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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE
COLLEGE OF MISSIONS LIBRARY
at the
YALE DIVINITY SCHOOL

ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS

To the Memory of
JOHN DAVID McCLURE
Who taught me (amongst other lessons) to
use my Greek Testament

ST. MARK'S
Life of Jesus

THEODORE H. ROBINSON,
M.A. (Camb.), D.D. (Lond.)
University College, Cardiff
With Foreword by
Prof JAMES MOFFATT, D.D., D.Litt.
United Free Church College, Glasgow
Author of The New Testament : A New Translation, etc.

NEW ^SSJT YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

First published July, 1922
Second impression November, 1922

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY HEADLEY BROTHERS,
18, DEVONSHIRE STREET, E.C.2 ; AND ASHFORD, KENT.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
FOREWORD - - 7
I THE PREPARATION 9
Mark i. 1-16.
II THE GALILEAN MINISTRY - - 19
Mark i. 16-45.
Ill PHARISAIC HOSTILITY 35
Mark ii. 1 — iii. 6.
IV THE RESULTS OF PHARISAIC
HOSTILITY  50
Mark iii. 7 — iv. 41.
V THE QUEST OF PRIVACY 64
Mark v. 1 — viii. 26.
VI THE JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM 81
Mark viii. 27 — xi. 11.
VII JESUS IN JERUSALEM - - 98
Mark xi. 12 — xiii. 37.
VIII THE END— AND THE BEGINNING - 113
Mark xiv. 1 — xvi. 8.
Appendix. A NOTE ON MIRACLES - 131

FOREWORD
It is not the smallest merit of Dr. Robinson's little
book that his pages send us back to the Gospel of Mark
itself ; they are to be read with Mark's story of Jesus,
not instead of it. You may say that a gospel tells its
own story ; why add comment or explanation ? But,
although the plain words of the gospel are intelligible
enough, they need to be explained, for the writer could
take much for granted that we cannot supply, and those
who read his tale originally were familiar with a life
that has passed away. This gospel was written nearly
nineteen hundred years ago, in another language, and
for people of a very different environment to ours.
The end of a book like Dr. Robinson's is to put us as
far as possible in the same position as those to whom this
gospel first came.
" Objects, even as they are great, thereby
Do come within the range of humblest eyes " ;
and this gospel, though little in size, is one of the great
books of the world ; it is within the range of our
intelligence, but we need to be put in the proper focus
for seeing it. This, I think, Dr. Robinson has succeeded
in doing. He has done us the great service of supplying
our minds with the needful historical appreciation of
the period. The result is that the life of Jesus as Mark
describes it becomes more real for us, and so more
wonderful than ever. Such is the effect which Dr.
Robinson's pages produce, and we cannot be too grateful
to him for using his scholarship in order to show us how
to look back and also to look up to the great Object of
St. Mark's gospel.
James Moffatt.

Chapter I
THE PREPARATION (Mark i. 1-16)
Jesus is the centre of the religious history of the
human race. He is the supreme revelation of God
to man. There have been other great teachers, who
have told men of God, and helped them to draw near
to Him. But Jesus is different from all the rest.
Where the others have had a partial revelation (and
sometimes a very partial one) to give, Jesus has given
us all of God. It may be true that there is still much
to learn, — that may be more than admitted ; it may
be claimed. The revelation of God did not cease with
the first Christian generation. It has been continuous,
and to-day we ought to know more of God than any
age has done since Jesus left the world. But there is
now a difference. There can be no fuller revelation
than Jesus ; there is a constantly developing revelation
of Jesus. What more of God we may know than our
fathers did, we may know of and in and through Jesus
Himself. He is the ultimate message of God to
humanity. But this does not mean that Jesus came into
the world without preparation. He was no lightning
flash suddenly leaping from the darkness and sweeping
across the sky. There was historically in Israel (and
we may well believe, in other peoples too, for all
religions find in Him the perfect form of whatever
truth they possess) a twilight and a dawn before the
sunrise. That is the meaning of the Old Testament,
and that is the reason why it rightly forms part of our
Bible. It is the story of the way in which Israel was

10 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
gradually brought to the point when the revelation
in Jesus would have a meaning as it could have a
meaning nowhere else.
This becomes obvious when we consider the funda
mental assumptions of the life and teaching of Jesus.
There were certain things which Jesus never insisted
upon, not because they were not true, but because
nobody about Him doubted them. Whilst there was
very much in which He was at variance with the
religious teachers of His day, in these things He was
at one with them. There was no argument about
them, and there is no record of Jesus having preached
about them. He simply took them for granted. Two
points stand out in this connection. The first is the
doctrine that there is only one God — what we call
Monotheism. Jesus was born into a people and a
world which believed that there was only one God and
that there never had been and never would be more
than one. He never condemned polytheism or idolatry,
as His followers had to do after Him. His hearers,
enemies as well as friends, were as thoroughly mono
theistic in doctrine as He was Himself. This, at least,
He was able to assume. And, further, the Jew believed
that God was righteous, and that He demanded
righteousness of men. Jesus frequently was in conflict
with His contemporaries as to what real righteousness
was, but there was no question of the necessarily upright
and pure character of God. He sometimes had to tell
people that they were wrong in their views of the kind
of morality that God required ; he never had to rebuke
them for believing that God was immoral. There is
no record of His denouncing the more flagrant forms
of sinful act, though so much of His time was spent
with the publicans and sinners. Those that He
attacked were of a subtler kind, only possible where
men believe in the moral nature of God. This He was
able to assume.

THE PREPARATION n
We, too, assume these two things. We take it for
granted that there is only one God, and that He
is supremely righteous. These doctrines are woven
into the fabric of our theology by centuries of Christian
teaching. And we forget that when Jesus came into
the world, the Jew was the only person who held or who
ever had held these doctrines as a part of his religious
faith. Philosophers might agree, but philosophy was
not religion. On the contrary the philosopher often
despised religion because of its superstition and im
morality. His attitude was usually one of contemptuous
tolerance. We hear so much (and rightly) of the beauty
and truth of Greek thought that we are apt to forget
that this high standard of thought and conduct was
only for the few, and the great mass of mankind wallowed
in a degrading polytheism which in many cases was not
far above mere animism. And we need to remember
this if we are to understand why Jesus was a Jew.
This unique religious position of the Jew was the
result of a process which had lasted many centuries.
In early days Israel had stood no higher than her
neighbours in the scale of spiritual development
Like them she had believed in the existence of a number
of gods, though, again like them, she had recognised
that there was one " the Lord, the God of Israel " who
stood in a special relation to her. But the conquest
of Canaan had introduced her to a multitude of other
gods, who were known under the general name of
" Baals." Similar in character to the God whom Israel
had learnt to know at Sinai, they yet differed in being
gods of the agricultural life, and it was only natural
that Israel should, on entering this stage of civilisation,
tend to adopt gods who, presumably, had long been
concerned therewith. Even in the days of Hosea it
could be said that Israel did not know that it was her
own God who had given her her corn and her wine and
her oil.

ia ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
But in the main she seems to have learnt by bitter
experience in the days of the Judges, that her only hope
of existence lay in faithfulness to her own God.
Scattered and isolated as the tribes were amongst the
Canaanites, their only bond of union was their religion.
It was not an arbitrary vindictiveness which ordained
that as soon as they forsook their God and worshipped
the Baals, they fell under the power of some foreign
oppressor Alone each tribe was weak ; it was only
when they stood together that they were able to make
headway or even to hold their ground. Every judge
came to the rescue of his people in the name of the
national God, and it was this appeal alone which
gave them the strength they needed. So it came to
pass that by the time of David southern Israel, at least,
had learnt her lesson, and would not again turn to the
gods of the land.
But the first effects of this lesson were imperfect
Israel realised that she must worship her own God,
but she confounded Him with the Baals, ascribed to
Him their characteristics, and offered to Him the type
of worship proper to them. As is always the case with
the normally developing religion of an agricultural
people, such worship was almost entirely devoid of
moral content. There is only too much reason to believe
that early Israel believed that God might demand
human sacrifice of His people, and that religious im
morality was a recognised mode of worship. A further
lesson had to be laid on the heart of Israel.
This was the truth of the righteousness of God.
The idea is so familiar to us that it is very difficult to
realise that when Amos first propounded the doctrine,
it must have struck a large number of his hearers as
a monstrous and revolutionary innovation in religious
thinking. But as a matter of fact, the great majority
of the world's creeds have offered men gods who had
little or no ethical value. In ancient Greece or modern

THE PREPARATION 13
India there is hardly a vice or crime that does not find
some sort of regular religious sanction. And when
Jesus came into the world, Judaism was the only religion
(as distinct from philosophy) in existence which laid it
down clearly and emphatically that God is good, and
demands goodness from men.
This was the lesson that the prophets had to bring
home to Israel. From the time of Amos, possibly from
that of Elijah, that group of inspired men whose words
have come down to us in the prophetic literature of the
Old Testament steadily drove home this new message.
And as time went on, there was associated with it
another doctrine, which seems to have been a deduction
from the experience of the Exile, namely the truth
that there is only one God. It is only in such men
as the prophets of the period of the Exile or shortly
before it that we have th^. clear statement of this truth.
Israel did at last discover that there was only one God.
Her God was not merely different from His rivals in His
moral character ; He stood alone, for " All the gods of
the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens."
Thus when at the end of the sixth century B.C.
Israel begun to reconstruct her national life, she did
so as a Church with an absolutely unique faith.
Her experiences and sufferings during the next
three centuries and a half brought to the front and
developed an old doctrine, that of the coming
Messiah— the "Christ," closely bound up with the
belief in a great day of the Lord which should
see Israel free and triumphant, the mistress of the
world. At the same time there grew up what
many other nations had held before Israel, a doctrine
of the future lif e which made it possible for the righteous
at any rate, to look forward to a life of permanent
communion with God. Both doctrines seem to have
won their hold on Israel as a result of the successful
revolt of the Maccabbean princes. Time passed,

14 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
Israel's freedom slipped from her with the coming of
the Roman power into Asia, and again there arose
as in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, the passionate
longing for the Christ. All was ready for Him, and He
came. The welcome He received,, the fresh revelation of
God's purpose and the new conception of the Kingdom
of God are the theme of the " Gospel " of Mark.
All this spiritual pilgrimage is in a sense summed
up in John the Baptist. He it was who made the
immediate preparation for the Christ. Mark has but
little to say about him ; he receives far more attention
from the other evangelists. Mark does, however, tell
us two things. One is that he came preaching the
baptism of repentance to the remission of sins, and
the other is that he definitely regarded himself as the
predecessor of some one unspeakably greater than
himself. Baptism, with its inevitable symbolism of
cleansing, was a rite familiar to the Jews. It was one,
at least, of the forms prescribed on the admission of a
proselyte from the heathen world. That is to say, it
was a rite of initiation, and it would seem that in view
of the imminence of the Christ, John was preparing an
Israel within Israel which should receive, follow and
enthrone Him. Very striking is the stress laid on
moral purity. If a man had sins to confess, he must
confess them at his baptism. On the other hand, we
learn from Josephus that if men could honestly state
that they had no sins unconfessed, but were already
wholly dedicated to the service of God, John was willing
to receive and to baptise them. The main point was
secured, men had no longer sins on their conscience
which had not been confessed and " remitted." They
were fit for the coming of the Christ.
What John has to say of Him also is significant.
There will be points in which He will be like His
forerunner, but more in which He will differ from Him.
The newcomer will baptise, but His baptism will be

THE PREPARATION 15
of an entirely different kind. He will baptise with the
Holy Spirit. Here again is a conception which appears
to owe its origin to the prophets of early Israel. The
appearance of psychological phenomena which men do
not understand is, in the East, likely to be put down
to a " breathing." If a man falls into a condition
which he recognises as abnormal, and for which he
cannot account, he says that someone has " breathed "
upon him — generally someone who is more than human.
The earlier prophets, men of the type of King Saul,
used to exhibit strange behaviour, which they could
not even themselves explain on ordinary grounds,
and men readily grew to believe that the God of Israel
had " breathed " into them. So the condition was
attributed to this breath of God. Sometimes the
manifestations were good, sometimes obviously bad —
an instance of the latter is the evil spirit from the Lord
which troubled Saul, — but in ages when men did not
realise the moral character of God, this caused no
difficulty to their minds. As time went on, however, it
was felt that God could not be the source of such of
these manifestations as were clearly baneful, and men
began to think of them as being due to evil " breaths,"
personified at length into demons. Such " breaths "
were called " evil " or " unclean " spirits. But, on
the other hand, there still remained phenomena of this
kind on record which could only be ascribed in the last
resort to God Himself, and these were held to be
produced by a " Holy " breath or " Spirit."
The effect of the Spirit was to change the whole
character and being. Saul " became another man "
when the first access of this Spirit fell upon him. With
the enhanced and aggressive conception of the moral
holiness of God, it is clear that there will be some close
connection between baptism by water and baptism
by the Holy Spirit. But one is ritual, or at best
symbolic, the other is actual and permanent. In other

16 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
words, what John was doing was an evanescent picture
of the transcendent reality which the Christ was to
bring into the life of man.
And Jesus, too, came to be baptised. Yet His ex
perience was different from that of others — as far as our
records go. To Him there came a special manifestation.
He saw the sky torn open, and the Spirit, like a dove,
descending on Him, and . heard a voice from above
telling Him of His peculiar appointment. It has been
held, and with some reason, that this was the first
intimation that Jesus had of His purpose and mission.
This view accords with the whole presentation of Jesus
in this Gospel from the psychological point of view.
There were possibilities in Him which were unknown
even to Himself until this moment. It was only when
He recognised that He was possessed by the Spirit
that His real ministry could begin. Till that point He
had lived a life like that of other working men of His
day, though we may believe that His sinless character
involved a permanent and unbroken sense of communion
between Himself and His Father. Possibly it is only
here that He realised for the first time that the true
relationship between man and God is best described
as a filial one. There is, at any rate in this Gospel,
nothing to show that He assumed any theological
significance in the words that He heard.
But He had received the Spirit. And the first effect
of that experience was to drive Him out from the haunts
of men into the desert. The Evangelist uses a strong
word " flung Him out." An intense and overmastering
impulse, so strong as to be assignable to that new
dominant personality which had taken hold of Him —
this compelled Him to seek solitude. The mind of
Israel had always peopled the desert with strange
beings. There were not only the wild animals who
seldom came near inhabited spots, and had their homes
far away, there were also beings who were neither

THE PREPARATION 17
animal nor human. These alike dealt with Him, some
of them tempting Him, others supporting Him, though
the suggestion is that the latter were not proper denizens
of the desert, but special visitors.
Whatever may have been the detailed character
of the experiences of Jesus in the desert — and Mark
gives no description of them — the general purpose of
this seclusion is quite clear. There had been a
tremendous experience. There was a new vision of
life. Everything was disturbed, the whole spirit in
tumult and turmoil. The fresh life needed to be
assimilated, and a revised orientation was imperative.
There must be absence of interference, at any rate from
the normal surroundings of life. There must be the
winning of the new perspective. The vision must be
translated into ordinary life, and there must be a
steadying and recovery of balance. That which Jesus
came to do could not be done in the heat of ecstacy.
It required burning passion, but passion controlled by
will. And this calming of spirit could only be achieved
in such loneliness as that of the wilderness.
This process was spread over a period of six weeks
or so, and Jesus returned. Mark does not say that He
began to preach as soon as He came back. The point
at which He started is indicated as being after the
imprisonment of John. And it is worth noticing that
at first His message was practically identical with that
of His predecessor. It is a demand for repentance,
in view of what was still to come. This is significant,
because it illustrates a principle previously noted.
There is a natural sequence and an orderly development
in the revelation of God. Though the main message
of Jesus was to be so extraordinary and revolutionary,
yet it began with no startling novelty, but just where
John left off. The transition was perfectly smooth.
And yet it prepared the way for immeasurably greater
things to come.

18 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
Questions on Chapter I
i. Do you think it possible to understand the New Testament
without reference to the Old Testament ?
2. What do you think " Baptism by the Holy Spirit " meant ?
3. Other people confessed their sins when they were baptised.
Do you think Jesus had any sins to confess ? If not,
why was He baptised ?
4. In what ways do you think Jesus was tempted by Satan ?
Is Satan a real person, or only a personified symbol
of evil ?
5. Why do you think that Jesus refrained from preaching
till after the imprisonment of John ?
6. Do you think that other people were aware of what was
happening when the Holy Spirit came on Jesus ?

Chapter II
THE GALILEAN MINISTRY (Mark i. 16-45)
The Evangelist does not intend to give us a detailed
biography of Jesus. Even if he had been able to secure
the materials for such a work, the limits of space
imposed on him by the custom of the times would have
made such an attempt impossible. People always
confined their books to a definite length, and though
the Gospel of Mark does not quite attain to that length
it would have far surpassed it if a detailed biography
had been attempted. All that he has been able to do
is to give his readers a series of pictures, and though
in some parts of his work they are much more complete
— especially towards the end — than at others, these
pictures do not give us, and are not intended to give
us, the whole course of events. Nevertheless the
Gospel of Mark is one of the most successful pieces of
historical writing that we have. For the function of
the historian is less to chronicle the events themselves
than to show how they are related, and how one thing
followed after another. His work must, if it is to be
of the best kind, have a dramatic element or quality,
and must show the evolution of a particular idea or the
gradual achievement of a single purpose. In other
words, his record of facts (of course he cannot do without
the facts) must show a perspective in estimating the
importance of events for those which followed, and be
based on a philosophy of history.
Judged by this standard, the Gospel of Mark must
take a high place amongst the world's histories. Such
facts as there are have been selected with a view to the
19

20 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
illustration of great principles and movements. In
the main the writer's object is achieved by taking the
active ministry of Jesus (and this is all he sets himself
to write) and dividing it into periods. In each he gives
either the salient events, or else selects certain items
as illustrating the characteristic features of the whole.
Where the march of events is slow, this is the more
obvious ; where it is rapid, his narrative becomes
much fuller, inasmuch as these significant events crowd
more closely on one another.
So in the first period we have an illustration of the
kind of life that Jesus lived during the first months
of His public work. It will be noted that there are no
indications of time. We do not know from Mark how
long this portion of the ministry of Jesus lasted. It is
clear that some of the events described must have come
fairly early, when the powers that were afterwards so
manifest in Jesus were still unsuspected. And it is
also clear that all are intended to be typical, and that
all are dominated by a single idea, a single aspect of the
nature and work of Jesus.
That idea is authority. This one word may be used
to describe the whole section. It is manifested in
different ways, as it was brought to bear on different
kinds of objects and employed in different connections.
But it is the same thing throughout, in whatever be
its form — a concentration of overmastering personality.
This authority is first exhibited in the control which
Jesus exercised over men (i. 16-20). As He was walking
along the sea-shore, He saw certain people fishing.
It is possible that He had known them and had intimate
conversation with them on previous occasions. But
there is no statement to this effect in the narrative,
and we are left with at least the possibility that this
was the first time He had come into close personal
contact with them. Of course, as the successor of John,
He will have been well known to them and to others

THE GALILEAN MINISTRY 21
in Galilee. But up to this point He seems to have been
alone, except in so far as people may have followed Him
voluntarily. There was no attempt on His part to
gather a group of disciples about Him and it was not till
later that He set these and others apart for individual
treatment. It has been said that one of the characteristic words
of this Gospel is the word " immediately." Mark does,
as a matter of fact, use it some forty times — nearly half
the total number of its occurrences in the whole New
Testament. But it is always used- with intent, as can
be seen from the distribution of the word throughout
the book. A quarter of the occasions on which
he employs it are in this first chapter alone. And
it is used here to indicate the effect which the
command of Jesus produced on these two fishermen.
No doubt that effect is in part to be attributed
to the epigrammatic form which the command took.
The phrase " fishers of men " would at once appeal
to them, and they would feel that there was
to be some connection, which now they might not
be able to fathom, between their present lives and
that which was being offered them. The difference lay
in the character and quality of the game which they
were to pursue. It was to be more difficult, yet more
worth catching, and the appeal came home to them.
But there is surely more than this. Even granted that
they had known Jesus before, and that the form which
His invitation took appealed to them, there must have
been something in the circumstances beyond these
features. These were men — young, apparently, though
certainly one of them was married — who got their living
by catching fish. The fact that it was probably a poor
living does not alter the case. Most of the people with
whom Jesus dealt led what we should call a rather
precarious existence. It was not much, but it was all
they had, and they could not afford to lose it. Yet

22 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
they did lose it, or rather gave it away. There was a
compulsion in the personal force of Jesus that left them
no alternative. His authority dominated them.
So were called the first pair of the followers of Jesus.
Within a few minutes the number was doubled. The
same features characterised the call of James and John
as had marked that of Simon and Andrew. Perhaps
the command was more sudden and pressing in this
second case. But one point emerges here which was
not apparent in the first case. It would seem that
Zebedee was a little above the rank and standing of the
ordinary fisherman, whose only property was his boat
and his net. He and his sons did not work alone ;
they had paid men working under them. It is possibly
to suggest this higher grade that the " hired servants "
are mentioned. There may also be another reason.
One of the problems which have to be faced whenever
a call to a big sacrifice comes, is that of other people
who may be involved. A call to foreign missionary
work will serve as an illustration. In most cases it is
not the candidate for missionary service who stands
to lose most ; it is those who will be left behind.
It may fairly be assumed that Zebedee, who had two
adult sons, was already advanced in years, and "there
might have been injustice and even cruelty in leaving
him alone without that support for which an elderly
father may fairly look from his children. It is clear,
however, that as a matter of fact, he was not left help
less. He was in a position to afford paid help, and such
help was actually there. Though his sons might
surrender their livelihood, his was assured to him.
With them, then, the problem above mentioned did not
arise ; they had only themselves to consider. The
question does not appear to have arisen in the case of
Simon and Andrew. It is true that the one was married
but the East never thinks of the obligations of a husband
in quite the same light as those of a son.

THE GALILEAN MINISTRY 23
A Christian has been known in India to feel a " call "
to leave all and go about the county as a holy man
— practically a friar, and to have no compunction
about leaving his children. He commended them to
his European brethren (there were thirteen children),
and was conscious of no dereliction of duty. But he
would never have so left a Christian father or mother.
The cases of the father and the wife are not parallel
to the oriental mind. But Zebedee was in no serious
need, and, as to Simon and Andrew, the call of Jesus
came, backed by that irresistible authority which His
personality carried with it. They too left all and
followed Him.
The next five incidents are all assigned to one
period of twenty-four hours. This is typical of the
method of the Evangehst. One day is enough to give
a fair picture of the life of Jesus at this time, and one
day is all that is given. A sabbath day is chosen.
Perhaps the intention is to emphasise the activity of
Jesus and the constant strain upon Him. He is a
permanently busy person. If this were His Sabbath,
His day of rest, what must the other six days of the week
have been like ? One notices the recurrence of the
word " immediately." The events crowd thickly upon
one another ; there is no interval for repose or reflection.
No sooner is one piece of work accomplished than
another appears, and each is a case where there is need
which cannot be neglected.
This is less obvious than elsewhere in the first of the
paragraphs which deal with this day. Jesus goes into
the synagogue and teaches (i. 21-22). And immediately
the same characteristic which had appeared in His
dealings with men makes its appearance. He teaches
with authority. Yet the manifestation of authority
is different. It is not this time the right to command ;
it is the right to believe and to instruct. Matthew
places the remark about the authority displayed in the

24 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
teaching of Jesus at the end of the Sermon on the Mount
And this discourse forms the best of all possible com
mentaries on the verse. Especially in Matt. v. 19-37
there is a series of contrasts between the old teaching
and the new. These are lessons, each of which
begins by reference to what has been said long ago —
" thou shall not kill " and similar precepts. With
these Jesus compares His own doctrine. "Ye have
heard that it hath been said by them of old time ....
but / say unto you . . . ." Mark definitely contrasts
this with the teaching of the Scribes. Their method
is familiar to us from some of the Talmudic writings.
For every utterance of theirs they felt it necessary to
invoke some great name of the past, whose reputation
and importance would assure those who listened that
there was truth in what was said. But Jesus dared
to cast all this tradition on one side, and claimed to be
able to speak the truth without having to authenticate
it by reference to saint or sage of the past. The ex
pression of authority was in that " I." The teaching
of the Scribes was based on knowledge ; that of Jesus
on inspiration. They had the right to teach because
they knew the writings of men ; Jesus had . the
right to teach because He was possessed of the
Spirit of God.
There is no record in Mark of what the synagogue
addresses of Jesus were like. Luke has an account
of one of them, delivered in Nazareth, and there the
element of authority is particularly pronounced. And
whilst there is no reason to believe that at Capernaum
He delivered an exposition of Is. lxi. similar to that
ascribed to Him at Nazareth, it is clear that the same
element of certainty and the same quality of knowledge
were there. He had to teach man about God, and about
God's relation to man. He had no need to refer to
others for information or corroboration, for He knew
more of God than any man ever had known.

THE GALILEAN MINISTRY 25
The effect on the audience was electric. They were
amazed. They had never heard anything like this
before. A stir went through them, and there was a
sense of the unusual which permeated the whole
assembly. Their attention was first attracted, and then
developed into excitement. And there was one person
who was particularly effected. He was one of those
unfortunates, whom their contemporaries believed to
possessed with devils. This is no place to discuss
the actual character of demoniacal possession as it
appears in the Gospels and other documents of that
time. It is enough to remark that many of the
symptoms to-day would be ascribed to hysteria or
even epilepsy or some other recognised disease. But
at the same time it may be noted that the sufferer
himself believed that his body was inhabited by un
clean spirits, and this belief may in some measure have
affected the outward manifestations of the disease.
Further, both in India and China, phenomena have
been observed which are far closer to those described
under this heading than any familiar to western nations
which have a real Christian tradition behind them.
And it is significant that these too are ascribed to the
agency of evil spirits. As has been already noted,
anything quite abnormal in the behaviour of people
would be regarded as proving the presence of some
invisible personality. Where the effects were obviously
beneficial to the person affected or to those around,
it was said that the agent was a " holy spirit " identified
with the Breath of God Himself. But in other cases
the spirit was clearly " unclean," " unholy," " evil,"
and the influence of Persian demonology in the centuries
after the exile had led the Jews to join other nations
in filling the world with such unseen beings.
For this possession was in the ancient world only
too familiar a phenomenon. It was known to all
the nations of the period, and everywhere there

26 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
were attempts to meet it. It was a disease of the soul,
and just as there arose physicians whose business it
was to relieve men of the ills that troubled their bodies,
so there were many who claimed to have the power to
expel these troublers of the Spirit. They were known
as exorcists, and practised their art all over the ancient
world. Their method was almost always the same.
It was believed that control could be secured over the
evil spirit by the knowledge of some name, either the
name of one whom the spirit was bound to obey, or that
of the spirit himself. Consequently he who would cast
out an evil spirit set himself first of all to discover the
name of the intruder. They were supposed to be known
and listed, and the exorcist, in dealing with a patient,
would start repeating the names of those who were
familiar to him, until he reached the one who was
actually concerned. Then, with various- manifesta
tions, of terror or rage, the spirit would leave the sufferer.
When it was the name of a more powerful good agent
that was sought, a similar procedure was followed,
unless the practitioner had reason to believe that one
particular name was omnipotent — if it could be found*
Readers of the Acts of the Apostles will remember
the occasion on which certain Jewish exorcists, all
belonging to the same family, heard Paul casting out
evil spirits in the name of Jesus, and adjured the spirit
to come out of the man " in the name of Jesus whom
Paul preacheth " with ludicrous results.
Except at special moments, such people may be
assumed to have been normal. Probably the case
referred to in this chapter was not a bad one, for in
extreme instances the sufferer might be driven out
from human society. This man was not merely per
mitted to mingle with his fellows, but to be present
at the Sabbath synagogue services. But the sense of
something unusual taking place, the nervous tension
of the audience as a whole, the rustle, the whispering

THE GALILEAN MINISTRY 27
and the general excitement which reigned over the
whole synagogue aroused him to an outburst. The
man cried out in recognition of the presence of a holy
personality with a holy authority, as the fit came on
him. But Jesus rebuked him with strong words —
" Be muzzled ! Come out of him ! " A final out
break, accompanied with violent contortions and
writhings, such as were characteristic of this affection,
and the man was quiet and sane.
The people were impressed, and more than im
pressed. It was not the mere fact of the cure, for
these things were familiar enough to everyone. It was
the manner of it. There was no hunting through a list
of evil spirits — who the criminal was did not matter
to this Exorcist. There was no appeal to a higher
power whom the spirit must obey, whether he would
or no. Jesus simply laid His commands on the thing,
and it went. It was in His own person that He possessed
the necessary power. As in the case of His teaching,
though along different lines, He had exhibited a
dominant personahty. Once more He had shown His
independence of all others ; once more He had displayed
His authority.
In yet another sphere the same authority was
displayed on that day. This time it was exercised over
disease (i. 29-34). At the close of the synagogue service
Jesus, with the small company that he had now about
Him, went to the house of one of the new followers.
There was sickness. Simon's mother-in-law was suffer
ing from fever. Now in the East the senior woman is
the real head of the household and her absence was
necessarily something upon which comment was natural
if not inevitable. One is struck by the fact that, as
Mark tells the story, there is no hint of the family
asking Jesus to heal her. It is true that He had proved
His authority over the demoniac. Yet possession, to
the ancient mind, was not a disease at all, and there

28 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
was no reason why there should be any connection
between the power to exorcise and the power to heal.
It is Luke who substitutes the word " ask " for
" tell " in Mark's narrative, apparently feeling that the
character and powers of Jesus must have been well
known, and that it was expected that He would exercise
them on His patient. Of this there appears to be no
indication whatever in Mark.
We are left with the feeling that it was, from their
point of view, something of the nature of an accident
that they should have mentioned it at all. Quite
possibly the domestic arrangements were in some
disorder, for though domestic arrangements in the
households of the oriental peasantry are simple, they
are capable of derangement. If this be the case, the
remark about the hostess' illness will have had an
apologetic element, as if to say " we are sorry that
everything is not quite as it should be, but then the
mistress of the house is ill." Jesus, however, simply
took her hand and lifted her up. At once the fever
left her, and she busied herself with those duties which
her sickness had rendered for the time impossible.
It is there that the miraculous element in the cure
lies. Anyone who has suffered from malaria or influenza
knows that the period of convalescence is often more
trying than the disease itself. While the fever lasts,
though there may be pain, there is a certain strength.
There succeeds a lassitude, an irritability, a weakening
of mind and will which is equally distressing to the
convalescent and to those who are about him. Yet so
great was the strength that came through the grasp
of Jesus that this woman was able at once to perform
her ordinary tasks — never light in the case of an oriental
woman — and to wait on the family and their visitors.
Jesus had proved His authority over disease.
It was the Sabbath, and all labour was impossible
to devout Jews. But there was no law against rumour

THE GALILEAN MINISTRY 29
and gossip, and the news of what had happened spread
rapidly throughout Capernaum. And as soon as
sunset made it permissible for work to be resumed,
those who had sick friends and relatives brought the
sufferers to the house where Jesus was known to be.
The carrying of them was work in the technical sense,
and it was for this reason that the delay was inevitable.
The record of Mark is to the effect that the greater part
of the population of the city tried to get into the house,
bringing with them their sick. And he goes on to add
that Jesus did as a matter of fact heal a great many of
them. He does not say all.
Luke remarks that He laid His hands on every one
of them, and so healed them. Matthew definitely states
that He healed them all. But Mark, the common
source of both the other narratives, leaves it to be
inferred that there were some who were unable to secure
what they had come for. Nor is this to be wondered
at. All the sick in one of the largest cities of Palestine,
gathered towards the door of one fisherman's cottage,
choking the narrow streets for some distance round,
could hardly, even in the course of a whole night have
come one by one, been healed, and made their way out
of the crush to allow others to take their place. Apart
from any question of limitations on the side of Jesus,
the physical conditions impel us to believe in the
" many " rather than in the " all," and attribute the
latter statement to an incorrect deduction on the part
of the later Evangelists.
Not only the cure of the fever, but also the events
of the synagogue service were by this time familiar
to the people. Consequently the crowd who came
for treatment included not only men and women suffer
ing from a variety of forms of sickness, but also those
who were subject to demoniacal possession. There is
one significant note in Mark's record of their cure.
Jesus insisted on silence on their part. The evangelist

30 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
states that this was because they knew who He was.
Luke goes further and says that they knew He was the
Messiah — again an obvious deduction from Mark's
words. And this may well be the correct explanation.
He had a great deal to do in the way of teaching people
before He was ready to allow them to aim at setting
Him on the Jewish throne. In particular He had to
introduce an entirely new conception of the Messiah-
ship, and this could only be achieved in the long run
by personal contact. As a matter of fact, He never
did explain or get people to understand it during His
lifetime. Even those who knew Him best, and were
most convinced of His mission, failed to realise, what
manner of Messiah He was, till after He had been taken
from them. And a premature announcement of His
Messiahship might have produced a popular movement
in His favour which would have wrecked the real objects
with which He came. There is, then, some reason in
the statement given regarding His demand for silence
on the part of those who might recognise Him. On the
other hand we must never lose sight of the fact that we
have to distinguish between the events and the inter
pretation of them which was adopted by the evangelists.
It is very likely that in this instance they were right,
but at the same time our minds must be left open for
the possibility of other motives. It may, for instance,
have been advisable from His point of view to have as
little disturbance as possible. There were numerous
other cases to be dealt with, and excessive excitement
might make them harder. All the evidence goes to
show that healing people was not an easy task for Jesus,
and that every cure involved a spiritual and even a
physical strain, which could, doubtless, be minimised
by such precautions as these.
The last incident of this eventful twenty-four hours
is contained in i. 35-39. It serves to illustrate the
source of the authority of Jesus. In spite of the toil

THE GALILEAN MINISTRY 31
and strain of the previous day, He was up before dawn
and away to solitude. The time He had alone was spent
in prayer. There is no reason to doubt — there is
every reason to believe — that prayer was His normal
habit, and that it was from this practice that He derived
His strength. And special occasions demanded special
measures. As the physical frame is restored in rest
and sleep, the spiritual being of Jesus found its life in
communion with His Father. Prayer was His rest,
as it is the rest of all who are really in touch with God.
Worn by the effects of the last day, He needed spiritual
recuperation and peace. Situated as He was, solitude
was essential to real prayer, and solitude was only to
be attained by Him far from the dwellings of man.
Mark gives no hint of the nature of His prayer, nor of
the subjects which passed through His mind. Nor is
it necessary. Prayer to Jesus was essentially com
munion, immediate intercourse between Himself and
God. He was tired, exhausted, weary, so He prayed,
and in His prayer He found that rest and strength which
He needed for the continuance of His work.
This was clearly not understood by " Simon and
those that were with Him." To them it was incom
prehensible that Jesus should not have stayed to enjoy
His popularity, and, perhaps, to continue His beneficent
work of healing. They, therefore, followed Him,
apparently expecting Him to return with them to
Capernaum. He said nothing to them, as far as we
know, about the way in which He had been engaged
but explained that He had left Capernaum in order to
wander through the smaller places of Galilee and
preach. The treatment of this verse (i. 38) by Luke (iv. 43)
illustrates in a striking manner the way in which a
theological meaning was read and may still be read
into a phrase which originally has no such content.
The latter evangelist, who exhibits from time to time

32 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
traces of a Johannine Christology, saw a deep signi
ficance underlying the word " came out." To him it
suggested the whole fact and purpose of the Incarnation,
and he substituted for it the phrase " I was sent."
One need not deny the correctness of the theological
position involved in this change of language to feel
that here Mark is certainly right. The immediate
purpose which Jesus had in view was to preach. The
miracles of healing He had performed in Capernaum
rendered that an impossible place for Him, at any rate
for some time to come. He had these extraordinary
powers, and He was unable to resist the appeal of
suffering humanity. Consequently when an appeal of
this kind was made to Him, He yielded to it, but always
at the cost of His evangelical efficiency. Men did not
want to hear Him, they wanted to be cured and to see
Him cure others. We need not dwell on this point
just here ; we shall meet it again later in His life, when
the situation had become more critical. But even
here it is at work, and the conflict between the healing
and the preaching sides of His ministry was already
apparent to Him, if not to others.
This, as well as His indwelling authority, received
further illustration on this tour (i. 40-45) At some
point not exactly specified He was met by a leper,
who pleaded with Him for healing. Leprosy was not
an ordinary disease. It was practically incurable.
It carried with it a taint which cut the sufferer off from
all intercourse with his fellows. In itself it is a
ghastly and horrible thing, as everjone who has even
seen a leper will admit. But these additional features
combined to render it the most terrible physical
calamity known to the ancient world. The very touch
of the leper was pollution. In what Jesus had already
done there was no ground for this man to believe that
Jesus either could or would heal him. Yet he seems
to have realised that there were no material bounds to

THE GALILEAN MINISTRY 33
the authority and the powers that were expressed in this
unique and dominant personality. And Jesus healed
him, and in healing him, incurred what to the mind
of His day seemed to be the risk of infection. And
certainly He exposed Himself to ceremonial pollution.
This may partly have been the reason why He imposed
silence on the man, but it is not the whole reason. That
is clear from two points in the narrative, the treatment
which Jesus gave the man and the sequel. As the
patient was cured, an overpowering emotion showed
itself in the face of Jesus. This was interpreted by
those who saw it as an intense and passionate anger
(it is a pity that the word is disguised in our English
version, but there seems to be no doubt about it). Of
course the interpretation may have been entirely wrong,
and it may have been some other form of spiritual strain
which produced the effect. Healing people always
cost Jesus something. But if the evangelist is right
thinking that Jesus was angry — and his view is borne
out by the next phrase " flung him out," — some explan
ation is required. The one that lies nearest to hand,
if we consider Mark alone, is that Jesus had healed
him almost against His will, knowing that this exercise
of what He always regarded as one of His subordinate,
powers would militate against the success of His real
purpose — to teach men about God and His kingdom.
Jesus had in Himself the ability both to heal and to
preach. But the conditions in which He was placed
made it impossible for Him to exercise both powers.
Not that the fault lay in Him, it lay in those about
Him. They compelled Him to choose, and He chose,
when He could, the greater and more important task.
And this man, by His irresistible demand for help, had
broken into that other task. There was one chance.
If He could be got to go away quietly — right away to
Jerusalem — no one would know, and He would be able
to continue. So the man was sent there. But he

34 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
did not go. A great and wonderful thing had happened
to him, and his instinct was to tell everyone about it
and to enhance the fame and glory of Jesus. It need
not be remarked that this, from the point of view of
Jesus, was the worst thing he could have done. Once
more, as in Capernaum so in the country, His reputation
as a miraculous healer spread, and the crowds who
gathered made effective evangelisation impossible.
Jesus had to withdraw to desert places, where the sick
could not reach Him, and even there people came to
Him in numbers.
Two things have thus emerged from the account of
the early work of Jesus in this chapter. Though it
has come to us in " samples," we can see that
His busy lif e was already affected by the conflict between
the material and the spiritual, between what people
wanted and what He desired to give them. This,
however, is less prominent than the other feature of
His life in these days — that all-powerful authority which
characterised His work. It appears in His teaching,
in His exorcism, and in His healing, both of the
ordinary forms of sickness and of that most terrrible
of all diseases, leprosy.
Questions on Chapter II
i. Do you believe in the existence of demons ? If not, how
do you account for the so-called demoniacal possession ?
2. How far is a man or woman justified in disregarding family
ties in order to take up Christian work, say on the
Mission Field ?
3. If the healing powers of Jesus were a hindrance to Him,
why did He have them ?
4. Do you believe in Medical Missions ?
5. How far is a mere man justified in speaking and acting
with " authority " ?

Chapter III
PHARISAIC HOSTILITY (Mark ii. i— iii. 6)
The last verse of this section is, from the historical
point of view, one of the most amazing in the Gospels.
It tells of how the Pharisees went and took counsel
with the Herodians against Jesus as to how they might
destroy Him. The combination of parties is one which
would have appealed to their contemporaries as almost
impossible. The Pharisees, as a party, had arisen in
the troubled times of the middle of the second century
B.C. It was their ancestors who had suffered and
fought for the faith of their fathers at a time when the
whole power of the Graco-Syrian empire was being
employed for its destruction. They were firm believers,
not only in the Law, but in the traditional interpreta
tions of it. They were intensely patriotic, and were
never content with a foreign yoke. They clung to a
system of righteousness and moral purity which was
in the strongest contrast to the average standards of
their contemporaries, at any rate outside Israel. They
believed in the Resurrection of the dead, and above
all they longed for the coming of the Messiah who should
restore the Kingdom again to Israel. Yet, when the
Messiah came, they took counsel with the Herodians
as to how they might destroy Him.
The Herodians were all that the Pharisees were not,
and stood for all that was most opposed to the Pharisee
ideal. Whether those mentioned here were simply
members of a political party, or whether they were the
officials of Herod's court is immaterial from the present
point of view. They were pledged to the upholding
35

36 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
of a dynasty not merely foreign but Edomite.* It
was maintained by the authority and the arms of
Rome, and the Herodian court was a miniature picture
of the imperial one, in its moral character as well as
in its external appearance. With the politics, the ethics
and the theology of the Pharisee the Herodian had not
the slightest sympathy, yet it was to the Herodians
that the Pharisees turned in order to destroy Jesus.
Such an appeal requires an explanation, and can only
be explained on the ground of the bitterest hostility.
One can gauge the hatred of the Pharisees to Jesus —
who was more at one with them than with any other
party in the Jewish state — by the fact that they were
ready to ally themselves with their deadliest opponents
in order to get Him put out of the way.
The passage for study in connection with this chapter
is the answer to the question " Why did the Pharisees
hate Jesus so ? " It is Mark's record of a series of five
incidents, not necessarily closely connected in point of
time, but illustrating the origin and growth of the feeling
which had so profound an effect on the conditions of
the work of Jesus. Each of these events has an extra
ordinary interest of its own, and there is much to be
learnt from every one. But for our present purpose
it is necessary that we should concentrate as far as
possible on the features which explain the anger of the
religious leaders of the people.
The first of these incidents (i. 1-12) is the cure of a
paralysed person, who was brought to Jesus under
unusual circumstances. The story is too familiar to
need repetition, and numerous and valuable lessons as
to the Divine methods in dealing with men have been
drawn from it. But for our present purpose, the
* Edom had helped the Chaldeans to destroy Jerusalem in B.C
586. Their action was never forgotten, and the feeling of the Jew
for the Edomite may be illustrated from wiftings like the Book of
Obadiah.

PHARISAIC HOSTILITY 37
important element in the narrative is contained in the
remarks made by Jesus to the sufferer, and their
reception by the Scribes who were present. The first
words of Jesus may be held to be a statement of fact
— " thy sins have been forgiven." But when the state
ment was challenged, Jesus accepted the position, and
definitely claimed, in His human capacity, to have
the right to forgive sins. This, in the eyes of the
Scribes, laid Him open to a charge of blasphemy, and
possibly, assuming the traditional point of view, the
charge could have been sustained.
Blasphemy is a question of words. If the idea
lying behind the charge be analysed, it will be seen
that in its simplest form the principle which Jesus
assumed, can not merely be justified as harmless, but
maintained as necessary. The claim of the tradition
alists in language was that forgiveness is a divine
attribute. The claim of Jesus was that it is also a
human one. (This seems to be the import of the phrase
" Son of Man " as here applied by Jesus to Himself.)
True, it might be held that man can only forgive injuries
done to himself, but, on the other hand, is not every
sin in the last resort a crime against the human com
munity as well as against God ? But the question at
issue was not merely one of ideas, it was essentially
one of words. Jesus had used — and insisted on using —
language which was a violation of the rules of speech
as recognised by the normal piety of the day.
This is a fresh example of the exercise of authority
of Jesus. As long as it was applied to such harmless
purposes (from the traditionalists' point of view) as
casting out devils and healing lepers, there was no
objection to it. But, in direct conflict with established
tradition, it was another matter. For the attitude of
Jesus was a direct claim to the authority to control,
and, if He saw fit, to supersede the recognise conventions
of language. Such a claim could not possibly be

38 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
conceded, without the surrender of the privileged
position of the Scribes, for they, of all the Pharisaic
party, were the guardians of the forms of speech.
Jesus' words, to put the case mildly, shocked them.
Even had the Scribes been disposed to consider
the possibility of Jesus being the Messiah, there were now
clearly doubts in their minds. And these doubts were
deepened into suspicion or something stronger by the
next incident in the Gospel story (ii. 13-17). Again the
narrative is very familiar, and again there is much
interest and importance from other points of view that
must be passsed over in such a study as this. The
essence of the story in its historical bearing is the meal
to which Jesus was invited, and the effect which it
produced on the religious leaders of the people. There
were members of the despised classes of publicans and
sinners there, and in spite of that fact, Jesus did not
hesitate to share the meal.
In order to appreciate the feeling of the Scribes,
it is necessary to recall the oriental point of view on such
matters. To us who live in the West, it is a matter
of minor importance as to who sits with us at the table.
In railway trains, hotels and eating houses we may meet
with all the classes of people, and they may find them
selves next to us. If a man does not understand the
normal use of the implements we may be amused or
object, and his conduct may in other ways arouse our
dissatisfaction, but we should not be likely to refuse to
share a table with him on the ground that he belonged
to a class to whom we were opposed on political, religious
or even moral grounds.
But this is not the case in the East. There — and
this is not a matter of one country or of one people, but,
seems to be general over a great part of Asia — the
common meal is the closest bond of association which
exists. The most extreme example is perhaps the
caste regulation of food as one sees it in India to-day.

PHARISAIC HOSTILITY 39
It may be true that in certain educated circles the rigour
of these rules is gradually relaxing, but the fact remains
that they have a very strong hold on the great mass
of the people. A Brahmin gardener, for instance,
fell sick of dysentery. There was a hospital in the
town, with a European doctor in charge, and he went
there for treatment. The doctor prescribed and the
medicine was prepared. The compounder was a
Brahmin himself, but the old gardener was not sure
on the point, and was determined to take no risks,
so he refused to drink his medicine. He became rapidly
worse, and it was clear that nothing but the medicine
would save his life. He was told that the compounder,
the only person who had handled his medicine, was a
man of the highest caste, from whose hand anybody
might take food or drink without pollution, but still
declined to believe it. He realised his own danger,
but felt that his caste purity was of more value than
his life, and he died rather than endanger it. And even
a comparatively enlightened Hindu, who would not
enquire too closely as to the source of his food, might
be unwilling to eat at the same table as one of lower
spiritual rank than himself, at any rate in public. A
similar importance attaches to the common meal
amongst the Arab&r and the attitude of even the
Bedawin to one who has eaten with them is familiar.
It would be well if we could bear in mind this aspect
of the common meal, when we meet at the communion
service, and remember that not only is it a rite which
helps us to get into closer relations with God, but should
be also a strengthening of our human Christian fellow
ship. With this oriental attitude towards the common
meal in mind, we can understand something of the
feeling with which the Pharisees and the Scribes saw
Jesus eat with publicans and sinners. Let there be
no doubt about the matter, the Pharisee was a far

40 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
more respectable person than the publican. We might
well think twice before we introduced the latter into
our homes ; whatever we felt about the frankness or
otherwise of the former, he would at least have violated
no law of propriety or of ordinary morality. If
Jesus had confined Himself to being about with
these disreputable people or with preaching to
them, the Pharisees might possibly have accorded
a mild approval to His action — He would have been
a useful missionary. Their feelings might not even
have been deeply concerned if He had been content
to share a roof with them. But He did more than
this. He actually ate with them, and by so doing
identified Himself with them in the closest manner in
which it was possible for Him to do so. To realise
their horror, one would have to imagine that of a
seventeenth century Puritan on hearing that one who
claimed to be a leader in religious things had identified
himself with the cause of an actress of doubtful reputa
tion. There was a claim involved in the conduct of Jesus
which the Pharisees almost certainly failed to appreciate.
That was the claim to so transcendent a purity of
character that He was incapable of pollution even by
contact with the foulest. His goodness was very far
from being of that negative type which abstains from
wrongdoing, it was of that blazing aggressive kind which
attacks all forms of evil and overcomes them by sheer
weight of the moral personality Which embodies it.
This Jesus realised about Himself. His declaration
that He had come to seek and to save that which was
lost, implies it. Jesus never put light for darkness or
darkness for light. He never suggested that the
publican and the sinner were living the right kind of
lives. He implicitly condemned them — or rather their
conduct — though, as far as we know He never
" preached " to or at them. He realised that they

PHARISAIC HOSTILITY 41
were lost, and said so, but that very fact involved an
appeal to Him. He called them to Him because they
needed Him.! They may not have been conscious of
their need, but He was. And with these people He had
a chance. Whatever else they were, they were real.
Human nature, raw and red, but Jesus could deal with
human nature at its worst, provided only it were genuine.
With the hollow, empty mask of the man to whom
conduct was everything, the man who walked through
life as a masquerade, with such men as the Pharisees,
Jesus could do nothing. They gave Him no material
on which to work.
The implicit claim of Jesus, then, was to this militant
purity. But it was not that which appealed to His
opponents the most. There was another, and one
which to them was more obvious. Social convention
said that these people with whom Jesus identified
Himself, were unfit for polite and pious society. Jesus
chose their company. That involved a claim to control,
and, if He thought fit, to supersede all the social con
ventions of the people who felt that the true faith was
with them. Doubt as to Jesus had passed into
suspicion — and beyond it info condemnation.
This attitude was strengthened by the position
Jesus adopted on the question of fasting (ii. 18-22).
Here again it is necessary to see the facts through
oriental eyes. To us in the West, fasting, the mere
abstention from food, has comparatively little spiritual
value. On the contrary, its principal effect on many
of us is to produce a state of mind which it would be
charitable to call irritability and not untruthful to call
bad temper. Experience has shown us that to our
temperament (and it is a matter of temperament and
not of climate ; the occidental finds fasting more
dangerous spiritually in the East and in the tropics
than in his own home) the practice is very far from being
an elevating one. But that is not true of the East.

42 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
To this day, in the great religions of the East it is true
that to abstain from food does help a man to rise from
the circle of material things and to concentrate on the
spiritual. It is a practice which is almost universal
in the East, amongst all forms of faith, though the great
Moslem fast of the month Ramadan is its most obvious
example. And the wide spread of the practice points
to experience of its value. It is throughout the East
one of the regular ways in which man draws near to
God. It is one of the recognised " means of grace."
Jesus was challenged because His disciples, in His
company (and doubtless on His example) did not observe
this practice. His reply was " Can the children of
the bridechamber fast while the bridegroom is with
them ? " Beneath the imagery which has many minor
lights glancing through it, there lies the broad truth
that as long as Jesus Himself was with them, the
disciples did not need to fast because all that could be
done for them by fasting was done by His presence
and society. In other words, Jesus said in effect,
" You condemn these men because they are neglecting
the recognised means whereby man may get into touch
with God. But they do not need these means. I am
with them, and as long as they have Me they require
no other medium between themselves and Him."
Such an attitude could not fail to arouse hostility.
It is as if someone, posing as a great religious leader,
were to come to us to-day and say, " You do not need
any Christian services. You do not need prayer-
meetings. You do not need to read your Bible. You
do not even need to pray. All you need to do is to be
with me, and with me you will find your way to the
presence of God with clear light and unfaltering foot
step." Such a claim would appeal to us as dictated by
supreme arrogance or else by supreme insight. In the
state of mind to which the other incidents had reduced
the Pharisees, the latter position was impossible. They

PHARISAIC HOSTILITY 43
could not regard Him as a person supremely in the
secrets of God. The result was that they were com
pelled to take the other view, and to see in Him one who
made claims that no human being could possibly
substantiate. In His own person He claimed the right
to control, and, if He saw fit, to supersede the recognised
means of grace.
The evangelist adds two short sayings of Jesus
which may have been uttered at this point or may have
been amongst those familiar floating remarks of His
which the book-compilers used and inserted when and
where they thought them most suitable. But even if
the latter is the case, they bear in most illuminating
fashion on this claim that was made by Jesus. One is
that which is concerned with the new piece of cloth used
to patch up an old garment, the other the metaphor
of the old bottle bursting under the fermenting strain
of the new wine. The point of both is the same. Any
attempt to put a new spirit into an old institution will
lead to disaster. What Jesus came into the world to
bring was entirely fresh. The message that He had to
deliver was such as man had never heard before. The
revelation of God that He had to disclose was absolutely
unique. It could not by any possibility be used in
connection with the old forms and the old rites. Any
attempt to combine the two would end in calamity.
To try to reach God as Jesus declared Him through
the means of grace that had suited bygone ages could
only mean in the end the tearing and the bursting of
those forms. If His . faith were to find a suitable
receptacle, it must be one especially made for it. His
spirit could not clothe itself in a second-hand religion —
one that had been used for another creed. The
traditional ritual of a dying faith would perish utterly
if He were to attempt to force the life of His Gospel
into it. This new living thing must create its own
body for its dwelling place, a body which could expand

44 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
and grow to meet the needs of the powers growing and
expanding within it. In the meantime, those who were
sharing in that life had Him, and they needed nothing
else. He was the new bottle for them.
In dealing with language, social convention and the
recognised means of grace, Jesus had been upon the
outskirts of the Jewish faith. In the last two incidents,
that of the disciples plucking the ears of corn (ii. 23-28)
and that of the cure of the man with the withered
hand (iii. 1-5) Jesus struck at no external or accidental
feature of Jewish religion and practice, but at the very
centre of Judaism, the Law itself. Nor was it a minor
point or detail, it was no less than an item in the
Decalogue over which the battle took place.
In the first case the collision was accidental — at
least from the point of view of Jesus. His disciples
plucked the ears of corn as they walked through the
fields on the Sabbath, and, rubbing the ears between
their hands to get rid of the husks, satisfied their hunger.
It has been pointed out again and again that this did
not involve the crime of stealing. On any other day
their action would have been quite legitimate. But it
was the Sabbath. Their plucking of the corn was a
kind of reaping. Their rubbing of it was a kind of
threshing. Their blowing away of the chaff was a kind
of winnowing. Reaping, threshing and winnowing
were all of them work, and as such could not be done
on the Sabbath day. And this was one of the laws that
might not be broken. In the early days of the
Maccabean revolt the Jews had allowed themselves to
be slaughtered without resistance rather than defend
themselves on the Sabbath, and though the grim logic
of events had compelled them to revise their view on
this particular point, they could never forget the men
who had died rather than surrender their ¦ loyalty to
the strict letter of the law. Consequently mere cold
letterpress is utterly inadequate to represent the screams

PHARISAIC HOSTILITY 45
of horror and rage with which the Pharisees greeted
the action of the disciples. " Look what they are
doing ! " " On the Sabbath ! ! " " Unlawful III"
And the answer of Jesus is just as cool and humorous as
the charge is furious and hysterical — " Have you never
read what David and his companions did in extreme
need and hunger ? Why they even ate the Shew-
bread I That is a thing which was unlawful, if you like
— except, of course, for the priests." It is indeed
difficult to reconcile much of David's conduct with the
letter of the law I He, a man after God's own heart,
had dared to violate the sanctity of the holy shrine and
its bread, because of the greatness of his need. Could
not some allowance be made for lesser men in like
case ? This was an argument addressed to the peculiar
position and faith of the Pharisee, for his ideal Messiah
was another David. But Jesus did not stop there ;
He went on to base His position on broader and more
general lines. His outlook was a universal one. He
had to think of the needs of all humanity: So whilst
He did not disdain an " argumentum ad hominem,"
He at once gave also the deeper reason why the Law
in this and similar instances might be broken. " The
Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the
Sabbath, so that the Son of Man is Lord even of the
Sabbath." This law, then, to His mind, was one intended to meet
the needs of humanity. It would be possible to dwell
at some length on the advantages, physical, moral and
spiritual, of the institution of the one day's rest in seven.
It was not peculiar to the Jews, and, perhaps, did not
originate with them, for the Babylonians, centuries
before the Exodus, observed a similar lunar festival.
But Jesus was not concerned with antiquarian or
comparative research into the origin of the festival.
As elsewhere in all non-essentials, He accepted the
position of His contemporaries in His own people and

46 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
faith, and assumed that the Sabbath law was an illustra
tion of the divine benevolence. If, so far from meeting
the needs of humanity, it militated against their satis
faction its true purpose could be better fulfilled by
disobeying it than by observing it. Above all, He, in
His capacity as representative of all humanity — the
" proper man " — had the right to decide when and under
what conditions its observance would be harmful.
At the same time, looking on the matter from their
own standpoint, the Pharisees were right. The action
of the disciples was a breach of the law. And in that
action Jesus was prepared to aid and abet them.
For, as they well saw, His words involved a claim
far wider than any He had yet put forward. It was a
claim to control, and if need be to supersede the very
essence and centre of their thinking about God. It
was their whole theology that was at stake. They
looked for a Messiah who should establish the Law as
the dominant influence in all human affairs, and here
was this man — not yet recognised as the Messiah, it
is true, but still exercising an enormous influence over
people, who was prepared to throw the whole thing over,
and substitute His own interpretation of human need
for the authority of a divine ordinance.
Here the conflict might be described as accidental.
It was none of Jesus' seeking. In the case of the man
with the withered hand the subject of difference was
the same, and the claim of Jesus was the same, but the
incident sprang out of a deliberate challenge on the part
of Jesus. That is clear from the character of the trouble which
Jesus had to cure. It was not a case of a sudden
emergency. Under those circumstances allowance
would be made even by the more rigid of the Puritan
party. Acute disease might be treated on the Sabbath,
and so might injury resulting from accident. But here
the case is different. A sufferer from a chronic disease,

PHARISAIC HOSTILITY 47
even in so large a place as Capernaum (and it is by no
means clear that this incident took place in Capernaum)
could without difficulty have found Jesus. Or, if He
had noted the case and made up His mind to cure it,
He Himself could have sought out the patient at any
time. There was no hurry. If follows then that Jesus
deliberately used this opportunity of bringing up a test
case, in which the issue between Himself and the
legalists could fairly be joined. And it is worthy of
note that He took exactly the same ground as in the
last instance — the prior claim of human need over
against ritual demands.
The form in which the question is put by Him is
significant. He states the issue as a decisive one. One
must either do good or evil. One must either save life
or kill. There is no middle course possible. To refrain
from doing a possible good is to do positive harm. To
hold aloof when there is an opportunity of service is
to inflict an actual injury. It was characteristic of
Jesus that He saw the alternatives of life in this clear-
cut fashion. To Him there were no border line cases.
Compromise was entirely foreign alike to His nature
and to His teaching. To us, weighing carefully all
possibilities and considerations, it frequently, nay,
usually, seems that the margin of probability on the
side of right is but a narrow one. Jesus saw life through
a microscope, and the enlargement — which some would
call exaggeration — gave Him the clear certainty as to
which was the side of God and which the side of wrong.
He weighed conflicting pros and cons not less accurately
but more accurately than most of us, for His soul was
nearer to God than ours often is, and He used a more
delicately sensitive balance. To Him, with His sharp
and emphatic moral vision, everything was either right
or wrong, and with Him there was no hesitancy when
once the main question was decided. As with Socrates,
so with Jesus, to know the right was to do it. To'watch

48 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
a man drown was to drown him ; Jesus, at all costs,
would take the plunge which should save him.
Here then was the issue as Jesus saw it. A sufferer
was before him. He had the power to heal. It did not
matter that the case was one which might be treated
equally well on the following day ; the demand was
for immediate action. Situated as He was, Jesus
might relieve pain or He might refrain. To refrain
would be to give pain, and to give needless pain. There
was only one course open to Him. The Sabbath was
made for man, and it would be more truly kept by
ministering to human need on the spot than by observ
ing the mere letter of the Law. This was what was
involved in the question that He put.
The reply, silence, was not unexpected by Him,
and yet it gave Him the sting of anger. It was the
insensibility of their minds that affected Him. He
could see the ethical and spiritual issues so clearly,
and they could not ; they had not the sense. Their
fault was supremely a moral stupidity, and His appeal
to God-given common sense found no response in them.
And so without a further word He healed the man, and,
in so doing, sealed His own doom, at least with the
Pharisaic party. He had outraged their sense of the
propriety of language, He had broken through their
social conventions, He had discarded the traditional
means of grace, and now, not by accident, but in all
deliberate purpose, He had denied the absolute validity
of that law for which their fathers had fought and
suffered and died, that Law which was their supreme
glory and distinguishing mark of divine favour amongst
the nations of the world, that Law which was the centre
of all their thinking about God and of all their knowledge
of God. Everything was gone. It was too much, and
they went out to seek the co-operation of the
Herodians, their bitterest enemies, in the destruction
of one who should have fulfilled their highest ideals.

PHARISAIC HOSTILITY 49
Questions on Chapter III
1. Can men forgive sins, other than offences committed
against themselves ?
2. Is it possible safely to dispense with regular and organised
means of entering into communion with God ?
3. " The better day, the better deed." Is this true ?
4. In the light of the attitude of Jesus towards the Sabbath,
what should be our view of Sunday observance ?
5. Where were the Pharisees wrong in their attitude towards
Jesus ?
6. If Jesus were to come to-day in a form as unexpected
as that in which He actually appeared, and if He were
to make the same claims as He then did, would you
recognise Him ? If so, how do you think you would
know Him ?

Chapter IV
THE RESULTS OF PHARISAIC HOSTILITY
(Mark iii. 7 — iv. 41)
Whilst the attempt of the Pharisees to put Jesus out
of the way by means of the secular arm must necessarily
have demanded some time for its execution, its effects
on His plans and methods became apparent almost
immediately. His life was no longer safe. Though the
end might be delayed, it was now certain, and it was
only a question of time. That meant that Jesus had
only a limited period in which to accomplish the task
which He had set before Himself. How far He fore
saw the whole of the future development of His work,
it is not possible for us to say, and Mark gives us no hint.
The problem is rather one for the dogmatic theologian
than for the student whose aim is the understanding
of this particular book. One thing, however, is clear,
Mark writes as if he supposed Jesus to be limited in
His outlook on what lay in the future. It is true that
he depicts Jesus as from time to time telling His
disciples what would happen to Him, but as one reads
this record one feels that the prophecies of this kind
made by Jesus are due to foresight and conviction
rather than to foreknowledge, to a clear appreciation
of the facts and their meaning rather than to an accurate
and telescopic view of events still to come. An exception
may appear in the case of the prediction of His own
sufferings, but as the last scenes of the book show,
this was due to deliberate purpose on His part. For
so

RESULTS OF PHARISAIC HOSTILITY 51
the rest, if we had no other guide to the facts than this
Gospel, we should suppose that Jesus was unaware
of events till they actually came upon Him, and shaped
His plans as circumstances required.
Mark, however, often leaves things to be inferred
when he does not explicitly state them. We have here,
for instance no remark to the effect that Jesus was
aware of the step that had been taken by the Pharisees.
Luke, it is true (xiii. 31) tells of a warning, apparently
friendly, given by certain Pharisees to Jesus, to the
effect that Herod had made up his mind to kill him.
But of this incident there is no trace in Mark. Yet,
even from this narrative, it is clear that Jesus was aware
in some way of what had taken place, and was taking
measures to meet the new situation. No other ex
planation of His action in various directions seems to
be possible. Some of the events recorded in the next
few chapters might be accounted for on other grounds.
but not all, and there remain one or two features of the
events of the next period which, it would seem, are
necessarily due to a knowledge of the fact that His life
was in immediate danger from Herod and the party
that supported him.
But, whatever may have been the feeling of the
officials in Church and State, for the time being the
popularity of Jesus remained unabated. In fact
it rather increased. This was in large measure due
to the stories of His miraculous powers of healing
rather than to any real appreciation of His message.
His name was known throughout the whole country,
and Mark states that visitors came from every part
of Palestine to see Him and to be cured by Him. It
was believed that there was some miraculous virtue
residing in Him which was independent of His own
volition. That the belief was well founded is shown
by an incident reported by Mark at a later point, but
its immediate effects were far from being what Jesus

52 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
Himself would have desired. This miscellaneous crowd
so pressed and thronged Him, and was so importunate
with its demand for healing, that it was impossible for
Him to continue the work on which His heart was set.
Throughout the whole story, Jesus is represented as
torn between two conflicting appeals, that of His own
mind and purpose, and that which came to Him from
suffering humanity. He had the power to cure people
as no one else had ever done, and not unnaturally
men wanted to be cured and to see others cured. But
His main mission was something quite different. Whilst
He was competent to deal with men's bodies, His
principal business was with their minds and souls.
The relief of physical suffering was to Him a side issue.
He had to reveal God and to expound the purposes of
God. These were such as none before Him had ever
suspected. His whole view of the Kingdom of God
was in a very real sense diametrically opposed to that
which was current in His time. This new thing He had
to get into people's hearts and spirits. His wonderful
powers did not a little to authenticate His message in
the minds of those who heard Him, but at the same time
they tended to make them listen less carefully. In
some cases, no doubt, He found what He wanted, but
in the majority He could see quite clearly that the best
He had to give was not that which men most desired
from Him.
So the crowd had, in a sense, to be held at arm's
length. This Jesus secured with the aid of His fisher
man friends, who supplied a boat and took Him a little
way out from the shore. He was still within audible
distance of the people, but they could no longer touch
Him. They were now unable to distract Him and them
selves from what He was saying. They were prevented
from draining His strength by the act of healing, and
He was in a position to communicate to them what He
really had to say.

RESULTS OF PHARISAIC HOSTILITY 53
It is significant that we have in this part of the
Gospel little if any indication of the content of the teach
ing of Jesus. That would seem to correspond with the
facts of the case. It was not what He said that made
an impression on people at this time, it was what He
was. Whilst this Gospel contains less of the teaching
of Jesus than any other, the preponderance of events
over recorded utterances is far less later on. One feels
that the words He spoke in this and similar addresses
had comparatively little effect on their hearers. This,
as we shall see presently, was to a large extent the
feeling of Jesus Himself. Consequently the preaching
played a slight part in the development of the story.
Such remarks as are recorded in chapters i. and ii. are
of a conversational character, and could hardly be
included in the main body of His doctrine.
From the standpoint of the ordinary man, then,
the preaching of Jesus at this time was practically a
failure. The conditions were such as to make it almost
impossible for Him to achieve any greater success by
methods already followed. His fife was now in some
danger, and the whole situation demanded swift and
radical change. And at once Jesus entirely altered
the method of His work. In one respect (and that the
most important) He had succeeded ; there was a body
of men who were prepared to attach themselves wholly
to Him. They included the first four whose special
call was one of the earliest public acts of Jesus. He now
turned to them and to others likeminded with them,
and began to concentrate on their training.
The reasons for this are not far to seek. The
Pharisee-Herodian plot had brought the end of His
work within measurable distance. It was hopeless to
expect to get any true comprehension either of Him
self or of His message into the minds of a population
which was inclined to run miracle-mad. If there was
to be any permanent value to His life, there must be a

54 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
body of persons who really did understand Him, who
could take up His work and carry it on after He was
gone. They must have such teaching as could not
possibly be given in the midst of the crowd. They
must " be with Him " — that is the express reason for
their selection. They must also in some measure have
the power that He had. His authority in cases of
possession was to be vested in them, and, as the sequel
showed (though Mark does not mention it) they were
to have similar gifts of healing.
The character and qualities of the men selected
has frequently been a matter of comment. Of most
of them very little is known save through tradition.
Their names, with one or two exceptions, are seldom
mentioned in the Gospels again.
The writer of the Fourth Gospel, indeed, seems to
have set himself to introduce them all at least once
each into his narrative, though in one or two cases
there are those of the Twelve to whom he makes no
reference. There are four lists of the Twelve, and there
are variations even in these. Identification in such
cases is somewhat precarious, though it is natural that
some attempt should be made to find the same person
under different names. There is an occasional remark
which throws a little light on one and another. Simon
stands out on all occasions as the leader and represent
ative of the whole company. In the first Gospel (though
nowhere else in the New Testament) the Matthew of
the lists is identified with the Levi whose call had been
fraught with such important results. To three of them
Jesus gave " nicknames " — perhaps in humorous
comment or mild rebuke on features in their character
or conduct. And that is practically all that our Gospels
have to tell us about them, at least as individuals.
It is probable, indeed almost certain, that all twelve
were men of much the same social status. That is to say,
they were peasants. Four were certainly fishermen, the

RESULTS OF PHARISAIC HOSTILITY 55
only ones, apart from Levi, about whose occupation
doubt is impossible. The story proves that they were
not selected for any peculiar qualities of intellect, rank or
wealth. If anything, they were below the average of
intelligence, and clearly none of them had much to
boast of in the way of social standing or of money.
Yet Jesus chose them, and chose them deliberately.
It would seem that they had one supreme quality ;
they were all honest, straightforward men, simple but
true. And it is characteristic of Jesus that He should
have chosen such people. They were of the type
that anybody could be. Anything that could be done
with them, could be done with any other man — provided
only he were sincere. What Jesus saw in them was
humanity, and humanity was always His greatest
interest. A real man, no matter how poor or humble
or stupid, would do for Him. If He could succeed
with these, His ultimate triumph was assured. He
chose them, if we may venture to conjecture His motives,
because they were representative men.
The appointment of the Twelve, then, suggests
that Jesus was aware of the plots in existence against
His life, and was taking measures to secure the per
manence of His work. But others seem to have been
aware of it besides Himself. His own family must
have watched His progress and fortunes with interest
and anxiety. Clearly a hint of danger reached them,
and they made a determined effort to save Him.
Leaving Nazareth, they followed Him and found Him
in a house so full of visitors that whilst they could not
get in, it was equally impossible for Him to get away
from them. They made an attempt to get Him brought
out to them, alleging that He was perfectly harmless
from the political point of view. What was wrong
with Him, they said, was that He was not really sane.
This charge, serious though it may seem to us, and
grave though the doubts may be that it throws on their

56 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
understanding of Him, was intended to have a double
bearing. In the first place, if He were not sane, then
there was no danger to be apprehended from Him.
He would not make any real attempt to overthrow the
Herods and to expel the Romans from Palestine. But
there was another point of view. The madman in the
East is always regarded as being in some special relation
to God. So the family of Jesus, His mother and His
brothers, put forward this excuse and defence, at the
same time undertaking to carry Him home with them
[ and to keep Him under restraint.
. Those who had come from a distance to see and hear
Jesus were not all of them sympathetic. Enemies of
His were there, and though they had secured the support
and co-operation of the civil authorities, they were
anxious to discredit Jesus as much as possible with
the crowd. Even the Romans and the Herods usually
avoided a serious conflict with the mass of the people,
and while' Jesus was the most popular person in Galilee,
it was not likely that there would be an opportunity
of getting rid of Him. It probably seemed to the
Pharisees that the remark made by the family of Jesus
gave them an opportunity.
His methods in exorcism were abnormal, and the
suggestion that He was insane was easily turned into
|the further suspicion that He was Himself possessed.
This, they might urge, would explain both His original
mode of dealing with demoniac cases and the mental
disease which His own people acknowledged. So the
whisper was circulated that " He has a devil, and it is
because He is possessed by no less a fiend than the
prince of the devils that He has this authority ovei
them." It reached the ears of Jesus, and roused Him
to a reply. This was a double condemnation of His
opponents. In the first place their fault was an
intellectual one, in the second it was a moral one. As
He said, it was a most stupid charge to bring against

RESULTS OF PHARISAIC HOSTILITY 57
Him. If there was one thing that was clear, it was that
the Devil was not such a fool as the Pharisees made
him out to be. If he opposed himself, as they said he
did, he would certainly ruin himself. It was absurd
to suppose that he would be so silly. It could not
be a new diabolical triumph that so many men were
liberated from the chains of the devil. On the contrary,
the very fact that these evil spirits were so easily
overcome proved that the force of supreme goodness
was at work and was triumphing in the world. Spoil
cannot be recovered from a brigand chief till his strong
hold is taken and he himself rendered helpless. So
those who are under the dominion of the powers of
evil cannot be rescued from those powers till the
captors themselves are conquered and enchained. One
need not discuss the whole question of diabolical
possession or accept the terms in which these phenomena
were described by the contemporaries of Jesus (and
therefore by Himself) in order to appreciate the validity
of His argument.
No ; Jesus was clearly possessed by a Spirit, but
it was not an evil power, but the Holy Spirit. That
was clear from the facts. But they, seeing the work
of this Holy Spirit had attributed its work to an evil
spirit. This it was which called forth the second
condemnation of Jesus, the moral one. The " sin
against the Holy Ghost " has worried a great many
people, and various theories that have been held have
in some cases given rise to religious mania. A con
sideration of the circumstances under which Jesus
spoke of it, and a critical study of the Gospels would
have saved much of this. What Jesus meant by this
sin is quite clear. Those who were guilty of it had seen
something that could only have a good source, and
they were so blinded and drugged by their theological
preconceptions and their personal antagonisms that
they attributed this good thing to the powers of evil.

58 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
It was a determined confusion of moral issues, a
deliberate setting of darkness for light and light for
darkness. As long as people insist on not knowing the
difference between right and wrong, it is impossible
for them to come into touch with a God, who,
with all His personal characteristics is also the
ultimate moral goodness. They are indeed guilty of
an eternal sin.
At last the real message from the door reached Jesus,
and He was told that His family wished to see Him.
He seemed to have had no doubt as to their purpose
and it was one which, from His point of view, must be
defeated. The answer which He gave was in effect a
denial of the peculiar claims even of His own relatives
over against those of His work. He had left His home,
and had entered a new circle. In this new circle,
that of the Kingdom of God, ties of blood counted for
nothing. What did count was the common acceptance
of a certain purpose and rule of life — the doing of the
will of God. All who recognised in God's will the
supreme and decisive factor in all human consideration
belonged to this new community which Jesus came to
found, and its ties were no less close than those of actual
blood relationship. To the western Christian, brought
up in a family whose members frequently all profess
to accept this principle, such a statement means com
paratively little. The conflict between the two
societies is not commonly obvious. But to the convert
from Hinduism, cut off from all his old associations,
it is a vital reality to find himself in a new community
where he can meet others who share his outlook and
profession. In a sense practically unknown to us,
they are his mother and his brethren.
One of the most striking results of the hostility of
the Pharisees — with which, perhaps, the last incident
was connected — was the change in the method of
teaching adopted by Jesus. Whilst He, like every

RESULTS OF PHARISAIC HOSTILITY 59
other oriental teacher, had made use of metaphor and
simile, His public preaching seems always to have been
straightforward and intelligible to any who might be
listening. But this Would no longer do. There were
those about Him now who would be on the watch for
every word He uttered, in the hope that they might
find something which could be used as a handle against
Him. And at the same time it was necessary for Him
to continue giving instruction to His own disciples,
whether sufficient privacy could be secured or not.
And it usually could not. He must now adopt some
form of instruction which should be harmless and almost
meaningless to the casual or to the critical hearer, but
at the same time would convey a real and deep truth
to those whom He wished especially to instruct.
Accordingly Jesus abandoned the direct method and
took to the parabolic form (iv. 1-34). This served His
immediate purpose admirably. To those who sincerely
wished to follow up what He had to give, He was always
willing to explain what the precise meaning of His
parable was. And these thirty-four verses contain,
not so much a series of consecutive lessons of this type,
but rather a group of typical parables, serving to illus
trate the method which Jesus pursued during this
period. The significant statement is found in v. 34
that He never spoke to the crowd except in parables,
but that He explained everything to His disciples
when they were alone.
The parables themselves are worth studying one
by one. The first is one of the most significant, and
it has a certain pathos about it, which every reader
must feel (iv. 20-1). It is a record of what Jesus had
found as a result of His own teaching. Viewed in this
light, it is to some extent a confession of failure. Many
had heard Him speak, but few had really cared about
what He meant them to understand. Some had come
to Him and listened without the least impression being

60 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
made upon them. Others had accorded to Him a brief
enthusiasm, and had followed Him for a short time,
only to leave Him at the first sign of hostility on the
part of His enemies. Others had heard Him, but gone
away and found that His teaching was too good for the
world in which they lived. So they had turned back
to their old life and to their old occupations, and had
thought no more about it. To them the Kingdom of
God, as He expounded it, was a beautiful dream, fair
but Utopian, and in no way to be accommodated to
the affairs of practical life in whose midst they lived.
But there was another side to the matter. There were
some — not only the Twelve, but many others also —
who had found in this presentation of the Kingdom
of God all that their hearts had desired, who recognised
supreme goodness when it was set before them, and
in the years to come they would gather round tlie centre
of that Church which was to come into existence only
after His work was done.
There follow five verses (iv. 21-25) in which Jesus
is still speaking directly to His disciples, apparently,
as Mark tells His story, in continuation of His explan
ation of the parable first given. It is, of course, quite
possible that these sayings were preserved independ
ently, and inserted here by the Evangelist as being
suitable in this connection. The fact of the parables
itself would suggest that though their meaning might
for the time be obscure, yet a fuller revelation of their
purport would come. The saying which warns his
audience to use their intelligence as well as their ears
would also seem suitable to this occasion. So too
would that vaguer aphorism which implies in this
connection that the power to understand one of these
strange stories of Jesus might be indefinitely increased
by exercise. But though all might be held to have a
special bearing on the immediate circumstances, yet it
is equally true that all have a wider and more universal

RESULTS OF PHARISAIC HOSTILITY 61
application, and would possibly have suited many other
occasions in the life of Jesus.
Two other parables are given in this chapter, as
illustrating the character of the teaching of Jesus during
this period. Both are pictures of the methods by
which the Kingdom of God grows, and both are drawn
— as all the parables of Jesus were — from facts familiar
to His country audience. The first (iv. 26-29) speaks
of the silent and imperceptible growth and spread of
His teaching. It is interesting to find that neither
Matthew nor Luke saw fit to incorporate this one in
their work, unless the parable of the Tares (Matt.
xiii. 24-30, 36-50) be an " improved " version of it.
It suggests that whilst the success of the work of Jesus
was not obvious, yet He knew that there were forces
active in the spiritual world whose power could not
be estimated, and whose progress eluded observation.
But, nevertheless, they would sooner or later come to
full fruition, and the Kingdom of God would appear
when men least expected it.
The second of the two short parables is the well
known one of the Mustard Seed. It springs perhaps
out of the former one. Some readers have found a
special protective capacity indicated in the mention
of the birds that take shelter under its branches. This
is carrying the force of application too far. This feature
of the full grown plant is simply a further illustration
of the size to which it grows from so small a beginning.
The whole method of Jesus, then, has undergone a
complete change. He now will deal with a small body
of people instead of with the large crowds. Instead of
speaking publicly in direct terms of what He means
by the Kingdom of God, He will use parables. A third
effect is seen almost at once. Jesus withdraws Himself
as far as possible from the company of men, and takes
His immediate companions with Him. This was the
only means whereby His purpose with them could be

62 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
achieved. It was clear that the hostility of His enemies
would triumph sooner or later if He remained within
their reach. He must avoid them and escape from
them at least for a time. Till His disciples knew enough
to carry on the work that lay before them without His
bodily presence, He must be with them, and instil into
their minds and hearts as much of His principles as they
were capable of receiving. They must have a basis
on which to start, and as yet they were very far from
having that basis. It is true that the actual effect of
the Herodian influence does not reach its complete
development till later in the narrative, and that it
then produces a fresh modification in the course of
Jesus' life. But the hostility which underlay it was
already at work, and Jesus knew that His time was
short. But the need for the preservation of His own life
was far from being the only consideration with Jesus
at this time. Even though He had in a large measure
abandoned the attempt to win men in masses by public
preaching, they still thronged round Him, and still
demanded miracles of exorcism and healing. And the
need for quiet communion with His disciples was im
perative. They were not men with student habits of
close attention. It was difficult for Him to get them
to listen and to understand when there was little to
distract their minds. In the midst of the crowds and
the bustle which Mark has depicted as being always
around Jesus, it was practically impossible for Him
to give or for them to absorb that teaching which it
was so essential for them to receive. He must get
them away. They had to be trained in many ways,
and it was necessary that they, as well as their Master,
should be freed from the pressure of popularity.
The first attempt in this direction is described in
iv. 35-41. Utterly exhausted by His teaching and by
the general strain upon Him, He was taken by His

RESULTS OF PHARISAIC HOSTILITY 63
disciples in a boat on the sea, with the object of crossing
over to the south-eastern corner of the Sea of Galilee.
A violent storm swept down from the mountains round
the Lake, and He was awakened by His terrified
companions. They do not seem to have been making
any appeal to Him ; they simply could not understand
His placidity in the face of danger. The sequel amazed
them beyond measure. Once thoroughly awakened
He rebuked the elements, and a great calm immediately
followed. This was certainly not what they had
expected. And Jesus used the opportunity thus
presented to Him to offer them some teaching. They
should have had sufficient confidence in the general
Tightness of things not to be so terrified. They should
have realised that with Him in their midst no harm
could befal them. There was brought up against them
the strong contrast between fear and faith, the one a
loss of balance and sense, the other a reliance on some
power at least greater than themselves. They were
helpless, but what of that ?
The lesson, though verbally remembered, was for
the present lost on them. They were overwhelmed by
the miracle, and simply wondered. After all, they
were very like the multitude.
Questions on Chapter IV
1. Do you think that Jesus knew everything, past, present,
and future ? Or was His knowledge limited like that
of His contemporaries ?
2. On what principle do you think that Jesus chose His
disciples ?
3. What grounds had the mother and brothers of Jesus for
believing He was mad ? If they were not quite sure, were
they justified in trying to save Him on that pretext ?
4. Was it fair to the world at large that Jesus should offer
them His teaching in a form which He did not mean
them to understand ?
5. Is a man justified in modifying his plans of work because
his life may be in danger ?

Chapter V
THE QUEST OF PRIVACY
(Mark v. I — viii. 26)
The life of Jesus had thus reached the point at which
it was imperative that He should get His disciples to
Himself. But privacy was not so easily secured.
Jesus had these powers of exorcism and healing, and
He was constantly faced with terrible human heed.
This constituted an appeal which He could not resist.
Yet as surely as a single work of healing was performed,
so surely did it become impossible for Him to remain
where He was. Crowds gathered around, His oppor
tunity of dealing with the Twelve alone was lost, and
He had to go elsewhere to find another chance. And
so this section of His life is the record of a constant
struggle on His part. Always the attempt to get the
disciples to Himself, and always the counter demand
of men for healing. Towards the end this conflict
was complicated by the certainty of the efforts of Herod
to seize Him and put Him to death, but the main motif
of the whole is the repeated but unsuccessful attempt
to secure privacy.
This is apparent in the first event of the series —
the cure of the Gerasene demoniac (v. 1-20). It is the
direct continuation of the end of the last section.
The closing paragraph of chapter iv. describes Jesus
and His disciples setting out over the sea to find com
parative peace. They landed near a cemetery and at
once were met — note again Mark's insistence on the
absence of any interval for repose — by a demoniac.
64

THE QUEST OF PRIVACY 65
This was an extreme case of great violence and obstinacy.
Whilst there is no evidence to show that attempts had
been made to cure him by the ordinary methods of
exorcism, it is hardly likely that such means had been
left untried. Not only so, but whereas the ordinary
demoniac attacks seem to have been intermittent,
this man's case seems to have been chronic. All efforts
to control him by force had failed, and he had been
driven out from the homes of men. But the case was
not beyond the power of Jesus. It is to be noted that
He used a different method from His ordinary one,
Reference has already been made to the fact that the
normal exorcist endeavoured to find out the name of
the spirit. Jesus in this instance shows an interest in
the name. But His method is not that of the ordinary
exorcist. The latter had to discover the name before
he had any authority over the case. Jesus exhibited
His power in compelling the spirit (or spirits) to furnish
the name — a very different thing, and a mark of an
entirely different grade of authority.
Some short conversation followed between Jesus
and the patient. A herd of swine was feeding by,
and Mark states that the spirit asked and received per
mission to enter them. Immediately the herd was
seized with some kind of panic, and rushed down a steep
slope into the sea, where all were drowned. There
has been a good deal of doubt and discussion aroused
by this narrative. It is difficult to argue with any
sense of certainty one way or the other. The fact which
stands out is the implicit belief of all contemporaries
in the existence of evil spirits, in their habit of taking
possession of human beings and also of animals, and the
possibility of such events as that here described. It is
possible to escape from a literal acceptance of these
beliefs by remembering that every age sees, describes
and explains in its own way. It may even be held that
a coincidence, the cure of a hysterical or even insane

66 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
patient by the strong personal magnetism of Jesus
together with one of those wild panics to which swine
are said to be subject, has influenced the narrative,
and that this coincidence, together with the popular
beliefs on the subject, was responsible for the, details
of the cure as Mark describes them. At the same
time one is naturally chary of doubting the accuracy
of a writer of such general historic standing as Mark,
living so near to the events which he describes, and it
is possible that further study of the subject may tend
to restore a more hteral belief in evil spirits, their
activities and manifestations, even for the most
sceptical. The subject is far too large a one to be
discussed here.
There can, however, be no question as to the reality
of the cure of this man, and of the results of this cure.
A crowd gathered, not this time in eager hope of seeing
more of this exorcism, but in fear of the power which
lay behind it. It was impossible for Jesus to remain,
and He had to return with His disciples. The quondam
demoniac not unnaturally desired to attach himself to
his healer. This Jesus would not allow. The presence
of a man who was a subject of one of those miracles
which were creating so much difficulty for Jesus would
be a source of embarrassment, while, as He was leaving
the district, perhaps never to return, it would be to the
advantage of His work in later years to have some strong
support in the place. In days to come, perhaps long
after Jesus Himself had gone, His apostles would once
more be there, preaching His Kingdom. Their task
would be greatly simplified if the name and something
of the work of Jesus were familiar in the place.
In the meantime Jesus returned, apparently to
Capernaum. As usual crowds met Him, and He was
soon confronted with an appeal for help from one of
the rulers of the synagogue. He went with him, to
heal his daughter, and in the evangelist's story one can

THE QUEST OF PRIVACY 67
follow the feelings of the father. He had left the lassie at
the point of death, the case was one of extreme urgency,
the least delay might be fatal. But progress was slow
in the extreme. Jesus could not escape from the crowd,
and such masses of people move slowly. Still, they
moved, till there came an interruption. A suffering
woman crept behind Jesus in the press and touched
Him, or rather the tassel of His robe. She found what
she wanted, but Jesus was instantly conscious of what
had happened, and had to have an explanation. The
whole crowd stopped altogether while her case was
receiving His personal attention, and one can imagine
the growing anxiety of Jairus. At last the matter was
settled, and progress was about to be resumed, when
his worst fears were realised. A messenger came from
the house to say that it was too late ; the child had
already passed away. One gathers that in his despair
the man refused to take this as final, and still turned
his face to Jesus. For the servant went on to ask,
" Why are you still worrying the Teacher ? " So Jesus,
with a word of encouragement, went on, and, refusing
to accept the opinion of anybody else, in the end
restored the child to her parents. The narrative has
always been a favourite one with readers of the Gospels,
and rightly so, for many reasons. For us the con
clusion is of special importance. Jesus had raised her
up, but He endeavoured to take the most thorough
precautions to obtain secrecy. Three only of His
immediate followers were permitted to see what He did,
and Jesus laid the most stringent injunctions on all who
were present to keep the facts from becoming publicly
known. His reputation as a miraculous healer was
large enough already ; notoriety on this new head
He had no desire to win.
Probably this visit to Capernaum was never intended
to be more than a short one, and the raising of Jairus'
daughter seems to have made it imperative for Him

68 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
to leave the city and seek elsewhere for that solitude
which He so much needed. He therefore came to
Nazareth. But here too He failed to find what He
wanted. The reason, however, was not the usual one
There were no admiring crowds, no throngs of sick,
pleading for relief. Instead, coldness, doubt and
something approaching contempt. In an atmosphere
so definitely hostile, though miraculous cures were all
but impossible, yet concentration on His teaching was
equally impossible, and once again Jesus and His
disciples are found moving in search of the opportunity
which He required.
This time there seems to have been no attempt
to find a place where Jesus could stay for any length of
time. He simply led them from one place to another.
This at least gave Him the opportunity for one element
in the training of the Twelve. They were sent away
from Him to carry on work in the same manner as He
Himself worked. They carried with them the authority
and power of Jesus Himself, and engaged in the threefold
task of preaching, exorcism and healing. Yet it would
seem that though their work was in many ways similar
to His, there were differences. In particular their
treatment of the sick was nearer to that of the ordinary
physician. Instead of healing with a word or a touch,
they used material means, especially that of anointing.
Yet they did cure people, and in so doing discovered
that there was conferred on them something of the
power of Jesus Himself. The instructions given to
them are interesting. They are to go out in absolute
poverty. As they start on their daily road they are to
make no provision whatever for their material needs.
Staff and shoes are the only property they may take
with them. One of the lessons they have to learn is
that of absolute dependence. The treatment they
are to accord to different classes of places is also
significant. Where hospitality is offered freely and

THE QUEST OF PRIVACY 69
willingly, it is to be accepted, but where it is refused
or grudged, nothing is to be received, not even dust
which may accidently adhere to their persons. Similar
importance is to be attached to the acceptance or
otherwise of the message they have to bring. One may
conjecture that something like this was the method of
Jesus Himself on His preaching journeys.
It was while the Twelve were absent on their several
tours that the plot of the Pharisees took real effect.
How the thing was managed we do not know, but inform
ation was brought to Herod, and brought in such a
way as to lead him to believe that Jesus was John come
to life again. There follows (vi. 14-29) a parenthesis by
the evangelist, explaining the circumstances of John's
death. Mark's reasons for giving the story at such
length are not clear. It is perhaps the only instance
in which he devotes so much space to details which do
not bear immediately on the historical development
of the narrative. The fact in itself, however, is of the
highest importance. It serves to illustrate the lengths
to which Herod was prepared to go in dealing with
people who were hostile to him, and also explains the
lines on which that hostility was aroused against Jesus.
An attempt had been made to get the man out of the
way, and the attempt had apparently failed. A second
one must be made, and made in such a fashion that it
should not fail. A John who had the power of rising
from the dead was very much more dangerous than a
mere outspoken moral reformer, and might constitute
a grave peril to the authority and position of the
Tetrarch, especially if he were actuated by a spirit of
revenge. It is probable that the death of John took place
some time before the events narrated in this section of
the Gospel. It is introduced here because of the effect
it had upon the life and methods of Jesus. It must
have been at this time that Jesus Himself became aware

70 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
of the results of the hostility of the Pharisees, and of
their success in rousing the civil power against Him.
His disciples were away on a tour, and in any case they
were still far from being ready to be left to themselves.
The need for privacy had become more urgent than ever,
and at the same time the personal risk which Jesus ran
had enormously increased. He must get away from
all the old scenes and associations, into circles which
had not known Him, and where He would not be
exposed to the immediate vengeance of His enemies.
He had first been compelled to withdraw from
Capernaum ; He must now leave the dominions of
Herod altogether. A study of the map* shows that
from this time on till the final journey to Jerusalem,
Jesus deliberately tried to avoid the Tetrachy of Herod.
In other words, to use a phrase which is familiar to
many of us, Jesus goes into exile.
The first step is taken as soon as the disciples return
from their tour. There are still the great crowds,
claiming the attention of Jesus, and preventing Him
from getting that time alone with His disciples which
was now of primary importance. In fact, as the
Evangelist says, there was not even time for a meal
(vi. 30-31). Accordingly He arranges for them to go
away with Him into some place where they will not be
disturbed, and they take a boat for the purpose. But
they are observed and followed by a large crowd, which
once more appeals to His compassion with such force
that He cannot but give time to them. The story,
with its sequel, is told in vi. 32-44. It is interesting to
note again that there is little or no reference to or
account of the actual teaching given by Jesus on this
occasion. Instead there is a full account of their being
fed in a miraculous fashion by Him. Again one feels
that it is this which impressed them. The new light
* See especially the map in Burkitt's Gospel History and its Trans
mission, facing p. 92.

THE QUEST OF PRIVACY 71
that they might have had on God and man was too
new and too bright. Public teaching of this kind —
and probably Jesus spoke almost entirely in parables
— had comparatively little permanent effect. Men
forgot what Jesus said ; they remembered Him and
what He did.
As soon as the strange meal was over, Jesus resumed
the attempt to secure privacy (vi. 45-52). His disciples
were sent away in a boat towards Bethsaida, on the
northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, at a point where
they would be within the Tetrachy of Herod Philip.
Here they might be at once unknown and out of
danger. It was clearly the intention of Jesus to follow
them by land, and He first withdrew Himself for prayer.
After all, as long as He was not with them, it did not
matter that their destination was known. It was He
whom men sought, not the Twelve. From the high
shores of the Lake, and from the hills which surround
it their progress might be watched, but that did not
matter. No one would try to anticipate them. In
the meantime He might be able to escape from the
crowd, and make His way to the rendezvous un
disturbed. But they never reached Bethsaida. A
violent storm came on, and they were in extreme danger.
Suddenly Jesus appeared to them on the water, entered
their vessel, and, as on a former occasion, stilled the
storm. They were nevertheless compelled to put back to
the western shore of the Lake. This was the country
from which Jesus had wished to get away, and His
plans were immediately justified (vi. 53-56). He was
at once recognised ; crowds gathered about Him ;
the sick and the suffering were brought to Him from
every direction. Even the preaching of the Kingdom
would have been impossible to Him, still more im
possible was that quiet communion with His disciples
which He needed and sought. Nor was this confined

72 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
now to the cities and villages. The very roads were
equally crowded, and the sick were laid in the fields
in the open country wherever He was likely to pass by.
Not merely was His popularity maintained, it was
greatly enhanced, and thereby the difficulties of His
position were enhanced also.
But all those who thronged round Him were not
necessarily His friends. They included His bitter
enemies, Pharisees and Scribes (vii. 1-23). In order,
apparently, to discredit Him with the crowd, they
attacked Him on the ground of neglect of the traditional
rites of purification. Reference has been made else
where to the oriental stress on the purity of meals,
and it was important in the eyes of the strict Jew to see
that he was free from pollution even accidentally
contracted in his daily business. Jesus, with His
spiritual view of life and all its circumstances, had
clearly refrained from enforcing the regulations which
were intended to guard against impurity contracted
in this way. Probably He did not observe them Him
self. The Pharisees found in this a handle against
Him, and attacked Him on this ground. Earlier in
His ministry Jesus had defended Himself against the
parallel charge of eating with publicans and sinners,
and had used the opportunity to lay down new
principles. But now the conditions were different.
The breach between Him and the official leaders of the
Jewish Church had gone too far for Him to hope to
get any sense into them, and His reply was not a defence
but a counter-charge. All these minute and detailed
regulations, said Jesus, are being used to obscure the
real principles which underlie the Law. It may be
true that there are a large number of things expressly
forbidden or permitted, but even the Law (as already
stated by Him in the matter of the Sabbath) is subject
to interpretation and revision in the light of the
consecrated intelligence applied to the great principles

THE QUEST OF PRIVACY 73
on which the Law was based. As always, it was
common sense to which Jesus appealed, and when
His disciples asked Him about the meaning of what
He had said, He rebuked them, not for any moral fault,
but because they should have seen for themselves
where the right lay. In His view it was the ethics of
the Law that counted, not its ritual. If the latter
interfered with the former, the latter must go. One
illustration is given, that of the respect due to parents.
Where traditional piety prevented or was allowed to
be substituted for this, traditional piety proved itself
to be in the wrong. From time to time explanations
of this passage have been given which make it appear
that the promised money was not actually devoted
to the service of God. Jesus gives no hint of this,
and from His words there is no reason to believe that
He contemplated any such limitation. If a man is
morally bound to contribute to the support of his
parents, he has no right to render himself incapable
of doing so through his gifts to the sanctuary.
Returning to the immediate point on which discussion
had arisen, Jesus went so far as to call together the
whole crowd and address them directly. His state
ment was couched in an epigrammatic form which was
calculated to have the same kind of effect as the parable.
And in fact the Twelve needed an explanation — and had
it. In a few sentences Jesus swept aside the whole of
the laws of food, and so fully was this realised, that the
evangehst adds a parenthesis to the effect that this
pronouncement implied that all forms of food were
equally permissible. On the other hand the real
defilement was spiritual and moral. That alone would
count in the Kingdom of God.
These events made it still more clear that Jesus
could not stay where He was. He must get away,
beyond the reach of the crowds, and beyond the reach
of those who were aware of His healing powers, beyond

74 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
the reach of those who would bring His career to a
premature end. The attempt to reach Bethsaida had
failed. The next attempt was not made by water at
all. Turning in the opposite direction, Jesus and His
disciples travelled towards the north-west. He passed
right through Galilee, and reached the territory of
Phoenicia. Now He was not merely outside the
Tetrachy of Herod Antipas, He was no longer within
the limits of territory which could be called Jewish.
Here, among the absolute heathen, it. might be expected
that He would find what He needed and sought. But
it was not so. In a land of strangers as He was, He
nevertheless took extra precautions to secure privacy.
But even so " He could not be hid." A native woman
of the place came to Him to ask for help in the cure
of a daughter who was possessed. We have no means
of knowing how she found Him out ; we may suspect
the proud garrulity of the Twelve. It must always be
remembered that they were in no way above the level
of their contemporaries in understanding of their
Leader and His character and teaching. They probably
loved the miracle as much as anybody, and were anxious
to see these acts of healing. Moreover, if we may form
an opinion from the scanty references to their reception
of His teaching, they were still incapable of under
standing anything that He said to them, unless it was
couched in the most ordinary language. To them,
interesting as the words of Jesus might be, the really
attractive thing was to see the demons quail and the
sick suddenly resume their strength. It is not difficult
to imagine that it was some remark of theirs which led
to the discovery of Jesus by this woman.
Be that as it may, she found Him. But then her
real difficulties began. Jesus had come to this part
of the country expressly to avoid this kind of thing.
If He had felt it necessary or even desirable to exercise
His powers, His own people had the first claim upon

THE QUEST OF PRIVACY 75
Him.* One gets the impression that He repulsed her
in words which the ordinary Jew might well have
used, but which sound strange from the lips of Jesus.
So offensive does His remark appear, that it has been
suggested that Jesus did not really use the language
attributed to Him, but that it was put into His mouth
by the narrator of the story in order to explain her
reply — a reflection back of her own words. Be this as
it may, her method and quick wit appealed to Jesus,
and again He could not resist the appeal. He spoke
the word, and the girl was cured.
But the result of this act of mercy was the
usual one. Jesus had to leave the district. Instead
of continuing His progress northwards, He turned
again to the south, but kepj> throughout His journey
to the west of Galilee proper, till He and His disciples
were well to the south of the Sea of Galilee. Then
turning eastward He seems to have crossed the Jordan
and entered the district known as the Decapolis. This
was a confederation of Greek cities, and one notes the
working of the same impulse — to keep away, not merely
from the territory of Herod Antipas, but also from
places where Jews might be expected to form the
majority of the population. Here He was in the same
quarter, though not in the same immediate district
as He had been on that first attempt to get away from
the multitudes, which had been brought to an end so
soon by the cure of the Gerasene demoniac. Here again
the crowds were with Him, though no miracle seems
to have been performed till the coming of a deaf mute
who was brought by his friends (vii. 31-37). As in
other cases Jesus did His best to secure secrecy. He
took the sufferer away by himself, and, this time using
* It is possible that sufficient attention has not been paid to
this aspect of the attitude of Jesus to His work. He seems always
to have kept His own people in the foreground, to become later the
evangelising agents for the heathen world. Cf. J. R. Coates "The
Christ of Revolution."

76 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
some mechanical means, cured him so thoroughly
that full powers of speech were immediately restored
to him. And here too, as on other occasions, there is
evidence to show that the cure cost Jesus effort, and
possibly something more, for as He spoke the words
which indicated the moment of cure, a groan also burst
from His lips. And further, Jesus made every effort
to bind the sufferer and his friends to silence, but all
in vain. It was very natural to people who did not
understand Him — and who did understand Him ? —
to think that it would be to His advantage to sing His
praises wherever they could, and yet the truest gratitude
would have been shown by responding to His wishes,
and preventing His powers from being publicly known.
In order, apparently, to secure some measure of
privacy, Jesus made His way into some desolate region.
But even there He was followed, and for three days
the crowd hung round Him. At last, faint and weary,
far from their homes, they were no longer able to listen
to Him with profit. As once before, Jesus supplied
their physical needs, and sent them away. It has
been urged that this narrative is only another form
of the story of the feeding of the Five Thousand.*
In that case we have an interesting double attestation
of the miracle, and the variations themselves tend to
confirm the substantial truth of the narrative. The
result in the progress of events was as before. Jesus
had to leave the district, and this time left it by water,
making His way to an unidentified district, whose name
has been handed down to us in Mark as Dalmanutha.|
* For a statement of this view (which extends to the whole
section) the reader cannot do better than study C. H. Dodd's
article in the "Expositor" for October, 192 1 on The Close of the
Galilean Ministry.
¦f No other reference to this place or district is known, and it
is possible that the appearance of the name is due to very early
textual corruption.

THE QUEST OF PRIVACY 77
Here (viii. 11-12) Jesus was met by Pharisees, who
demanded of Him a sign. This was to be one of the
indications of the coming Messiah, and their request
was practically a challenge to Him to declare Himself.
As might have been foreseen, He refused, and the whole
party left the place for Bethsaida. It would appear
that there was some haste about their departure, for
the disciples forgot to provision the boat properly.
What followed (viii. 14-21) serves as an admirable
illustration of the kind of difficulty which faced Jesus
in dealing with His disciples. He had them to Himself
for a time, and could begin to teach them, or at any rate
to point the moral of recent events. He began by
bidding them beware of the leaven of Herod and of the
Pharisees. And nobody will ever know what He meant
by that phrase. Luke seems to have interpreted it
as a warning against hypocrisy. This might suit
the Pharisees, but hardly Herod, who may have
been guilty of almost everything else, but hardly of
hypocrisy. More probably the reference was to that
unholy alliance which threatened to bring the life and
work of Jesus to an untimely close. But all this is
matter for conjecture, for He never had an opportunity
to explain. Their slow minds caught at the word leaven
and that awakened a familiar chord of memory. It
is used in the making of bread. The suggestion of
bread perhaps sent them to look in the locker — or
wherever else it was that they carried their provisions
— and in any case brought home to them the appalling
fact that they had only one loaf with them. That was
all they could think of, and Jesus had to go back over
an old lesson, and try to appeal to their common sense
again. They had just seen Him feed four thousand
people with wholly inadequate supplies and only a few
months before they had seen Him feed five thousand
with one boy's rations. Why should they worry about
food ? Had they not even the sense to put two and

78 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
two together ? Jesus, who had saved these huge crowds
from starvation, would not let them perish with hunger.
At last they reached Bethsaida. Here they were
once more outside the Tetrarchy of Antipas, though
still within the sphere of Jewish influence. And even
here the old routine of human suffering and appeal,
of the healing by Jesus and His consequent departure
was repeated. In this case it was a blind man who was
brought to Jesus for help, and received it. The method
again differs from any previously recorded of Him.
It is noticeable that the cure was performed gradually.
The first application produced only a vague and misty
vision which could only distinguish between men and
trees by the fact that the former had the powers of
locomotion while the latter had not. Then came the
second touch of the hands of Jesus, and the complete
and perfect sight was restdred. The strictest in
junctions were laid on the man to go straight home,
without a word to his fellow-villagers, but the result
was the same — Jesus had to leave the district (viii.
22-26). So this period ends, for the next incident, while it
closes this portion of the life of Jesus, is also the begin
ning of the next. Several months must have been
covered by this search for privacy. The grass was still
green at its beginning, and the five thousand must have
been fed not later than the month of May. It was now
the early spring, and the Passover was at hand.
Through all these months Jesus had been wandering
homeless, always in search of that opportunity for
quiet companionship with His disciples which He needed.
Two other explanations of this period of the ministry
of Jesus have been offered. One is that of the
" eschatological " school of Gospel exegesis, which
believes that Jesus expected some colossal catastrophe
which was to usher in the new Kingdom, and had retired
from public life in order to wait for it. It is unnecessary

THE QUEST OF PRIVACY 79
to discuss this further at this point, except to remark
that it involves an entirely fresh reading of the whole
Gospel story, and that while some allowance must be
made for eschatological elements in the teaching of
Jesus, such a view as this overlooks so much that is
recorded and assumes so much that is not recorded,
that it is tantamount to the abandonment of the
historicity of the Gospels. The other view (strongly
held by Burkitt) is that the wanderings of Jesus were
due entirely to the hostility of Herod Antipas. Allow
ance must be made for this, and in the preceding pages
has been made. It explains much — especially the
avoidance of Galilee proper and the hasty flight from
Dalmanutha — but it will not explain everything.
It needs to be reinforced and in part replaced by the
recognition of the need Jesus had of getting His disciples
alone. It does not account for His dread of the miracle
in places where Antipas certainly could not touch Him,
and the obvious suggestion to account for this is that
the miracle always produced a crowd of admirers —
and the crowd was the thing that Jesus most had to
avoid. He knew that it was no use to try and teach
multitudes ; He must get His disciples to Himself
and give them as much as they were capable of assimila
ting. How little that was the sequel shows. Yet it
was enough, and it was attained in those hours when,
temporarily and incompletely, Jesus was successful in
His quest of privacy.
Questions on Chapter V
1 . Do you believe that there were real devils in the Gerasene
sufferer and that they really entered the swine and
drowned them ?
2. Do you think that the daughter of Jairus was really dead ?
3. Was it impossible for Jesus to work miracles in Nazareth ?
If He was divine, was there anything that He could
not do ?

80 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
4. Are Christian teachers, evangelists in this country and
missionaries abroad, still called upon to accept the
conditions laid upon the Twelve on their mission ?
5. Can you explain the " nature miracles " on the same line
as those of exorcism and healing ?
6. Which explanation of the wanderings of Jesus appeals
to you most ?

Chapter VI
THE JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM
(Mark viii. 27 — xi. 11.)
It can hardly be said that Jesus had been wholly
successful in His quest of privacy for Himself and His
disciples. Yet they had been with Him, and while He
had had little opportunity for giving them direct
instruction, it may be assumed that they had had
plenty of opportunity of studying Him. In the course
of His wanderings He had reached Bethsaida (Bethsaida
Julias, on the eastern side of the Jordan, near the point
where it enters the Sea of Galilee), and, as usual, had
been driven thence by a miraculous cure that He had
performed. This time He moved further towards the
north east, in the direction of Csesarea Philippi. In the
district — for He does not seem to have entered the city
itself — He asked the crucial question, the question on
whose answer turned the whole success and future of
His life. He led up to it by asking what opinions about
Him were held by people in general. The replies were
not unsatisfactory, and He went on to ask the personal
opinion of His disciples. Their reply, given through
Peter, was clear and decisive. They had no doubt
about Him ; He was the Christ.
It may be worth while to think a moment again
of what that implied to them. They had been brought
up on the hopes of Israel, hopes which centred in
the conception of the Messiah. For six centuries the
Jews had been a conquered people. They had had more
than one master, but it was only at rare intervals that
they had attained a measure of temporary independence.
81 «

82 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
And they were a race who had looked forward, not
merely to independence, but to dominion. As time
passed the conviction had deepened that there would
be a great political upheaval which would reverse the
position, and, instead of leaving them the subjects of
the world power, would place them upon the summit
in control of all humanity. This revolution was to be
accomplished under the leadership of a new and greater
Judas Maccabseus. It was clear that the old and normal
methods were inadequate, and miraculous divine help
would be given. The Messiah, when He came, would
have at His disposal, not merely the armed forces of
Israel, but also the heavenly host. And these He
would use to overthrow His enemies and those of His
people. The disciples had seen enough of the authority
of Jesus to credit Him with this superhuman power,
and they seemed to have believed when this admission
of faith was made, that all that was now needed was to
march on Jerusalem and there inaugurate the new
Kingdom. The extent to which Jesus Himself shared these
views is a matter of dispute. It may be more convenient
to postpone the question till another time in the history.
But it is quite clear that they did not sum up all that"
He felt about His own Messiahship. His conception
of the Kingdom of God had comparatively little of the
material and the political in it. Whilst He always
maintained (as far as we know) that the Jew had the
first claim on the Kingdom,* He was no mere nationalist.
He had before Him the conception of a spiritual King
dom, in which the Will of God was the supreme,
dominant, unchallenged factor in all human affairs.
But His main difference from His followers lay in His
view of the means whereby the Kingdom was to come.
They thought of something spectacular and splendid.
He knew that it could only come through the way of
* See again J. R. Coates, Op. cit.

THE JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM 83
the Cross. These two views were necessarily in conflict,
and the contrast between them forms the main motif
of the rest of the Gospel story. First there was the
difference between Jesus and His disciples, then that
between Him and the Jewish crowds, but the ground
of the struggle was the same. Those who knew Him
best did not understand Him, and in a certain sense
it is true to say that He had to die a death of agony
and shame in order to prove His position. There is
no one aspect or explanation which sums up the whole
of the Cross, nor is there any limit to the ways in which
it may bear on human thought and life. Yet, as the
story is told, this feature is the one which emerges
most clearly from the historical narrative of Mark.
The conflict in the point of view comes out at once.
The disciples had learnt the first lesson, the personal
one of devotion to their Master. They had recognised
in Him the Messiah ; they had now to learn — if they
could — what manner of Messiah He was. It is import
ant to note that at this point an entirely new element
in the teaching of Jesus appears. Jesus was not ready
for the crowds to acclaim Him and to enthrone Him by
violence, as a Galilaean crowd would have loved to do.
He therefore enjoined secrecy on the Twelve, while He
at once began with the next lesson. He was to go up
to Jerusalem. So far His plans would accord with
their expectations. But it was not to claim His throne.
Instead of triumph He would find suffering. Instead
of enthusiastic acceptance by the people's leaders He
would meet with rejection. Instead of victory He
would meet with death, but a death which would be the
gate of a new life. Yet even in that He would not
promise them that their conception of the Kingdom
of God would find its fulfilment. There was no doubt
as to His language. He did not use metaphor, nor did
He whisper His words. Bold and clear came the
statement that He must be rejected and killed.

84 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
And immediately one is conscious of the conflict.
Peter caught hold of Him — the action is reported as
being probably characteristic — and tried to correct
Him. The suggestion is that the disciple took the
words as a pessimistic expression of fear, and that Peter
wanted to reassure Him that they would all stand by
Him, and that they believed that He would come
through with victory. This was a point of view which
Jesus could not accept. He turned at once and
sharply condemned the attitude of the disciples. " Get
thee behind me" is probably a misunderstanding of
an Aramaic idiom which simply meant " get back,"
" get away." One gets the impression that the
temptation was very real to Jesus Himself. He felt
that He had the power to win the Kingdom in the
expected way, but that it would not be the true way.
He was conscious of the ability to escape the agony
which He foresaw, but that would have been to
surrender His true purpose. The disciples were thinking
on the human plane ; He could do that too but He
must not. He must think on the divine plane.
This, however, marked the second turning point
in His ministry. The Twelve had learnt to regard Him
as the Messiah ; it was as much as they ever could learn
till the further lesson was brought home to them in
practical form by the Cross. Every possible oppor
tunity would be taken to foretell and illustrate that
Cross, but now the direct step might be taken. There
was no more need for privacy ; Jesus could start on
that last journey to Jerusalem which was to end on
Calvary. The first sign of this is the deliberate change
in His methods. It is hardly possible that the next
step was taken without any interval. Jesus was alone
with His disciples, apparently, when the great con
fession was made. In the next sentences (viii. 34 —
ix. 1) He is at least within call of the crowd. But the
proximity of the two phrases is intended, one would

THE JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM 85
judge, to imply that the new departure was the direct
result of their acceptance of Him as the Messiah. Only
once since iii. 6 has Mark recorded an appeal to the
general public on His part, and that was when He
had a special attack to make on the Pharisees. But
now there is no longer need for seclusion. He is about
to go up to Jerusalem, and is making a public
proclamation of the conditions on which He is prepared
to accept recruits.
Apart from the actual terms of this proclamation
there is one point of considerable interest about it.
Though Jesus has forbidden His disciples to speak of
Him as the Messiah, it is clear that His statement is
based on the assumption that He is the Christ. Other
wise there would be no point in speaking about following
or, indeed, in making the proclamation at all. And it
is not unreasonable to suppose that the crowd which
did actually follow Him from Galilee were well aware
of the work He had to do, though they could have known
no more than the Twelve of His manner of doing it.
One may suspect once more that the Twelve had not
been wholly discreet in the way they had talked about
Him. Be that as it may, there can be little doubt as to
the situation assumed by the proclamation. Its terms
alone would make that clear. It forms a summons
to those who would see the reign of the Messiah, and
were ready to participate in the task of establishing
the Kingdom of God. Further, in these verses Jesus
lays down the simple rules which form the basis of all
His ethics. In fact there may be said to be only one
rule — that of self-denial. This emphatically did not
mean that Jesus wanted all His followers to go without
sugar in their tea for a week and put the money thus
saved into the missionary box. However praiseworthy
such an action may be, it is superficial, and when
Jesus spoke of self-denial, He had in view something

86 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
fundamental. People were to refuse to recognise them
selves at all. Their motives for action were to exclude
altogether thoughts about themselves. Their own
profit, advantage, interests, wishes— these things were
not to count at all ; they were to forget that they
existed. A snob may say of persons of lower
rank that they do not exist ; so the follower of
this unique Messiah must refuse to take himself into
account under any circumstances. This needs to be
appreciated if some of the phrases in the rest of this
passage are to be understood.
But this complete abandonment and disownment
of oneself is only the first step. It is as necessary as a
preliminary measure to empty oneself, but only in order
that one may be filled with the enthusiasm of a great
purpose and a clear goal. That purpose and goal will
inevitably involve crucifixion — suffering and shame as
intense as they may be made. So sure is this sooner
or later that, as Jesus put it, it will be advisable to carry
the cross with one, for there is no saying when it may
be needed. He had given His disciples to understand
what it was that lay in front of Him ; He now
offered the whole world the same conditions as He had
already accepted.
This is borne out by the remainder of the passage.
There is one philological remark that should be made
in approaching it. The two words " life " and " soul "
represent the same Greek word, and this in turn is a
rendering of an Aramaic idiom which would be under
stood as a reflexive pronoun. So " Anyone who seeks
to save himself will ruin himself " — " What good will it
do a man to win the whole world and lose himself?
Or what price can a man pay that will buy himself back
when once he has lost himself ? " It is the simplest
way of expressing the profound truth that self-realisa
tion is only to be achieved through self-abnegation.
On this hangs all the moral teaching of Jesus. It is

THE JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM 87
His explanation of what He meant by self-denial. It
is a complete and utter self-surrender that He has in
view, and nothing less will satisfy Him.
But at the same time Jesus was quite ready to insist
that the aim would be achieved by these means. He
believed in the coming of the Kingdom, and it seems
that He expected that coming at no great distance of
time. He looked forward beyond the suffering to the
point where He could " look away out of the agony of
his soul and be satisfied by his knowledge." * Later
generations, with the conception of Jesus as a person
of infinite knowledge, have been hard put to it to
explain this and other passages, notably such as the
thirteenth chapter of the Gospel. It has been assumed
that when Jesus spoke of the coming of the Kingdom
and of its establishment on earth, He was thinking of
the liberation from sin which His sacrificial death would
secure. Others have postponed the Kingdom to the
circumstances and conditions of the life after death.
Others have supposed that He had the fall of Jerusalem,
yet forty years distant, in His thought. Others have
seen in His words a prophecy of the transfiguration
which was immediately to follow. Others again, have
called attention to the rapid growth and spread of
Christianity through the ancient world. But our own
generation is inclined to look on all these explanations
as forced and therefore inadequate. There is a suspicion
that the Incarnation itself would be incomplete unless
the Incarnate God took on Him the full intellectual
limitations of humanity, that Jesus, though His
spiritual and ethical outlook was in full harmony —
indeed was identical with the best that human intelli
gence ever could hold, still thought of many things
in the same terms as those who were round about Him.
* Isaiah liii. n. This passage clearly held an important place in
the thinking of Jesus, who seems to have been the first to give
it a Messianic interpretation.

88 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
Hence His ready acceptance of the natural science
of His day, the views of the identity of the Old Testa
ment writers, of demonology and of many other things
which to-day we should (to say the least of it) describe
in different ways. One may, if one likes, speak in
cavilling spirit of " mistakes," and attempt to substitute
a fallible human being for an infallible divine Incarn
ation, but it is surely permissible to retort that any
adequate revelation of the Will and Being of God must
be made in terms which will appeal to the period in
which it appears. The ultimate truth must always
be held in solution if it is to be applicable to human
nature, and those who believe in the living presence
of the Holy Spirit will trust Him to guide the Church
in which He dwells rightly to crystallise out that truth
and redissolve it in terms which each progressive
generation can make its own.
There will, however, be many who will hesitate to take
such a plunge as this point of view involves, and other
explanations, such as those suggested above, are possible.
Whatever view of this point is held, it is clear that Jesus
was promising to those about Him that some of them
should soon have evidence of the coming of that
Kingdom. And whether this was what Jesus had in
view or no, the next incident, that of the Transfiguration
(Mark ix. 2-13) must have served to confirm the newly
expressed faith of the disciples. One notices that only
three of them are concerned — apparently there was
already a tendency to form an inner ring, which has
been suggested by the fact that these three alone were
present at the raising of the daughter of Jairus. Then
they had seen Jesus in unique power, now they see Him
in unique glory. The exact character of the experience
it is no longer possible to describe. As in the case of
other " miracles " it may be found possible to discover
an explanation which will not demand the introduction
of a superhuman element. It may, for instance, be

THE JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM 89
suggested that the disciples were confused and half
hypnotised by mist on the mountain side, and that all
thought that they saw things which existed in their
own minds only. In other words, believing Him to
be the Christ, they were ready to see and to accept a
unique vision of Jesus. Some support for this sugges
tion may be found in the fact that they recognised
Moses and Elijah at once. We have no evidence that
there were even traditional representations of the
ancient heroes of Israel which would make it possible
for them to be so surely identified. Such identification
appears to have been necessarily intuitive, and
would point to an experience as subjective as (though
more real than) those which come to us in dreams.
At the same time, there will not be a few readers of the
narrative who will feel that rationalising of this kind
can only detract from the real power of the story, and
that the record is to be accepted at its face value. In
any case the main purpose and place of this incident
are clear. It came just at the point when something
definite and emphatic was needed to secure to the
disciples the conviction that Jesus was the Christ.
Once more there is the rigorous injunction to silence.
Jesus seemed in this last period of His life to have one
great fear — that men would recognise in Him the
Messiah, and would insist on trying to establish His
Kingdom in their way and not in His. They
suspected, and possibly more than suspected, but till
He reached Jerusalem, and the course of events was
beyond the control of the Galilsean crowd, no public
act or word of His was allowed to support the
suspicion. Yet to His own immediate circle He never
attempted to assume any other position than that of
the Messiah, and the last sentences of the Transfigur
ation story show how He cleared from the minds of
the three a doubt and a difficulty they had felt about
the promised fore-runner.

90 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
At the foot of the mountain there was a demoniac
to be healed — the experience of most people would regard
this as typical, for the moments of highest exaltation
are those which often make us most conscious of the
presence of evil within and without (ix. 14-29). The
incident is apparently introduced in order to show that
though the Twelve had attained to some power in
exorcism, there were yet cases which were too hard
for them, and these could only be dealt with by the
authority of their Master.
His next resting-place was again Capernaum
(ix. 30-50). Again He took precautions to secure
secrecy, and this time seems to have attained a certain
amount of success. At any rate He was able to have
some private conversation with the Twelve. It was
all concerned with the character of the new Kingdom.
He began with a repetition of what He had already
said as to His own prospects and fate. To them this
was still absolutely unintelligible, and they lacked the
courage to discuss the matter with Him. But, in
another form, it was raised almost immediately by Jesus
Himself. He asked what they had been discussing on
the road. The subject hadi)een the relative positions
they should occupy in the new Kingdom. This was
most natural. If their point of view is remembered,
it will be seen that the first question that would arise
in thinking about the new Kingdom would be " But who
is going to be the Prime Minister or the Grand Vizier? "
This gave Jesus His opportunity. The child incident
is but the preliminary to the laying down of the new
social law — perhaps the most astounding paradox that
He ever uttered, at least to the understanding of His
immediate audience. To the oriental mind the " great "
person — and the phrase is common over all the East
to this day — is the person who gives orders and is waited
on by other people. Jesus says in effect, " In the
Kingdom of God the exact opposite is the case. The

THE JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM 91
criterion of value and position is the spirit of service.
No person can attain to eminence unless he adopts
the attitude of the domestic servant. The supreme
height is out of reach except to one who is prepared to
make himself the slave of the whole community. The
man who would be a true member of this Kingdom
must abandon all his own claims to consideration.
He will have duties but no rights ; he will have
responsibilities but no priviliges." One needs to
appreciate the Eastern point of view in order to realise
the amazing inversion of the social basis that such a
pronouncement involves. And it may well be that
all the Christian centuries have failed hitherto to bring
the principle home thoroughly to the West.
There followed some talk of a most illuminating
kind. Two questions were raised. The first deals
with the friends and enemies of Jesus. Once more He
makes clear cut distinctions. There are, to His insight,
no half measures and no strips of neutral ground. Men
are either for Him or against Him, and whether a man
is in the immediate company of the Twelve or not, his
line is taken, and he is either friendly or hostile. Once
more one feels that here the Twelve may have scented
a possible rival in the power that was shortly to come
to them. The second subject illustrated the strenuous
nature of the demands which were made by the
conditions of the new Kingdom. It was worth every
thing else a man could have, and nothing should be
allowed to stand in its way. The Will of God is the
supreme fact in life, that is all that the followers of Jesus
can or ought to think about. The only virtue in salt
is that it is salty ; if it loses that quality, there is no
remedy and no use for it. If the disciples allowed
selfish and personal thoughts to obscure their great aim,
they too had lost their savour.
With such samples of the talk of Jesus and the
Twelve, the evangehst passes to the actual journey to

92 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
Jerusalem. This too is a series of illustrations of the
revolutionary character of the new Kingdom. He is
first met by Pharisees, who ask Him a question about
the relations between the sexes in marriage. The reply
of Jesus (x. 1-12) shows that once more He has cut
away from all the traditional views of the subject.
It is no mere formula that makes marriage, He says.
When two people are really married, it is God and not
man who has joined them together. And, what is
more Jesus goes so far as to place the two sexes on
absolutely equal terms. There is none of that pagan
view (of which elements still linger) 'of the inferiority
of woman and her position as a thing rather than as
a person. Jesus sees sex from God's point of view,
and demands for marriage its due recognition as the
holiest persona] relationship on earth.
The fundamental novelty of the Kingdom appears
to be the meaning of the next incident, the blessing of
the children (x. 13-16). It throws light, of course, on
the tenderness of the character of Jesus, but His fond
ness for babies is not the only feature that appears in
the narrative. The child character has been stressed
a good deal in thinking of this story. But there is
more than this in Jesus' point of view. He is trying
to make it clear that when one enters the Kingdom of
God, one has to start life afresh, and start at the begin
ning. There is much that one learns as one grows up.
All this must be forgotten. One is in a new world alto
gether. A new meaning and aim for life must be
achieved. Readers of Browning will remember that
when the Arab physician meets Lazarus, forty years after
his being raised from the dead, the -thing that strikes
him most is the entirely different outlook on life that
the " madman " has found. His child's illness or death
means little or nothing to him ; a chance speech of
the lad's may strike him with horror, as though some
awful secret were about to be revealed, some spell

THE JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM 93
uttered which might devastate the universe. It is this
discovery of a new scale of values which is inevitable
in the new life. One must unlearn all that one has ever
learnt, or one will be utterly incapable of appreciating
the Kingdom of God.
A case of this new standard of values occurs almost
immediately. It is the question of money. The story
of the rich youth (x. 17-31) and the comments made
by Jesus on him and his like are too well known to need
repetition. There are, however, one or two points
connected with the narrative which do bear directly
on the character of the new Kingdom. It is frequently
pointed out that the young man was kept out of the
Kingdom because he was unwilling to lose his property.
That is true, but it is equally true that Jesus did not
ask for the money. Most churches, one fears, would
be glad to welcome a millionaire, but if they asked him
to come as a poor man, they would at least suggest
that he might so distribute his wealth as to be of financial
service to them. But this is not what Jesus wants.
The man must get rid of all he has, and come into the
circle of Jesus with nothing. Jesus will have the man,
but He will not have his money. This the disciples
utterly failed to understand. Their ideas of the
Messiah's Kingdom were bound up with politics and
economics — queer politics and poor economics no doubt
— and this sudden inversion of all the value of money
was a real shock to them. If a wealthy man could not,
by gifts of his money, purchase an entrance into the
Kingdom, what hope was there for anybody ? Jesus
answers that the salvation of the wealthy is a miracle,
possible only to divine power. The entry to the
Kingdom is not an easy thing, and it is one which God
Himself alone can make possible. It need not be
remarked that numerous attempts have been made
to tone down the severity of this dictum. To get the
largest of familiar animals through the smallest of

94 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
familiar holes has seemed an impossibility, so various
interpretations — none of which carries the least con
viction to an unbiased reader — have been offered for
this phrase. But there is no reason to doubt that Jesus
meant what He said. He simply turned on to the
situation the microscope of His insight, and the in
congruity between property and the Kingdom of God
was obvious. The contrast between the attitude of
this young man and that of the disciples was at once
drawn by Peter, and he received the answer that those
who had made sacrifices for the sake of Jesus and His
messages would not fail to be rewarded in kind. Once
more one is tempted to feel that Jesus was speaking
in terms of His own day and of the thought of His
audience rather than of the ultimate. Men who forsake
all for Christ's sake do win far more than they lose,
but the gain is not always in so tangible a form as the
reply of Jesus would suggest.
The life of Jesus was a busy one, on this last journey
as at other times. Yet there were moments when His
thoughts were free. On such occasions the realisation
of what was before Him came upon Him with over
whelming force. What He thought or felt in detail
is hidden from us, but one short paragraph illustrates
His state of mind with that dramatic effect which we
have learnt to associate with this evangehst (x. 32-34).
We catch a glimpse of the face of Jesus, not directly,
but as reflected in the minds of His followers. He was
going in front of them, and such were His manner and
expression that those who saw Him were awed and even
frightened. It is but seldom that we are allowed to
contemplate the nervous strain of Jesus. But this
glimpse gives us the whole thing. Not merely do we
see His face ; we see those of others, and they tell us
something of the agony of soul through which He was
passing. In the most profound reality He was bearing
His Cross. The subject of His thoughts appears at

THE JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM 95
once, when He calls the Twelve apart for a moment
and tells them for the third time on record of what He
must pass through.
Yet the last of the qualities which the stereotyped
eschatology of the day permitted to the disciples was
an imaginative sympathy. Whilst the mind of Jesus
was thus filled with the thought of what He must soon
endure, they could only see the coming glory, and see
it in their own way. Once more an attempt was made
to settle the question of the Grand Vizier. This time
it was a request, proffered by the mother of James and
John. But it was the old question, and it led to a re
statement of the same doctrine, that the only claim
any man can have to high position in the Kingdom,
is bound up with his self -forgetfuln ess and his passion
for service. Yet even as He said it, Jesus was more
conscious of the Cross than of anything else, and the
first question which He put to the two aspirants was as
to whether they were prepared to suffer as He must.
That at least He could promise them, but no more.
And His service was more than service, it was sacrifice.
For the immediate purpose it was enough to say that
He had come to wait on others, not to be waited on
Himself, but as His thoughts were running the mention
of the Cross seemed inevitable.
The route taken by Jesus was the normal one for
Jews going from Galilee to Jerusalem. It involved a
double crossing of the Jordan, in order to avoid the
pollution of Samaria. The second fording of the river
took place near Jericho, and there Jesus healed a blind
man. There is now no attempt at concealment. The
man is cured in the sight of everybody, and takes his
place in the train of the followers of Jesus. The change
is probably due to the proximity to Jerusalem. There
was no longer any reason why He should not be recog
nised as the Messiah. It was no part of His purpose
to die as a mere criminal, though He must take a

96 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
criminal's place and bear a criminal's fate. It was
essential to His aim that, being the Messiah, and in that
character expressly, He should suffer the most degrad
ing penalty with which the ancient world was acquainted.
And so, not merely did Jesus perform this public
miracle towards the end of His journey, He arranged
for a spectacular and processional entry into the city
which was to witness the consummation of His life's
work (xi. i-ii). It is not impossible that this had
been long in His mind, and that there was some agree
ment between Jesus and the owners of the beast on
which He rode. Whether that be so or not, it is clear
that He meant there should be no doubt about the
part He was playing. He was entering Jerusalem, and
entering the city with a great crowd behind Him. He
had deliberately, with the recognised Messianic
passage, Zechariah ix. 9, in mind, adopted a royal
state, and accepted royal honours paid to Him by His
followers. It is true that they themselves had not the
remotest conception of what His real sovereignty was
like. But, just as His disciples had recognised His
character a few weeks before, so now the whole mass
of those who were about Him formally and enthusi
astically proclaimed it. Both together would have to
learn what manner of Messiah this was, who could
only seek a throne through the Cross.
So the story moves forward from this point with the
dramatic gloom of the inevitable. The end is already
clear. Such a conflict of aims can have but one issue.
The idealism can only combat the materialism by
submitting to the last and decisive test. It must admit
a temporary or rather a seeming defeat of the most
crushing and perfect kind. The forces of this world
must do all that they can possibly do. They must
oppose, betray, neglect, condemn, destroy. Yet will
their triumph be all in vain, and the pure spiritual faith
will prove its victory to be the more complete and final

THE JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM 97
inasmuch as the whole concentrated power of evil has
utterly and for ever failed. So the future. But for
the present the tragic element dominates the reader's
thought, and the whole scene darkens into a blackness
relieved only by the spiritual majesty and the moral
splendour of the central figure.
Questions on Chapter VI
1. How does the teaching of Jesus compare to your mind
with that of others amongst the world's religious and
moral leaders ?
2. How far do the principles of Jesus as laid down in Mark
viii. 34-37 offer a complete guide to life ?
3. Would you have understood Jesus any better than His
disciples did ?
4. Could Jesus have taught His disciples what He meant
by the Kingdom of God without being crucified ?
5. How do you think that Jesus really expected the Kingdom
to come ?
6. Is the Christian ideal compatible with the existence t>f
private property ? Or is it only excessive wealth
which so nearly disqualifies a man for entrance into
the Kingdom of God ?

Chapter VII
JESUS IN JERUSALEM (Mark xi. 12— xiii. 37)
It was already late in the afternoon when Jesus entered
Jerusalem. For that day it was enough to have made
the royal entry. His further action must be postponed
till the morrow. Accordingly He looked round the
city, with all its various activities and thronging
crowds, and went back to Bethany for the night.
Though the fact is not expressly stated, the narrative
of Mark is unintelligible unless we assume this to have
been His practice throughout the whole time He was
in the neighbourhood. If one may guess at a reason,
it will probably be a similar one to that which made
Jesus withdraw Himself from the Tetrarchy of Galilee
when the determination of Herod to put Him out of
the way became obvious. Jerusalem, with its crowded
streets, offered opportunities for assassination, and to
have Him shut within the city walls at night would
have made arrest easy. But the time chosen by Jesus
was a special one. It must be the Passover, and He
was not prepared to risk His life before the moment
arrived. He therefore remained outside the city by
night, coming in each morning, and returning to
Bethany every evening.
The first incident noted in this period took place
on the way to the city on the first morning. It is the
famous cursing of the fig tree, and it needs to be com
pleted by the inclusion of the sequel, which followed
98

JESUS IN JERUSALEM 99
the next morning on the return of the party from
Bethany (xi. 12-14, 20-25). Not a few readers find
a difficulty in the passage. Some have even felt it to
be a blot on His character, seeing in it the use of His
superhuman power in a peevish act of revenge for His
disappointment. But Jesus used the incident as an
illustration of the power of faith — if indeed the remark
about the uprooted mountain is to be taken as
applied to this incident. And, further, it is not unfair
to regard it as an acted parable. A tree without
fruit is useless, and a life without character is equally
useless. Their fate is one. The comment made by
the evangelist to the effect that it was too early for
figs should dispose of the idea that this was merely
a violent expression of personal disappointment. One
brought up in the country as Jesus was — though He
was no farmer — would not have made a serious error
as to the season. It is clear that His motive in approach
ing the tree was misunderstood, either by an observer
or by the historian, and that His real purpose was to
draw some lesson, possibly that suggested here.
If this latter interpretation be the true one, it may
well be that Jesus intended it to apply with particular
force to the Judaism of His day. For His first act on
entering Jerusalem was one which, while it had a
practical bearing and probably a place in the develop
ment of events, yet is not fully understood till it is seen
to be a condemnation of the religion of His time. The
story, with its suggestion of strength and even violence
is one of the best known amongst the Gospel narratives.
The point of it lies in the two quotations from Isaiah lvi.
and Jeremiah vii. which Jesus put together to explain
His action and to point its moral. The first of these
is one which brings out at once the universality and
the exclusiveness of Judaism. " My house shall be
called a house of prayer for all nations," the prophet
had said. That is to say, the God of the Jew was unlike

ioo ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
the gods of the other nations. They were unreal, whilst
He was the one living and true God. And the
function of the Jew in the scheme of the world's faith
was to spread this knowledge and to bring all other
races of men into touch with Him who alone was the
right object of their soul's desire. At the same time
this reference calls attention to the exclusiveness of the
Jew. Other nations might worship in many places.
There were shrines everywhere to the unreal gods.
To the one living and true God there was only the one.
It was true that He might be found everywhere, and
in every place where the Jew was estabhshed a place
of prayer might be found. But it must be remembered
that to the ancient mind worship was always incom
plete unless it involved or consisted in sacrifice. This
was not the peculiarity of the Jew, it was felt in all
other religions also. And though prayer might be
offered anywhere, sacrifice was only possible in
Jerusalem. And even in Jerusalem it was confined
to the Temple itself. By using these words Jesus said
in effect, " You claim that you alone have had a special
revelation of the only real God. You say that He can
be worshipped here and here alone in full complete
ness. What facilities do you offer to the rest of the
world to enable them to share in this unique but
universal privilege ? " And His answer is one of the
most terrible of the many terrible things He said —
" You have made it a brigands' den."
Rightly to understand these words one must go back
to Jeremiah. A century before his time Isaiah had
taught (amongst much else) that the Temple and the
city which held it were inviolable. It would seem that
the rest of the great prophet's message had shpped
men's minds, but this remained, and had illustrated
the rule that the truth of one age may become the false
hood of the next. For Jeremiah's contemporaries
believed that no matter what iniquities they committed,

JESUS IN JERUSALEM 101
their God would preserve them. They might sin as
they pleased, and retort to every threat of punishment
" The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the
Temple of the Lord are these." And with that parrot-
cry they comforted themselves and sallied out to fresh
forms of wrong. In other words they used their faith
just as brigands use their cave. It is not the place
where their depredations are committed ; it is that
which gives them shelter when they are pursued and
enables them to continue in their evil courses with
impunity. And this was to some extent what the Temple was
to the Jews of Jesus' day. The Temple was built on
a large irregular quadrilateral platform, which formed
the Outer Court, where the buying and selling went on.
This was the only portion of the sacred enclosure to
which Gentiles were admitted. On this platform there
stood the sanctuary proper. It was raised above the
rest, and the next court was approached by a flight
of fourteen steps. Some distance outside the foot of
the steps ran a balustrade of stone, and on this
balustrade were fixed at intervals notices carved on
stone tablets. These notices threatened death to any
foreigner who should be caught inside the balustrade.
This meant that, as against the Gentile, the Temple
was sanctuary. Such sanctuaries are not usually
inhabited by the best of men. Those who carried on
their business in the outer court of the Temple were not
merely commercially minded men, they were men who
did not dare show their faces in Rome or Ephesus or
Alexandria, men who had the best of reasons for being
in reach of safety. And one can imagine that from
time to time a Gentile would track down some Jew who
had cruelly wronged him, and find him at last in this
court. But the hand outstretched to arrest him would
be met by a sudden blow. A few hasty steps and a
leap over the balustrade, and the pursuer would be left

102 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
helpless, face to face with a swearing, spitting fury
whom he could not touch. It is possible that Jesus had
seen some such incident as this on the previous evening,
and had marked the profound incongruity between the
profession of the Jew and his actual practice. For
these people, instead of making it easy, or even possible
for all nations to worship in that house, were simply
using it to secure impunity for criminals of their own
race. In other words, the charge involved in Jesus'
action and quotations is this. Instead of fulfilling
their true destiny, and enabling all men to worship the
one living and true God, they had filled His solitary
shrine with the moral scum and offscourings of their
own people. Such a condition was the most terrible
abuse of their privileged position.
An action like the cleansing of the Temple could
not go unchallenged. It is not impossible that there
was a certain source of revenue in the traders in the
Temple, and it may be almost taken for granted that
a fee was paid by each of them to somebody. But
further, Jesus had implicitly set up a claim to authority
— the same feature as had already appeared in Galilee.
A political Messiah was one thing, a Messiah who made
it His first business to interfere with established
Jewish custom was another. A Messiah should have
begun on the Romans and other foreigners, not on
Jews ! It would seem that Jesus had at least
the approval of large numbers. Otherwise it is
difficult to understand why more drastic action was
not taken immediately. But the leaders of the people
contented themselves with approaching Jesus on His
second morning in the Temple, and asking Him to
produce a warrant or some other sign which would show
that He had a right to dispose of the use of the Temple
courts. It is not impossible that His teaching also had
given rise to suspicion and hostility, and His credentials
on that score were being questioned. But, as Mark

JESUS IN JERUSALEM 103
tells the story, it is'rather the cleansing of the Temple,
with all the claims which it involved, which was the
cause of the question.
It appears that they were not really asking for
information. If they wanted an answer at all it would
be one which would incriminate Him either with the
Jewish religious authorities or with the Roman civil
power. And it is to be noted that they have no answer.
Instead, Jesus, in military phrase, took the offensive,
and proceeded to challenge His inquisitors as to their
right to ask questions. It was open to Him to have
answered that the authority which He possessed was
derived from a divine source, but He did not make
that answer. He asked them a question to which they
dared not reply. It concerned the authority which
underlay the baptism of John. Incidentally this would
seem to point to a comparatively short ministry of Jesus,
for it did not begin till after the imprisonment of John,
and the facts were still much in the minds of the people.
And because they were fairly fresh, these men were
unable to answer. One form of reply would show them
to be in the wrong, and therefore give Jesus an oppor
tunity of retorting on them, the other opened up
possibilities which they could feel but did not need to
describe. Again Mark, with his broken sentence draws
the very expression on their faces. " Are we to say,
Of men ?...!" That course, at least, was impossible.
So they compromised, and gave Jesus the right to refuse
to give any answer at all, on the obvious ground that
His questioners were not competent to deal with the
case. But Jesus did not stop there. He was not content
merely to repel an attack ; He Himself in turn uttered
a condemnation on His enemies. This took the form
of the familiar parable of the wicked husbandmen
(xii. 1-12). Whilst it shared with other parables the
element of disguise, in this particular case the aim was

104 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
sufficiently clear. For Jesus started with what was at
least a reference to the well-known Song of the Vineyard
in Isaiah v., a song which, as it stands in the book of
the prophet, was a direct condemnation of the leaders
of the people. From that point they must have under
stood the meaning of the whole. There could be no
doubt as to His attitude.
It may be worth while noting that during this short
Jerusalem period, there is no indication of the growth
of Pharisaic hostility such as one finds in the Galilsean
ministry. The enmity of the nobility and clergy and
others seems to have been assumed by Jesus from the
moment of His arrival in the capital. And, as Mark
tells the story, even in the first instance the challenge
came from Him and not from them. Of the parties
in the Jewish state, He had known the Pharisees and
Scribes in Galilee. They were not the actual party
in power in Jerusalem, though their influence with the
people was probably very great. The Priests at this
time were mainly of the Sadducees, and in so far as there
were any of the functions of the government left to the
Jews at all, it was in their hands that the power would
lie. The general character of Jewish religion in His
day, Jesus appears to have gauged from His first glimpse
of the city on the evening of His triumphal entry,
and this He expressed in no uncertain terms in the
cleansing of the Temple. He had foreseen and foretold
the rejection with which He would meet at the hands
of all parties. His conception of religion, of thfe function
of Judaism in the divine plan for the world and of the
coming Kingdom of God were such as to bring Him
sooner or later into direct opposition to the established
powers, and He did not wait for their hostility to grow.
He assumed it, and events showed that the assumption
was fully justified. With the Sadducee creed, Jesus
had httle in common, beyond the basis of an ethical
monotheism. As we have already seen, He might have

JESUS IN JERUSALEM 105
found more sympathy amongst the Pharisees* — as
indeed He seems to have done — but His claims to
authority over against the stereotyped tradition were
more than they could bear. The result was that He had
both of the two great parties in the Jewish community
against Him, and though for a time He held the interest
and even the enthusiasm of the mass of the common
people, it was inevitable that this weak support would
soon break and pierce Him as it broke. But for the
moment He had them on His side, and it was not safe
for His enemies to take overt action against Him. Two
courses jvere open to them. Either they must catch
Him alone and arrest Him — a proceeding rendered
difficult by His absence from the city at night — or they
must discredit Him with the crowds. It was the latter
method which they first attempted.
Their next move, then, was for the Pharisees
and the Herodians to join forces. The import of this
alliance has already been noted, and once more it serves
to illustrate the terrible strength of the hostility which
the Pharisees felt towards Jesus. Their method was
to approach Him together, bringing before Him a
question on which He was practically certain to
antagonise one party or the other. Two school boys,
when they wish to make life a burden for some smaller
boy will sometimes go to him and compel him to commit
himself to saving that one is " better " than the other.
If he admits that A is the superior, then B claims that
he has been insulted and that he has the right of
vengeance. If, on the other hand, it is B who secures
the victim's verdict, then the power of punishment
devolves on A. The problem which the new allies
brought to Jesus was something of this character and
was intended to place Him in a similar dilemma.
They asked Him whether it was lawful to render tribute
* For a complete statement of this point of view see Dr. I.
Abraham's book, Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels.

106 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
to Caesar or not. If He said yes, He would give the
Pharisees a handle which they could use against Him
with the mob. They would be able to represent Him
as being on the unpatriotic side, and on the irreligious
side, for the action would be tantamount to the admission
of the rights of the conquering people and of all (such
as Herod) who derived their authority from Rome.
This might help to undermine His influence, and
perhaps even lead to some popular demonstration
against Him which would in the end cost Him His life.
On the other hand a reply which would gratify the
Pharisees and secure His position as a popular leader,
would in the long run bring down on Him the vengeance
of the civil power, and He might be publicly accused
before the Roman tribunals as a rebel.
The way in which Jesus dealt with the question is
familiar to everybody. He did not give a direct answer.
In fact it would not be unfair to say that He gave no
answer at all, but threw back the responsibility of
making the decision on the questioners themselves.
To render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to
God the things that are God's is the dictate of the
simplest form of honesty, and no one could quarrel
with it. They knew as much as that before. What
they had now to do was to apply to the accepted
position the labour of deciding what did belong to Caesar
and what did belong to God. In other words Jesus
simply told them to use their own common sense — a
thing He not infrequently urged on people. In this
case the answer was complete, and there was no
possibility either of basing any charge on His words or
of submitting supplementary questions.
The failure of this combined attack left another
party its opportunity of approaching Jesus. These
new opponents were Sadducees. They asked Him
a riddle which is said to have been a commonplace of
the schools of His day, regarding the marriage relation

JESUS IN JERUSALEM 107
in the Resurrection. However familiar the question
may have been, the reply of Jesus was certainly novel.
He simply denied the fundamental assumption on which
the whole discussion was based, and asserted that in
the new birth the sex question did not exist, since such
distinctions did not survive. To an age in which
woman was regarded as being essentially a lower order
of being, in which the Jew thanked God that he was
a Jew and not a Gentile, a free man and not a slave,
a man and not a woman, the position was nothing less
than revolutionary. It is only slowly that even the
Church has approached this point of view, and it is still
far from being attained.
But Jesus was far from being content with a passive
attitude towards the Sadducees' view of the meaning
of death. He carried the war into the enemies' camp
with a piece of characteristic logic. Appealing to the
common ground of the Pentateuch, in which the Sadducee
believed as thoroughly as any other type of Jew, He
pointed out that, generations after the death of the
Patriarchs, God was still their God. This was not a
mere verbal victory. It is the laying down of a great
principle in understanding the relations between man
and God. God is believed to be eternal. He is not
subj ect to decay or dissolution . He is deathless person
ality. And when once He has come into vital contact
with another personality, the bond between the two
must necessarily be as enduring as God Himself. " He
is not the God of the dead but of the living." It is
incredible that communion with such a Being can be
broken by a physical event like death. Moral or
spiritual failure might cut man off from Him, but
not mere material destruction.
The conversation was overheard by a Scribe, who
probably belonged to the Pharisaic party. The
impression gained from reading Mark is that the man
was perfectly sincere in asking which was the greatest

108 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
commandment in the Law. Jesus defined the greatest
element in the Law as Love, shown first to God and then
to man. But Jesus did not regard Love as a mere
emotion. He approved of the point of view of
Deuteronomy, where it is regarded as the consecration,
the concentration of the whole personality. A man
cannot love God with only a part of himself. He must
throw his whole being into it, heart and soul and mind
and strength. Then, and then alone, he will be able
to fulfil the first demand of God. And with this Jesus
connects love for one's fellows. This cannot be of the
same absorbing quality as the first, but it is sufficiently
strong if a man loves his neighbour as himself. And
with this the Scribe was content, and Jesus recognised
in him the possibility of the best.
Mark immediately follows this incident with two
attacks on the Scribes. These, however, have no
necessary connection with the question or with the
questioner. They are simply illustrations of the more
aggressive elements in the teaching of Jesus in the
Temple. The first, which is concerned with the relation
between the Messiah and David, is really a protest
against the mechanical way in which the Scriptures
were interpreted by the Biblical scholars of His day.
A freer canon of exegesis than theirs was needed if the
" Messianic " passages in the Old Testament were to
be rightly understood. The second, which has a
certain humour about it, is an attack on them for the
conceit and failure to appreciate the real function
which they should have performed. They were the
people whose special studies laid a special responsibility
upon them. They should have been the interpreters
of the religious faith of Israel. They had knowledge
and they had privilege. Knowledge and privilege carry
with them duties and obligations. But the men whom
Jesus saw stalking about to be looked at were indifferent
to duties and obUgations. Instead of regarding their

JESUS IN JERUSALEM 109
position and attainments as giving them opportunities
for service and for raising the standard of the God-
consciousness of their people, they only valued these
things for the popular reputation which they secured
for their possessors, and for the external marks of respect
with which they were acknowledged.
The last incident of the public life of Jesus is that
of the generous widow. There is much in it that is
not obvious, partly because the story is so familiar
(usually misquoted as that of the " widow's mite ")
and partly because the West does not realise as the East
does the abject helplessness of widowhood. In oriental
society woman is seldom if ever independent. She must
always have a man in whose charge she hves. She is
never expected to keep herself, and though there are
often cases in which a woman has property which
remains hers all her life, yet in the great majority of
instances she has to rely on the exertions of a man to
secure her living. As long as her husband lives, she is
safe, but after his death, unless she has sons who are
able to support her, her position is difficult and even
precarious. And here the word " poor " implies a
destitution almost complete.
But, even if this has not always been realised, the
main lesson has never been missed. It is that the value
of a gift is never absolute, it is always relative. This
is so clear a fact, even in practical life, that it is un
necessary to lay any further stress upon it. Institu
tions of the highest and most permanent value are not
those maintained by the big donations of the wealthy,
but those which command the interest and support of
the poor. The essence of the true gift lies in sacrifice.
Chapter xiii. stands apart from what precedes, and
indeed from most of what we find elsewhere in the
Gospel. It forms the great eschatological discourse
of Jesus, and is sometimes called " the little Apocalypse."
In recent years there has grown up a whole body of

no ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
opinion as to the character and thought of Jesus,
based mainly upon this passage and on similar ones
elsewhere in the Gospels. It is thought that Jesus
Himself was looking for some spectacular manifestation
of the Kingdom of God, which was in some ways not
unlike the eschatological views of His contemporaries.
He differed from them in believing that these last things
would never come to pass unless the Christ were first
to die. After His death He would rise again, and in
no long time appear to destroy all other powers, and end
the old regime in a burst of unparalleled calamity.
In favour of this view there is not only much that is
to be found in this and similar passages, but also the
undoubted belief of the primitive Church, which lived
in daily expectation of the decisive moment. On the
other hand it is argued that what Jesus said here can
only have referred to the coming destruction of
Jerusalem, that His clear insight and political sagacity
told Him that if Judaism continued on its career of
materialistic patriotism, there was only one possible
end, and that could not be far off. It is impossible in
so sketchy a study as this to discuss such a question,
but it is possible at least to get some kind of outline
of the whole.
In the first place, the speech arose out of a remark
made by one of the disciples, who called attention to
the beauty of the Temple. Jesus replied with a prophecy
of its complete destruction. Further explanations were
required, and Jesus began with a somewhat general
statement of the troubles which would befall the world.
Not the least of these would be the appearance of false
Christs — a constant feature in Palestinian politics for
the next generation (w. 1-8). There follows the warn
ing of persecution, given to the disciples themselves
(w. 9-13). Then a description of a calamity which
may be identified with the destruction of Jerusalem,
and may perhaps have been coloured by the events

JESUS IN JERUSALEM in
of the years 69 and 70. This, at least, is not
strictly eschatological. There is no point in fleeing
to the mountains from Judea to escape the Judgment
Day. This is described in vv. 14-23. But it is
followed by another passage which speaks of events
which are to follow the destruction of Jerusalem. The
interval will not be a long one (v. 29), but it will be
filled by celestial portents, and when they are
accomplished, then, as the consummation of all things,
Jesus Himself will appear in His triumphant glory
and will gather together His elect. The actual time is
one which cannot be known by men, but when the
first signs appear they must be ready, and above all
must be awake and expectant (vv. 24-37).
Whilst the earlier portions of this discourse refer
to the fall of Jerusalem, it is equally clear that the last
section reflects the eschatological views of the day.
It is of course open to argue that the language is possibly
modified by the first Christian generation to suit its own
ideas, but that only opens the further question as to
how it came to regard those ideas as being characteristic
of the teaching of Jesus. A great mass of eschato
logical literature was current, and what strikes one
about this passage is the scantiness of the information
as compared with that to be found in similar writings.
The saints are to be collected, but nothing is said as to
the life they will live, or the nature of the Kingdom
which will be formed from them, or of the fate of those
who are outside the circle of the elect. The point will
readily be appreciated if a typical Apocalypse — say
that preserved in our New Testament — be compared
with this chapter. But for the fact that this passage
is used by both Luke and Matthew (as well as another
discourse of the same kind) it would be possible to
suggest that it was an Apocalypse of the year 71
or thereabouts, which had been interpolated into the
text. But it is quite unsafe to assume that any part

112 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
of this Gospel can have had such a history as that,
especially when it belongs to the elements which were
in the hands e.g. of Matthew.
On the whole the safest course seems to be to
assume that here as elsewhere Jesus thought and spoke
in the language of His time. Whilst the importance
of this aspect of Jesus' teaching has been greatly
overstressed by such writers as Schweitzer, it must be
admitted to have had a place. He really does seem to
have expected that in some miraculous way His King
dom would come after His death. But, in the main,
it was the death and not the triumph that filled His
thought. And to that death the narrative immediately
proceeds. Questions on Chapter VII
i. Do you think that the action of Jesus in cursing the fig
tree needs defence ? If so, what defence would you
offer ?
2. Why do you think Jesus began His public ministry in
Jerusalem by cleansing the Temple ?
3. Mark tells us of no miracle performed by Jesus actually
in Jerusalem ? Why ?
4. What view do you think Jesus took of sex relationships ?
5. Are we justified in " dodging " awkward questions ?
6. Do you think Jesus expected to return in triumph very
soon after His death ? If so, how far was He mistaken ?

Chapter VIII
THE END— AND THE BEGINNING
(Mark xiv. i — xvi. 8)
We have followed the historian in his record of the
active and public life of Jesus. We have seen how
first He won a small group, chosen out of the ordinary
men who surrounded Him, and then slowly but surely
trained them till they were prepared to believe first
and foremost in Himself. We have watched the growth
of official hostility, which compelled Him to leave the
crowds who knew Him, and seek for privacy in which He
might give to His own group the teaching which should
fit them for the carrying on of His work after He had
gone from them. And we have seen how, when once
their personal allegiance was secured, He set His face
for the closing tragedy, and with an audacity which
excites wonder and fear, flung His final challenge in the
face of all that His own age and people counted most
authoritative. Such a course of action and such an attitude could
have only one end. Yet one feels as one approaches
this end that one is treading upon no common ground.
The death of Jesus can no more be like the death of
any other than His real life was that of mortal man.
He who reads the last chapters of this Gospel must read
them upon his knees. He must realise that he is
entering into the very holy of holies. The simple state
ment of the writer is couched in no extravagant language,
but through this masterly dramatic reticence the

114 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
reader is gripped by an overwhelming sense of gloom, un
relieved and unmitigated. With all this there is also an
atmosphere of impenetrable mystery. There must
be more in this than the historian can exhibit — more
possibly than any human thought can fathom.
It would seem that the time and the occasion were
dehberately selected by Jesus Himself. He chose the
Passover. We need not enter into the discussion as to
the actual date of the death of Jesus or attempt to decide
as between the historical accuracy of the second and
fourth Gospels. Suffice it to note that the language
of Mark is unintelligible unless the writer believed that
the last supper was the Passover meal, and that Jesus
suffered on the day following the Passover and not on
the Passover day itself. But this is (except from the
theological and symbolical point of view) a minor detail.
The main purpose would seem to have been secured
in any case if we may trust Mark's narrative. Jesus
meant His death to be as public as possible. Just as
His claim to Messiahship had been made by a
processional entry into the capital, at a time when more
Jews would be gathered there than at any other, so His
final exposition of the meaning of that Messiahship and
the paradoxical act whereby His apparent destruction
was to inaugurate the new Kingdom, were to be made
in such fashion that every one must at least be aware
of the facts.
This being the case, the dramatic effect of the
anointing of Jesus cannot well be over-estimated. The
people are grouped and contrasted, the woman, the
grumblers (not necessarily bad men ; merely un
imaginative ones) and Jesus Himself. Apart from all
other interest the short narrative shows how completely
the mind of Jesus was dominated in these days by the
thought of His own approaching death. Mark does not
comment on the character or on the affection of the
giver, He leaves all that to be inferred from the remarks

THE END— AND THE BEGINNING 115
of Jesus. And those remarks are illuminating from
this point of view. But their meaning is still more
clearly an indication of His own prospects. It seems
that the thought of what lay before Him was so pressing
that every incident was inevitably interpreted to Him
in terms of it. It must be remembered that as far as
we know there was no trace of comprehension or of
real intellectual sympathy in any of those who were
about Him. He had, it is true, the passionate devotion
of the Twelve, and probably of others as well, but that
devotion was absolutely blind to the true character
of His work and of His Kingdom. To them these things
meant thrones and crowns, war and victory. To Him
it meant shame and suffering, ending only in death.
One almost feels as if He snatched at anything which
might show that somebody understood, however dimly,
and however imperfectly. He Himself, at least, was
under no misapprehension. His purpose was set, and
its fulfilment to Him inevitable. Called upon to defend
the woman He said in effect, " You would not think
the ointment wasted if it were poured over a corpse
It might be sold, but the buyer would have no better
use for it than that. I am to all intents and purposes
a corpse. You may think of me as dying or even as
dead. Even so, I shall live in the Gospel, and every
where the story shall be told of how she understood
and made ready. The opportunity is unique, and no
one else seems to realise the fact. She does, and her
deed will go down to all ages for that reason."
In startling contrast to the act of this (in Mark)
unnamed woman is the next sentence, which records
the treachery of Judas Iscanot. His motives have
been variously explained. To most men he has seemed
to be the traitor par excellence, and his name has been
handed down to infamy on this ground. Others have
tried to enter into his position and sympathise with
his point of view. It has been suggested that he was

116 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
as well aware as any other of the power of Jesus, and
that it was his hope to force his Master's hand. By
this betrayal he would compel Him to declare Himself
and to employ those miraculous powers which He
possessed. Thus, at what Judas regarded as being the
right moment, the consummation of the hopes of all
Israel would be achieved. Mark suggests neither view ;
he simply records what happened, though it must be
admitted that the attitude of Jesus Himself, indicated
later, does not favour the more charitable (and
ingenious) presentation of the case. The thing was
done, and in view of that tremendous fact, even the
motives of the doer are insignificant. In the appalling
tragedy in which he played a part, Judas himself falls
almost out of sight. There is no real room in the story
for anyone except Jesus.
If more were needed to heighten the sense of gloom,
it would be provided by the narrative of the farewell
meal which Jesus shared with His disciples. It would
seem that some previous arrangement had been made
between Jesus and the owner of the room. Comment
ators have pointed out that the sight of a man carrying
water was sufficiently rare to be distinctive, inasmuch
as this was normally a woman's work. This, together
with the character of the message form a good enough
ground for the suggestion that there was a definite
appointment between Jesus and the host.
The meal is one of the best known events in the
world's history. For the first time it would seem that
the feeling of tragedy had communicated itself to the
Twelve. They are at least brought to think, and to
see that it is at least possible that all may not be as they
have hitherto imagined. This effect is produced by
the announcement of the betrayal. The foretelling of
the crucifixion itself had left them cold, indifferent or
incredulous. The statement that there was an actual
traitor amongst them stirred them deeply. As Mark

THE END— AND THE BEGINNING 117
tells the story they at once began to try to clear them
selves individually. Though innocent, it may well be
that they knew just enough of their own frailty to
realise that any one of them might fall. But Jesus
declined to give them the least clue, refusing to say
anything which might enable them to guess at the
identity of the criminal by a process of elimination.
As each breaks in with " Surely you don't mean me ? "
Jesus cuts the questions off short by repeating His state
ment with some amplification. It is to be noted that
Mark gives no indication of the point at which Judas
left. He is next mentioned as being with the officers
who arrest Jesus, and he is certainly there at table,
listening ready for an exposure of his treachery. But
it does not come, and it is possible that Mark meant
his readers to understand that he slipped away as they
left the chamber. In that case it is clear that Judas
was himself a partaker in the sacramental rite. Yet
Jesus felt a certain deep sympathy for him, and in His
words of regret it is impossible to find mere condemna
tion. Recognising that the doom which hung over
him and the part that the traitor was to play were alike
inevitable, He yet deplored the awful position of the
instrument of destruction. Whilst the agony of His
own suffering almost crushed His soul, it is perhaps
not too fanciful to see in " Better for that man if he had
never been born " a sense that Judas too had a cross
before him, aU the more terrible because it was his own
sin that laid it on him, and the underlying inspiration
of altruism could not be his. Jesus knew what the
betrayal meant ; Judas did not know, but that know
ledge was bound to be his ultimately — when it was
too late.
Of the actual supper and the solemn words with
which Jesus stamped it on the memory of those who
sat with him, it is almost impossible to speak. There
are few bodies of Christians to whom the facts do not

118 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
come home with regularity, and not a few of us find
that the repetition brings with it a heightened sense
of the mysteiy and the wonder of the Love that lies
behind. As each occasion brings home to us a fresh
content of meaning, expressed or inexpressible, it
deepens also the sense of yet greater mystery to be
explored. To attempt an adequate explanation of
Jesus' words, and still more to attempt to recover the
atmosphere would be to court disaster. Further, so
much has been said and written on the subject, that
neither a summary nor a fresh examination is here
possible. Nevertheless there are one or two points
to which special attention may be called, inasmuch as
they rise directly out of Mark's narrative.
The first of these is that whilst Jesus Himself gave
thanks for the bread which typified His own broken
body, and for the wine which was the emblem of His
own shed blood, He does not seem to have partaken
of them Himself. This is expressly stated in the case
of the wine. This means that He was conscious, and
that He meant them to be conscious, of an altruistic
purpose in His death. Whatever there was to be gained
thereby would be gained by them and not by Him.
It was His to give, even of His own life ; it was theirs
to receive. This, at least, is obvious throughout the
whole narrative.
The other point that lies on the surface is that
Jesus expressly placed Himself in the line of the develop
ment of the world's religion. He refers deliberately to
the conception which most completely fulfils the thought
of Israel, on the relation between God and man — the
idea of a Covenant. That theory had lain at the root
bf Israel's dealings with her own national God, as re
vealed at Sinai. As a result of the prophetic stand for
righteousness it had found expression in the Book of
Deuteronomy. But Deuteronomy had failed as a means
of practical regeneration, and failed with amazing

THE END— AND THE BEGINNING 119
rapidity. Jeremiah, who had seen the beginnings of
the new order, had also witnessed the close of the age
to which it was first applied, and had thereupon
enunciated that great doctrine of his — perhaps the
greatest thought a single Jew ever contributed to the
religion of his people — there would be a new covenant.
It would not be written, as the old had been, with mere
pen and ink upon papyrus or other dead material.
Such an " agreement " could never be anything more
than a " scrap of paper." Instead it was to be written
upon the heart, and set in men's inward parts. Doubt
less Jeremiah's hope was for the recovery of the Jewish
state in the little Mizpah community under Gedaliah.
But that hope failed, and Israel, the world, had to wait
till this night when Jesus brought it to full fruition.*
For there was that which Jeremiah had not seen which
was yet essential — the writing medium. Ink will do
for the paper ; blood alone will lay it upon the heart.
Nowhere do the startling perception of reality and
the amazing appreciation of human nature which
characterised Jesus appear more radiantly than here.
Nothing less than death — nothing less than His death
— would suffice to drive home the eternal lesson of the
friendship of God, the suffering of God and the atoning
passion of God in such form that these facts could
never be erased from the human heart. And so,
through all the ages, amid much misunderstanding,
crude interpretation, and shallow acceptance of dogma,
the supreme message of Jesus to sinful humanity has
held its sway — His blood was shed for many.
In such a moment as this the whole heart of Jesus
lay bare to those who loved Him. There was thus
that gleam of light which appeared at the end of the
tunnel — He would some day drink the new wine in the
Kingdom of God. But there was an added pang which
* That this reference was felt by the disciples themselves is clear
from the Pauline account as preserved in Luke and in I Cor. xi.

120 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
lay before Him which He must share with them. They
loved Him, but they would desert Him. The last of
the possible supports with which His life provided Him
was soon to give way, and leave Him absolutely
destitute of expressed human sympathy. Their very
reception of this statement serves to illustrate the
immense gulf which separated Him from those who
were nearest to Him. To Him the terrible thing was
inevitable ; to them it was incredible. The swift
response of Peter, who took the announcement in a
personal way, suggests that He, at any rate, had felt
almost insulted by the words of Jesus. And it is
characteristic of the Twelve in the Synoptists that
what Peter says the rest feel but leave unsaid, at least
as far as our records go. The last thing that seemed
possible to any of them was that they, with all their
loving enthusiasm, should find in Jesus a " stumbling-
block." Yet only an hour or two later, " they all left
Him and fled." The keenness with which Jesus Himself
felt the contrast between the actual situation and
their view of it appears in the tense emphasis of His
reply to Peter. It seems almost as if that prophecy
of the denial were shaken from Him in a series of sharp
jerks — " you " — (the pronoun is itself emphatic) —
" to-day — this very night — before second cockcrow —
thrice will deny me." And Peter's reply is not really
boastful, it is rather the expression of unquestioned
certitude — " Why ; I would not think of denying you,
even though confession were to cost me my life."
From this utter lack of comprehension Jesus had
to turn to a companionship which had never failed
Him and had always been at hand. A good deal is
said at times about the " spiritual pilgrimage " of Jesus.
As a matter of fact, it is a subject on which there is
practically no evidence. It is only very rarely that
we get glimpses of Jesus, or catch the sound of His
voice, except when He is talking to others. And

THE END— AND THE BEGINNING 121
progress observable there may be due at least as much
to the growth — slow but real — in His hearers as in His
own inner life. One fact certainly is clear. Through
out the whole of His life there is no trace of an instant's
sense of separation from His Father. There never has
been a life which exhibited from start to finish this
same perfection of spiritual union with God. It will
be necessary to refer again to this feature of the life
of Jesus when we stand at the foot of the Cross itself,
but it is well to mention it here. For in this lack of the
true human fellowship Jesus turned as it were by instinct
to prayer. The others, the inner circle at least, were
to have one more chance of sharing in their Master's
experience, though in the real struggle He must be
alone. But they failed. They could not enter into His
heart and see what lay there ; they could not even keep
awake. Our failure must be just as complete. We may not
sleep, but we, like Peter and James and John, can only
stand apart. Though the supreme agony was reserved
for the next day, the fiercest battle came in the Garden.
It was the culmination of all the struggle and the
temptation of His life. The Cross had been always
before Him. He had carried it about with Him more
truly than if the actual timber had lain on His shoulder.
Always there had been the grim horror of it, always
there had been the shrinking, always there had been
the nerve strain due to the necessity for unrelaxed
effort in the struggle between the spirit and the flesh.
But now the last chance had come. In a few moments
as He well knew, the police would hold Him in their
grasp, and thenceforward events would move of them
selves, without His initiative. But, for those few
moments, the opportunity for escape was still open.
All the force of the battle of years, all the terror and
dread, all the loathing and repulsiveness of the end
were concentrated into a single sentence, " Abba,

122 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
Father, all things are possible to thee ; cause this cup
to pass from me." And all the devotion, all the consecra
tion, all the sustained tenacity of surrender culminated
in the closing words " nevertheless, not what I will,
but what thou wilt." God's greatest victory on earth
was won.
Meanwhile the disciples had slept, and only awakened
when the actual moment of betrayal was at hand. The
hasty, ill-judged and unskilful attempt at defence
on the part of one of them serves to heighten the dramatic
effect by affording a foil to the dignity and grandeur
of Jesus Himself. Indeed the little incident would
be almost comic but for the pitiful double failure it
involved, the failure to understand what Jesus stood
for and the failure to achieve anything efficient. Even
had the Kingdom of Jesus been of this world, it could
never have been won by such swordsmen — and it was
not of this world at all. To the striker and his com
panions Jesus is silent ; it would seem as if He took
no notice of them. His only words are a reproach
addressed to His captors, ending with a recognition of
the fact that all this was inevitable. Two short
sentences record the flight of His friends, and the
attempted arrest of one follower, who is by some identi
fied with Mark.
These, one feels, are minor incidents, and the
interest shifts at once to the trial before the ecclesias
tical court — that of the Sanhedrim Here an attempt
is made to preserve the form of autonomy. The Old
Testament laws of evidence are strictly observed. That
is to say, for condemnation it was necessary that at
least two witnesses should give evidence to the same
offence, and be able to give it in identical terms. This
created difficulties. Harmonious evidence was not
easy to obtain, in spite of the fact that there were a
number of persons who did their best to oblige the
authorities. Even when testimony was forthcoming

THE END— AND THE BEGINNING 123
to the same incident there was sufficient divergence
between the witnesses to discredit them. The state
ment of the Evangehst is that all the evidence, even
this, was false, but one would suspect that there was
some truth lying behind this last item. In John ii. 19
the words " Destroy this temple, and in three days I
will raise it again " are ascribed to Jesus, apparently
with special reference to the story of the trial. But it
is possible that we have a saying still nearer to the actual
words on which the charge was based embedded in
2 Cor. v. 1. Paul's mode of introducing the words
" If the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved
. . . ." seems to imply that he was quoting from some
authority known to himself and to his correspondents.
In that case the falsification would mainly lie in the
insertion of the three days and in the claim to be the
person who would accomplish the restoration.
In any case, the discrepancies between the witnesses
made their words useless, and the High Priest fell back
on a method utterly abhorrent to our modern sense
of justice — the method of making the prisoner in
criminate himself. He asked the plain question and
received a plain answer — a little more than he had
asked for The reply of Jesus certainly tends to
strengthen the case of those who believe that His
thought was largely influenced by the eschatological
ideas current in His day. But it is not easy to see
where the blasphemy comes in. Hardly in the claim
to the Messiahship. Nor would a strictly impartial
interpretation of Jesus' quotation from Daniel vii. 13
have been sufficient to sustain this charge. Had the
later Christology of the Church been involved in the
words of Jesus, there might have been some ground
on which to go, but it is most unlikely that this ever
entered the minds of the judges. But men in their
position were not inclined to be either strict or
impartial . They would probably have seen some capital

124 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
offence in anything that Jesus said. They had got Him
to speak, and any words of His would serve their turn.
There may be a faint sarcasm in the language in which
Mark records their sentence. They are not said to have
condemned Him to death, for that lay outside their
power, but to have expressed the opinion that such
blasphemy as His was worthy of death — if means
could be found to inflict the penalty.
Within sight of the actual judical proceedings
there was taking place a far different scene. Peter's'
denial, again, is one of those events of which the world
has long known all that there is to be known. His
motive is simple — just fear. Mixed with that is perhaps
disappointment. Like others, Peter had expected a
sudden, and miraculous divine intervention in aid of
Jesus, and it had not come. Instead, He had allowed
Himself to be arrested, and was now allowing
Himself to be condemned. It would seem that Peter
followed partly from affection and partly in the hope
of witnessing the great vindication of Jesus. But it
did not come. Instead, the Master was condemned
and made the sport of cruelty and buffoonery. He
might after all be on the wrong side.
The actual criminal trial before Pilate has been
expounded and interpreted times without number.
All the actors have been studied, alone and in contrast.
All have been judged by their attitude to Jesus —
priests, people and governor. The essential feature
of this trial is that Jesus did to all intents and purposes
— as Mark tells the story — plead guilty to the charge
brought against Him. After this Pilate, whatever his
feelings may have been, had no choice. It is noteworthy
that in this Gospel there is no declaration of His inno
cence on the part of Pilate. He knows that Jesus is
formally guilty, and however little the danger he
recognises in Him, he is not in a position to acquit
Him. Nor does Jesus make any attempt to escape.

THE END— AND THE BEGINNING 125
There is here no explanation offered of the meaning
and character of the kingship which Jesus claims, such
as is attributed to Him in the Fourth Gospel. From
first to last, except for the two words which admit the
charge, Jesus says no word.
It is impossible to miss the import of this attitude.
In a very real sense Jesus threw His life away. Though
the final stroke of violence which deprived Him of life
came from the hands of others, yet it was His own act,
calculated and determined, which armed those hands
with their destructive power. It is in full accord with
the whole of this scene that He is represented elsewhere
as saying of His life " No man taketh it from me, but
I lay it down of myself." This was in truth the final
purpose that He had set before Himself. His control
of events is, indeed, one of the most striking features of
the last days. Knowing men as He did, He could use
their natural character for His own ends. The
treacherous Judas has his place in the designs of Jesus.
The cowardly Twelve desert Him, Peter denies Him,
all that He may taste human in its supreme bitterness
and loneliness. However death may come to us, none
of us can say that it is worse than Jesus knew. So with
Pilate He had nothing to do. The Roman Governor
was no more, in the effective working out of His purpose,
than one of the mechanical instruments without which
the end could not be achieved. Jesus lived in order to die
— at least from the day when Peter acclaimed Him as
the Messiah. Only so could He prove to the world, and
even to His own loving followers, the true meaning
of that Kingdom of His. Let it be clearly under
stood that this view is very far from exhausting the
meaning of the death of Christ. It is probably the
most immediate and superficial of all the aspects from
which that death may be regarded, but it is certainly
one of them, and it is one which springs inevitably out
of Mark's whole narrative.

126 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
This aspect is in a sense emphasised by the Barabbas
incident. The latter was exactly of the type which
many, at least, of the Jews expected to see fully
exemplified in the Christ. An aggressive and violent
patriot, who shrank from nothing in order to achieve
his ends, and drive the foreigner from his native land —
that was what men sought and what Jesus could not
offer them. The contrast between the two is more than
the contrast between the innocent and the guilty, it is
the contrast which sums up this side of the aim of Jesus,
the bringing into the world of a totally new idea of the
reign of God. On the one hand stands the ideal of the
Kingdom of God as something that comes " with
observation," on the other as something that is " within
you." Men chose the former, and thereby proved
once and for all alike the need for the contrast and the
fundamental truth of each to type.
So Jesus was condemned, and then mocked by the
soldiers — men who inevitably took the material view.
To them it was the finest joke in the world that the title
of " King " — and a revolutionary king — should be
assumed by a being so feeble, so inept, so utterly deficient
in all the qualities needed to make any kind of " show "
at the game of rebellion.
This rude jesting is only a short interlude, necessary
to bring home the sense of the absolute loneliness
of Jesus. Even those who had never seen or heard of
Him before were against Him. It is soon over, and
the action passes swiftly on. The climax is reached
and Jesus is crucified. We need not elaborate the
various incidents of the story, — the failing physical
frame, collapsing under the weight of the cross, the
conspicuous identification with the criminal classes,
the mockery of fellow sufferers and onlookers, the
proffered refreshment and the torn veil. The central
horror lies not in these externals, terrible as they were,
it lies in the cry of Jesus. The words, quoted from

THE END— AND THE BEGINNING 127
Psalm xxii.* were yet uttered not in the original
Hebrew, with which Jesus must have been familiar, but
in Aramaic, His natural speech. That is to say that
they were not mere quotation, they were the expression
of His own experience at the moment. That experience
is utterly beyond our power of appreciation. Jesus
had lived all His life without a moment of conscious
separation from His Father. Even in the garden the
agony had not broken the thread of communion. The
presence, sympathy and love of His Father had been the
fundamental fact of life to Him, the ultimate reality
of experience. And now it was gone. It is this which
gives the death of Jesus its meaning. It is not merely
the physical suffering nor the degradation nor the
desolation and withdrawal of all human sympathy —
others have borne such things. To Jesus alone, as far
as our record of man's spiritual life goes, was it given
to live all His life in an unwavering faith and communion
with God, and suddenly to find in the last hour, when
the need for God was at its highest, when everything
else had failed, that God Himself too had vanished
from the field of experience.
This is no place to attempt to sketch, still less to
construct, a theology of the Cross. Nevertheless one
thing must be said. If the death of Jesus, as Mark
describes it, were merely the end of His life, and nothing
more, then ethical values cease to exist. Either this
appalling spiritual tragedy has a further meaning,
which will in the end give a fuller light on God's dealings
with man, or we must abandon as an exquisite mirage
the dream of a righteous and a loving God. Here there
can be no middle course. If one finds mere historical
events in the life of Jesus, His death will explosively
shatter the moral world about one. That a life of
perfect goodness should close in physical and social
disaster is not wholly unexpected ; that it should close
* See J. R. Coates' " The Christ of Revolution."

128 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
in the lowest abyss of spiritual despair would mean
that goodness was a complete failure, and that not
God but the devil is supreme. Jesus had con
sistently lived for the Kingdom of God. He had seen
that it was not bf this world, and was only to be won
through His own suffering. But if that suffering
merely meant His desertion by God, then the Kingdom
itself was a delusion. He had lived for a phantom and
died for a dream. Once more, this is not the place to
trespass on the province of the theologian and attempt
to offer a doctrine of the " work of Christ," but it is
inevitable that one should realise that room should
be found in one's own thinking and experience for such
a doctrine, whatever be its detailed form. We are
faced with two alternatives and two only. Either God
is not what we thought Him, i.e., God as Jesus under
stood Him does not exist, or there is some supreme
revelation of Him in this fact which we may not perhaps
fathom but which we are compelled to acknowledge.
We may admire His character and life, we may value
His teaching and example, but His death is a supreme
challenge to a reasoned faith and a willed recognition
of Jesus as Lord, Saviour and God.
To us — as Mark tells the story — there is in the burial
a sense of waiting. There is a quietness and a hush
about the whole. To the minor actors in the drama
there was doubtless a numb hopelessness — especially
in the case of the women. But to us who read it is
not possible to avoid the conviction that this is but an
interlude — sad, but yet peaceful. The poignant agony
of the last hour is past, and neither the human mind
nor the human body can remain conscious of acute
suffering for an indefinite time. Once more, there
will come, when this numbness has worn off, the recog
nition of the moral and spiritual implication of the death
of Jesus, and the men will be driven into the despair
of blank atheism — unless something happens. Such an

THE END— AND THE BEGINNING 129
attitude of mind cannot fall upon us all at once. The
life and spirit of Jesus have taught us at least some
thing of that supreme faith of His in a Heavenly Father.
We instinctively — perhaps unconsciously — cling to the
belief that something will happen. So the Passover
Sabbath is a day of peaceful sadness rather than of
tragic sorrow.
And something does happen. The loving tenderness
of the women took them to the grave to embalm, as
best they might, the body of Him whom they had loved.
It is not necessary to dwell on their anxiety or on the
person they actually found there or other details.
The stupendous fact is that they found the grave
empty. Jesus was not there, and instead of the dead
body they found the assurance that He was not dead
but alive. Here the actual Gospel of Mark breaks off,
xvi. 9-16 are a compilation from other sources designed
to take the place of pages lost very early from the
Gospel. But there is no reason to doubt that the
substance of the missing pages is represented in the
close of the Gospel according to Matthew, and may
be studied there by those who wish to have the
complete story.
But for us the supreme fact is that Jesus is not dead.
This in itself is a complete reversal of the situation.
Jesus died — and lives, by that death and by that hfe
transforming character and outlook for those who had
experience of both facts. There was something more
in the death of Jesus than the mere end of His life.
Out of apparent failure had come the truest success,
out of apparent defeat the most perfect triumph.
Entering into the double experience the men and women
of Jesus found the truth of the Kingdom. It has been
said many times that the perfect evidence for the
Resurrection is found in the Church. We may go
further and say that it is found in every one for whom
and in whom Jesus lives.

130 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
Questions on Chapter VIII
i. Can " waste " be justified on grounds of " sentiment " ?
2. What view do you take of the treachery of Judas ?
3. What do you think Jesus meant by His words at the
Supper ?
4. If you had been in Peter's place, would you have denied
Jesus ?
5. Is anyone ever justified in " throwing his life away " ?
6. What does the death of Jesus mean to you ?

A NOTE ON MIRACLES
In discussing the miracles recorded in the Gospel of
Mark, it must always be remembered that the age in
which the book was written firmly believed in the
possibility of what we call miracles— i.e.,, the achieve
ments of results which we cannot refer to any known
law or normal phenomenon — and expected them.
There is always, then, the possibility that what is
recorded so as to appear miraculous may have taken
place in a way which we should to-day understand and
appreciate. The explanation would have been simple
to us, but it was not so to the ancient world, and there
fore in recording they made it seem to their reader —
as it seemed to them — a miracle.
This consideration applies with varying force to the
different types of miracle which may be distinguished.
Roughly speaking there are three of these. The first
type are the miracles of exorcism, the casting out of
devils. In many cases the symptoms indicate what
would to-day be called either epilepsy or extreme forms
of hysteria. Here it is easy to understand that a
powerful personality could, by means of " suggestion "
effect a cure, especially when it is remembered that
the patient as well as the exorcist and all about them
were agreed in their view of the source of the trouble.
If a man really believes himself to be inhabited or
possessed by devils, it is easy to understand how a person
of authority could make him believe, by adopting the
man's own view of the case and ordering the devil to
depart, that he was cured.
A second type is the cure of disease. It is becoming
more and more realised that there is a spiritual element
131

132 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
in the cure of many diseases, and not a few medical
men insist that their work is very much easier when
they have the confidence and moral co-operation of
the patient, or perhaps of others. Of course, in our
experience there are hmits to which this principle can
be applied, and there are innumerable instances in which
the actual physical damage done by disease is so great
that the normal man's spiritual energy is utterly
inadequate to meet or repair it . Lungs largely destroyed
by tubercle would be a case in point. But granted so
unique a spiritual power as that of Jesus, based, as it
was, on His sinless life and maintained by His unbroken
communion with His Heavenly Father, one does not
see why there should be limits set to the possibilities
of the spiritual element in the cure of disease.
The third outstanding type is that of the so-called
" nature miracles " — the feeding of the five thousand,
the walking on the water and similar events. In many
quarters there will doubtless be a tendency to " explain
them away " on lines suggested above. It has been
supposed for instance, that in the case of the miraculous
feeding of crowds, what Jesus did was to set the example
of forming and distributing a common stock from the
small portions that different people had with them.
The " miracle " would thus lie again on the side of
personality, a magnetism which could impel men to
share what they had, and an organising genius which
could arrange for its adequate distribution. Such an
event, it is argued, would appeal to those present as
being very wonderful, and, as the tale was handed
down from mouth to mouth it would assume a form in
which Jesus Himself practically created the meal.
There wiU be others, who, like the present writer,
while not seeking to lay any burden on the faith of those
who find such a view the only possible one, yet feel
that it does not account for the facts, and that in deal
ing with a historian of such ability and care as Mark,

A NOTE ON MIRACLES 133
one must be extremely chary of allowing oneself to
detract in any way from the real historicity of the
events which he relates. To such it may seem prefer
able to accept these stories as they stand, recognising
in Jesus a person so unique that He had powers beyond
the reach of ordinary men, and a control over the
physical world which others have not possessed.
In discussing the miracles of Jesus, the following
points should be borne in mind : —
1. The miraculous element is inextricably woven into
the texture of the Gospels.
2. The miracles form part of the revelation of God in
Jesus Christ. They are not mere " wonder-
stories," but harmonise with the teaching and
character of our Lord.
3. The Jewish authorities were not convinced by the
recorded miracles of the validity of the claims of
Jesus ; and He refused to give them the " signs "
which they demanded.
4. It is important to give due weight to the fact that
on certain contemporaries Jesus made such an
impression that they believed He could do what
God could do.
In conclusion it may be noted that to the modern
mind miracles have practically no " apologetic " value.
We should not admit a man's claim to be superhuman
on the ground that he could do things which we could
neither do nor understand. Their value to us, if we
accept them in full the sense, is that they add to the
picture of Jesus, carrying into unusual realms the power
of that amazing personality which for authority and
dynamic has never been equalled in the world's history.
To one in whom " the full content of God dwelt in bodily
form," such acts were natural.

134 ST. MARK'S LIFE OF JESUS
The following books are suggested for further
reading on the subject of miracles : —
A Handbook of Christian Apologetics. A. E. Garvie.
Duckworth. (Chapter 3, Section 3.)
Miracles : Papers and Sermons contributed to The
Guardian, by Lock, Sanday, Headlam, etc. Long
mans Green.
Christianity in the Modern World. D. S. Cairns.
Hodder and Stoughton (Chapter 5.)
The Open Light. N. Micklem. Swarthmore Press.