 •
30-31 30-34
xxi. 2
2-35 ¦
79 ¦
14 ¦
18-20 18-22
19 .
19-20
33-44
42.4443
.. 44 ¦
xxii. 2-4 7
11-1211-1414 .
37-4040 .
41-45
xxiii.xxiii. I .
2-3

Page.
• 395 96
• 375
¦ 376
• 379
338, 34i
• 342
367357
4, 3°5, 378 279 93
• 347
343
• 125
• "7
• 343
• 9i
. 271
• 369
. 92
¦ »7
367
• '99
. 80
. 199
282
271
¦ 305
259, 357, 37i
¦ 259
• 309
310, 378374
• 3™
201374
. 98
. 117
72, 274, 300
. 34i
98, 372

b £ b x x x

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INDEX TO PASSAGES IN THE GOSPELS.

405

Mark —

continued.

Mark —

continued

Page.

Page.

i. 24 .

45, 127, 189

111. 20-21 . . . 283

25 ¦

¦ 193

20-30

• 344

27 .

59- 39°

24-27

• 3^2
29 •
¦ 3°i
27 .
169
29-31
. 81
28 .
393
29-34
• 344
31-32
. 283
32-34
. 81
31-35
• 344
34
189, 276, 281
iv.
72,'
73,20
6, 340
35 •
81, 283
iv. 3-9 .
73
35-39
• 344
10 .
73
36-39
. 81
11-20
73
39 •
82, 275
21-22
77
40 .
• 125
21-25
7
3, 293
40-45
- 344
22 .
78
ii.-iii. 6 .
82, 293
23 •
79
ii. 1-12
¦ 344, 389
24 .
79
2 .
• 59
25 •
79
5 •
• 39°
26-29
;
'4, 27
i,372
10 .
• 390
26,30
73
11 .
¦ 39°
3 '-32
360
13-17
- 344
34-35
73
16 .
. 68
35-41
203
'7 •
• 303
38 .
284
18-22
96,344
39 ¦
193
18, 22
• 356
v. 1 -20
190
23-28
• 344
2 .
190
23-iii. 6
• 293
8 .
190
2J-28
• 3°4
9 •
346
27 .
97, 284
10 .
190
27-28
39 1
19 .
124
iii. 1-5
• 75
25-34
347
1-6
344
39 •
197
5 •
284
41 .
288
7-12
• 344
43 •
276
9 -
. 287
vi. 3
141
11 .
127
5 •
188
11-12
. 276
5-6.
281
13-19
¦ 344
7-'3
276
14-16
• 44
3i •
284
'5 •
. 282
35-44
208
16 .
287, 376
41 .
211
17 .
. 288
45-viii. 26
298
406

INDEX TO PASSAGES IN THE GOSPELS.

Mark—

continued

Mark — continued.

Page.

Page.

vi. 48 .

. 202

x 17 .

. 114

5i •

349

17-18

367

53-56

. 46

21 .

. 285

vii. 1

. 298

25

• 357

3-4-

. 288

28-30

. 113

11

. 288

29 .

• 3°5

24 •

220, 287

29-30

¦ 279

27 •

• 324

33-34 • 93.

94, 225, 384

3i •

. 220

35 39

¦ 347

32-36

. 271

42-44

. . 76

34 ¦

288

43-45

¦ 39Z

36 •

. 276

46 - .

. 288

viii. 1-9.

¦ 209, 293

xi. 1 .

• 334

7 •

. 211

2 .

• 9'

11-21

. . . 46

2-3-

. 271

12 .

252, 284

3 •

. 126

22-26

. 271

4 •

. 287

27 •

. 224

7 •

• 92

27-31

• 44

12-14

80, 199

27-ix. 1

. 218

H

. 282

29 .

170

16 .

. 287

3° •

• 277

20 .

199, 282

3' •

94, 225, 384

20-21

• 199

34-36

. 227

20-24

. 80

35 •

• 279

22 .

• 279

38 122, 2

28, 383, 387, 394

22-25

. 96

ix. 1 . 2

28, 230, 256, 386

23-25

• 293

2-8.

. 232

24-25

• 356

9 •

• 229, 384 ¦

xii. 1-1 1

. 271

12 .

. 229, 384

IO-II

• 305

29 .

69, 356

23 . . .

. 114

3i

94, 225, 384

28 . . .

¦ 315

32 .

. 226

32 . . .

. 3°i

33-34

349
32-34
• 346
37 ¦
280
34 •
285, 302
38-41
280
35-37
. 222
42 •
280
36-37
• 125
43, 48
114
38-40
. 300
x.-xvi.
275
xiii.
72, 239
x. 1
338
xiii. 4 .
. 24a
11, 12
2S9
5-6. . .
245, 247
14 •
285
7-8. . .
• 247
INDEX TO PASSAGES IN THE GOSPELS.

407

Mari

; — continued.

Luke.

Page.

Page.
8 .
. 113
i. 1 .
21
9-i3
• 245, 247, 340
1-4 ¦
66, 296
10 .
• 324
2 .
297
14 ¦
. 241
4 ¦ • .
• 297
14-16
. 249
26 • . .
• 334
14-20
247
28
¦53
15-16
. 246
3<>-3i
¦53
19-20
. 289
32 . . .
• 38
21-22
• 245
35 ¦
38
21-23
¦ 247
ii. 1
335
2+ .
242, 290
2 .
149
24-25
• "4,247
11
126
26 .
• 122, 253, 383
32 .
155
26-37
- 247
39
145
30 -
. 244, 256
iii. 1-2
335
30,31
. 242
7-9.
360
32 ¦
119, 282
21-22
163
17-42
• 345
22
17, 41, 166
21 .
¦ 229, 384
*3 •
¦ 144
36 .
288
iv. 18 .
130, 195
41
384
18-21
326
54 •
. 287
22
. 141
58 .
. 240
23 •
329
62 .
. 122, 253, 383
30 .
319
21
. 287
31 •
• 334
23 •
• 92
31-41
• 329
27 .
93
33-37
299
37-38
• 350
34 •
• 45
38 .
• 294
38 . .
. 206, 301
39 •
• 35°
40 .
. 281
42 .
. 288
41 .
. 189
7-8.
. 320
v. I-II
. 206
8 .
. 68
3 •
• 301
9-20
. 68
8 .
. 125
12-13
68, 273
10
206, 301
iS •
. 68
12 .
. 125
19 .
• 273
17-vi. 11 .
. 82
19-20
. 125
31-32
• 3°3
20 .
. 68
39 ¦
- 327
vi.
¦ 72, 275
vi- 3-5 ¦
• 304
5 •
. 68
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Students' MS. Notes.

Students' MS. Notes.

Students' MS. Notes.

Students' MS. Notes.

Students' MS. Notes.

Select Xtet of Books
FOR THE
SUNDAY SCHOOL AND THE HOME.

Sunday School Association, Essex Hall, Essex St., Strand, W.C.

Any Book in this List will be forwarded, post free, at the price
named. The money must in all cases be sent with the order.

Adams, Sarah Flower.

s.

d.

The Flock at the Fountain. Illustrated

... 0

6

Agate, Dendy, B.A.

Services and Prayers, -with Chants

... 0

6

Amy, Aunt.

Sunday Lessons for Infants ...
... 1
6
Armstrong, R.A., B.A.
Outline Lessons in Religion ...
... 0
6
Man's Knowledge of God
... 1
0
Barbauld, Mrs.
Hymns in Prose for Children. Illustrated
... 0
6
Barnett, Mrs. S. A.
The Making of the Home
... 1
6
Bartram, Richard.
Stories from the Book of Genesis
... 1
0
Stories from the Life of Moses
... 1
0
Heroes of Israel
... 1
0
Suggestive Readings
.. 1
6
Beard, Charles, LL.D.
Ten Lessons on Religion
... 0
1
Bernard, Mrs. Bayle.
Short Services for Sunday Schools
... 0
2
Bray, Mrs. Charles.
Elements of Morality
.. 2
0
Brown, Howard N.
A Life of Jesus for Young People. Illustrated
.. 2
0
Carpenter, J. Estlin, M.A.
Life in Palestine when Jesus lived
.. 1
0
The First Three Gospels : their Origin and Relations
.. 3
6
1 6
1 6

s. d.
Clarke, James Freeman, D.D.
Manual of Unitarian Belief ... ... ... ... 1 V
Clodd, Edward, F.R.A.S.
The Childhood of the World... ... ... — 1 <J
Childhood of Religions
Cooke, Frances E.
Theophilus Lindsey and his Friends ...
Noble Workers ... ... ... ... •¦¦ 1 {>
The Story of Theodore Parker, with portrait ... ... 1 0
The Story of Dr. William Ellery Channing ... ... 1 ft
Stories of Great Lives ... - ... ... ... 1 01
Crompton, Miss
Tales in Short Words ... ... ... ... 0 6
Crosskey, H. W., LL.D., F.G.S.
The Method of Creation ... ... ... ... 1 ft
First Lessons in Religion ... ... ... ... 0 1
Davis, V. D., B.A.
The Epistles to the Philippians and Philemon ... ... 1 5
Dendy, Mary.
Lessons for Little Boys ... ... ... ... 0 2
Lesson Stories for the Little Ones ... ... ... 1 ft
Dole, Charles F.
Early Hebrew Stories ... ... ... ... 1 ft
The Citizen and the Neighbour ... ... ... 1 5
A Handbook of Temperance .. , ... ... ... 0 8
Everett, C. C, D.D.
Religions before Christianity ... ... ... 1 6-
Foster, H. O. Arnold.
The Citizen Reader ... ... ... ... ... 1 &
Laws of Every-day Life ... ... ... ... 1 6
Gannett, W. C.
The Childhood of Jesus ... ... ... ... 1 &
The Growth of the Hebrew Religion ... ... ...OR
Channing and the Unitarian Movement ... ... 0 8
Geldart, E. M., M.A.
Sunday for our Little Ones ... ... ... ... 1 Q
Gillies, Miss.
Lessons in Religion ... ... ... ... ... 1 0
Hall, Edward H.
First Lessons on the Bible ... ... ... ... 2 ft
Lessons on the Life of Paul ... ... ... ... 2 ft

s. d.
Hargrove, Charles, M.A.
The Real Teachings of Jesus ... ... ... 0 1
Hawkes, Henry, B.A.
Recollections of John Pounds ... ... ...2 0
Herford, Brooke.
The Story of Religion in England  ... 2 0
Herford, R. T., B.A.
The Prophecies of the Captivity (Is. 40-66) ... ... 1 6
Hood, Alfred.
The Lord's Prayer ... ... ... ... ... 2 6
A Free Christian Catechism * ... ... ... 0 1
Johnson, Harriet.
The Story of Jeremiah and his Times ... ... ... 1 6
Jourdan, Beatrice A.
Phil's Mistake ... ... ... ... ... 1 0
Knappert, Dr.
The Religion of Israel ... ... ... ... 1 0
Lawford, Isabel.
Bible Stories for Little Folks ... ... ... 0 8
Madge, Travers.
Prayers for the use of Families ... ... ... 0 6
Marriott, J. T.
Our Unitarian Faith ... ... ... ... 1 0
Martineau, Gertrude.
Home Counsels ... ... ... ... ... 1 0
Martineau, C. A.
Voices of Nature ... ... ... ... ... 0 8
Chapters on Sound ... ... ... ... ... 0 6
Martin, Mrs. Herbert.
The Daisy Root ... ... ... ... ... 1 0
Rosy's Three Homes ... ... ... ... 1 0
Out of the Streets ... ... ... ... ... 1 0
Millson, Frank E.
Lessons on the English Bible... ... ... ... 0 8
Oort, Dr. (and Dr. J. Hooykaas).
The Bible for Young People. 6 vols.... ... ...22 0
Smith, G. Vance, D.D.
Chapters on Job for Young Readers ... ... ... 1 0
Spaulding, H. G.
Hebrew Prophets and Kings... ... ... ... 1 0
The later Heroes of Israel ... ... ... ... 1 0
Lessons on the Gospel of Luke. 3 parts ... each 1 ft

s. d.
Solly, H. S., MA. •
The Life of Jesus in Twenty Lessons .. . ... ••• x u
Swaine, Ann.
Remarkable Women ... ... ••• ••¦ * 0
Templar, Benj.
Moral. Lessons ....  ¦¦¦ ••¦ 0 *»
Thomas, J. E.
Bible Class Studies ih Liberal Christianity ... ... 1 6
Toy, Prof. Crawford.
History of the Religion of Israel ... ... ...2 0
Vizard, P. E.
Sacred Similes ... ... ... ... •¦• 0 6
Walters, Frank.
Studies of Shakespeare's Plays ... ... ... 1 6
Wendte, Chas. W.
The Carol. A collection of music ... ... ... 2 0
Wells, Kate Gannett.
Rights and Duties ... ... ... ... ... 0 8
Outlines and Charts... ... ... ... ... 1 6
Wicksteed, P. H., M.A.
Lessons on the. growth of Moral and Spiritual Ideas ... 0 4
Wilson, Alice E.
Devotions and Meditations ... Boards 6d. Cloth 0 9
Wilson, Mrs. E. C.
New Testament Parables ... 2/- ; Cards for ditto 1 0
Everyday Life, with pictures. 2 parts ... each 1 0
Wood, Sara.
The Gift of Life. Illustrated ... ... ... 1 6
Dwellers in our Gardens. Illustrated... ... ... 1 6
Wooding, W., B.A.
Selected Readings for School and Home ... ...10
Wright, J. J.
Little Asker, or Learning to Think ... ... ... 1 6
Merry, Merry Boys... ... ... ... ... 1 6
Play with your own Marbles... ... ... ... 1 6
Young, G. H.
Character Lessons ... ... ... ... 0 6

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