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THE

CIAKACTEE OE JESUS POETKAYED.

A BIBLICAL ESSAY,

WITH AN APPENDIX.

Br DE. DANIEL SCHENKEL,

"The one, special, and deepest theme of the history of the world and of mankind,
to which all else is subordinated, is always the conflict of scepticism and faith."
Goethe.

TRANSLATED FROM THE THIRD GERMAN EDITION,
WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES,

W. H. FURNESS, D.D.

VOL. II.

BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
1866.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY,
•In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

University Press : Welch, Bigelow, & Co.,
Cambridge.

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

FOURTH SECTION.
THE MESSIAH.
Chap. Page
XI. The growing Opposition  1
XII. The Messianic Destination . . . . 11
XIII. The Transfiguration of the Person of Jesus 36
XIV. Higher Teaching  49
XV. Before the Departure for the final Con
flict  64

EIFTH SECTION.
SPHERE OP ACTION IN JUDEA.
XVI. The School of Endurance . . .78
XVII. The true Means of Virtue .... 93
XVIII. The Calling of the Gentiles . . . .107
XIX. Einal Instruction of the Disciples . . 121

SIXTH SECTION.
THE CRISIS.
XX. The Old Temple and the New . . . 153
XXI. The Old State and the New . . . 173
XXII. The Woe pronounced upon the Hierarchi
cal Party  187
XXDX The Eutube of the Kingdom of God . . 202

IV CONTENTS.
SEVENTH SECTION.
• THE CONSUMMATION.
XXIV. The Consecration et anointing . . . 216
XXV. The Supper  230
XXVI. Gethsemane  249
XXVII. The Trial  266
XXVIII. The Crucifixion  28C
, XXTX. The Glorified  303

APPENDIX.
Critical and Historical Illustrations .... 329

FOURTH SECTION,

THE MESSIAH.
CHAPTEE XI.
THE GROWING OPPOSITION.
1. The declaration of Jesus that his person was the
true bread of heaven, and that his body and blood were
the imperishable food, produced an unfavorable impres
sion upon many who had been drawn to his side. As
the fourth Gospel states, a number of his disciples, but
none of the Twelve, upon hearing these sayings left him.
He had never before said so plainly that those who
attached themselves to his cause must like him re
nounce all worldly enjoyments and sacrifice themselves
for their country and mankind.
He himself, after the efforts and fatigue of the last few
days, felt the urgent need of retiring once more into
solitude,1 in order in still prayer and fervent com
munion with God to repair his strength for new la
bors. He took none of his disciples with him this
time, but sent them by the lake to Bethsaida, not fol
lowing them himself until towards nightfall.2 And here
there is a legend of a new and if possible greater mir
acle even than the multiplication of the loaves. Jesus
is said to have walked upon the lake. Even in its
1 Mark vi. 45 ; Matt. xiv. 22.
2 Mark vi. 48; Matt. xiv. 25 ; John vi. 17.
VOL. II. 1

2 FOURTH SECTION.
obscurity the story is not without one feature genuinely
historical. In the vessel sailing for Bethsaida were
those very disciples who, offended at the words of
Jesus, had refused to follow him any longer. Is it
wonderful that in the dim night their Master pacing
the shore seemed to them like a threatening apparition
startling their consciences?1 Before these men, who
had just weakly broken the sacred tie that bound them
to him, the form of Jesus loomed like an avenging
spirit from a higher world.
In fact, from this time forward divisions began to
arise, more and more strongly marked, among those
who had gathered around Jesus. Even among the
Twelve there was one whose expectations he was be
coming every moment less able to satisfy and who
could hardly conceal his bitter disappointment. That
gloomy thoughts began to awaken now and then within
the selecter circle of disciples, is stated not only by the
fourth Gospel but also by the second.2 Had the
miraculous multiplication of the bread actually taken
place this state of things would be. inexplicable. Jesus
is said in the exercise of divine Omnipotence to have
wrought that miracle before the eyes of all, and the
disciples who witnessed the incredible event had not
perceived it ! " Their hearts were hardened." They
had just returned from their missionary journey, ani
mated by attendant signs and their consequences, and
the " crowning miracle " of all the miracles yet wrought
by Jesus is represented as having made no impression
on them ! Tradition has here evidently misplaced the
essential fact. Had the miracle of the multiplication
of the loaves really taken place before all eyes as is re-
1 Mark vi. 49 ; Matt. xiv. 26 ; John vi. 19.
2 Mark vi. 52. See also Mark viii. 7 ; Matt. xvi. 9.

THE MESSIAH. 3
lated, it must have made an ineffaceable impression
upon all ; Jesus must then have appeared to all pres
ent as a divine being, and no higher sign of his au
thority would have been required of him. There was
nothing hard to be apprehended in such a miracle, for
every child could have grasped it in his hand. But
what was not apprehended by many, what their hearts
were not touched by, was the doctrine of the " heav
enly bread of life." At this point it became plain for
the first time to not a few that no earthly rewards and
honors, but only spiritual blessings, moral benefits, were
to proceed from him. To gifts of this kind most were
indifferent. They would have miracles ; they would
fain eat bread from heaven. They expected compen
sation for their devotion to Jesus. They looked upon
him as a magician. By touching his garments, not by
communion with his spirit, they wished to be healed.1
This craving for deliverance from mere physical evil
convinced Jesus more and more of the worldly and
selfish dispositions of the people. Many of the sick
became well, as we can readily imagine in consequence
of mental excitement, through a transient exaltation
of their spirits. But Jesus had come to save sinners,
not to render physicians unnecessary ; and of any
earnest and penetrating need of moral and religious
renovation there appeared only a few signs here and
there. 2. So much the more did Jesus feel himself bound
to lay ever increasing stress upon the moral demands
made upon those whom he called. There was an
especial want of moral earnestness with reference par
ticularly to the fundamental condition of all moral
ability in the people : the education of the people for
1 Mark vi. 56 ; Matt. xiv. 36.

4 FOURTH SECTION.
moral freedom. The principles of this freedom he
had already announced in his dedicatory discourse ;
his disciples on their journeyings had put these prin
ciples into practice. But how hard it was for them to
free themselves from prescriptive prejudices and the
yoke of Jewish authority, was daily shown by new
instances of the confusion of their minds, of their wa
vering motives and acts.
Since the establishment of an association of disciples
Jesus had broken with the theocracy. It was neces
sary that the rupture should be in fact still more deci
sive. The Jewish theologues of the Pharisaical party
had, in their pedantic passion for a religion of the letter
and for ruling consciences, killed the moral sense in
the sphere in which they took the lead. They had dis
abled the sense of freedom, moral, spiritual, religious.
The people for the most part were governed by them,
and they were popularly accounted the most zealous
and \enerable champions of the sacred Law handed
down from the fathers. Very soon after his first ap
pearance in public, these spiritual leaders had recog
nized in Jesus the representative of a spirit and manner
of life the opposite of theirs. That their influence was
gone if the God's kingdom announced by him should
be realized, was a point upon which they could not
deceive themselves. They were resolved to anticipate
the threatening danger. What measures they took for
the purpose we have already shown. Up to this time,
however, Jesus had made no direct attack upon them.
He whom they had been lying in wait for, and who
was the object of their assaults, had thus far kept with
in the line of self-defence. It now became necessary
that this state of things should be changed. By simply
answering their suspicions and calumnies he had not

THE MESSIAH. 5
yet been able to silence the hierarchical party. He
had now to show that these men were in the path of
error, that they misled the people and were actuated
by an ungodly spirit, and that theirs was an ignorant
zeal. A renewed attack on their part led him now to
assume the offensive. The point of time was not
ill-chosen by the hierarchical party. There was strife
among the immediate adherents of Jesus ; the " party
of the heavenly kingdom " seemed to be divided in
itself. Among his disciples Jesus had condemned as ex
ternal and leading to hypocrisy the Pharisaical means
of virtue. He had emphatically set aside the Le-
vitical washings and purifications, and with them had
necessarily abolished certain legal definitions of the old
Covenant.1 The Pharisees, therefore, as the repre
sentatives of the traditional faith, could object to Jesus
with a certain appearance of justice that the religion
of the fathers was held by him among his disciples in
light esteem. They required him to defend himself
against this charge, and his defence was an open decla
ration of war against Pharisaism and against the hie
rarchy which was identified therewith. False right
eousness and true, the piety of the Law and the piety
of faith, — these were the great irreconcilable oppo-
sites that now sharply confronted each other. For the
first time, Jesus styled the Pharisees hypocrites.2 For
the first time, he laid bare before them the root of the
hereditary sin of the hierarchists : the hidden self-de
ception of spiritual pride, by which, in deceiving others,
one deceives himself. The language of Jesus is aimed,
not at the falseness and deceit of individual members
i Levit. xv. 1-15. 2 Mark yii. 6 ; Matt. xv. 7.

6 FOURTH SECTION
of the party, but at the party itself, at its principles, its
modes of moral help, its methods, its ultimate aims.
The Pharisees, the hierarchs, were pious, very pious in
outward appearance. The prescribed statute was ob
served in the strictest manner. In their traditional doc
trine, in their religious observances, they were all right.
But the distinguishing mark of this righteousness is
described by Isaiah : 6 they draw nigh to God with the
mouth, they honor Him with their lips, but they are
cold, dull, gross towards Him at heart. Duties not dic
tated from within, but acquired, human inventions, —
such was the seal of their faith and their practice. In
this attack upon the Pharisees, how vividly does Jesus
portray an outward, creed-bound, dead, senseless eccle-
siasticism ! " Ye make of none effect the commandment
of G6d, and hold to the traditions of men : ye wash
platters and cups, and upon things of this sort lay the
greatest stress. This is your whole piety ! " How
keen and cutting this annihilating irony ! But what
flames of wrath must have been kindled in the hearts
of those at whom this deadly blow was struck !
After such an utterance, there was the most urgent
occasion for Jesus to give his disciples a deeper insight
into the Pharisaic theology and its ruinous moral influ
ence. In so doing his opposition to the Pharisees was
rendered still more marked than ever. These disclos
ures of Jesus to his disciples the first Evangelist has
interwoven into the Sermon on the Mount, and conse
quently withdrawn them from their proper connection.
The chief point upon which Jesus dwelt was the con
trast between the law of God and the commandments
of men, between that which is in and of itself eternally
true, good and holy, and that which is invested with
1 Isaiah xxix. 13.

THE MESSIAH 7
the authority of truth and right by the arbitrary
pleasure of man. Jesus premised his statements, prob
ably, with a general remark concerning his relation to
the Old Testament law. Not to the eternal spirit and
substance of this law was he opposed. He had de
parted only from the ceremonial portion of it, the
hierarchical institutes, the later theological require
ments. For himself, he had long before not only
allowed the ceremonial law to go unobserved, he had
set aside the Sabbath law enforced in the Decalogue.
Nevertheless in the moral precepts of the Old Testa
ment he recognized an expression, eternally valid, of
the holy will of God, — an indestructible bond between
the Old Covenant and the New. For he declared
that " he had not come to destroy the law and the
prophets but to fulfil them." J While he thus distinct
ly announced his purpose to fulfil the Old Testament,
he yet as plainly intimated that it did not in and of
itself contain the full truth. He could not possibly
have said therefore that not a jot, not a tittle of the
Old Testament is to pass away, and that whoso de
stroys the least commandment of the Old Covenant
will be called the least in the kingdom of heaveji.2
On the contrary, he passes for the least in the king
dom of heaven who like the Baptist abolishes no jot
of the law. Jesus has not destroyed the " Law and the
prophets," i. e. the Old Testament dispensation ; but
particular requirements, and above all their literal
observance he has of necessity destroyed, since he had
actually done this already in regard to fastings and
purifications, and most especially in regard to the Sab
batical law. That passage, therefore, in the first Gos-
1 Matt. v. 17.
2 Matt. v. 18, 19 ; Luke xvi. 17. See Appendix, 111. 15, p. 7.

8 FOURTH SECTION.
pel is a later addition of the Palestinean tradition : a
mistaken inference of the Jewish Christian party from
those words of Jesus, unquestionably genuine, in which
he states that he had come, not for destruction, but for
fulfilment. What he meant by this fulfilment he explained by
a series of examples. His idea is not indeed that the
Old Testament dispensation contains all that he un
folded from it, for in this case there could be no
talk of fulfilling it. On the contrary, his conviction
was that, in the light of the new Covenant, the
Old Testament dispensation was in itself no longer of
use, that now the right import was to be given to it.
The kingdom of heaven, according to the Old Testa
ment, was external, resting entirely upon enactments,
statutes, and the force of law, so that its commands
and prohibitions had reference to the outward behavior
of men, to legal obedience. The New Testament
kingdom of God is within, spiritual, reposing upon
individual freedom, on which account its precepts have
relation to the inner state of men, to their moral dis
positions. Under the Old Covenant murder was for
bidden ; under the New, we are warned against being
angry, because from anger may come murder. Under
the Old Covenant the offering, made in accordance
with the rules prescribed, is in itself an expiation ; in
the New Covenant the offering has no atoning efficacy,
unless made with an expiatory and reconciled spirit of
mind. In the Old Covenant adultery was forbidden,
but only as an act ; in the New even a look of sensual
desire cast upon the wife of another is accounted adul
tery. Thus the members of the New Testament king
dom of God must, above all things, resist the tempting
thought, the root of sin, and not wait till the evil act

THE MESSIAH. 9
has sprung out of it.1 So likewise with oaths. Ac
cording to the Old Covenant, only false swearing,
perjury, is forbidden ; to swear truly by God is per
mitted.2 In the New Covenant, swearing is con
demned altogether, only the simple affirmation of truth
is lawful; thus even official oaths are prohibited.3 The
righteousness of the Pharisees was satisfied with the
correct observance of the letter of the Law ; whosoever
failed not in this was a righteous man before God.
The disposition of the mind, the consecration of the
soul was, according to this standard, a matter of indif
ference. For this reason it engendered and nourished
hypocrisy. Whosoever maintains the appearance of
righteousness before men, and keeps himself from being
convicted of a transgression of the law, fulfils the com
mandment of God, in the estimation of the Pharisees.
Thus Pharisaism undermined the conscience, killed
religion and morality at their roots. Under its in
fluence all moral earnestness died away, and the mar
row of the life and strength of the people perished. It
was the religion of appearances, and had the morality
of a specious superficiality. It was the lean and Jesu
itical pietism of the world before Christ. Under the
pretence of honoring, it dishonored the commandment
of God. God's commandment is, Honor thy father
and thy mother.4 The Pharisaic Law, on the con
trary, permitted the child to give to the Temple and
its uses what he might devote to the support of his
parents, and thus the obligation to honor one's
parents was made of no effect. Pharisaism neutralized
God's eternal law by the inventions of man, and put
1 Matt. v. 27-30. 2 Levit. xix. 12.
8 Matt. v. 33.
4 Exod. xx. 12. See Mark vii. 10; Matt. xv. 5.

10 FOURTH SECTION.
false, arbitrary human definitions in the place of the
infallible truth of heaven.
3. One can imagine the effect which these severe ut-
terances of Jesus must have had upon those to whom
they referred. It was to his immediate followers that
these things were first said ; but there were others, it
appears, who were reverently standing at a little dis
tance during a considerable part of his discourse. These
people Jesus called to come and hear what he was say
ing ; 1 all were to hear and lay to heart what he felt
bound to declare concerning the religion and morality
of the Pharisees or hierarchs. How was the truth
which he announced to find open ears so long as the
sense of truth was perverted by hypocrisy? How were
those to be brought to think earnestly, to be born
again, who were thinking only of painting the outside,
and who dreaded nothing so much as going to the root
of the sins that were destroying them ? The Phari
saic religion is the religion of moral varnish and re
ligious signs, and the same deceitful mummery is
practised in all religions of the letter, in the forever
returning shows and forms of hierarchy and orthodoxy.
The religion of Jesus is the absolutely moral religion.
Truth of mind, purity of heart is its seal. Its principle
is that all improvement begins in the inmost being of
man, in the conscience, and advances from within out
wardly. Hence Jesus attaches no value to regulations
purely external, rules for fasting, laws of purification,
Sabbath enactments, formal institutions. " What goes
into a man from without cannot make him unclean " ; 2
for the same reason also it cannot make him pure.
" What comes forth from within ¦ — that makes him
unclean." Jesus here refers to impure thoughts, evil
1 Mark vii. 14. 2 Mark vii. 15.

THE MESSIAH. 11
imaginations, depraved desires which, springing up
within, would have no evil deeds for consequences,
were they not indulged and suffered to grow strong.
The effect produced by this naked portraiture of
their theology was so great in the Pharisaic and hie
rarchical circles, that Jesus felt himself compelled to
quit Galilee for a time. The opposition to him was in
creased greatly, but he became in consequence still
more profoundly conscious of his destined calling.

CHAPTEE XII.
THE MESSIANIC DESTINATION.
1. Up to this hour Jesus had confined the sphere of
his labors to his own countrymen. The only exception
to this course was the healing: of a Gentile slave in
Capernaum, and this exception had been made at the
intercession of the elders of the Jewish synagogue, and
for favor shown to the Jewish Church by the master of
the slave. Restoration of the true Israel, — this was
the first aim of Jesus. But in the idea of the kingdom
of God morally conceived of, there lay a germ which
must needs cause it to expand beyond the narrow pre
cincts of the Jewish population. A kingdom of the
Spirit, a kingdom of Truth and Righteousness and
Love, having its seat in the inner being of man, is
limited by no outward statutes, depends upon no tra
ditions, no forms or formulas, belongs to no one people,
but to humanity itself. No doubt the flame of a holy
love of country glowed in the bosbm of the Deliverer,
no doubt his heart beat warmly for his own country-

12 . FOURTH SECTION.
men first of all, led astray as they were by blind lead
ers ; no doubt it was his unquestioning conviction
that the nucleus of the new order of things which
he was establishing must be formed among the Jews.
But the more deeply he penetrated into the idea of
the kingdom of God, and the clearer his consciousness
became of his calling as a liberator of Israel, the more
fully was he convinced that from the Jewish hierarchy
and theology only the deadliest hostility to the great
work of his life was to be expected ; the more deeply
was he impressed with the necessity of extending his
views beyond the boundaries of Israel in order that
the conversion of the Gentile world might be brought
into ever nearer prospect. The last conflict with the
Pharisees appears to have given special occasion for
such a conclusion.
Jesus first betook himself to that part of Phoenicia
bordering upon Palestine, and lying near the sea. He
appears, although only in a passing way, to have visited
several cities, Sidon especially.1 We cannot call this
excursion a missionary journey precisely. The pur
pose of Jesus was to learn somewhat of the religious
condition and susceptibility of the Gentiles. He de
sired for this reason to see them as they were, and to
make his observations undisturbed ; 2 in this, however,
he did not entirely succeed. The report of him had
already extended to Phoenicia. A Gentile woman
discovered who he was and implored his help for her
daughter, suffering under a mental disease. Is it to be
supposed that on this occasion he really said to his
disciples what the first Evangelist reports, that he was
not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel ? 3
1 Mark vii. 24, 31 ; Matt. xv. 21. 2 Mark vii. 24.
8 Matt. xv. 23.

THE MESSIAH. 13
The journey into the Gentile region declares the con
trary. Had he not undertaken the journey because
his work was beginning to appear to him more and
more clearly to embrace all mankind? Hence the older
tradition knows nothing of this declaration in favor
of Israel, (a) But Jesus did use, in speaking to the
woman, the harsh word that "the children" (the Jews)
must first be fed, and that it was not meet to take the
bread from them and give it to " the dogs." 1 This
language was the offspring not of the spirit of Jesus,
but of the proud and exclusive temper of Phariseedom ;
it was uttered to test the woman's faith, to ascertain
whether she discerned in Jesus one who was in oppo
sition to Pharisaism. Had her rejoinder been angry
and defiant, she would not have been worthy of help,
for she would have shown herself wanting in the faith
fundamental to a right recognition of the character
of Jesus. But when with a genuine and instinctive
humility she implied that Jesus could not be in ear
nest, that he could not seriously compare human beings
to dogs, that his heart was open to the miseries of even
the poor suffering heathen world, Jesus then willingly
granted her prayer.
2. After satisfying himself by this excursion of the
fitness of the Gentiles to receive the Gospel, Jesus re
turned by a circuitous route through the region of the
ten cities east of the Jordan to the first scene of his la
bors, to the shores of the Lake of Gennesaret, the coun
try around Capernaum. He found the hostility of the
hierarchical party in no wise abated. By new cures he
had excited anew the jealousy of the Pharisees, and his
journey into Phoenicia, his intercourse with Gentiles,
furnished new matter of offence.2 The second miracu-
1 Mark vii. 27 ; Matt. xv. 26. 2 Mark vii. 31 ; Matt. xv. 29.

14 FOURTH SECTION.
lous feeding of the multitude, related by the first two
Evangelists in this connection, finds here no fitting
place, and betrays itself as a repetition of the incident
in the wilderness, which we have already explained.
More naturally does the account of a renewed attack
upon Jesus by the Pharisees connect itself with the
course of events as they have thus far proceeded. His
arrest on the score of insanity had failed utterly ; the
charge of being in league with the Devil had proved
too gross. A substantial ground of complaint was
above all things to be discovered. Hence he was now
watched on all sides, the spies of the watchmen of
Zion were everywhere lurking around him. To lay a
trap for him, to entangle him in some snare was their
ceaseless labor. They trusted that they had at last
discovered the means of making his ruin sure. His
miracles were after all not so very wonderful. They
lacked the signature of his high mission. It was per
fectly justifiable to require him, in order to accredit
himself, to give a greater, a really heavenly sign. A
sign from "heaven," — such was their demand. If he
could not give it then he was — unmasked.
This demand is to be fully explained only upon the
supposition that the " miracles " of Jesus did not ap
pear to his contemporaries to transcend the limitations
of natural laws to the extent to which they are repre
sented as so doing by the written traditions thirty or
forty years afterwards. It is worthy of remark that,
in replying to this demand, Jesus makes no reference
whatever to his miracles. He makes no mention of
the evil spirits that he had cast out, or of the blind
whom he had restored to sight, or of the lame to
whom he had restored the use of their limbs, or of the
storms which he had laid, or of the water which he

THE MESSIAH. 15'
had turned into wine, or of his feeding multitudes with
a few loaves and fishes. And yet these things were
" signs " from heaven. According to the second
Evangelist, Jesus only sighed deeply and declared
that to that generation no sign should be given.1 He
refers his questioners — "hypocrites" as he calls them
according to the third Gospel,2 " this evil and adulter
ous generation," as he styles them in the first Gospel
— rather to the changes in the heavens, to the red of
the evening sky by which fair weather is foretold, and
to the red of the morning sky which prognosticates
storm and rain, and he asks them why they could tell
the weather from the signs in the heavens so easily,
and yet be unable to discern the divine plan of salva
tion unfolding at a time whereof the moral and spirit
ual characteristics all pointed so plainly to the intro
duction of a new order of things in the kingdom of
God ? 3 Thus there is nothing here that intimates that
the significance of his person and the nature of his
work were to be illustrated by miracles. On the con
trary he reiterated his injunction to those whom he
healed to tell no one what he had done.4
According to the first and third Gospels, however,
he did speak of a " sign " that should be given to that
generation, the sign of the prophet Jonah.5 As to
what he meant by this " sign " the Evangelists do
not agree. The first6 gives an explanation of it en
tirely at variance with that of the second, stating
that the resurrection of Jesus was the sign that
would be given to his unbelieving contemporaries to
accredit his divine authority. Thus Jesus referred
1 Mark viii. 11. 2 Luke xii. 56.
8 Matt. xvi. 2 ; Lnke xii. 54. 4 Mark vii. 36.
6 Matt. xvi. 4 ; compare xii. 39 ; Luke xi. 29.
6 Matt. xii. 40.

16 FOURTH SECTION.
his opposers not to a miracle already wrought but only
to a future miracle. But it is evident on the face of it
that he could not have made any such appeal to his
future resurrection as the true heavenly sign of his au
thority. Never before and to no man yet had he
spoken of the violent death awaiting him. Is it con
ceivable that now, in order to confound his opposers
he would refer to his resurrection, which was to follow
that event, as a settled thing ? Would they not have ex
ulted in such an answer, and taken occasion to rail at
him as a boaster and a deceiver ? Was the fate of the
prophet Jonah to be a striking prophetic indication to
his opposers, that he too after severe sufferings and a
shameful death would rise again from the dead? But
looked at more closely, the fate of the prophet is by
no means an appropriate symbol of the resurrection of
Jesus. Jesus was not three days and three nights in
the grave as Jonah was in the belly of the whale, but
only two nights and one day. If then he really made
this comparison, he appealed to a prototype not at all
appropriate. Besides it is nowhere said in the book
of Jonah that the fact of the prophet's being swallowed
by the whale was a "sign" of his authority to the
Ninevites. It was the preaching of Jonah that was a
"sign" to them, warning them that after forty days
their city would be overthrown if they did not repent.1
In the first and third Gospels the true meaning of the
" sign " of the prophet Jonah is preserved.2 As they
report, Jesus declares that the Ninevites will rise up in
judgment upon this generation and condemn it ; for
they repented at the preaching of Jonah, but a greater
than Jonah is here. Accordingly there is no incon
sistency between the declaration of the second Gospel
1 Jonah iii. 4. 2 ftfatt xj; 41 . Lnke xi. 32.

THE MESSIAH. 17
that no sign would be given to that generation, and
the words reported in the first and third: "there shall
be given them the sign of the prophet Jonah." Jesus
was seeking to establish the kingdom of truth, right
eousness and love, not upon miracles, manifestations of
power merely, but upon the free word, upon the evan
gelical announcement. The Jews desired signs and
wonders, instead of which he gave them preaching,
but they wilfully turned away with enmity in their
hearts. According to the Old Testament tradition
Jonah converted the Ninevites by .his preaching; the
threatened overthrow of their city after forty days was
the sign that warned them to turn from their evil
ways. But Jesus was greater than Jonah ; how much
more elevated his personality, how much more power
ful his word, how much deeper and richer the fountain
of truth from which he drew, how much more intimate
his communion with God ! And how had the hie
rarchical party received his preaching ? Shameless
defamation and malignant opposition, — such was the
answer to his gracious appeals.1 (5)
3. The attempt to show Jesus in a disadvantageous
light and find in him some cause of complaint had been
frustrated again and again. With his wonderful gift
Jesus had made no vainglorious boasts, as his enemies
had hoped. They were now only the more exasperated
against him. They had tried, at least to embarrass
him, to, expose him to ridicule in the eyes of the people,
to win a triumph for their pride at the expense of one
whom they feared and hated ; and Jesus had put them
to shame by his answers at once so modest and so
dignified. They ha,d been caught in their own snares.
Thus baffled, they were goaded on only the more
1 See Appendix, HI. 16, p. 17.
VOL. II. 2

18 FOURTH SECTION.
fiercely in the prosecution of their hostile designs.
Feeling that they had the power in their hands, they
were only the more bent upon having a swift and
bloody revenge. Seeing himself thus menaced, Jesus
felt bound to avoid the plots of his enemies by with
drawing to the eastern shore of the Lake. His heart
was full and heavily burdened. He was surrounded
in the ship by his disciples. They had been the wit
nesses of his encounter with the Pharisees. They
seemed to him to be wanting in the state of mind
which what they had just heard and seen should have
produced. They evidently were not yet aware of the
magnitude of the danger that threatened him from
the hierarchical party; and this party was moreover
leagued with the Roman party against him. Jesus
could not refrain from expressing his dissatisfaction.
In reproaching his disciples for their hardness of heart
and lack of insight,1 he does not refer, as the second
Gospel assumes, to their insensibility to Ahe miraculous
feeding of the multitude. This miracle had not in fact
taken place in the manner reported. Jesus reproved
them because they were still so little disposed to re
ceive the truth. He chid them for their narrowness
of mind and especially for their want of steadfastness
and earnestness in view of the conspiracy which the
hierarchs and Herodians were forming against him.
They ought to have been on their guard "against the
leaven of the Pharisees," 2 against the dangerous influ
ence which hierarchical fanaticism always exercises ; we
cannot think that it was only against the " doctrine "
of the Pharisees and Herodians that Jesus desired to
warn his disciples, as the first Gospel imagines.3 It
1 Mark viii. 17. 2 Mark viii. 15 ; Matt. xvi. 6.
" Matt. xvi. 12. That the Sadducees are mentioned here, instead

THE MESSIAH. 19
was the whole tone and spirit of these parties, as well
as their distinctive views, that exercised the most ruin
ous influence.
As Jesus, when he left Galilee, had first turned his
steps westward toward Phoenicia, he now went north
ward toward Syria, into the neighborhood of the city
of Csesarea Philippi at the foot of Mount Hermon.
He was impressed with the conviction that the decisive
hour was at hand, that the important word in regard
to the secret of his life must be spoken. His disciples,
he felt, must no longer be in doubt as to the ultimate
aim of his mission.
He had already given himself to be known by them
as the " Son of Man," the Renovator of Israel, the
Founder of a holy Communion, a prophet mighty in
word and deed, but not as the Messiah promised in the
Old Covenant. He had not been able to assume this
last character. He had no desire in fact to undertake
the task assigned to the Messiah by the prophets.
The "Messiah of the Old Covenant was represented
chiefly as the restorer of the outward and national
greatness of Israel, as the founder of a golden age. As
a ruler in the heart of the theocracy, surrounded with
the glory of that, greater and more glorious than
David, himself a David, he was to elevate the priest
hood of Israel to a world-wide authority, and make the
Old Testament theocracy the religion of the world and
the city of Jerusalem the metropolis of the nations.
Jesus had not recognized this task as his, and because
he had not, he had hesitated to proclaim himself as the
Messiah, and had given no hint to his most intimate
disciples of the Messianic destination to which he was
of the Herodians] along with the Pharisees, appears to be a mistake.
See Mark viii. 15.

20 FOURTH SECTION.
appointed by his Heavenly Father. He had been
called in fact to fulfil purposes the very opposite of
those to which the expectations of Israel pointed.
According to these expectations Israel was to reach
the loftiest condition of earthly distinction and power,
but Jesus was appointed to humble this people to the
dust. According to these Messianic expectations the
Pagan world was to bow to the sceptre of Israel, but
he was to bid Israel bow down to Gentiles, and to
obtain for Gentiles equal rights and equal rank with
Jews. According to these same expectations the Mes
siah was to confirm the authority of the Jewish stat
utes for all time, but he was called to put an end to
all legal religion and establish the Covenant of freedom
in God in the place of the Covenant of subjection
under God. The Messiah, as the Jews expected, Was to
effect a sudden and complete revolution in the order of
nature and in the history of nations ; Jesus was called,
through the power of the Word and the Spirit, to
change, slowly but all the more thoroughly, the natu
ral and moral dispositions of mankind. The more
plainly he saw, not only that he was wholly unable
to satisfy the Messianic expectations of Israel, but that
to the theocratic party he must seem to be the most
determined opponent of all Messianic ideas, so much
the more difficult was it for him to declare himself the
Messiah. 4. And yet this he was bound to do. He was bound
to cleanse the Messianic idea from the impure elements
mixed up in it ; he must release from the useless shell
the germ of truth which was contained in it. He
was, actually and truly, to realize this idea in the most
exalted sense of the word. With a portion of Israel
at least, this was the only way in which he could carry

THE MESSIAH. 21
out his thought, and accomplish the purpose of his
calling. It was necessary that there should be an
entire revolution in the popular and traditional repre
sentations of the Messiah. How he explained the
Messianic promises of the Old Covenant we do not
now know. The Evangelical records have preserved
for us probably only the ideas of the Evangelists. The
theocratic ordinances, we may suppose, were in bis
eyes only symbols that must come to an end when the
time of their significance was fulfilled. In the same
way, probably, he regarded the Messianic promises also
as a series of symbolical representations of the future,
needed by a people of little spiritual culture, and
serving as a bridge to a purer understanding of God's
revelation of himself through his Anointed and Sent.
It was only from such a point of view, from which the
Old Testament with its ordinances and promises was
regarded as symbolical of the new order of things in
troduced by him, that Jesus could be satisfied with the
application of the Messianic representations of the Old
Covenant to himself and his work ; and he could not
but be aware that every appeal on his part to passages
of the Old Testament was exposed to the most serious
misunderstanding, not only among the hierarchical
party, but also among his own disciples.
It was upon his journey through the villages in the
neighborhood of Csesarea Philippi that Jesus first dis
closed to his disciples the fact that he was the Messiah.
The reasons for the disclosure just at this time lay most
probably in the following circumstances : —
As we have already remarked, the decisive hour was
approaching. The hostility of the ruling party had
increased to madness. > Some of his followers had fallen
away from him. In Capernaum, the earliest centre

22 FOURTH SECTION.
of his labors, on the shores of the Lake of Gennesa-
ret, his life was threatened. His adherents were dis
turbed by doubts and questionings concerning him.
Uncertain, disquieted, they asked among themselves
who Jesus was, and what it was that he proposed to
do. The question had already been agitated between
them and the people. It is observable that no sus
picion of his being the Messiah had arisen among, the
people. He was compared with John the Baptist,
with Elias, with other prophets of the old time ; the
Messiah no one surmised him to be, for he had done
nothing whatever to cause him to appear as the Re
storer of the political greatness of Israel. The disciples
themselves required him to declare himself. Their
minds needed to be set at rest.
As they were telling him the different opinions cur
rent concerning him, he suddenly asked : " And whom
do you believe me to be ? " Instantly, and as if in
spired at the moment, Simon exclaimed in reply:
" Thou art the Messiah ! " 1 In acknowledging him
self, in answer to Simon, as the Messiah, Jesus stepped
at once from the embarrassing position in which he had
been placed by the confused state of mind in his disci
ples and the conflict of opinion around him. A word
was now spoken that kept his followers together, a
banner was unfurled by which the wavering were ral
lied. A plain and defined position was gained against
the hierarchy.
Jesus, it appears, had not looked for the decisive
word to come from the lips of a disciple. His answer
to Simon, which has proved an abundant source of
1 Mark viii. 29, where the simplest, primitive form of the answer
of Simon is found. See Matt. xvi. 16, Luke ix. 20, and John vi. 69,
which gives us the later amplification.

THE MESSIAH. 23
false representations, is preserved for us by only one
Evangelist.1 Jesus first declared that Simon's confes
sion of faith in him had not been prompted by flesh
and blood, meaning simply by this declaration that
Simon had risen at the moment superior to the false
Messianic ideas of the time, in recognizing him as " the
Son of the living God," the spiritual deliverer of Israel.
How little Simon was really aware of the import of his
confession of faith the sequel plainly showed. Of
more doubtful authority are the added words, in which
Simon is honored with the surname of " Peter," and
distinguished in a twofold way above the rest of the
disciples. Jesus declares that upon him he will build
his Church, and that to him the keys of the kingdom
of heaven will be delivered, with the condition that
what Peter bound on earth should be bound in heaven,
and what he loosed on earth should be loosed in
heaven. With what fidelity these words were report
ed in the Collection of Sayings, from which they were
taken by the first Evangelist, we cannot now deter
mine. In the original and more ancient form of the
second Gospel, they did not appear ; and the third
Gospel, with its Gentile Christian bias, passed them by
in the Collection of Sayings. From a subsequent pas
sage2 in the first Gospel it would seem that these
words were not addressed to Peter exclusively, but to
the disciples collectively, although the confession of
Simon had nevertheless great weight with Jesus.
There has been much misunderstanding of the honor
able surname given to Simon as a man like a rock.
It was neither Simon personally nor his confession in
itself that Jesus could have regarded as the rock which
was the foundation of his Church. But in the Peter
l Matt. xvi. 17-19. 2 Matt, xviii. 18.

24 FOURTH SECTION.
confessing Jesus just in this way, giving expression to
a faith in his Messiahship which was the inspiration of
the Heavenly Father, and not the offspring of hie
rarchical fanaticism, — it was the Simon thus rising to
a truly ideal and spiritual conception of the kingdom
of God, who is commended by his Master as a pillar
in the future temple of his Church. Jesus could found
his Communion only upon a new, spiritualized, morally
purified faith in a Messiah ; and he, Peter, in express
ing such a faith, was hailed by Jesus as the man in
whom he could confide ; by this faith Peter showed
that he would keep himself from the contaminating
influence, the leaven, of the Pharisees and Herodians,
and that he would be instrumental in the cause of
Truth and Freedom.
Of greater significance is the word of Jesus that he
would found his Church upon his disciples. He thus
struck at the very root of all hierarchical tendencies.
Having its foundation in its members collectively and
its highest expression and most effective manifestation
in their lives, the kingdom of God rests no longer in
priestly prescription. It is true Jesus put into the
hands of his disciples the keys which open the door to
his Communion. What he meant by these keys, with
which the heavenly kingdom is to be opened or shut
to men, appears from his own example. His Word
was the key. He never alluded to any other. It is
by the word of regeneration and faith that entrance
into the Communion of Jesus is granted or denied to
men. Hence, in that declaration of his, what is given
to his disciples is not personal power, but only official
authority to close the entrance to his Communion to
the impenitent and unbelieving, and open it to the
penitent and the believing. Besides, Jesus granted

THE MESSIAH. 25
this authority only provisionally and under conditions.
As long as he was standing at the head of his Church,
he kept this great authority in his own hands. Not
until after his departure, or in his absence, was it to be
exercised in his stead by Peter and the Apostles as
representatives of the Church. They were not only
to announce the doctrine of the kingdom, they were
also to receive such as were worthy and to close it
against the unworthy. Strictly speaking, however,
exclusion from this Communion was permitted only to
the whole body of the Church, as a subsequent repe
tition of this remarkable utterance of Jesus in its right
connection informs us.1 No further authority is con
tained in these words of his. This authority was
indispensable. It belongs to the nature of every asso
ciation of men to determine, of itself or through its
representatives, whether they who seek admission to it
fulfil the requisite conditions, and whether they who
are admitted discharge the duties of membership, (c)
5. But Jesus did not yet consider his disciples at large
as sufficiently advanced to receive in its true sense the
idea that he was the Messiah. Accordingly he for
bade his immediate disciples making any communica
tion of the fact to any one.2 How entirely in conform
ity with his great purpose this prohibition was, is
evident from the further disclosure which, after Simon
had recognized his Messiahship, Jesus proceeded to
make. The Messiah of the Old Testament was to
reign. Crowned with honor and renown, he was
to ascend the throne of David, re-established in a
splendor far surpassing the times of the ancient Found
er of the power of Israel. But the assured conviction
1 Matt, xviii. 17.
2 Mark viii. 30; Matt. xvi. 20; Luke ix. 21.

26 FOURTH SECTION.
of Jesus had now for a long time been that it was his
doom to suffer and to die for the work of his life. He
saw with great satisfaction that Simon seemed no
longer to share in the Messianic delusions of the hie
rarchical party, that he recognized the Messiah in him,
the Founder of the inward, spiritual kingdom of God.
But notwithstanding this recognition, Simon had not
yet obtained any insight into the fate awaiting his
Master. It came more naturally to him to yield himself
to the delusive idea that the hostility of the hierarchy
to Jesus would cease with time, that the way would
be opened for a peaceful reform of Israel, and that
Jesus would be rewarded at last for all his pains with
earthly thanks and human honors. Even the more
intelligent of the disciples were still beguiled by these
illusive hopes, and the nearer the hour approached
when a decisive position was to be taken, the more did
Jesus hold it to be his duty to do what he might to
dispel these visions. What he hitherto had not spoken
of, partly because he himself had not attained to full
certainty, and partly because his disciples were not
prepared for it, that he now declared : that he was to
be condemned by the highest court of the nation, and
executed as a criminal. This his fate he referred to in
no ambiguous terms. He pointed his disciples directly
to it, suffering no doubt to linger in their minds as to
the truth and strength of his own convictions on this
point. That he and his cause were not to perish in
suffering and death, — this likewise he declared before
hand with perfect confidence. With his sufferings he
announced at the same time his resurrection ; with his
apparent defeat, his speedy, certain, and glorious vic
tory. But what enigmas are wrapt up in a human heart !

THE MESSIAH. 27
The same Simon who had been the first to comprehend
and declare the Messianic office of Jesus in the higher
meaning of the word, was now the first to be surprised
and shocked at the consequence necessarily involved
in this higher idea. Thus the conscience and reason
of men often fully accept what their secret inclinations
resent with violence. There was awakened in the
breast of Simon by the disclosures of Jesus an emotion
doubly painful : a perfectly natural and generous sor
row for the cruel fate awaiting his beloved Master,
mingled with a selfish anxiety for his own prospects
and for his fellow disciples. And we may well sup
pose that the latter feeling was the stronger of the
two. The position of Jesus now in relation to his
disciples was critical. His declaration of his Messiah-
ship was inseparable from the disclosure of his dark
fate. His purpose was even to be a suffering Messiah,
a Messiah the very opposite to the traditional Jewish
idea. It was only by suffering and dying that he
could consummate his destiny in full accordance with
the divine will. The demand of Simon that he should
avoid suffering was the renewal of the temptations that
beset him so powerfully at the first after his meeting
with the Baptist. He was no morose ascetic, knowing
not how to appreciate the enjoyment of life and its
pure pleasures. The vision of a career full of activity,
rich in its results, crowned with honors, a career
worthy in the sight of God and man, was by no means
without a charm for him. It is in fact emphatically
true of him, that, in the highest and fullest sense of
the word, he had a profound joy in life. The pros
pect, opening before him, with steadily increasing clear
ness, of a shameful and violent death, could not but
weigh, a heavy sorrow, upon his mind ; and the desire

28 FOURTH SECTION.
to avoid it was so purely human, it was so instinctive
a dictate of a healthy nature, that it could not but be
felt by a being really human. But it certainly was a
temptation at the same time ; and therefore Jesus
called Simon a "Satan," i. e. a tempter, because. he
awakened in him desires that he should help him to
crush. " Thou thinkest not of what is divine but of
what is human."1 How impressive this distinction,
and what moral elevation it shows ! Human was it in
this case to avoid suffering, divine was it to bear it for
God's sake. Why it was absolutely necessary the dis
ciples, the Church, had yet to learn.

NOTES.

[a. p. 13. Notwithstanding our author's objections I see no
reason to doubt that the declaration of Jesus to his disciples,
" I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," was
made by him as reported, especially since his work was in fact con
fined to his own countrymen. Admitting the suggestion as very
probable that Jesus made this journey into Phoenicia from a desire
to know something of the moral condition of the Gentile world,
may we not suppose that, as the result of his observations, he felt
himself bound to devote himself to the work of enlightening his
own countrymen ? He may justly have concluded from what he
had seen and heard that such was the part of true wisdom.
b. p. 17. With great respect for the opinions of our learned
author, I cannot but think that his remarks upon " the de
mand for a sign," are based upon a misapprehension of the
nature of this demand. A careful examination of the pas
sages in the Gospels in which we are told that his enemies
required of Jesus a sign, leads us to the conclusion that it was
not a mere miracle that was desired, but a miracle which should
accord with the traditional idea of the Messiah and prove
Jesus to be such a Messiah as the nation was looking for. The
1 Mark viii.' 33 ; Matt. xvi. 23.

NOTES. 29
demand was always made just after he had done some wonderful
thing, and so far from being made to entrap and confound him,
it strikes me as an implied confession on the part of the Phari
sees of his extraordinary character. It is, I repeat, as if they said
to him : " You certainly are a wonderful person and you do very
wonderful things. Now only give us a sign that will show you to
be the Messiah we are looking for and we will acknowledge you."
And it appears to me that so Jesus himself understood them. He
looked upon it as a transient evidence of relenting on their part
from their opposition or unbelief. The most striking occasion
upon which a sign was asked of him is the one upon which I have
already remarked. (See note to ch. ix.) In that instance Jesus
illustrated the moral condition of the Pharisees by the case of a
man subject to fits of insanity, or, according to the opinions of
the day, possessed by an evil spirit that when it left the man left
him only to return with sevenfold violence. Is there not an inti
mation in this comparison that the Pharisees, in asking for a sign,
seemed for the moment to be recovering their moral sanity ?
And here the profound interest of the great subject of these
pages must be my apology for repeating what I have said in a
former work (see " The Veil partly lifted, &c.,'< pp. 169-178),
where in reference to the naturalness of the teachings of Jesus
the following remarks occur : " I ask the reader's attention to
the passage in the history which is found in two of the Gospels
(Matt. xvi. 1 - 8 ; Luke xii. 54-57), and in which Jesus is re
ported to have said, ' Te can discern the face of the sky and of
the earth but how is it that ye do not discern this time ? ' Before
putting this question he remarked, ' When ye see a cloud rise
out of the west straightway ye say, There cometh a shower, and
so it is. And when ye see the south wind blow ye say, There
will be heat, and it cometh to pass.' And again he is recorded
to have expressed the same thought with different instances.
' When it is evening ye say, It will be fair weather, for the sky is
red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather, for the sky is
red and lowering.' And then it is added, in one Gospel, ' O ye
hypocrites!' (or O ye pretenders!) 'ye can discern the face of
the sky, but can ye not the signs of the times ? ' And in the
other the last clause is, ' But how is it that ye do not discern this
time ? ' Mark the emphasis of the interrogative form of expres
sion here employed, implying as it does that then it was a great
deal easier to read the signs of the time, the significance of pass-

30 TWELFTH CHAPTER.
ing events, than it was to tell from the appearance of the sky
or from the direction of the wind what the weather was going
to be." Consider the occasion upon which Jesus is said to have
spoken thus. Certain leading persons came to him, and asked
him to give them a sign from heaven. Supposing this request to
have been made in good faith, we should naturally infer that
they who made it were perplexed to know what to think and do,
groping in the dark," and wanting to be directed aright. They
wanted an, intimation from heaven to show them their way. But
their perplexity was all of their own making. Had they really
desired to be directed aright, nothing could have been plainer to
them than the true way. Jesus with his clear insight saw at a
glance that they were not true men. He treated them with no
respect. He called them hypocrites to their faces. For it was
not possible, at a great hour like that, for any human being, if
he were honest, with sense enough to understand the most com
mon signs of the weather, not to see and understand what was
then going on. It was impossible, it would have been an insult
to human nature to suppose that these persons could be sincere
in asking for heavenly guidance when there were such pointed
signs, such signs of the will of heaven as men had never before
been favored with, — signs far less ambiguous than the familiar
indications of the changing weather that appear in the sky ; and
any one who could read these — and who could not ? — might far
more easily read those. If a man could not discern the heavenly
significance of the events which illustrated that hour, there could
be only one reason for it, and that reason must have been in his
own perverted will. Well is Jesus recorded to have ' sighed
deeply in the spirit' over such incorrigible blindness. (Mark
viii. 12.)
" Only think what a time it was, and what a sign from heaven
was the appearance of Jesus himself, and the wide and deep
sensation he was producing ! Here was a young man suddenly
emerging from obscurity, with nothing imposing in his surround
ings, with nothing special in his person to recommend him, start
ling the whole country with his extraordinary personal power,
gathering immense crowds around him from all quarters by the
astqnishing things he was doing and by the unprecedented air of
authority with which he was publishing truths of the deepest
interest. The whole land was kindled into a flame of wonder

NOTES. 31
and awe. The very dregs of the people, the outcasts, from the
pollution of whose touch the pious shrunk with scorn, pressed
around him, watching every movement of his, eager to catch
every word that fell from his lips, and following him about until
they were ready to drop from hunger and fatigue. Such an'
enthusiasm was he creating, such confidence did he inspire, that
through some mysterious power that was native to him, individ
uals were instantaneously relieved from what were accounted
incurable diseases by a brief word from him, by the bare touch
of his hand or only of his clothes. The blind saw again at his
bidding and the lame walked ; the deranged mind was restored
to soundness, and in two or three instances, the recently dead
came back to life.
" Was not the demonstration of so extraordinary a presence a
flaming sign from heaven, far beyond in significance any portent
that might have appeared in the sky ? What could any mortal
man in those days want more to seize his attention, to set him
thinking with strange earnestness, to break off from him the im
prisoning crust of custom, and cause his whole being to dilate
with new and life-giving emotion ? It had this effect — the ex
citing spectacle — • upon numbers, and upon a class who might be
supposed to be the last to be able to read the signs of the time.
The ignorant and the low, odious tax-gatherers and harlots, in
whose company no respectable person would be seen, forsook
their foul haunts, forgot their evil practices, and went after this
strange man to see what he would do, to hear what he had to
say. Uncared for and hardened by loss of character, they never
theless, or rather on this very account, because they were con
scious of their miserable condition, recognized the manifest sign
of the time. To them, in the new and deep interest that he
stirred, Jesus was in truth a messenger straight from heaven. It
was as if the finger of God were pointing and beckoning them to
a fountain of healing set flowing in full, rich streams. As readily
as when a cloud rose in the west they knew that rain was coming,
or as when the wind blew from the south that it would be warm,
so the appearance of Jesus betokened to the very instincts of
these poor creatures, wandering as in an arid waste, the coming
shower of Divine Mercy. It was the breath of the Eternal
Spirit, spring-like in their wintry desolation, and prognosticating
the benign warmth of a better life.
" And yet amidst the full splendor of this most manifest sign

32 TWELFTH CHAPTER.
from heaven, when the whole population was heaving and thrill
ing at its presence, there came these Pharisees and learned men,
persons of religious repute, corresponding to the clergy of the
present day, and wanted Jesus to give them a sign from God !
Where were their hearts ? Had they eyes ? Were they bereft
of their senses, destitute of common discernment ? Were they
stocks and stones ? Who can wonder that he pronounced them
on the spot hypocrites, pretending to want what, as they were
not stone-blind and deaf, was blazing before their eyes and
sounding incessantly in their ears ! They knew, did they ? from
the appearance of the sky when it was going to rain or to be
clear ; but when the blind were restored to sight and the lame
walked, and the poor were flocking in great crowds to listen to
the words of instruction, and all men's minds were burning with
new thoughts, and the power and presence of Heaven were thus
strikingly demonstrated, they were utterly in the dark and must
needs come to Jesus and ask him for a sign to show them what
they were to think and do. There could be no question of their
duplicity. So far from desiring what they asked, a sign from
heaven, the sign they wanted could only come from an opposite
quarter. They were hungry for national aggrandizement, for
popularity and power, for vengeance upon their Roman con
querors. The only sign they wanted was a sign which Heaven
had not to give, a new assurance that they were Heaven's
especial favorites. So besotted were they, they could tell readily
when it would rain, but they could not understand things of in
finitely plainer significance of heavenly wisdom and power than
any appearances in the sky were of the weather.''
c. p. 25. I cannot regard as altogether satisfactory the ac
count given here of the passage in the history of Jesus, to the
elucidation of which section 4 of the foregoing chapter is de
voted. It is related that at this period Jesus desired to ascertain from
his disciples what the people at large thought of him, whom they
supposed him to be. In answer to his inquiries his disciples told
him that some supposed him to be John the Baptist, and some
Elias, and others again thought he was one of the old prophets
risen from the dead. As they made no mention of the existence
of any opinion of his Messiahship, Dr. Schenkel thinks that to
no one outside the circle of the disciples had any such idea

NOTES. 33
occurred. But although the disciples make no report of any
popular opinion of this kind, yet it is not at all likely that no
suspicion of Jesus being the Messiah had arisen among the peo
ple. It appears that the immediate disciples had caught this
idea, although they gave no expression to it, and did not make it
known to their Master that such was their thought until he
questioned them. As it was with the disciples so was it in a less
degree with the people at large. There was a secret hope more
or less prevalent that this wonderful man from Nazareth would
prove to be the promised Deliverer of the nation. Its existence
is incidentally betrayed. When he healed the man who was
blind and dumb, it was said among the people, " Is not this the
Son of David," i. e. the Messiah ? (Matt. xii. 23.) Again pos
sessed persons, losing all self-control, cried out and addressed him
as the promised Son of God. The people at large were more
cautious. Again Dr. Schenkel appears^ to think that Simon, in declar
ing for himself and his fellow-disciples that they believed Jesus
to be the Christ, shows that he had caught an idea of the true,
spiritual Messiahship of Jesus. Undoubtedly it manifested a
childlike openness and simplicity of mind in Peter and the rest
to have come to recognize the magnificent Messiah in a person
of so humble an exterior as Jesus. It evinced their sensibility to
the moral eharm of his truth and goodness. That Jesus himself
so regarded the confession of Peter is evident from the fervor in
which he breaks forth in a blessing upon the Apostle, — mark
the individualizing emphasis with which he addressed him :
"Blessed art thou, Simon son of Jonas!" But although Peter
avowed his faith that Jesus was the Christ, it by no means fol
lows that any radical change bad taken place in his idea of the
Messiah, or that he had risen " to a truly ideal and spiritual con
ception of the kingdom of God." In recognizing Jesus as the
Messiah, Peter, as his Master declared, had taken no counsel of
" flesh and blood." It was not in consequence, but in spite of
his Jewish views, his flesh and blood hopes, that he had been led
to this faith. It was the result of his appreciation of the truth
and goodness of Jesus, the offspring of that spirit which is the
inspiration of God in the soul of man. Still that he retained his
old Messianic visions, and that those visions were rendered even
more vivid and exciting by the idea that Jesus was the promised
deliverer and king, is manifest from the boldness with which he
VOL. II. 3

34: TWELFTH CHAPTER.
instantly contradicted Jesus when the latter proceeded to declare
that he, Messiah though he was, would be put to death. The
more confident Peter was that Jesus was the Messiah the more
shocked was he at the idea that so illustrious a personage was to
suffer violence and shame. The truth is that although the per
sonal disciples were sufficiently honest and simple-hearted to be
touched deeply by the moral and spiritual qualities of Jesus, they
were nevertheless under the influence of very selfish and worldly
motives ; they were thirsting for the riches and honors which they
expected to obtain through him.
The declaration made by Jesus to Simon upon giving him the
name of Peter (Rock) : " Upon this rock I will build my church ;
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give
unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven : and whatsoever
thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound iu heaven : and whatso
ever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven," savors
to my mind very much of a gloss by a later hand. It is found
in the first Gospel, not in the second, which Dr. Schenkel con
siders the most primitive of all the four Gospels ; and the absence
of this passage in the second Gospel is the more remarkable as
the tradition is that this Gospel was derived immediately from
Peter. It is one of the only two passages in the Gospels (see for
the other Matt, xviii. 15-18) that give color to the idea that
Jesus aimed to organize an institution, the so called Church. Our
author's explanation of this passage strikes me as labored and un
satisfactory, partaking too much of the ideas of a time subsequent
to that of Jesus and not in accordance with the general scope of
the life and teachings of Jesus. — Trans.]

THE MESSIAH. 35
CHAPTER XIII.
THE TRANSFIGURATION OP THE PERSON OF JESUS.
1. To the Jews a suffering Messiah was a contra
diction in terms. The Old Testament knows nothing
of such an idea, neither is it found in the later Rab
binical or Talmudical writings. Before Jesus could
represent himself to his disciples as the suffering Mes
siah, the last tie that bound him to the popular tradi
tional mode of thinking among his countrymen must
have been broken forever in his mind. There was
nothing now in common between the hopes of his con-'
temporaries and his personal convictions. The future
opened before him in an entirely new light. The ful
filment of the Old Covenant was the non-fulfilment of
all the theocratic expectations. The idea that the
Messiah was to rise to the height of earthly power was
to be realized by his descent into the depths of mortal
weakness and shame.
The conviction that suffering was the supreme des
tiny and true consecration of his office as a Redeemer
had gradually grown into full clearness in the inmost
being of Jesus ; and it was only through this conviction
that he rose to the dimensions of his great work and
accomplished it in himself. From this moment on he
gave utterance to his profoundest thoughts, to truths
of the grandest import, for all centuries the most mo
mentous, to sentiments than which none more elevated
ever flowed from human lips. An unearthly splendor
now beamed from him ; he was no longer under con
straint; he revealed himself fully as he was. The

36 FOURTH SECTION.
light of his inner life, hitherto more or less under a
veil, shone with unclouded power into the darkness of
human sin and sorrow.
Having announced his suffering destiny to the Apos
tles ; having repelled the very first motions of the tempt
ing instinct of self-preservation, and in so doing put
Simon to shame ; it was necessary that he should dispel
in the larger circle of his adherents every delusion in
regard to his purpose, especially as he aimed to define
with increasing; exactness the nature of the Communion
which he was gathering. He therefore called around
him a number of those friendly to him, who until now
had kept at a distance, among whom doubtless there
were not a few still very much in the dark as to his
aims,1 and to these persons he announced the con
ditions upon which alone it was thenceforth possible to
adhere to his cause, — "to follow him."
As the first indispensable condition of discipleship he
demanded self-sacrifice, self-renunciation. The essen
tial vice of the hierarchical party was egoism. Their
hearts were set on property, length of clays, worldly
enjoyment. For every good deed there must be a
reward, and every virtue God was expected to recom
pense richly. This root of all evil was to be thorough
ly extirpated. Good is to be done, not with an eye to
a reward, but for its own sake alone. The love of
God and our neighbor is its own reward. Every
sacrifice for truth, right, freedom, is a spring of pure
and abiding joy. When the supreme good, the life
eternal, is communicated to the members of the king-
dom of God, other goods lose all worth in compari
son. For this reason Jesus required without qual
ification that his disciples should rise superior to the
1 Mark viii. 34 ; Matt. xvi. 24 ; Luke ix. 23.

« THE MESSIAH. 37
instinct of self-preservation, renounce the mortal life
for the immortal, consider the collected goods of earth
as naught compared with a heavenly prize ; only thus
would they be in a condition to meet with a calm
courage the grave events that were approaching. He
plainly foresees, however, that his disciples will prove
unequal to the coming trials, that among the well-dis
posed now gathered around him there will not be
wanting instances of defection. He therefore declares
his condemnation of such false disciples. Whosoever
denies him and his cause in the hour of need, will be
denied by him in the day of his glory.
Thus, not only his future sufferings but his future
glory Jesus foresaw and foretold. According to the
evangelical tradition he repeatedly announced to his
disciples his resurrection and reappearance in tri
umphant splendor.1 It is not however probable that
he foretold his resurrection in such explicit terms.
According to this same tradition the Apostles were
evidently astonished at his resurrection. The first
rumor of it they received with utter incredulity, and
they were with difficulty convinced that it had the
authority of the ancient Scripture, (a) That Jesus
foretold his reappearance in glory is altogether proba
ble, only the deep moral, spiritual sense of the predic
tion must not be confounded with the form in which
the prediction was given. It is neither proved nor is
it possible that he predicted a personal return in the
body, in the visible brightness of a heavenly glory and
attended by angelic hosts, for the purpose of establish
ing an earthly kingdom. He, whose kingdom was a
kingdom of truth, of righteousness, of love, a kingdom
1 Mark viii. 31 ; Matt. xvi. 21 ; Luke ix. 22 ; Mark viii. 38 ; Matt
xvi. 27 ; Luke ix. 26.

38 FOURTH SECTION. *
of the Spirit, could not possibly represent external
splendor, material power, as its crowning object. He
usually put forth his deepest thoughts in those imagin
ative forms that were fitted to the apprehension of
his hearers. They were, naturally enough, unable to
rise to the purely* spiritual conception of the reappear
ance of their Master. Even had Jesus described his
return as wholly spiritual in its nature, his disciples
would nevertheless have Tpictured it to themselves,
arrayed in visible pomp, invested with the external
ensigns of power.
2. So much may be said with confidence: In the
same solemn moment in which Jesus for the first time
explicitly foretold his approaching ignominious end, he
announced also for the first time that a complete
success would follow immediately upon the apparent
destruction of his life and his cause. It was neces
sary that his disciples should fully understand the
fearful case, and not deceive themselves for an in
stant in regard to the daily increasing danger ; but
they were also to cherish an assured hope of the ulti
mate victory that would crown the cause to which
they had given strength and heart, property and life.
Jesus was thoroughly penetrated with the conviction
that that generation would witness the triumph of his
Gospel. In the second and third Gospels the declara
tion which he made to this effect is preserved in its
original form.1 He affirmed in the plainest manner
that many of those who were standing around him '
would see the kingdom of God coming with power.
The later tradition was not contented with this simple
statement. In the first Gospel it is so far changed as
to represent him as having said that some of those
1 Mark ix. 1 ; Luke ix. 27.

THE MESSIAH. 39
present would not die before they saw the " Son of
Man " come in his kingdom.1 Although Jesus fore
told his return in an impersonal sense, it corresponded
better with later ideas to represent it as a personal
reappearance. Thus what he meant in a moral and
spiritual sense came to have an outward and material
significance. In consequence of these disclosures Jesus rose to a
state of mind unusually elevated. The secret of his
life was now declared, the whole sum and substance of
his mission revealed. His future was unveiled. The
apparent defeat and the sure triumph of his cause stood
before his eyes as well as those of his disciples >as un
changeable facts. For his country, and indeed for all
nations, he had consecrated himself a spotless sacrifice
to death. It was on Gentile soil that he stood when
he foretold Suffering and Victory. Already then in
spirit and with his heart he embraced all mankind.
He had already consecrated himself to death by all
that he had thought and said and done. But in thus
opening his inmost soul to his disciples, in thus con
fiding to them his most secret thoughts, and in making
such momentous communications in regard to his fu
ture and the development of his kingdom to a still
larger circle of his followers, what profound emotions
must have been his, possessed as he was of such keen
sensibilities ! He must have stood in need for a time
of undisturbed repose, in order to collect and strength
en himself. With Simon, James and John, therefore,
the most intimate of his immediate disciples, he with
drew into the still mountain-world, seeking to be alone
with them there. How long he remained in this
retirement we do not know. A remarkable incident
i Matt. xvi. 28.

40 FOURTH SECTION.
that occurred then and there is related in the records.
Upon the top of the mountain which Jesus ascended
'with his disciples, it is stated that a most wonderful
change suddenly came over him. His features and
even his clothes shone with light, his person seemed
like an apparition from a higher world. Wonder fol
lowed upon wonder. The gates of the fore-World flew
open ; holy men of the Old Testament passed ; Moses
and Elias, the pillars of the Old Covenant, appeared
and talked with Jesus of the fearful fate awaiting him
in Jerusalem. A cloud came down from heaven ; and
the same Divine voice, which at his baptism had pro
claimed Jesus the beloved Son of God, was again
heard attesting his authority.1
That this incident could not have occurred as thus
reported, is intimated even by certain particulars of
the evangelical narrative itself. According to the
third Gospel, the three disciples present were sound
asleep,2 while the second represents them as so fright
ened that Simon Peter, for example, knew not what he
said.3 The first Gospel reports that they were so be
reft of all presence of mind that Jesus had to take hold
of them to recall them to themselves. Even, there
fore, while the event narrated Was taking place, the
immediate witnesses of it were evidently without any
power of calm observation. They could not possibly
have formed a correct idea of the occurrence. It ac
cordingly easily took, in the later tradition, a legendary
form. There is nevertheless an historical fact at the
basis of this evangelical narration. After the excite
ment and exhaustion of his recent revelations Jesus
did really resort with his three intimate friends to the
1 Mark ix. 2 ; Matt. xvii. 1 ; Luke ix. 28. 2 Luke ix. 32.
8 Mark ix. 6,

THE MESSIAH. 41
mountain retreat, and there hold communion with Moses
and Elias. But we must not content ourselves with the
mere hull of the narrative, we must penetrate to the
central life of it. How much had he yet to say to
those friends of his, which they had hitherto been
unable to bear, concerning the position in which he
stood to those hero-forms of the Old Covenant!
Moses and Elias they had not yet come rightly to
estimate. They did not yet understand the subordi
nate rank in sacred history of those personages.
Now for the first time, from the lofty height of that
Messianic consciousness which was spiritualized and
made complete in him as the person who sought to
save the nation, not with the sword and sceptre, but
by suffering and dying, Jesus could tell his disciples
what was the true relation which he bore to Moses and
Elias. He was now able to show them the difference
between himself and those upholders of the Old Testa
ment theocracy. Therefore he set before his three
intimate friends (the other disciples were not yet able
to bear it,) Moses and Elias as they really were in the
light of his Messianic destiny. Both these prophets,
great as they were, mighty as were their labors, one
as the founder, the other as the guardian of the Law,
stood nevertheless infinitely below him, — were in
fact only his precursors and signs. Thenceforth their
authority was subordinate to his. In him the com
pletion of their imperfect work was to be looked for.
The later tradition has obliterated in this narrative
traits fall of significance. Luke 1 represents Moses and
Elias as sharing in the splendor of the transfiguration,
while, according to the two other Evangelists, it was
Jesus alone who was transfigured. The traces of a
1 Luke ix. 31.

42 FOURTH SECTION.
later hand amplifying the wonder are here visible. The
fading glory of those Old Testament personages was
now to vanish before the new light rising in Jesus.
They were both men of the letter. In their bosoms
there throbbed no inexhaustible love, no hearts all
a-glow with Divine mercy. They were men of iron
will, of stern purpose. Their hands were stained with
blood, and it was with force and violence that they
had sought to prepare the way for the kingdom of
God. But Jesus was to pour out his own blood in
the service of his country and mankind. Such was
the glory that made him saintly. Herein was the
light of his transfiguration.
The weariness and exhaustion of the three disciples,
— a condition in which we find them again in one of
the most critical hours in the life of Jesus, — and their
desire to tarry longer on the spot, listening to converse
so inspiring, and opening to them such new views, are
particulars in the story of the Transfiguration alto
gether credible. Without doubt the disciples heard
the voice from the cloud, not indeed with the outward
ear. It was audible only to their inner sense, — it
was the voice of that conviction, steadily growing
stronger in their hearts, that a new and better revela
tion was given in Jesus to the people of Israel, that in
his countenance beamed the countenance of God him
self, that in him the promises of the Old Covenant
found their glorious fulfilment, and that in a far higher
sense than the people of Israel, or even their kings,
high-priests, and prophets thought, Jesus was the first-
begotten Son of God.1 Surrounded by the light of a
new revelation, he appeared to the three in a new
form. The glory of a higher world was shed over his
1 Exod. iv. 22 ; Deut. xxxii. 6 ; Ps. lxxxii. 6 ; Hosea ii. 1.

THE MESSIAH. 43
person. He stood there before their eyes, filled with
the Spirit. Never before had they discerned so plainly
his hidden greatness. Never before had his serene
elevation, his incomparable superiority even to the
greatest men of the Old Covenant, been made so mani
fest to their spiritual vision. The astonishment, the
fear, the awe, the prostration of the disciples, as de
scribed by the Evangelists, are traits entirely historical.
Hitherto they had regarded their Master mainly on
the natural, human side. Now there was revealed to
them a divine, supernatural greatness and dignity. A
sacred awe thrilled their souls. Can we wonder that
these excitable men under such circumstances rose to
a state of ecstasy, and imagined they saw celestial ap
paritions and heard voices from another world ? Is it
not easy to be understood how the later tradition exag
gerated incidents in themselves unusual, and made
them still more wonderful ? (5)
3. That the incident on the mountain was in reality
what we have represented it, finds confirmation in the
conversation that passed between Jesus and his disci
ples upon leaving the place. They had come to a
right understanding of Moses and of his relation to
Jesus. But as to the significance of Elias in this
same relation they were still in doubt. -According to
the prevalent notion of the time, Elias was to appear
and announce the advent of the Messiah. But Elias
had not yet appeared. And yet Jesus had declared
himself to his disciples as the Messiah. Here was a
point that still disturbed them. Here was an enigma
that Jesus was to solve. There would have been no
difficulty had Elias appeared to the disciples on the
Mount of Transfiguration* in a visible form. It was
because Elias had not really appeared to them that

44 FOURTH SECTION.
doubt and hesitation arose in their minds. The way
also that Jesus took to relieve the difficulty shows
clearly that Elias had not appeared to them.1 He
rejects as unfounded the expectations, prevalent among
the Jewish theologues, of the return of Elias before
the coming of the Messianic times. According to the
prevalent opinion Elias was to appear before the Mes
siah, "to restore all things," so that in this case the
Messiah could enter into his kingdom only after it had
been completely established. Such expectations ac
corded with the splendid idea of the Messiah cherished
by the Pharisees, but not with the idea of a suffering
and dying Deliverer. Hence Jesus declared without
qualification that the prophet Elias would not prepare
the way for him. The promise of the reappearance
of Elias 2 had been fulfilled — such was the conviction
of Jesus — in the appearance of the Baptist. The
forerunner of the suffering Messiah could not be one
who " restored all things " ; he must be one whose own
fate was a type of the Messiah's, one upon whom men
wreaked their malice, a man like John the Baptist.3
Thus freely and independently of the letter did Jesus
interpret the Old Testament prophecy. Thus deci
sively did he account suffering the necessary condition
for the work of the divine kingdom.4
1 What Jesus said is preserved in Mark in its original form (Mark
ix. 12). Compare Matt. xvii. 11.
* Malachi iv. 5. 8 Mark ix. 13; Matt. xvii. 12.
* See Appendix, 111. 17, p. 44.

NOTES. 45

NOTES.

[a. p. 37. That, after their Master was executed, the disciples
had no expectation of his rising from the dead, and received the
report of his resurrection with incredulity, is no proof that Jesus
did not utter the predictions of that event ascribed to him in the
Gospels. We are expressly told that when Jesus predicted his
death and his rising from the dead, the disciples "understood
none of these things, and this saying was hid from them, neither
knew they the things that were spoken." (Luke xviii. 34.) And
there is a good reason at hand why they did not understand
him, explicit as his language was. Those predictions of his death
and resurrection were uttered by Jesus upon occasions when the
minds of his disciples were full of the idea that he was the Mes
siah. Consequently nothing could be more entirely abhorrent to
their minds than the thought of his death, and especially of his
suffering a violent and ignominious death. The Messiah, in their
apprehensions, was to live and reign a thousand years, and with
him was identified all that is great and magnificent. They could
not conceive it to be possible that he whom they believed to be
the Messiah should be put to death. And when Jesus declared
that such was to be his fate, he so . often spoke in parables and
said so many things that they could not comprehend, that it was
a great deal easier to conclude that he had some meaning which
they could not understand than to think that he really meant
what his language appeared to express. As the disciples of Jesus
were thus unable to take in the idea of his death, they gave no
heed to the consequent idea of hi3 rising from the dead ; and
therefore we find that, when his death had actually taken place,
they were overwhelmed by the fearful reality. They " mourned
and wept." All the past under the first crushing weight of that
blow was to them no better than a delusion and a dream. Their
fondest hopes, the hopes with which he had inspired them, of
wealth and honor, were all utterly blasted. The one overpower
ing fact that he was dead filled their minds to the exclusion of
every other thought. Why should they recall anything in par
ticular that he had said, when all the bright visions which his
whole life had seemed to warrant them in cherishing, had van
ished in utter darkness ?
5. p. 43. So far as we are able to understand Dr. Schenkel's

46 THIRTEENTH CHAPTER.
idea of the Transfiguration, it is that the narrative of this event
is a legend that grew out of the communications made by Jesus
to his three disciples on the mountain, — communications concern
ing the position in which Moses and Elias stood to him as the
Messiah, and tending to glorify him in their eyes. The purely
spiritual glory which thus invested Jesus on this occasion, the
later tradition represented as an outward and visible splendor.
Such appears to be our author's view of this passage of the his
tory. The chief defect of this view is that it supposes a rather
wholesale fabrication of particulars. The three accounts of the
so-called Transfiguration are strikingly circumstantial. A legend
ary hypothesis ought to be able to show what specially gave oc
casion to the several circumstances of which the story is composed.
This is what Strauss always attempts. Our idea of this passage
is that without any violence done to the letter of these narratives
the Transfiguration may easily be resolved into a_ dream, not
a supernatural vision, but a dream, a very natural dream of
Peter's. As I have endeavored so to explain it at considerable
length in former publications, I will only indicate here as briefly
as possible the considerations which lead me to take this view of
it. 1. According to the third Gospel, Peter and they that were
with him were sound asleep when the spectacle began. The
phrase in the original is very strong : f2efiaprni.evoi Jm. The
statements of persons in this condition are to be taken with cau
tion. 2. It is implied that the Transfiguration commenced before
the disciples awoke. 3. The presumption is that the occurrence
took place in the night. 4. Upon a careful examination of the
different accounts, the chief particulars related took place at one
and the same moment. " As Moses and Elias were departing"
Peter spoke. "And while Peter icas speaking" a cloud came up
and a voice came from the cloud. " And when the disciples heard
it," they fell on their faces and were sore afraid. Now we have
only to suppose, and it is no irrational supposition, that the cloud
that came up and that probably hung low over the mountain
height, was attended by a flash of lightning and thunder, and it
is natural to conclude that we have here one of those instances
of which we have almost all had experience and in which dreams
of quite a circumstantial character are produced by the very
noises that awaken the dreamers. That certain of those ancient
prophets to whom reference had been made in conversation be
tween Jesus and his disciples a little while before, and who wero

NOTES. 47
expected to re-appear when the Messiah came ; that " his decease
at Jerusalem," of which Jesus had spoken on the same occasion and
which had made so painful an impression on the mind of Peter ; and
finally, that Peter's idea of Jesus as the glorious Messiah, rendered
more vivid by the recent admission of Jesus himself that he was
that personage, should have excited the active imagination of
Peter and shaped his dream, is certainly a perfectly natural con
jecture. And that Peter should impose his account of what had
happened upon James and John, and that they, startled suddenly
from deep slumber, hearing Peter talking in an excited tone
while they themselves were in a state of great fright, should take
his account without demur, and consider themselves as having
witnessed what they had been dimly aware of only in part, is
entirely characteristic of all concerned and in keeping with the
circumstances. In his reniarks on the Transfiguration, and thus far at least
throughout, Dr. Schenkel does not appear to me clearly to
recognize the striking and natural manner in which Jesus was
gradually spiritualizing the peculiar Jewish ideas of his disciples.
It was not by direct verbal instruction, as Dr. Schenkel seems to
represent. The disciples were not consciously led by anything
said by their Master to form any more spiritual conceptions of
Jesus as the Messiah. Much that he said they did not under
stand, or they understood it in a very narrow sense. The more
their faith grew in his Messiahship the more confident were their
expectations, the more lively their visions of the riches and honors
that awaited them. It was on this account, as he told them, that
it was necessary for their sakes that he should leave them. What
then was the spiritual help that they received from him ? How
was it that he enlightened and elevated them ? Elevated they
certainly were by their intercourse with him, for those humble
fishermen of Galilee came to be world-renowned Apostles. The
truth is, it was far more by what he was than by what he said
that he gained their hearts and moulded them to his purpose. It
was not so much the ideas that they gathered from his words as
the spirit which they unconsciously caught from his life, from his
personal character, that inspired them. Their Jewish prejudices
were never all formally renounced. It was not until years after
the death of his Master, that Peter made the full discovery that
it was lawful for him to eat with persons of another nation. (Acts
x.) The expectation of the return of Jesus in visible glory, the

48 THIRTEENTH CHAPTER.
primitive disciples never relinquished to the day of their death.
But the fact was, that although the trammels of their Jewish
culture clung to them to the last, it was just as the old bark clings
to the tree which is inwardly expanding with a new life. They
were early touched by the charm of their Master's character,
signified as it was by every quality that could awaken reverence,
trust, love. The increasing personal affection with which he in
spired them by the sanctity of his life, by his looks beaming with
truth, by his tones thrilling them with a sense of his tenderness and
sincerity, — this it was which gradually so enlarged and exalted
them, and which so became their animating principle, that their
old traditional ideas, though never, as I have said, deliberately
renounced, gradually lost power to influence them. They never
ceased to cherish the dream of a splendid earthly kingdom, but it
grew more and more dreamy, the pinnacles and spires of that
glorious kingdom slowly receded in the distance and grew dim
mer and dimmer as they entered more fully into the spirit of
their Master and their love and reverence for him deepened.
And their affection for him, — ¦ what was it but another name for
the love of all that is true and good ? The highest and best was
steadily and unconsciously obtaining possession of their hearts to
the exclusion of their old ways of thought and feeling.
It is most interesting to observe the influence which Jesus thus
had upon his personal disciples. In the whole history there is
nothing more thoroughly true to nature, for it was for the most
part the unconscious, involuntary influence of his personal life.
And just as Unconsciously and undesignedly is its existence ap
parent in the Gospels. Into what profound reverence was the
attachment of the disciples to Jesus deepening, what faith must
they have come to repose in him, in what awe of him must they
have stood, when towards the last he told them that one of them
was about to prove false to him, and that touching cry arose
among them, " Lord, is it I ? " Conscious as they were of no
evil design, yet it was impossible, they felt, that he should utter a
false accusation. He knew them best. They could distrust
themselves, but not him.
Primitive Christianity is looked upon too much in the light of
a great plan, — plan of salvation, as it is called ; and Dr. Schen-
kel's representation of Jesus gives us the impression that Jesus
had at heart a scheme, simple, spiritual, free indeed, but never
theless a scheme, into a speculative understanding of which he

THE MESSIAH. 49
aimed to initiate his disciples. Whereas it appears to me that
the Life of Jesus, with its immediate effects and consequences,
was a natural growth, which is only saying in other words that it
was not the work of man, but the work of God. And the records
of that Life, the four Gospels, will be found, I am persuaded, to
have the same natural origin and character. — Trans.]

CHAPTER XIV.
HIGHER TEACHING.
1. The disciples had passed through . their first pro
bation. They had been led by their Master to the
spiritual height of the Messianic vision, and initiated
into the depth of the evangelical mystery of the king
dom of God. The work to be done by Jesus in Galilee
was nearly finished. He had gathered around him
a Church, which was set free from the yoke of the
letter and from spiritual subjection to the hierarchy,
and upon the foundation of truth, freedom, righteous
ness, and love for God and man, had obtained a firm
support. He had already scattered the seeds of his
ideas in the neighboring regions of heathendom. He
had boldly confronted the ruling party, the Jewish
theologues and hierarchs, and had shown his opposition
to them more and more pointedly. The irreconcila
bility of a new conviction with the popular traditions,
of a spiritual kingdom of Faith with the theocratic
kingdom of Law, was no longer in question. A great
final struggle, a life and death conflict, between two
modes of thought of world-wide influence, had become
inevitable. But it was not in Galilee that the ap
proaching decision could take place, but the central

50 FOURTH SECTION.
point of the theocracy, the city of Jerusalem, must be
its theatre. There in the seat of Judaism, stiff and
stark in its traditionary statutes, under the eyes of the
supreme ecclesiastical authorities, in sight of the temple
and its sacrificial ceremonial, before the representatives
of the reigning theology of the schools, Jesus must
vindicate his principles, found his Church, contend with
his foes, seal the great work with his blood.
After he had once publicly declared himself the
Messiah, it lay in the nature of the case that the ulti
mate decision could not much longer wait. The hie
rarchy was bound either to acknowledge or to crush
him. But it was not for him to precipitate the hour.
As it was an urgent necessity that the insight and con
victions of his disciples should be clear and strong as
to his peculiar destiny, so would it be necessary, not
only that they should stand by him faithfully in the
last conflict, but that, when he fell, they should main
tain his cause and extend and advance it under the
greatest difficulties and dangers. On this account he
had already accustomed them, upon their first mission
ary journey, to decide and act in some degree for
themselves. Before transferring his labors to Judea,
he deemed a second more extended missionary excur- '
sion indispensable to their better preparation. With
the change of his sphere, a new field appeared to offer
itself. Among the Samaritans, who were generally
much under the influence of heathenism, the Gospel
had not yet been published. The journey to Judea
led by the nearest way through Samaria. How could
the disciples better prepare themselves for the final
struggle, than by a preliminary enterprise among a
population still so far removed from the Gospel as the
Samaritans were ? If it seem strange that Luke alone

THE MESSIAH. 51
mentions this second missionary journey,1 it is to be
observed, .on the other hand, that there is an evi
dent hiatus2 at this point in both the other Gospels,
as the last journey of Jesus from Galilee to Judea
is told by them very briefly. Luke comes in here
with his account of this journey, completing the nar
rative. Before his journey to Judea, Jesus had considerably
increased the number of his disciples. That they
amounted to the precise number of seventy, as Luke
states, is not probable. Jesus appears to have kept the
smaller circle of his disciples near him, while the
others, like the Apostles upon the first missionary jour
ney, were training themselves for self-dependent ac
tion. He devoted his attention in an especial manner
to the Apostles. Everything depended upon their
thorough culture, moral and religious, and upon their
being steeled against the temptations to weakness and
disloyalty. Even their progress was very slow. They
advanced in their own way only with faltering steps.
They made attempts at healing, and were not always
successful. They defended the new doctrine against
the Pharisaical theology,3 and did not always gain the
advantage. Their inaptneSs, ignorance, and uncertainty
were the first of the sufferings of Jesus upon his jour
ney to Jerusalem.
Why was it that even the most intelligent of the
Apostles were so slow to comprehend their calling?
The truth is, it was extremely difficult for them to con
ceive of suffering and death as the appointed destiny
of their Master. They had gradually learned to un
derstand and revere him as a prophet, as a man mighty
1 Luke x. 1. 2 Mark x. 1 ; Matt. xix. 1.
8 Mark ix. 14.

52 FOURTH SECTION.
in word and deed, as the founder of a pious Communion
gathered from among the neglected and oppressed
people. When he stood before them on the mountain
transfigured, surrounded by the splendor of a divine
majesty, they were filled with a holy fear, a sacred
rapture. They trusted then that they would be able
to suffer and die with him. But afterwards, as the
decisive hour drew nearer, they lacked heart to meet
bravely the fate that was before them. It was but a
little while before, that they had come to surmise that
Jesus was the Messiah. When at last they saw real
ized in him this highest Ideal of the nation's hope, they
beheld a Messiah who contradicted all the expectations
in which they had been educated. There were hours
and days of sore inward conflict. Jesus was neither
able nor did he desire to spare them, although one of
the disciples he saw more and more clearly was not to
come forth from these trials victorious. The nearer
the .time came to set out for Judea, the less able were
the disciples to conceal from themselves that the work
of Jesus in that quarter would be attended by the most
serious dangers to themselves, the more did their dis
quiet increase and their failing courage disable them
for energetic action. It is these misgivings that ex
plain for us why the disciples were unable to relieve a
child mentally diseased.1 They lacked the exultant
vigor and self-confidence of faith, which alone is pow
erful enough to restore body and soul to health when
fearfully shattered. For the same reason they were
unable to make a right use of those means of spiritual
strength, — prayer and fasting. They had not that inti
mate communion with God, and that self-command in
the enjoyment of earthly things, necessary to vigorous
1 Mark ix. 17 ; Matt. xvii. 15 ; Luke ix. 38.

THE MESSIAH. 53
moral efforts,1 without which the purification and ele
vation of the inner life do not reach the state that can
alone enable us to exercise a soothing and healing
power upon perturbed and suffering minds.
2. By the discipline which they had undergone in
self-reliant activity the disciples had, however, become
more earnest. Their labors in behalf of the divine
kingdom had daily brought home to their consciences
that a great task was imposed on them. If they had
not yet attained to full clearness in regard to its high
est end, they felt themselves influenced by it in the
liveliest manner. This state of their minds Jesus
sought to render conducive to new and higher enlight-
enment. Before departing for Judea he gathered them,
therefore, around him in the first scene of their labors
in Capernaum, and gave utterance to a series of proph
ecies, the fulfilment of which, in the conflict with the
stern difficulties that awaited them, would give them
comfort, strength, and a just confidence.
We recollect that the forming principle of the life
of Jesus is humility. This it was that protected him at
the very outset of his public career from the temptation
to self-exaltation. It opened his heart to the poor.
It kept strong his sympathy with the oppressed and
the suffering of the land. It made it possible for him
to contemn all the show of worldly power, and accept
a lot of shame and obloquy, in order to impart to the
people the solace of a brighter future, and establish
among men the kingdom of truth and righteousness
and love. His disciples, — they too would become
powerful in the service of his kingdom by receiving
into the hearts the same spirit. Their exposure to
self-exaltation had greatly increased from the moment
i Mark ix. 29; Matt. xvii. 21.

54 FOURTH SECTION.
Jesus was recognized by them in his Messianic dignity.
The trusted and chief servants of the Messiah, appoint
ed by himself, — what a seductive charm for Galilean
fishermen in the thought ! In setting before them an
ignominious death as the first consequence of his labors
as the Messiah, he possibly meant, so they thought,
only to try their fidelity; he could not be serious.
Their future employments and their position in the
coming kingdom formed the chief topic of conversation
among them after his last disclosures. Why had they
received the gifts and powers of the spirit ? To what
purpose were they to expose themselves to trouble and
danger ? The reward could not fail. And for which
of them was the highest position designed ? They in
flamed one another with their ambitious projects.
Strife broke out among them and bitter words. Jesus
had long seen their proud hopes. Now before the
decisive journey to Jerusalem, duty required him to
speak to them very seriously.
, The root of their delusion was pride. Before they
had achieved anything, they were entertaining high
thoughts of their power. Before they had sown, they
would reap. Before they had made the sacrifice, they
would have the joy. Jesus sought to shame them into
self-knowledge. They were to be convinced of their
error, not by words, but by an example. He placed a
child before them, took it in his arms and declared that
to be as a child was the indispensable condition of all
right work in his kingdom. " Whoever will be first
must be the last of all, and the servant of all."1 The
ambition of his disciples was to be governed by this
rule. By disputing about rank they showed that they
had not yet any idea of the kingdom of God. In that
1 Mark ix. 35.

THE MESSIAH. 55
kingdom there is no temporal power, .there are no dis
tinctions of rank. All its members are united by the
bond of perfect equality. One may indeed distinguish
himself above another, but not as under the Old Tes
tament theocracy, not as in the Messiah's kingdom
which the Jews looked for, by eminence of position,
but by extraordinary moral attainments. Self-sacrifice,
self-abnegation, devotion of all that one has and is to
the service of all, is the way to the highest honor in
the kingdom of God. Such is the significance of the
word of Jesus when he requires his disciples to be
converted and become as little children.1
The love of children, reverence for childhood, is a
striking characteristic of Jesus himself. But it is not
in harmony with the idea that he held man to be
essentially depraved, and that he required the complete
conversion of every man's nature. His admonition to
become like children presupposes beyond all question
that human nature in the child is as yet undepraved.
Selfishness and pride, the two prime vices of the
grown-up man, have not woven themselves round the
child's heart, and evil inclinations, although slumbering
in the child, have not yet grown into passions or broken
forth into vices. In the eyes of Jesus the child is
emphatically a type of humility. The child makes no
claim upon men and upon life. He accepts his con
dition as it is, and knows how to adjust himself thereto,
however humble and limited it may be. This child
like temper Jesus must needs require above all things
of his disciples, in order that they might be efficient
instruments in his kingdom. The hierarchical party
derided the idea. They had reared a proud edifice,
founded in ambition and the greed of selfish enjoy-
1 Matt, xviii. 3.

56 FOURTH SECTION.
ment; and the future kingdom of the Messiah, for
which they longed so passionately, was to gratify their
ambition and their greed in a far more abundant meas
ure than the Old Testament order of things. In direct
opposition to this expectation Jesus established his
Community upon self-devotion and cheerful self-sacri
fice; and as he himself from the first always served
others, making no personal claim, so he enjoined it
upon his disciples to seek their true glory and their
highest honor in the constant humble service of their
countrymen and of mankind.
The common idea is that it was the opinions
which they held of his person that were the con
ditions upon which his disciples took position in his
kingdom. He certainly required them, as he required
every one who proposed to join him, above all things
to have faith in his person. But it was not any pre
cise opinion that was meant by this faith, any specu
lative apprehension, but a bent and disposition of mind,
a prevailing tone of feeling. Whosoever was resolved
to devote himself to the kingdom of God announced
by Jesus could do so with a good conscience only in
the full conviction that Jesus had commission and
authority from God to establish such a kingdom. He
must recognize in Jesus the Messenger of God, in the
highest sense of the word. And whosoever joined
Jesus, since he acknowledged him as the Messiah,
must free himself from the old traditional hope of the
Messiah, and hail Jesus as the person whose mission it
was to offer himself as a sacrifice for the salvation of
his country and mankind. Jesus necessarily and most
especially required those who joined him to come to
him with entire good will, to throw open their hearts to
him in full trust. But for himself, he made no claim

THE MESSIAH. 57
to be personally honored and glorified. He was pro
foundly humble. As, upon the occasion just referred
to, he pronounced childlikeness the first mark of a true
disciple, so he himself manifested his humility in this,
that he desired for himself no special acknowledgment
beyond what awaited all who were possessed of a
childlike spirit, and that he esteemed a friendly office
done for the least of his friends as highly as if he him
self were the object of it. He never asked for himself
exclusive homage. Every tender, childlike spirit in
the kingdom of God, although showing its quality in
the least things and the smallest, had in his eyes price
less worth and divine significance. Consequently he
had no wish to take the place of a head, to whom all
the members were bound to render submissive service.
Devoid of pretension, he stood in the midst of his
Church, bound to it most vitally, melted into it in
sympathy with the highest and holiest. That in this
Communion each should be aided by all, and that the
lowly especially, the obscure, those who were working
in silence, seeking not to make themselves of import
ance, should be lifted up and strengthened and encour
aged by all, — this seemed to him an essential aim of
his mission.
3. The nearer the final decision approached, so
much the more, for a special reason, Jesus must have
wished to suppress any further manifestation in his
disciples of a proud and selfish spirit. Gentiles had
already entered the circle of the evangelical Commu
nion. What an offence to them, in so intimate a
relation, must have been a temper of mind not yet
free from Jewish arrogance ! Among the friends of
his cause there were individuals of little force of
character, who, in conflict with themselves, had not

58 FOURTH SECTION.
yet joined his Communion. These friends who stood
at a distance from him he was unwilling to lose
through the fanatical zeal of his disciples. The dan
ger in this direction was not trifling. The " son of
thunder," John, took great offence at a man who,
without formally belonging to the company of the
disciples,1 had sought to heal in the name of Jesus.
He, John, had forbidden this man to make any further
attempts of the kind. Jesus gravely rebuked his
officious disciple for so doing. The disciples, lacking
humility, lack tolerance also. Pride is the rank source
of intolerant judgments. Jesus immediately availed
himself of this incident to enlarge' the narrow views
of his disciples. " Whosoever is not against us,"
he exclaimed to them, "is for us."2 The man so
harshly dealt with by John had acted in the name of
Jesus, although probably with a very imperfect appre
ciation of the significance of his person and the great
ness and importance of his Cause. All circumstances
considered, the man was not against him ; it was not
to be apprehended that he would join with those de-
famers in high places who dared without shame to .
stigmatize as of the Devil the holy and beneficent spirit
that lived and wrought in Jesus. The position of a
well-wisher to the cause of the Gospel is to be con
sidered a friendly one. It is not intellectual insight
into the quality of his person and the ultimate aim of
his work, but good-will, the confiding, cordial, child
like humility with which one regards Jesus and his
Cause, — this it is that establishes a claim to the sym
pathy of the Communion founded by him. In the
case above mentioned, such sympathy appeared to
Jesus to be possible without any formal adhesion to
1 Mark ix. 38 ; Luke ix. 49. 2 Mark ix. 40 ; Luke ix. 50.

THE MESSIAH. 59
his person. How important was it at that moment
to prepare the hearts of his disciples thus generously
to estimate those who, although not belonging to their
Communion, were yet kindly disposed at heart ! When
Jesus should disappear from among them, and the
maintenance of his Cause should be in their hands, it
would be a matter of the gravest moment whether the
Community, founded by him, should really mark a
new era in the history of Israel, or whether it should
figure only as a new patch on an old garment. If the
disciples, with narrow minds, shut themselves up again
in the narrow confines of Jewish tradition, — if they
continued to adhere to the prejudices of their hereditary
religion and of a conventional morality, — if they did
not boldly venture, with the original power of the
Founder of their Communion, to break through old
forms and go down to the deepest roots of Divine truth
and of the eternal life itself, — then would Jesus have
taught and toiled, lived and suffered in vain.
" Whosoever is not against me is for me." This was
said with particular reference to the Gentiles striving
after truth and having the ability and the will to ap
preciate Jesus, not indeed as the Messiah of Israel, but
as a moral and religious reformer. This saying is
directly contradicted by another saying uttered by
Jesus with direct reference to the shameless calumnies
which the Pharisees threw out against him : " Whoso-
ever is not with me is against me ; whoever gathers
not with me, scatters abroad."1 But there is really
no contradiction. The meaning of this saying is deter
mined by the circumstances. An individual, unac
quainted with the high purpose of Jesus, but filled
with confidence in his Cause and with love to him, —
1 Matt. xii. 30.

60 FOURTH SECTION.
a friend, a man who had not attained to any conscious
understanding of the Gospel, but of whom however it
might be confidently hoped that the full light of evan
gelical truth would yet rise upon him, — it was of such
an one that Jesus said: "Whosoever is not against me
is for me." Other persons again, in like manner unac
quainted with his purpose, but incapable of understand
ing it through their opposition to evangelical truth,
inflamed with deep hatred alike of his person and his
Cause, enemies, men who had neither taken middle
ground between the parties nor hesitated between
them, but who from the first had been decidedly against
him, and who, on this very account, because a decision
involved their dearest personal prejudices, were with
all the clearer consciousness against him, — these it
was in allusion to whom Jesus said : " Whosoever is
not with me, is against me. (a)
It was not the position in which the disciples stood
to the Pharisees that constituted the special subject of
discourse upon the eve of the journey into Judea, but
their relation to the people of Israel and- to the Gen
tiles whom the disciples were commissioned to call into
the communion of the kingdom. In discharging this
office they would be very liable to make unreasonable
demands, and urge claims that could not be satisfied.
As to an intellectual comprehension of the Gospel, it
was by no means the opinion of Jesus that the require
ment should be very strict. The right direction of
heart and consciousness, the inner life of a man, show
ing itself in a true way of living, altogether unimposing
perhaps, is with Jesus decisive as to the question of
admission into his kingdom. Whosoever should give
only a cup of cold water to his disciples, weary and ex
hausted with their labors, to reinvigorate them for the

THE MESSIAH. 61
service of their Master, would not fail of reward in the
kingdom of God. How keen, by the way, was the
sight of Jesus, to descry the virtue that was hidden
and despised by the world ! How truly did he desig
nate those who were ready to receive his kingdom,
"the little ones" ; and with what indignation does he
speak of those who would refuse admission into his
Communion to these, the lowly and obscure. Grave
offence would thus be given to lowly persons ;a it would
confound all their ideas of the kingdom founded by
Jesus. It would thus appear to be established for the
great and for their aggrandizement, not a kingdom in
which the least as well as the greatest are to be offered
and consecrated to God.
As Jesus devoted himself a sacrifice for the country
and the world, he required a like devotion from those
who gave themselves to him and to his Cause. He
therefore represents a willingness to sacrifice one's self
as an essential condition of discipleship. The sacri
ficial salt of suffering must be tasted by every disciple
of his. It must be as a purifying fire, and as the
seasoning of a higher life. Fire and salt, — the sancti-
fication of suffering, the savor of life : these are the
elements of that dark saying found only in Mark :
" Every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacri
fice shall be salted with salt." 2 Personal develop
ment in the Divine kingdom proceeds from low to
ever higher states through fire and salt, through the
glow of sacrifice and the life of the Spirit. It was in
this connection probably that Jesus uttered the saying
concerning light and salt, which the first Evangelist
introduces in a wrong place.3 The disciple, conse-
1 Mark ix. 42 ; Matt, xviii. 6. 2 Mark ix. 49.
8 Matt. v. 13-16*

62 FOURTH SECTION.
crated as such by sacrifice, becomes the light that
shines in a world dark with error and sin ; and he who
is purified by salt himself becomes the salt that pene
trates mankind with a purifying and preserving power.
It was only when he was standing at his present, eleva
tion, and not at the beginning of his career, that Jesus
could liken his disciples to light and salt, only then
when he was introducing them into a sphere in which
they were to rely only on themselves, only then when,
in prospect of soon being separated from them, he set
before them their destination, they were to go forth
into the world to illumine and purify it. Only then
too, we may suppose, did he utter the parables of the
tares and the wheat, of the leaven, of the treasure hid
in the field, of the pearl of great price, and of the net.1
These parables all point to the inevitable conflict at
hand, the sufferings of which were to be great, but its
happy issue was certain and its reward glorious, not
however to be realized before the time.

NOTE.

[a. p. 60. " Whosoever is not against me is for me." " Who
soever is not with me is against me." M. Renan, in his " Life of
Jesus," refers to these two proverbs, — which Jesus happened to
quote and apply, each on a peculiar occasion, — as two great con
tradictory principles by which he was guided in his great work,
and excuses him upon the ground that an enthusiastic spirit is
always liable to be involved in such contradictions ! Nothing
could be more egregiously erroneous. A tolerably careful consider
ation of the two only occasions upon which Jesus made use of these
proverbial sayings would have shown M. Benan that his state
ment is wholly unauthorized. It is worth referring to here how-
1 Matt, xiii. 24.

NOTE. 63
ever merely as a specimen of the hasty and superficial treat
ment which the Gospels have received at the hands of the author
of the Vie de Jesus, and shows how little dependence is to be
placed on his interpretations.
Dr. Schenkel justly remarks that these two proverbs involve no
contradiction, as they are to be explained by the circumstances to
which they are applied ; but he errs, I think, in understanding
the second saying, " Whosoever is not with me is against me, and
he that gathereih not with me, scaltereth abroad," as applied by
Jesus to himself in the same way in which upon another occasion
he applied to himself the first mentioned, " Whosoever is not against
me, is for me." It is in his answer to the charge that he was in
league with the Prince of the evil spirits, that he quoted the
familiar saying, " He that is not with me is against me." And
the whole aim of that part of the answer with which the proverb
stands connected shows that it was to " Satan," or " Beelzebub,"
that the proverb was applied, and the point of the application is :
" Satan is like a strong man whose house cannot be entered and
despoiled by any one who has not first overcome the s'trong man.
I have despoiled his house, — I have cast out his servants, there
fore the inevitable conclusion is that I am not with him. And as
1 am thus evidently not with him, I am against him." The other
proverb, " He that is not against me is for me," was applied by
Jesus to the case of the stranger whom his disciples found casting
out demons in the name of Jesus. All that was known of this
man showed that he was not against Jesus. Therefore it was a
case for the proverbial presumption that he was for Jesus. Dr.
Schenkel thinks that Jesus in quoting it had " particular refer
ence to the Gentiles striving after truth and having the will
and the ability to appreciate Jesus." That it admits of such a
reference may be conceded. But that Jesus intended this appli
cation of it does not appear, and there is no ground for supposing
it. — Tkans.]

64 FOURTH SECTION.
CHA'PTER XV.
BEFORE THE DEPAETUEE FOE THE FINAL CONFLICT.
1. After the preparatory discourse of Jesus to his
more immediate disciples in Capernaum, there occurs
in the first two Gospels an evident hiatus in the narra
tive.1 Without any explanation the scene of the labors
of Jesus is suddenly changed to Judea. The original
record appears here to have been imperfect. But the
diligence of Luke has happily supplied the deficiency.
From materials accessible to him alone he has related
the last eventful journey of Jesus through Samaria to
Jerusalem. Fully aware of the consequences which this transfer
of his labors from the remote shores of the Lake of
Gennesaret to the capital of the Jewish hierarchy
must have for him, Jesus had resolved to sacrifice his
life for the truth of his Gospel, for the salvation of his
people-and mankind. He had put out of sight all per
sonal considerations, and chosen Jerusalem itself, the
proud city of David and of the Temple, for the goal
of his earthly career.2 Before starting with the little
company of his more immediate disciples upon this
journey, which led through a country hostile to the
Jews, Samaria, he sent out before him a considerable
number of persons, probably in small parties, chosen
from his disciples at large, in order to practise their
fresh powers on the new soil, and in order also to pre
pare them for the fearful events that awaited his whole
Church. Before their departure he had several times
1 Mark x. 1 ; Matt. xix. 1. 2 Lukeix. 51.

THE MESSIAH. 65
gathered the larger circle of his disciples around him,
and given them such instructions as they appeared to
him to- need. Not a few of these utterances have been
put by the first Evangelist in the great composition,
" The Sermon on the Mount," where they are only
in part "intelligible. They find their right place and
full significance only in the connection which we have
just indicated.
When at an earlier period Jesus sent out the
Twelve, he forbade them to enter any Gentile country,
or Samaria.1 The first trial of their strength, in order
to have results, was to be made within the borders of
their own native land. This prohibition was now
cancelled, Jesus had declared himself the Redeemer
of all nations. An immeasurable field of labor was
thrown open to the view of the disciples, who now
went forth on a broader mission. Not Israel alone,
but nation after nation presented itself, ripe for the
harvest, before the eyes of Jesus and of those whom
he chose. And how few were those who had until
now been sent as laborers into the harvest field ! Sa
maria, through which the way led, naturally claimed
the first attention of those who were sent. Here as
they passed through the country the disciples were to
carry the evangelical message of peace to the people
in their habitations, for peace above all things they
needed who had no spiritual, living communion with
the living God, the God made known by Jesus. Un
rest among the Gentiles, a hollow show of rest among
the Jews. According to the strict Pharisaical law,
Jews — and Jews the messengers of Jesus yet were
 could have no friendly intercourse with Gentiles
and Samaritans ; they were not to enter their houses,
l Matt. x. 5.

66 FOURTH SECTION.
return their salutations, still less eat and drink with
them at the same table. The fundamental principles
of toleration and humanity, which Jesus had already
set forth among his more intimate disciples, were now
to be made commanding in the larger company of his
followers. The partition walls between Jews and Gen
tiles or Samaritans had fallen before the Saviour of all
men. Without hesitation the messengers of peace
sent forth by Jesus were to mingle freely with such as
were not their religious associates. They were to
make only one condition : an acceptance in faith of the
salvation which they announced, and which was of
fered in the Communion of the kingdom of God.
Jesus had at this period already arrived at a convic
tion of mind most rich in consequences. It was no
longer a question with him that the Gentile world would
receive the Gospel more readily than his own country
men. Long as he had been teaching in the cities of
Galilee, and notwithstanding the admiring crowds that
flocked to gaze at him, notwithstanding the sensation
produced by his teaching, how disproportionally small
was the number of those who were truly and per
manently converted ! A wail of sorrow burst from his
heart at this reflection. That heart glowed with love
for his country. He was conscious of his Jewish blood.
Gkdly would he above all things prepare the way for
the deliverance of his people. JBut they would not suffer
themselves to be liberated from the moral and spiritual
bondage in which they languished. The yoke of the
Romans was not their heaviest burden ; far heavier was
the yoke of the dead-letter, the pedantry of stiff forms
and formulas by which every movement of religious
freedom and every exercise of moral power was held
fast under the ban of the Statute. Even the highest

THE MESSIAH. 67
ideal of Israel, the idea of the Messiah, had become a
fanciful creation, the centre of a dream of universal
empire, to the realization of which all the necessary
conditions were wanting. Deep-rooted and numerous
as the errors and sins of the heathen world might be,
however wide-spread voluptuousness, luxury, and all
the wild tumult of the senses, yet a conversion to a
better life was far more to be expected from heathen
levity than from Jewish arrogance sunk in dead ortho
doxy. Jesus therefore cherished better hopes of Tyre
and Sidon, those central seats of heathendom, than of
Capernaum, where he had begun and so long con
tinued his labors as a deliverer of the people.1
2. Before setting out for Judea, Jesus waited for the
return of those whom he had sent forth. They brought
him most cheering accounts. He was the more re
joiced to receive this intelligence, as it was a pledge
of his ultimate victory over the powers of darkness,
over the hierarchical despotism, the theological pride,
and the deadly hatred of truth, in a decisive conflict
with which he was about to engage. Before he parted
forever from the accustomed sphere of his labors,
which had grown so dear to him; before he quitted the
home of his youth, the smiling shores of the Lake of
Galilee, and well-known and familiar friends, in order
to make the last sacrifice for the work of his life ; he
withdrew with the chosen few to that quiet spot where
he had so often rested from the cares and toils of his
calling. Here with his confidential friends he spent
one of the most exciting hours of his life. An ex
traordinary feeling of triumph took possession of him.
Now, when the worst that could befall him was yet in
prospect, his heart became light. All wavering was
1 Luke x. 13.

68 FOURTH SECTION.
at an end, all anxiety was banished, all darkness dis
appeared. Already in the spirit he had conquered the
foe. He saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.1
It was the hierarchical party, its mightiest resistance to
him, that he now regarded as overcome. In calling it
the " Satan " that sought to defeat his work as a De
liverer, he was perfectly right. He is exhilarated
by the anticipation of the triumph, the fruits of which
his disciples were especially to enjoy. Deeply pene
trated by the conviction to which of old such glowing
expression was given by the singer of the ninety-first
Psalm, namely, that whosoever is under the protection
of the Highest sits under the shadow of the Almighty,
he knows no fear, he suffers himself to feel no dread of
the serpents and scorpions that lurk in his way. He
knows that the spirits of the world will be subject to
him and his followers. But what most he rejoices in
is that his Father in heaven has put his seal to the
great work of his life, and has " written the names of
his disciples " in the book of the living.
Through this exaltation of mind, an entirely new
point of view was gained. Then and thenceforth were
solved for Jesus the enigmas of the order of the world's
development in general, and of the guidance of life in
particular. It is not the visible result that determines
inward worth. The claim to true dignity, to empire
over minds, rests not on external honor and official
power. Life and the wqrld are ruled by the eternal
ideas of truth, freedom, righteousness, love, as repre
sented by Jesus in immediate communion with God.
Only in its accord with the Spirit of God himself
is there worth and significance in human striving
and working. Salvation is' therefore never dependent
1 Luke x. 18.

THE MESSIAH. 69
upon external conditions. Taking this view, man gives
up outward good without pain. The possession of the
eternal, supreme good, can alone content him. Suffer
ing, privation, persecution, the bitter cup of death, —
all is gain when the jewel of truth, of peace, of eternal
life is purchased therewith. Whoever occupies this
point of view with full conviction and thorough fidelity
is invincible. He may be defeated, but through defeat
he comes to an ever more intimate and triumphant con
sciousness of power. He dies only in death to conquer
death. In chains he is free, and from his prison-house
shakes and moves the world. This is the secret of
the new doctrine which Jesus teaches, of the new life
which he kindles. Through faith in the supreme
good which Jesus showed, and through willing self-
sacrifice in the service of the eternal life, there have
been born in humanity, in the fullest vigor, powers
before undreamed of, powers of which the world before
Christ had no surmise, and to the exercise of which
therefore it could not have grown up. From the
Jieight of this faith we understand the fervent thanks
to which Jesus gave utterance, as he stood among his
disciples at the beginning of his eventful journey
through Samaria to Judea.1 We see that he praised
the Father, the Lord of heaven and of earth, because
he had hidden this great power of faith from the wise
and revealed it to babes. The first Evangelist also has
preserved this passage for us, without noting, however,
the connection in which it was uttered by Jesus.2
What appeared to Jesus worthy of special thanks, as
the innermost mystery of the kingdom of God, was
the enduring moral power, the heroic strength, grow
ing ever more assured, and proceeding from a faithful
i Luke x. 21. 2 Matt. xi. 25.

70 FOURTH SECTION.
and self-sacrificing devotion to the highest good of men
and of nations.
But was it then an occasion of thanks that this
power had been kept hidden from the wise (a) and
been revealed to babes ? Would it not have been
desirable that those learned in the law, the theologians
and churchmen, — who are to be understood by the
wise and prudent, — should have obtained a right idea
of that mystery and made it their own ? That remark
able thanksgiving opens for us a deep look into the sig
nificance of the great work of Jesus. The divine Com
munion of the New Covenant was to rest, not upon
the learning of the schools and official authority, not
on theology and the clergy, not on privileged classes,
but on childlike faith and the humble love of the popu
lar heart. It was to be built not from above down
wards by the hands of the powerful, but from below
upwards. It was to spring from the good-will and
pure aims of those who were without power and influ
ence. It was to grow up, a genuine natural plant of
our Heavenly Father. .
By the " babes " Jesus does not mean only his fol
lowers of Jewish descent. In choosing this expression
he had in mind the Samaritans also, and Gentiles, to
whom thenceforth the Divine kingdom was to be an
nounced. They who would fain fashion the Christian
Church from above downwards, have never duly pon
dered the thank-offering of Jesus. That would show
them that he put his trust in the middle and lower
orders, weak and defective though they be ; while
from the privileged classes, from learned corporations
and spiritual dignitaries, and especially from the eccle
siastical regime of his day, he had nothing to expect
but everything to fear. He saw the fulfilment of the

THE MESSIAH. 71
divine order of the world, the plan of salvation in the
fact, which may well surprise a superficial judgment,
that the upholders of spiritual power, the guardians of
the traditions of the Church, had no appreciation of
the new state of things which he introduced, while the
childlike spirit of the people, the simple understanding
of the laity, accepted it willingly. The way is almost
always opened for new periods of development and
progress, particularly in religion and morals, from
below. They are born of the fulness and energy of
the robust, living spirit of the people, after the higher
classes, in consequence of spiritual exhaustion and
moral decay, have become incapable of creating new
institutions, and in their selfish dependence on their
privileges, averse to all change.
3. Upon one point it was necessary, before setting
out for Judea, that Jesus should be more distinctly
understood by his disciples. It was only by degrees,
as we have seen, that he came to the full consciousness
of his destiny as the Saviour of the world. His disci
ples had not by any means kept equal progress with
him in his inward development. They had indeed
recognized him at last as the most exalted personage
of whom from their Jewish point of view they were
able to conceive, the Messiah. But everything was
still depending upon what they thought the office of
the Messiah to be. It was in no forced accommodation
to the ideas and expectations of the people and the
time, that Jesus had assumed the title and dignity of
a Messiah. It cannot be too often repeated that it
could not possibly be his destiny and design to be a
Messiah, i. e. a theocratic king, in the Old Testament
sense. Rather was he destined and resolved to anni
hilate forever the dream of a theocratic, Messianic

72 FOURTH SECTION.
kingdom of the future. The Messiah was to be, above
all things, a liberator and saviour of his country. He
was to be endowed with divine power and a -regal
sanctity, and as the representative of God upon earth,
to found a kingdom embracing the world. By a
Divine commission he was to establish a Communion
of the " holy God " amongst the nations. And thus,
according to the highly symbolical modes of speech
used in the East, he was the " Son of God," begotten
and anointed of God himself, a man in whom God was
well pleased. The error lay only in the fact that the
Messianic kingdom was conceived of as an external in
stitution, and it was expected to be established through
the agency of external means. But of all who had
ever spoken to men in the 'name and authority of God,
Jesus was the most profoundly conscious of moral and
spiritual communion with the Highest. As a man
God-related, anointed in the Spirit, all glowing with
the holiest love and inspired by the Divinest thoughts,
he felt himself, we may well believe, the true fulfiller
of the Messianic idea. As a mediator between the
human and Divine, as the highest personal organ of
the revealed will and love of God, as, in a manner, the
only Son of the heavenly Father, who has made all
men to be his children, as the first-born brother alike
of Samaritans and Gentiles, — such he now recognized
himself to be. And to offer to all the true peace
drawn from the highest source of truth and life eter
nal, to offer it through the Jewish national spirit,
cleansed and consecrated by him, was what had now
dawned fully upon him as the supreme purpose of his
calling and of his life. But as in all his teachings
concerning himself and his work he avoided laying
down theological formulas, and always aimed directly

THE MESSIAH. 73
at practical ends, so was it also in those lofty utter
ances of his in regard to his personal dignity and
greatness at that interesting moment of setting out for
Judea. " All is delivered to me by my Father,"1 said he to
his disciples. A word which without the necessary
qualification could have no meaning, or only the
wholly inadmissible one, that the Father having sent
the Son upon the earth, reserved no power for him
self! But the connection necessarily limits the uni
versal term to the particular which in the Providence
of God had been hidden from the " wise and prudent,
and revealed to ' babes,' " namely, the carrying out
of the work of salvation, the establishment of the
Divine kingdom through the power of suffering un
dergone for the sake of the supreme good.
Thus, beyond all question, Jesus was profoundly
convinced that the great work assigned him by the
Father could be accomplished by him only by virtue
of his personal qualities, and in consequence of the
intimate union in which he stood with the Father, and
which, was repeated in no other being. " No one
knows who the Son is but the Father, and no one
knows who the Father is but the Son and he to whom
the Son will reveal him." 2 As is evident from this
remarkable declaration, the establishment of Chris
tianity in the Jewish and Gentile worlds had become
possible only as there was found in the person of its
Founder a new, clear, creative consciousness of God.
It is true God (Jehovah-Elohim) was already declared
by the Holy Scriptures of the Old Covenant as the
Father of Israel and Ruler of the nations. But in this
representation there was no living acknowledgment of
i Luke x. 22 ; Matt. xi. 27. 2 Luke x. 22 : Matt. xi. 27.

74 FOURTH SECTION.
the universal spirit and love of God. God was honored
and loved as the peculiar God of Israel, revealing
himself within the limits which he himself had set, in
the theocratic ordinances and institutions. In Jesus
the consciousness of God is freed from all forms and
limitations. He proclaimed God as Him before whom
no personal dignity, no official position, no spiritual or
priestly privilege, no time-honored tradition or statute
is in itself of any worth, but only the inmost animating
life of the personal character, a true conscience, purity
of heart, a faith full of power. God is really known,
— according to the teaching of Jesus, — only in the
authority of conscience, in a pure heart, in a fervid
faith; and he communicates his own life only to those
who seek it through immediate communion with Him
in the spirit and in actual, daily life. All other modes
of mediation only darken and distort the divine idea in
man. Accordingly Jesus recognized God as no other
ever had done, immediately, with the living spirit,
originally. His consciousness of the divine was not
reflected on his soul from the dim mirror of tradition,
by the broken lights of school-theologies, aided by the
watchwords of religious parties. In the mysterious
deeps of his own self-consciousness, in the purest and
most secret revelations of his own spirit, he became
conscious of God as his Father. He has communi
cated this consciousness immediately, in all its fresh
ness, to his Church, and has disclosed the spirit and
truth of God to humanity itself.1
4. It is accordingly in altogether an extraordinary
and peculiar character that Jesus represents himself.
But we must take care lest we attribute more to his
self-assertion than lay in his thought. That he laid
1 See Appendix, m. 18, p. 74.

THE MESSIAH. 75
claim to a wholly new consciousness of God, such as
had never before been experienced, and consequently
that he was in most intimate union with God, that he
regarded his personal being as an inexhaustible source
of truth and life to mankind, — so much is beyond all
question. But he has not therefore claimed for him
self Divine power and dignity. He has not asserted
that he was possessed of the attributes of Omnipotence
and Omniscience. He has not placed the " Son " as a
second adorable person by the side of the first, " the
Father." That nothing was farther from his thought
than to make such a claim is certified by a word
uttered on the same solemn occasion, and preserved
for us by the first Evangelist alone, who probably took
it from the Collection of Sayings. Jesus is in the first
Gospel reported to have turned from the small circle
of his immediate disciples to the larger company of
those who were ready to receive the Divine kingdom.
He called them to him as the weary and heavy laden.
Upon their shoulders the Jewish priests and scribes
had flung the heavy yoke of their requirements, and
thus the burdens by which they were weighed down
were made still heavier. Jesus invited them to take
upon them his yoke. Long years of bitter experience
had taught them the pride, the selfishness of the
priestly caste who, considering themselves the God-
ordained guardians and guides of the people, used
them for their own aggrandizement. "Look to me,"
cries Jesus, " I am gentle and lowly of heart."1 As I
am, so is the burden which I impose, gentle and not
oppressive. How could he have possibly spoken thus,
had he claimed for himself Divine power and knowl
edge ? Only a man liable to anger can call himself
1 Matt. xi. 29.

76 FOURTH SECTION.
" gentle." Only a man exposed to the temptation of
pride can style himself " lowly." He could well use
such language who, in earnest communion with God,
discerned most clearly the truth, the holy will and the
love of God, and was called to make known this truth,
this will, this love to mankind ; he might speak thus
whose work it was, upon the ruins of a crumbling
world, to establish a new order of things ; so he could
speak as a man divinely endowed and commissioned,
but not as God.
That there was in him the creative energy of a new
development of humanity had now become to him an
unquestionable certainty. The lonely path on which
he had entered led to the deliverance of mankind.
Well might he say that happy were the eyes that
beheld this sunrise, and the ears that caught the rus
tling of this spring-time. The most illustrious prophets,
the devoutest kings of Israel had seen and heard
nothing like it. A new age had dawned. An old
world was in process of destruction. What signified
the sufferings, the agonies that were approaching, in
contrast with this commanding consciousness of carry
ing in his God-illuminated heart the fulness of a new
age, and of being the creator of a better future than
princes and nations had ever yet dreamed of! To
labor for this future, to bring it to pass and determine
its destinies, — this was the highest blessedness.1
1 Luke x. 23 ; Matt. xiii. 16.

NOTE. 77 .

NOTE.

[a. p. 70. In the exposition of the passage found in Matt.
xi. 25, and Luke x. 21, where Jesus is recorded as saying, ac
cording to the Common Version : " I thank thee, O Father, Lord
of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise
and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes," Dr. Schenkel
overlooks " an idiom frequent in Matthew's Gospel, and found
elsewhere in the New Testament. Two propositions are made,
or two questions asked, which are not to be considered as inde
pendent propositions or questions. The former of the two merely
expresses some condition, real or supposed, which is to be viewed
in connection with the latter. They both constitute but one com
plex proposition or question, of which the former is to be regarded
only as a conditional clause. The verb contained in it may some
times be rendered as a participle, but often better in the con
ditional mood with some conjunction, as if or though." (See A
Translation of the Gospels with Notes by Andrews Norton, note on
Matt. vii. 22, 23, where numerous instances of this idiom are
referred to.) Accordingly the passage above referred to, cor
rectly translated, reads thus : " I thank thee, 0 Father, Lord
of heaven and earth, that since thou hast hid these things from the
wise and prudent, thou hast revealed them unto babes." Jesus
is thus relieved from the appearance of thanking God for hiding
the truth from the wise. A striking instance of the same idiom
occurs Rom. vi. 17. "But God be thanked that ye were the
servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart," &c. Rightly
rendered this text reads : " But God be thanked that though ye
were the servants of sin, ye have obeyed," &c. — Trans.]

FIFTH SECTION

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA.
CHAPTEE XVI .
THE SCHOOL OF ENDURANCE.
1. Considering the hostility which had arisen be
tween the Jews and the Samaritans through the
ascendency gained by the theology of the Jewish
school sharpening their religious differences, we can
not wonder that in one of the first Samaritan districts
bordering on Judea, Jesus was refused a hospitable
reception.1 The journey was not indeed interrupted
in consequence, but the circumstance was annoying.
The two Sons of Thunder, John and James, were
greatly offended at the' rudeness with which they were
treated. On the very first occasion it was evident
that they had not yet overcome the hierarchical big
otry which accounted every one who was not a Jew
an enemy of God, and which would build up and
maintain the kingdom of God, not by gentleness and
love, but by stern force. In their opinion fire ought to
be invoked from heaven to consume the people of the
inhospitable region.2 For such wrathful zeal they
could certainly find authority in Old Testament pre
cedents. To Ahaziah, a king of Samaria, who, being
very sick sought help from the idol Baal, it had been
1 Luke ix. 52. 2 Luke ix. 54.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 79'
announced by the prophet Elijah, that he should be
punished with death for his apostasy from the living
God. The warriors sent by the king to seize Elijah
were at the prayer of the prophet all consumed by fire
from heaven.1 The two disciples would fain have
doomed the inhospitable Samaritans to a similar fate.
How difficult was it for Jesus, even at this late hour,
and notwithstanding his oft-repeated, most loving en
deavors, to soften the hard hearts of his disciples ! What
deep roots had their fanatical Jewish zeal struck into
their natures ! How wanting were they still in patience
with the erring, and how prompt to think only of pun
ishing and destroying them ! They were not yet able to
understand that the kingdom of Jesus was a kingdom of
faith, of faith that works not by wrath, and that it was
not by the force of punishment that that kingdom was
to be maintained, — that it springs from humility and
love, rests upon free, cordial conviction, and is strength
ened and confirmed only when watched over and
maintained by a pious, childlike mind.
Deeply saddened, but also highly indignant, Jesus
turned to the zealots and rebuked their senseless and
unmerciful severity.2 Still unable were they to raise
their views above the Messianic representation of the
Old Covenant. Still occasionally the figure of their
Master was eclipsed by a vision of the king who was to
" break the heathen with an iron rod, and dash them
in pieces like a potter's vessel,3 and fill the places with
dead bodies, and wound the heads over many coun
tries." i They had heard it. is true from his own lips
that he had come not to rule but to serve, to endure
suffering not to inflict it. He had just disclosed to
1 2 Kings i. 2. 2 Luke ix. 55. Consult App., 111. 19, p. 79.
8 Ps. ii. 9. 4 Ps. ex. 6.

80 FIFTH SECTION.
them, also, as the secret of his office as the Messiah, the
suffering which he was to pass through, the sacrifice of
his life that he was to make. But. what their ears had
heard and their consciences acknowledged, had failed
to touch their hearts ; and relapses into Jewish fanat
icism were the certain consequence.
Unstipulating service in the divine kingdom, uncon
ditional devotion to God's will, entire renunciation of
all private interests came extremely hard to the dis
ciples ; for serving is always associated with suffering.
A second incident of the last journey through Samaria
shows us particularly why Jesus had to insist so peremp
torily upon his demand for service and suffering from
those who would attach themselves to him and his
cause. It was not a scribe, as the first Evangelist er
roneously states,1 but a Samaritan, as the third informs
us,2 who, impressed by the Evangelical preaching,-
sought to become a disciple of Jesus, and, by his dec
laration to this effect, gave reason to believe that the
Samaritans were not all like the inhabitants of that
inhospitable village. But he seems to have had no
idea of the purpose of Jesus. For when Jesus, con
cealing not from him what under the then circum
stances awaited his disciples, told him that he himself
was on his last journey, that he had left house and
home forever, that the beasts of the field, and the birds
of the air had a comfortable and enviable lot in com
parison with his,3 the man retracted. Jesus had now
to require of those who were resolved to share his lot,
not only patience towards others, but resolution for the
endurance of all possible hardship.
These circumstances explain the apparent harshness
with which he treated two other Samaritans whom he
1 Matt. viii. 19. 2 Luke iv. 57. 8 Luke ix. 58.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 81
summoned to follow him. The condition of things
was very different from that existing during his abode
in Galilee. It had not then become actually necessary
for every one who would follow him to leave house
and hearth, the nearest and dearest, and make up his
mind to the worst. Now he was approaching the last
momentous crisis in a sphere of action, where an abode
of his own, home ties, friends, a population for the most
part well-disposed, no longer afforded a certain sense
of security and protection. He was now entering sur
roundings where the powers of darkness, hatred, and
persecution pointed at him their poisoned and fatal
weapons. He must now require of every one who
joined him the most positive and unreserved devotion,
a willingness for self-sacrifice that knew no limits. To
one who wished, before joining him, to discharge the
last offices to the nearest relative, Jesus now said :
" Let the dead (those whom the proclamation of the
heavenly kingdom does not awaken) bury their
dead " ; 1 resign the last loving pressure of the hand,
for the entreaties, the tears, of thy loved ones may
shake thy resolve; submit, endure even this pang,
break the dearest ties to bind thyself by the holiest,
give up the most precious earthly good for the highest
good, for that heavenly treasure which alone can bless
thee.2 It is no doubt to be regretted that the third
Gospel has preserved for us only these scanty no
tices of the journey through Samaria. But even
from these few incidents we gather that this journey
was a school of endurance for the disciples ; that from
i Luke ix. 60; Matt. viii. 22.
2 Luke ix. 60. The incident related Matt. viii. 18, does not belong
here, but fits into the last period of the public life of Jesus. At the
time in which Matthew places it, Jesus still had his own home, and
therefore could not say that he had not where to lay his head.
vox., n. 6

82 FIFTH SECTION.
its very beginning they were exercised in privation,
endurance, resignation, in self-command and self-re
nunciation. 2. The fourth Gospel, however, has handed down
to us one event that occurred on this journey, which
bears on its face the seal of credibility. Wearied with
travel, Jesus arrived at the so-called well of Jacob,
near the city of Sichem, and there, after his manner,
fell into an animated conversation with a woman who
came there for water. The fourth Evangelist is obvi
ously under the erroneous impression that this incident
took place during a journey made by Jesus homewards
from Judea to Galilee, according to his mistaken sup
position that Jesus frequently passed to and fro be
tween Galilee and Judea. But the fact that Jesus at
once announced himself the Messiah to the woman,1
shows that the incident related occurred on his final
journey through Samaria to Judea. Before his prep
aration for this last journey he had not once made
any communication concerning his Messianic character
even to his most intimate disciples. But this journey
was undertaken as the declared Messiah resolved upon
suffering and death. And it is in this view that we
come to understand the words : " the fields are white
to harvest." 2 The disciples who had not sown were
now to reap. He was to leave the field of labor, they
were to enter it. And it was those, the Apostles,
whom he had sent forth last, whom Jesus had in mind
when he said : " Other men labored and ye are en
tered into their labors." 3
In the conversation of Jesus with the Samaritan
woman is struck the key-note of all that Jesus said and
did upon this journey. It may be pronounced the lof-
1 John iv. 26. 2 John iv. 35. 8 John iv. 38.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 83
tiest plea ,for toleration. How perfectly human, how
entirely free from all Jewish prejudice is he in this
conversation with the woman of Samaria! How gently
does he treat her grave feminine transgressions ! With
what a large heart does he express himself in regard
to the worship of God and its manifold forms ! Jerusa
lem or Gerizim, — it is alike indifferent. There is
.no worth before God in the place or the form of
worship. The true divine worship is in the inmost be
ing of man, in his spirit and heart. The living spirit,
communion with God, the mind devoutly occupied
with truth and with the supreme source of truth, — this
is the true worship.1 This moral, spiritual character
of divine worship is the necessary result of the new
consciousness of God that Jesus creates in humanity,
the conscious knowledge of God as the infinite spirit.2
The standpoint of the ante-Christian religions, the fun
damental principle of religious separation and exclu-
siveness, was thus abjured and abolished. The religion
of humanity was established. Samaritan, Heathen,
Jew, are alike children of the Heavenly Father, and
the Messiah is "the Saviour of the world."3 (a)
3. How long Jesus tarried with his disciples in Sa
maria cannot be determined with certainty. The ac
counts that have come down to us do not authorize the
idea that this journey occupied only a few days. He
gathered, we may believe, a small Samaritan Com
munion, for the Samaritans were not wanting in sus
ceptibility to his Gospel. The impression which this
journey left upon his mind is most powerfully reflected
in the parable of the humane Samaritan.4
His arrival in Judea created doubtless no slight sen
sation, and the leaders of the theological schools and
ijohniv. 23. 2 John iv. 24. 8Johniv.42. 4 Luke x. 25.

84 FIFTH SECTION.
the representatives of the ecclesiastical power were
startled at the appearance of the man, so feared and so
admired, in the places in which their ascendency had
hitherto been unquestioned. A year had passed since
Jesus first appeared in Galilee. In a few months
would come the feast of the Passover, and then, as he
saw with growing clearness, the crisis could not long
be delayed. His opponents doubtless shared also in
this presentiment. They had already for some time
been seeking occasion for legal proceedings against
him. Such an occasion they might have found, had
they not stood in awe of the spirit, the fearlessness, the
greatness of soul, the popularity, of Jesus. As cunning
politicians and churchmen they were resolved to move
safely to their end. Hardly had they heard that Jesus
had entered Judea, when they despatched an individual
versed in the law, instructed to involve him if possible
by subtle questions in a contradiction of the require
ments of the Mosaic law. He was to be accused and
condemned as a transgressor of the law of the fathers,
as an offender against what Jews accounted holy.
The emissary inquired of Jesus the way to eternal life,
trusting to receive an answer that would give the
desired handle for a malicious construction. But Jesus
gave the scribe no answer. He compelled him to an
swer the question himself out of the law. He forced
from him the confession that the way to eternal life
was through perfect love towards God and one's neigh
bor.1 Although thus instantly defeated, the questioner
still thought to ensnare Jesus. The law decided who
is one's neighbor. For a Jew it was a Jew. What
Jesus thought upon this point, his opponents well knew
from many striking things that had already come to
1 Luke x. 27.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 85
their ears. His free and friendly intercourse during
his journey through Samaria with this heretical people ;
his explicit declaration that he was not the Messiah of
the Jews but of the " world" ; his large-hearted views
of truth, freedom and divine worship, — all this was
known to the spies sent by the high spiritual authori
ties at Jerusalem to dog his steps. Ought it not then
to be possible upon such a groundwork to build a com
plaint against one whom they so hated? If he dared to
say outright that the Gentile, the Samaritan even, was
his neighbor, then was he indeed convicted of con
tempt of the inviolable law of the fathers, and of a
want of respect for the sacred privileges of a Jew.
But it was neither Jew, Gentile, nor Samaritan that
Jesus declared to the scribe to be his " neighbor." He
told a parable of a man.1 A " man," upon the road
leading from Jerusalem to Jericho, falls among robbers,
who plunder him, wound him, and leave him half dead
in the road. Certain Jews, representatives of the
" pure doctrine " of the orthodox Church, one an or
dained priest, the other a Levite, going that way, see
ing the unfortunate man lying there, heartlessly pass
by without troubling themselves about his further fate.
A Samaritan travelling that road sees the man, takes
pity on him, binds up his wounds, and generously pro
vides for him until he is completely restored. The
Samaritan treats the poor man as his neighbor, — the
Samaritan is the neighbor' of the man, because he is a
tender-hearted, humane man, and not because he is a
Samaritan. This parable could have come only from the lofty
Messianic consciousness of Jesus. It expresses the
deepest and most comprehensive import of the divine
1 Luke x. 30.

86 FIFTH SECTION.
kingdom which he established. From the elevated
point of view at which this parable was conceived, all
the narrow limitations of confessions of faith vanish,
and there appears, as the true religion leading to eternal
life, the religion of the love of man, cleansed from the
prejudices of religion and place, from all prepossessions
official and national, the religion of the broadest hu
manity. Let it not be said that Jesus states a prin
ciple not of religion but only of morality. Does he
not tell us here what we are to do to inherit eternal
life? And it is religion that leads us to eternal life.
In the parable of the benevolent Samaritan, he has
solemnly announced the true religion, human and hu
mane. He has declared himself the Saviour of all
men. The priest and the Levite on the other hand,
are the everlasting types of that heartless zeal for
creeds, which, while it contends for the dead letter,
coolly leaves a brother-man to perish, and which, busy
with Jews, Turks, Pagans, Catholics, Protestants, Re
formed Churches, Lutherans, &c, forgets that God
has created Men, and that Jesus has saved Men. The
Love of Man purified from sectarian, feudal, and na
tional narrowness, — this, according to the express tes
timony of Jesus, is the way to eternal life.
4. It was at this time that Jesus became intimately
acquainted with a pious family of Bethany. Two
sisters, Martha and Mary, had charge of the affairs of
the household. During his abode in Judea, Jesus
appears to have availed himself repeatedly of their
hospitality, and when exhausted by the day's burden
and heat, to have found refreshment in their pleasant
circle. Both sisters loved and revered him. But
they stood in very different relations to him. The
elder most probably of the two had not yet a right ap-

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 87
preciation of him. She beheld in him a great prophet.
Perhaps she placed her hopes in him as the Messiah,
the national deliverer. But the secret of his coming
sufferings had not yet been revealed to her. When, a
few days, we may suppose, after his arrival in Judea,
he entered their hospitable house for the first time, the
two sisters at once betrayed their respective peculiari
ties. Martha prepared a bountiful entertainment for
him, and was vexed with Mary, who, instead of helping
her, lost herself in listening to Jesus. She passed a
harsh and hasty judgment upon her apparently indo
lent sister. Here again then Jesus enjoined tolerance.
In the significant word : " One thing is needful,"
Jesus points away from a spirit busy and useless, to
that in the human heart which alone endures and
satisfies, — the free, childlike mind, which with unas
suming love throws itself wide open to the truth, the
simple possession of which is the perennial source of
inward refreshment. There is in Luke's Gospel a
secret connection between the narratives of the Good
Samaritan and the Two Sisters. The pure human
love of the Samaritan, which when a man needs help
asks not about his circumstances, and the pious, child
like mind of Mary, which, gazing on the spiritual lin
eaments of her guest, forgets the formal offices of re
spect, — both spring from the same source, from hum
ble self-forgetting love. But this love itself has its
deep root in a God-devoted heart. Violent, blind
zeal for forms draws its nourishment from what men
have manufactured out of religion. From the cordial
piety, that rests upon immediate communion with God,
flows the spirit of considerate tenderness and kindly
toleration.

SIXTEENTH CHAPTER.

NOTE.

[a. p. 83. There is one declaration ascribed to Jesus in his
conversation with the woman of Samaria, that is so harshly at
discord with the grandly broad tone of his memorable utterances
on the occasion, that I cannot but regard it as a gloss, which early
crept into the text from the hand of some bigoted Jewish tran
scriber. (See John iv. 22.)
Dr. Schenkel overlooks certain striking illustrations of the na
ture and character of Jesus, to be found in this narrative of his
conversation with the Samaritan woman. What a living proof
was he at the moment of the truth of his declaration to this
woman, namely, that the possession of what he had to communi
cate was a spring of living water gushing up within forever !
The instant an opportunity offered, although his want of bodily
refreshment might at the moment be very urgent, the truth
welled up from his heart to his lips, and in what grand utterances
did it overflow ! And how naturally it refreshed and inspired him
thus to give expression to those profound convictions of his, ap
pears immediately afterwards when, in reply to his disciples en
treating him to eat what they had brought, he said, " I have food
that ye know not of." When his disciples looked at one another
and at him wonderingly, not taking his thought, he explained
himself : " My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and
finish his work." This was what he had just been doing, — awak
ening the woman's attention, declaring a great truth, and in the
very act so refreshing and deepening his own sense of it, that he
was insensible to the bodily wants which a little while before
were so pressing. And how great the change in him was, how
he became at once all animation, refreshed, exhilarated, appears
from what followed. Suddenly he descried a crowd of people in
the distance, coming running towards the well, using great haste,
fearing perhaps lest the wonderful stranger whom the woman had
told them of should be gone, and he exclaimed at the sight, " Say
not ye, There are yet four months and then cometh the harvest ?
Behold ! I say unto you, Lift up your eyes ! Look on the fields !
— they are white already to the harvest!" Cheered by the sense
of the truth, the power of which he was conscious of in himself
and saw visibly before him in the people that were approaching,

NOTE. 89
he feels as if all difficulty were at an end, — that now the full,
rich harvest was to be gathered in. And here too we have
another instance of the intuitive manner in which he saw in out
ward things illustrations of what was passing within him. Spring
time and harvest were symbols of the operations of the spirit of
truth. The natural harvest represented to him the results of
truth. Is it not always so? Whenever a man has had any
great object at heart, has not everything seemed as if it happened
only to express it ? Thus was it with Jesus. For the moment so
transported was he with a sense of the truth that he loved su
premely, that all the difficulties, all the suffering and persecution
still awaiting him and his disciples before the harvest-time could
come, vanished away.
I do not however perceive the precise point of all that Jesus is
recorded to have said on this occasion, and Dr. Schenkel throws
no light upon it. So far as I am able to understand them most
of the utterances ascribed to him are full of point and power.
And here I conceive is the reason why so many of his sayings have
been remembered and perpetuated. Nobody thought of provid
ing for their preservation at the time. He himself never wrote a
word, or directed a word to be written. And therefore, brief and
imperfect as are the records that have come down to us, the won
der is that so many of his acts and sayings have been remem
bered. But the wonder ceases when we consider what these
things are that are told of him, how full of significance, how great.
Even though but partially understood at the time, what with his
tones, his looks, his whole manner, which, considering the com
manding air that the extraordinary strength of his convictions
gave him, must have been most impressive, his words burnt them
selves into the minds of those who heard him. They could not
be forgotten. They were as sure to be recorded and handed
down from age to age as to be told at the moment by word of
mouth. " Do great deeds and they will sing themselves." This
saying finds in the history of Jesus its fullest illustration. The
question which these able German scholars ar(e expending whole
libraries upon, namely, whence came the Gospels, cannot be of
the first importance. As I have said already, the Gospels wrote
themselves. They had to be. The memory of him, whose per
sonal greatness is the special miracle of all time, the world could
not let die. You must abrogate the laws of human nature first,
and change the constitution of the world.

90 SIXTEENTH CHAPTER.
The sayings of Jesus being thus uniformly great, I do not, I
repeat, perceive the force of all that he is reported to have said
to his disciples under the inspiring effect of this occasion. There
is a force here as there is doubtless in many another passage of
the history which has not yet been discerned. Among other
things he said : " I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no
labor : others labored and ye are entered into their labors ; " i. e.
I suppose, " As I sent you just now to procure food which you
had spent no labor in producing, so now the triumph of truth,
the harvest, is so near at hand, you have only to go into the field
and enjoy the fruits of the labors of those who have toiled before
you." So it seemed to Jesus. All the future lay bright before
him in the light of a faith so exalted at the moment that the final
suceess was alone present to him.
And is not this profoundly natural, thoroughly human ? How
could he give utterance to such great things and remain himself
unmoved ? He did not speak by rote. Who ever felt as he did
the power of the truth to which he gave such simple and clear
expression V It kindled his imagination. It set him all in a
glow. And thus he grew and overflowed with the life of God.
He was no exception to the universal law. Great as was the
work he did, the greatest result by far of the truth which he
served with devotion unequalled is to be found in himself. The
truth always does infinitely more for those who serve it faithfully
than they do or can do for the truth. Never can any human
being put the great Cause under obligations to him personally.
However hard he toils for it, however much he suffers for it,
though he dies ten thousand deaths for it, still he dies its debtor.
Jesus served the truth as no other ever has done, and it has
bound his brows with its brightest crown and put in his hand the
sceptre of universal empire. So filled was he with its power, he
became the likeness and representative of the Highest. His face
shines now forever with " the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God," and mankind recognize in him, as in no other who has
ever lived, the divinest beauty that they know. His Apostles
after him toiled and suffered in a like spirit, and consequently
they counted it all joy to endure trials. They gloried in the
tribulations through which came new and inspiring experiences
of the power of truth to sustain and invigorate them. They
thrilled under the energy of God pouring into every nerve
and, vein. Their light afflictions — so they termed their soul-

NOTE. 91
searching trials — they accounted as not worth mentioning in
comparison with "the eternal weight of glory" that was revealed.
Thus the imperishable good which Jesus has done for mankind
consists in his being simply what he was. And we receive the
best influences of Christianity as we become personally acquainted
with him. Thus it was that his immediate friends were regener
ated by him, as we have seen. (See note b. to ch. xiii.)
There is an incident in the history of Jesus, commented upon
in the fourth and final division of the foregoing chapter (see p.
282), which although entirely different in its particulars from that
which took place at the well of Jacob, is kindred to it in the
illustration which it gives us of the character of Jesus. I refer
to the visit of Jesus to Martha and Mary in Bethany (Luke x.
38 - 42). The distinctive characters of these two sisters are very
strikingly indicated in the one or two very brief notices that
we have of them, although Dr. Schenkel appears to see little
difference in them except that Mary, probably the younger,
understood Jesus best. This difference it is evident was due to
the difference of their natures. Martha was active, Mary con
templative. Martha had little or no sensibility, Mary had much.
Being of a busy, matter-of-fact temperament, when Jesus came to
visit them, Martha instantly set to work to discharge the offices
of a bountiful hospitality. Her first and best thought was to pro
vide a special entertainment for their revered guest. She could
think of no other way of doing him honor. Her sister, with her
deeper sensibility and greater appreciation of Jesus, forgot every
thing else in listening to him. She cared little for eating and
drinking ; and so she planted herself, a model of attention, at his
feet, to catch those gracious words of his, the music of his tones.
Whereupon Martha, feverishly anxious I suppose to do her best
for him was vexed, and perhaps a little jealous of her sister.
Accordingly she complained to Jesus that Mary was giving
her no assistance, — leaving her to do everything. To her com
plaints Jesus answered, not in a warning but in an expostulatory
tone : " Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about
many things. But one thing is needful : and Mary hath chosen
that good part that shall not be taken from her." Now while it
is unquestionably true that for the most part we fail to fathom
the full significance of the utterances of Jesus, yet sometimes we
imagine a deeper meaning in his words than he intended. At

92. SIXTEENTH CHAPTER.
least it is so, 1 apprehend, in this instance. He is commonly
understood as giving Martha an admonition, as intimating in his
answer to her complaint of her sister that she, Martha, was
worldly, too much absorbed in earthly things, — that there is- but
one thing needful, the salvation of the soul, and that Mary was
seeking that and she should have what she had chosen. Our
author says that " in the significant word, ' One thing is needful,'
Jesus points away from a busy and useless spirit to that in the
human heart which alone endures and satisfies, the free, childlike
mind," &c. He may have intended some allusion of this sort by
the one thing needful, but the words do not require it, and it is
wholly unnecessary to suppose that Jesus intended to cast any
slur upon Martha. He understood her, I doubt not, and he saw
that she was doing her best in her own way to testify her high re
gard for him. There is nothing in his language that requires us to
believe that he meant anything more than if he had said (not at
all in a warning or monitory tone, but with the gentle accent of
expostulation): " Martha, Martha, you are troubling yourself to
provide a great many things for us, we need only one. Mary has
chosen the best part of the entertainment, — to sit and listen and
converse, — this is the real refreshment which she prefers, and she
shall not be deprived of it." Thus on this occasion, as at the
well of Jacob, the spiritual took instant precedence, in his regard,
of the physical, the mind of the body. Hungry and thirsty
though he might be, nothing so animated him as the exercise
and communion of the spirit. It was more refreshing than water
from the well at the sultry noontide, more exhilarating than wine
at the hospitable table of a friend. — Trans.]

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 93
CHAPTER XVII.
THE TRUE MEANS OF VIRTUE.
1. That Jesus, after his final journey through Sama
ria, tarried some time in Judea, is even intimated by
the first two Evangelists.1 They relate that in Judea
as in Galilee he awakened a lively interest among the
people, and that he taught them and healed the sick.2
Such a state of things could have existed only in con
sequence of his having sojourned among them for
some length of time. An ordinary journey on the
occasion of a national festival would have led Jesus
directly to the central scene of the festival, the city of
Jerusalem. But he seems for a time not to have en
tered the capital, but to have gone first only to Bethany,
there in the abode of the' two sisters to have found a
retreat, and thence to have made excursions into the
surrounding country of Judea and to the shores of the
Jordan. During the last weeks preceding the decisive
hour which was at hand, he gave particular attention
to the work of preparing his disciples for it, seeking to
enlarge and confirm their knowledge of the nature of
the Divine kingdom, and to strengthen their faith still
weak at heart. He held it to be one of his chief tasks
at this time to make as plain as possible to them the
wide difference between his teaching and the theology
of the Jewish schools.
The error of the Jewish theology or of Pharisaism
showed its ruinous effects in no respect more strikingly
than in regard to the doctrine of the Means of Virtue.
l Mark x. 1 ; Matt. xix. 1. 2 Matt. xix. 2.

94 FIFTH SECTION.
The first importance was attached to a pedantic pre
cision in the observance of the law, to a punctilious
practice of the written duties of religion. Prayers,
fastings, almsgivings, washings, offerings, all observed
according to the letter of the ordinances, constituted
the way to a life of perfect virtue. Hitherto Jesus had
not given his disciples any special directions as to the
use of the means of virtue. He had prayed with them
when need was, out of a full heart, not according to
any prescribed method. Regular fasts, he had ap
pointed none. And he had given to the poor accord
ing to his ability, when occasion required and the
heart prompted. But now, as the day drew near that
was to separate him from his disciples, as they were
shortly to be wholly deprived of his guidance, he felt
the necessity of instructing them particularly on these
points, and of warning them against the Pharisaical
appearance of piety and mask of virtue by which the
inexperienced are so easily deceived.
2. The disciples themselves appear to have sought
such instructions. They desired from the lips of their
Master a short prayer, prepared for their use, and con
taining all that they were daily to pray for. Not as a
fixed form of prayer, or as the only proper form, not
even as 'a so-called pattern, but only as showing how
and for what a true disciple should pray, Jesus gave
them the " Lord's Prayer," the prayer of prayers.
As it was not designed to be a fixed formula it earlv
underwent a change of form as it circulated in the
Christian Communion. In its original shape, as pre
served by Luke from the record used by him in his
account of the final sojourn of Jesus in Judea, the
Lord's Prayer read thus : " Father, may thy name be
reverenced. May thy kingdom come. Give us each

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 95
day our needful food. And forgive our sins, for we
forgive every one who wrongs us. And bring us not
into trial." 1 Strictly taken, there are four prayers in
which Jesus comprises all that is worthy of being
prayed for : two prayers for the furtherance of the
eternal and supreme good within us, and two prayers
for the things that concern our moral and physical
well-being. The first prayer rests upon the faith that
all salvation is from God and can be secured only as
His name is sacred in our minds ; the second upon the
hope that the kingdom of God is to be realized on
earth, but that above all things it must be built up in
the sanctuary of our own hearts. Jesus thus teaches
his disciples to pray for the very opposite of that which
constituted the object to which the desires and prayers
of the Pharisees were directed. The magnifying of
the Divine name in the sacrificial ceremonial of the
Temple and by the lips of subjugated nations, — the
realization of God's kingdom by military conquest and
the oppression of heathen lands, — this was what they
thought of in their prayers. The last two petitions
have reference to our natural subsistence and our
well-being. If man is to devote his strength to the
supreme good with joy and with success, he needs
bodily support from day to day ; freedom from the
most urgent cares for his physical well-being. He
needs especially a good conscience towards God and
his neighbor, the forgiving love of his Heavenly
Father reflected in his own forgiving disposition
towards his neighbor. Finally, he needs also to feel
assured that God will not lay upon him greater tasks
than he can perform. The conclusion, that we may
not be led into temptation, has a special significance in
1 Luke xi. 1 - 4 ; comp. Matt. vi. 9.

96 FIFTH SECTION.
connection with the near sufferings and death of Jesus,
and the strong temptation to apostasy into which his
disciples would be led in consequence.1 Thus Jesus
shows his disciples in this prayer what they should
pray for. The earthly penetrated with the heavenly,
the physical life with the hfe of the spirit from above,
— this should forever be their daily and most fervent
supplication to God.
But Jesus at the same time gave instructions as to
the manner and way in which prayer should be offered.
They have been preserved for us by the first Evangelist
from the Collection of Sayings, although not in their
original connection.2 Every prayer is to be offered
above all things sincerely, without pretence or delu
sion. It may well strike one as remarkable that Jesus
here warns his disciples against prayer in public,
against the prayers of public worship. He who knew
the heart so wonderfully knew its weakness and vanity,
— knew its proneness to put on a mask before others.
He warned his disciples therefore against the prayers
of the synagogue and the street, because one who
prays there gives it to be supposed that he seeks to
display emotions which perhaps have no existence in
his heart. But while Jesus sends men to the " closet "
to pray, he does not by any means forbid social prayer.
When he taught in the synagogue he doubtless re
peated the customary prayers of the place, or prayed
from the fulness of his heart. Still he holds it his
duty to point to the dangers of those public places, so
open to display. He lifts his warning voice against all
attempts to promote communion with God and life in
God by show and pomp in public worship, by costly
church services. He sends men to pray in the still-
1 See App., 111. 20, p. 96. 2 Matt. vi. 5.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 99
ness of solitude. Prayer will be most sincere whei.
there is no witness but the All-seeing. It is not the
prayer, but only its result, the answer, that is to be
public.1 In the second place, every prayer is to be simple
and concise. The religion of forms would win an
answer from God by a lavish use of words, by laboring
in prayer. It thus imitates the folly of the heathen.
Ringing changes of words, it treats God as an ignorant
idol. The Omniscient and All-wise Father in heaven
knows our true need before we utter it, and what we
call the hearing of prayer is therefore only the accord
of the Divine will with human needs, so far as these
are justified before God.
This last consideration might seem indeed to make
prayer appear unnecessary and useless, as, without it,
God of his wisdom and goodness will give to every
one what he needs. Jesus therefore teaches, in the
third place, that we are to pray earnestly. This quality
of true prayer he has particularly illustrated by a par
able of a man, who, upon the arrival of a hungry guest
at midnight, allows the friend, to whom he resorts to
help him in the emergency, no rest till he supplies him
with what he requires.2 This precept does not con
tradict the preceding one, for the earnest prayer is
only heard when it is in unison with the Divine will,
when not a stone, but nourishing bread is asked for,
not a serpent but an edible fish, not a scorpion but an
egg, not things poisonous but things worthy, precious,
heavenly, in a word, the Holy Spirit.8 The true use
of prayer thus lies in the moral and spiritual elevation
of the worshipper. The granting of the prayer, as an
external fact, has in itself no worth ; it becomes real
1 Matt. vi. 6. " Luke xi. 5. 8 Luke xi. 9 ; Matt. vii. 7.
VOL. II. 7

98 FIFTH SECTION.
only as an inward personal experience, as a means of
strength and animation supplied by faith.
With the description which he thus gave of true
prayer, as an act sincere, simple, concise and ear
nest, Jesus took a position in direct opposition to the
prescriptive methods of prayer used by the Pharisees,
who prayed in obedience to custom, with an abundance
of words and phrases, and cold and heedless hearts.
3. As a further means of virtue, Jesus at the same
time commended to his disciples the true fasting. The
instructions which he gave on this head are nqt found
in Luke's Gospel, and they could not possibly have
been given by Jesus in the connection in which they
appear in the first Gospel,1 for, during his career in
Galilee, Jesus proposed . no fastings among his imme
diate disciples, — such ordinances were reserved for
later and evil times.2 Now, in Judea, the evil days had
come; the days were now numbered during which
Jesus was to be with those whom he loved. They
must not now be wanting in the serious feeling befit
ting the solemnity of the situation. Jesus had now to
teach them in what spirit he desired them to fast.
And here also his instructions are aimed at the Phar
isaic ordinances. In the matter of fasting,- the piety of
the Pharisees was distinguished by externality, unclean-
liness, and the affectation of sanctity. They fasted reg
ularly and often, certain days of the week (Mondays
and Thursdays). On these occasions they strewed
ashes on their heads, washed neither face nor beard,
dressed themselves in filthy mourning garments, omit
ting nothing that would give them the appearance, in
the eyes of men, of being pious worshippers of God.
This morose and repulsive custom, which was used
1 Matt. vi. 16. 2 Mark ii. 18; Matt. ix. 14; Luke v. 33.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 99
only to deceive, was an abomination to Jesus. His
pure mind revolted with indignation at fasting im
posed by authority, observed only in compliance with
fashion and law, and regarded as highly meritorious.1
He transferred fasting from without to the heart
within. Whosoever fasts, he teaches, is to appear
like one who arrays himself for a feast. No one was
to have any suspicion of the mourning in his heart.
Real pain, true mourning, according to the idea of
Jesus, hides itself from human eyes. It withdraws
into the sanctuary of the conscience. The mourning
which shows itself is the boasting vanity of a child,
seeking to appear and to represent itself as it is not.
But how instructive the fact that Jesus forbids even
the outward signs of mourning ! Abstinence and self-
mortification, the renunciation of even lawful enjoy
ments, the restraint and denial of sensual impulses and
necessities, may at times become indispensable duties.
But duty of this kind is to be discharged, not by com-
'mand and prescription, but in deference purely volun
tary to an inner law, a moral necessity. It is not only
a duty of conscience, but a privilege, a right. No other
authority is here to interfere, no other will to decide.
So only can self-mortification have a salutary and effec
tive influence, and restore again the disturbed moral
equilibrium. That Jesus thus condemned fasting pub
licly prescribed, is beyond all question.
It was in connection with these injunctions probably,
that Jesus spoke of the inner light, of that spiritual
soundness, without which man is lying in darkness and
sin.2 This inner light is native to the unsophisticated
conscience of every human being; but the artificial,
spurious piety which aims only at appearance blinds the
1 Matt. vi. 19. 2 Luke xi. 33; Matt. vi. 22.

100 FIFTH SECTION.
spiritual vision. Hypocrisy weakens the conscience,
and with the conscience the inborn sense of God, and
the natural love of God. In this way the light be
comes darkness, and the darkness appears to men as
light. The formal piety of the lips, seeming virtue to
the weak, is in truth the very opposite. The conflict
with hypocrisy, which the weak pronounce impious, is
in reality virtue.
4. The third means of virtue, which Jesus at that
same time enjoined upon his disciples, was the practice
of doing good to others, and especially the right use of
worldly goods. A particular occasion appears to have
prompted Jesus to utter an emphatic admonition on
this point. Shortly after his arrival in Judea, a
wealthy Jew, who, without any immediate acquaint
ance with him, had, from what he had heard, conceived
great respect for him, asked Jesus to use his authority
and decide a question that had risen between this person
and his brother in relation to their inheritance. The
request was made in good faith, but it was made under
a grave misapprehension, and was a new instance going
to show how difficult it was for good men even to form
just ideas of Jesus. Jesus first of all availed himself
of this opportunity to declare explicitly, that such mat
ters were altogether foreign to his Messianic office;
but with his declaration, he set forth his views of the
position of the members of the Divine kingdom in rela
tion to external goods. The elucidation is the more
interesting because we learn from it his ideas of prop
erty and of the value of temporal possessions.
It is not true that Jesus condemned wealth in and
for itself. What he condemned with emphasis is trust
in riches, and the greed of having and gaining, which
esteems property the highest end of Hfe. He warns

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 101
his disciples, therefore, not against riches but against
avarice,1 or, as the first Evangelist has it, against the
idolatry of gold, which is irreconcilable with the ser
vice of the living God.2 By a striking parable Jesus
shows the folly as well as the unworthiness of the
worship of Mammon.3 However much a man may
with infinite pains amass, he has no security in its en
joyment ; at any moment his life may be required of
him by God, the Lord of life and death. The wise
man therefore will accumulate treasure towards God,
i. e. imperishable wealth for life eternal.4 The right use
of earthly possessions depends upon a right state of the
heart and conscience towards God. The heart must
be given to God without reserve ; it will then regard
earthly goods simply as means, valuable and of use only
in subserving the highest.
It was at this time, probably during the last abode
of Jesus in Judea, that the parable of the unjust stew
ard was uttered. It is not so obscure as is generally
supposed ; the difficulty of understanding it has been
greatly increased by the ingenuity of the commenta
tors. It is in truth nothing more than an injunction
to the right use of earthly goods. It was given at a
time when the disciples were about to encounter the
severest persecution, and when their labors for the
kingdom of God would be wholly ineffectual, if their
reliance were on temporal possessions. All the more
urgent therefore the duty of Jesus, precisely at such a
moment to instruct them in the right use of money
and property. He took it for granted that until they
were received into the Communion of the Divine king
dom, they had been serving " unrighteous " Mammon,
1 Luke xii. 15. 2 Matt. vi. 24; see also Luke xvi. 13.
8 Luke xii. 16. 4 Matt. vi. 19; Luke xii. 21.

102 FIFTH SECTION.
i. e. property obtained more or less by means sug
gested by the selfish desire of gain. To get and to
have for the sake of present enjoyment had been the
main aim of their labors. But upon their entrance
into the Communion of Jesus, their position towards
earthly possessions was changed ; it must become en
tirely new, especially now when the final crisis was at
hand. They were now to renounce the service of
Mammon altogether. They must treat Mammon as
the steward treated the rich man.1 The rich man in
the parable is thus not God but Mammon. The
steward is he who serves Mammon. To be unfaithful
to Mammon is not wrong, but a duty. Jesus required
his disciples thenceforth to spend temporal goods no
longer in a worldly interest, but solely in the service
of God and his kingdom. They were to be used for
selfish purposes no more, but only as a means to the
attainment of a higher good. Hence the disciples must
always be ready to resign them for the sake of God.
They must make up their minds to bear privation and
use property in the same behalf. Accordingly, the
declaration that no man can serve two masters, God
and Mammon, finds its fitting place, as in Luke, only
at the conclusion of this parable. Whosoever desires to
keep faith with Mammon, cannot be true to God, and
he who would be true to God must break faith with
Mammon. No relations of fidelity can exist between
the disciple of Jesus and Mammon. If before entering
the kingdom of God the disciple had been a faithful
steward of Mammon, he was now to become unfaithful.
He must abstract money and goods from the use of
earthly interests, and therewith win admission to the
" everlasting mansions." Withdraw your property
1 Luke xvi. 1.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 103
from the concerns of this world to which in themselves
they belong, and expend them in advancing and
spreading the kingdom of God. Such is the lesson
of the parable of the unjust steward.
The example of a man who esteems worldly fortune
the highest end of life, Jesus presents to his disciples
in the parable of the rich and the poor man.1 The
rich man represents orthodox Pharisaism lusting for
riches, for the zeal for sound doctrine is entirely in
keeping with the desire for gold and gain.2 The poor
man is the representative of the people, despised and
neglected by the Pharisees. The rich man is rejected
by God, not for his wealth, but for what his wealth has
made him, its slave, with no heart for his suffering
brother. The poor man is received by God, not on
account of his poverty, but because he has borne it pa
tiently, and, resigned to his lot, has been satisfied with
the humblest means of subsistence. Bringing together
the precepts of Jesus in regard to the use of material
good, we gather from them the fol!6wing rules : 1.
The possession and enjoyment of earthly good must ,
never be the aim of life with the disciples of Jesus.
2. The highest endeavors of a disciple should always
be directed to the acquisition and possession of heav
enly treasures, truth, righteousness, freedom and love,
and to the consummation of the Divine kingdom, holi
ness and life eternal. , 3. Earthly goods must be spent
in the service of God and his kingdom, as the means of
realizing the highest good on earth. 4. When the pos
session and acquisition of the supreme good are threat
ened, then for their sakes all perishable treasures are
to be sacrificed with joy.
5. With the third direction of Jesus, in regard to
1 Luke xvi. 19. 2 Luke xvi. 14.

104 FIFTH SECTION.
the right use of earthly possessions, there is of neces
sity connected still a fourth, relating to care and
anxiety for the future. This likewise has direct refer
ence to the points on which the hierarchical party
were prepared to aim their blows at Jesus. During
his abode in Galilee the disciples had pursued their
ordinary avocations, although with interruptions. They
had remained with their families, and they were able
to give the needful attention to the usual means of
subsistence. Upon their missionary journeys they had
become in some degree accustomed to leave their
household concerns to others of their kin. But now
that the scene of action was transferred to Judea, their
position was wholly changed. In Judea they were
wholly dependent upon the kindness and hospitality of
those who were well disposed towards Jesus. And
what was now to become of them when their Master
should be executed as a criminal, and they themselves
be condemned to ignominious punishments as violators
of all laws, human and divine, — when their associates
and friends in the faith should be overawed by threats,
— when, hunted by the fury of their persecutors, they
should be fugitives, or in prison, in exile, or want?
This condition of things, soon to be realized, Jesus had
in view in these instructions : " Take no thought for
your life," &C.1 It is not the recklessness of the heed
less and slothful, but the freedom from anxious care of
the God-trusting and truly pious, that Jesus here de
picts with inimitable force and beauty. He might have
adduced examples from the Old Testament ; he might
have referred to the signs and wonders of Divino
Omnipotence. As he does not appeal to his own
miracles, or to the gifts and powers possessed by his
1 Luke xii. 22.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 105
disciples, it is certainly a significant indication how
little worth he attached to such extraordinary mani
festations of Divine Providence. He pointed his dis
ciples to the divine order of nature, to the lower
creatures, to the raven, to the rapacious animals that,
in spite of their worthlessness, God feeds ; to the lily,
the briefly blooming wild flowers which, perishable as
they are, God adorns with a glory surpassing the
royal magnificence of Solomon. Since God has or
dered the kingdom of nature thus wisely, how can he
forget those who are fulfilling his eternal will in the
kingdom of his truth and love ! Let every one strive
vigorously for the greatest, and the least will not be
wanting to him.1 Such is the faith-inspired rule of
life which Jesus gives his disciples as they approach
the threshold of the most anxious and fearful period of
their lives. He did not of course forbid painstaking
and care in and of themselves. Cares will come of
necessity. It is only the tormenting care, which springs
from a want of trust in God, from senseless despair of
the wisdom and love in the divine order of the world,
upon which the condemning sentence of Jesus is
passed. The fourth means of virtue which Jesus com
mends to his disciples is, therefore, in all the troubles
of life to put a steadfast, unwavering reliance in the
wisdom and love ruling over the world and controlling
all human things. To cherish this reliance is the
special privilege of the members of his kingdom.
1 Matt. vi. 25.

106 SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER.

NOTE.

[The title of this chapter, " the true means of virtue," conveys
the impression that Jesus proposed or instituted certain methods
or forms, valuable only as means, by the use of which personal
goodness is to be secured. .Whereas it appears to me he recog
nized no means of virtue but virtue. What our author specifies
and enumerates as the means which Jesus recommends to this
end, what are they but the true laws and conditions of all spirit
ual well-being ? the very graces which it is the end of Christi
anity to create, the manifestations of the spirit of Jesus himself
and of God ? What Jesus says of prayer, for example, is simply
what is written in human nature. He appoints neither times
nor places, nor does he prescribe any external form. His lan
guage is, "Ask and you will receive," because in the very con
stitution of things, the desire for spiritual good must precede the
reception of it. In order to be good we must want to be good.
The want, the longing is the substance of prayer ; and the supply
comes through and in the want. Seek and you will find, knock
and the gates of life will fly open. These are figures of speech.
But " ask and you will receive " is no less a figure of speech.
Under these various forms is stated a fact in nature. As for fast
ing, does not Jesus virtually abolish it as an external observance
when he discountenances all outward manifestations of it ? He
enjoins no practices of this kind. In fact, the teachings of Jesus
in regard to the points mentioned in this chapter are all at once
so natural and so universal, they so directly concern all men, that
one cannot but feel that Jesus addressed them mainly to men as
men. It narrows their grand scope to represent him, as our
author represents him, as giving them as specific instructions to
be observed for a particular end. What I wish to say is, that
arranging and systematizing the teachings of Jesus in this way
tends to create a false impression, namely, that they were origi
nally uttered by him systematically, so to speak, and for a pre
cise purpose. Unquestionably he was most interested in teaching
those who were the most interested in his teachings, — his disci
ples. And doubtless his manner of stating truth was modified
and colored in a degree with reference to their position and the
demands of the time. But after all it was in the depth and
universality of the truth to which he gave utterance that his

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 107
personal convictions were rooted, and he poured them forth
rather out of the fulness of a heart sympathizing with all hu
manity than from a view to any definite end. Thus was it with
the parable of the rich man, told in Luke (ch. xii. 13- 26), which
was purely occasional, suggested by the application made to Jesus
to settle a dispute concerning an inheritance, and which Dr.
Schenkel treats as if it were related for the special purpose of in
structing the disciples in their apostolic duty in regard to worldly
goods. While our author thus represents Jesus as carrying out a
plan, and creates a certain impression of limitation and narrowness,
he gives the disciples, I think, more credit than is their due for
insight into the true, spiritual, suffering destiny of Jesus. That
they were daily becoming more and more strengthened in their
faith that he was the Messiah there can be no doubt. But the
more they were confirmed in this faith the less were they dis
posed to believe in his sufferings, and the more confident were
their expectations of the riches and honors to be gained through
him. — Trans.]

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE. CALLING OF THE GENTILES.
1. At the same time that Jesus availed himself of
his final sojourn in Judea to prepare his disciples for
the appalling events that were at hand, he made a last
attempt to deliver his unhappy countrymen from theo
logical despotism and the supremacy of the priesthood.
His conviction had grown deeper and deeper that
there was no salvation for Israel, moral or national, in
the way that had now been trodden for centuries.
The hope€ cherished by the hierarchical party of a
speedy elevation of Israel over its political opponents
was an idle dream, from which, when the nation should
be seriously dealt with, there would be a fearful awaken
ing. Deliverance could, come only from within out-

108 FIFTH SECTION.
wardly ; not by the weapons of the flesh, insurrection
and war, but by the weapons of the spirit, by a moral
and religious renovation of the collective life of the
people upon the groundwork of truth and righteous
ness, love and peace, moderation and tolerance. Even
Rome itself, in the pride of its might and wickedness,
could be humbled and conquered by these weapons.
A deep unrest pervaded the population, especially of
Judea. The fires of revolt were glimmering under
the ashes. Upon the occasion of a public religious
solemnity, certain Galileans engaged in a riot had been
mercilessly slaughtered at the command of the Roman
Procurator, Pontius Pilate. Having arrived in the
neighborhood of the scene of this massacre, Jesus
eagerly seized the occasion to warn the people, excited
to desperation, against such vain and fatal attempts.
It was clear to him that the condition of the sin-bur
dened people was owing, not to the depravity of a few
individuals here :;nd there, deceived and deceivers,
but rather to the depraved state into which they had all
fallen, and especially to the blind leaders at their head.
The people had heedlessly thrown themselves into the
arms of the hierarchical party. Jesus had in vain ad
monished and besought and warned them. They had
for the most part turned their backs upon him, irritated
and restless. Since he had declared it to be his Mes
sianic destiny to sacrifice himself, to suffer and die, the
larger portion of them had gone over to his opposers.
Under such circumstances he could not conceal from
himself that Israel had become incapable of fulfilling
the divine plan of salvation ; that the nation could not
regenerate the world in the spirit of divine truth and
freedom ; that precisely the reverse of what the old
prophets foretold of it would in reality befall. Ac-

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 109
cording to those predictions, Israel, as the people of
peoples, was to gather into itself and elevate all nations.
But the course of events was taking such a direction
that, as a nation, Israel must inevitably suffer internal
dissolution. This fate Jesus directly announced in a
solemn parable. He compared the nation to a fig-tree
in a fruitful vineyard. The vineyard is the symbol of
the world. Instead of benefiting the nations the fig-
tree drew its strength from them. It was steadily
declining into the condition of a parasite upon the civil
and national life of the populations of that period. For
years it had produced no good fruit. A last reprieve
had been granted it by God. And as this also had
passed away the vineyard must be planted anew, the
fig-tree be consigned to destruction.1
This parable of the fig-tree was in all probability
uttered by Jesus before his last entrance into the city
of Jerusalem, at a time when he had not yet given up
the hope that a portion at least of the people might
be saved from the fate of their leaders. The later
tradition has lost sight of the particular occasion of the
parable, and converted it into an external occurrence,2
whereby the whole thing is rendered unintelligible.
How could Jesus have seriously looked for fruit on a
fig-tree at a season of the year when, in the nature of
the case, it could not bear any fruit?3 How could he
have seriously cursed, — given over to destruction, a
tree that really was not unfruitful, or at all events could
not be responsible for its unfruitfulness ? How, in
fine, can we in any way imagine and describe the
action of the supernatural power of Jesus upon a tree ?
These insuperable difficulties all vanish when we sup-
i Luke xiii. 6-9. 2 Mark xi. 12; Matt. xxi. 18.
8 Mark xi. 13.

110 FIFTH SECTION.
pose that the doom that threatened Israel, and which
was originally pronounced by Jesus in the form of a
parable, came to be represented as if it had been im
mediately executed upon a fig-tree, by the later tradition
running naturally into legendary exaggerations and
miraculous embellishments. We may easily trace the
growth of the legend out of the parable. While accord
ing to the older reporter, the second Evangelist, the
destructive effect of the curse was not visible until the
next day,1 according to the later reporter, on the other
hand, the first Evangelist, the effect of the curse was
made instantly apparent to the disciples.2 (a)
2. But as now with every hour all hope was fading
away that the revolution that was to accomplish the
moral and religious renovation of the world would pro
ceed from Israel as the people chosen of God, all the
more confidently were the eyes of Jesus turned to
heathen nations as the future fields of the kingdom of
God, as the centres whence the new Messianic ideas
were to radiate. It appears that at this time there
were in the immediate neighborhood of Jesus himself,
some persons, individual Israelites, upon whom light
had dawned, and who had apprehensions of the inevi
table downfall of Israel. The inquirer in the third
Gospel 3 does not conceal from himself that the number
of Jews who will be converted will be proportionally
small, and Jesus tells him that although many Jews
desire to be admitted into the kingdom of God, admis
sion will be granted only to a few, as a few only were
able to form a right judgment of the nature and char
acter of the Divine kingdom. It was then probably
that Jesus gave the warning which the first Evan-
1 Matt. xi. 20. Consult Appendix, 111. 21, p. 110.
2 Matt. xxi. 19. s Luke xiii. 23.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. Ill
gelist has woven into the Sermon on the Mount,
namely, that the narrow gate leads to the eternal life.1
The way of the Pharisees and Scribes was broad. By
a punctilious observance of church ordinances the
kingdom of heaven was opened to them ; a thorough
moral and religious renovation was not required. The
great body of the Jews sought to reach the heavenly
kingdom by this convenient way. On this account
Jesus now broadly declares what, during his journey
at an earlier period to Phoenicia, and even upon the
occasion of sending forth his disciples over a larger
extent of country, he had only hinted at, — that the
calling of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God was
his commission, and that the Gentiles were indeed to
be preferred before the Jews.2 (b)
Hence we also see now why during his last abode
in Judea Jesus regarded it as one of his chief tasks to
break down the prejudice that Israel alone was called
to the kingdom of God. He would not have truly
fulfilled his commission had he not left upon earth the
idea that he was the Saviour of all nations, and that all
mankind have an interest in his Communion. He had
not so declared himself in Galilee. At the gates of
the City of the Temple the truth must be proclaimed.
In the presence of the hierarchical party he must dissi
pate the delusion that the circumcised Jew alone can
find favor with God.
Bitterly as he was opposed by the hierarchical party,
an open and complete rupture with them had not yet
taken place. For once, since he had come into the
vicinity of the seat of their power, it suited their pur-
1 Matt. vii. 13 ; Luke xiii. 24.
2 Luke xiii. 29. Matthew assigns to this declaration too early a
period (viii. 11).

112 FIFTH SECTION.
pose to endeavor, if possible, to lull him into a feeling
of security, so that when all should be prepared for the
last blow, it might fall . upon him all the more surely
and fatally. Spies and plotters surrounded him in
Judea on all sides. They invited him to their houses
in order to entrap him. They pretended sympathy
with him that they might discover some weak point
in him. They even treated him with a certain defer
ence that he might be led to open his lips and his
heart. Invitations were not wanting even from the
Pharisees. In the freedom of the social board it was
reckoned that he would give the reins to his tongue
and be tempted to the utterance of bold and inju
rious reflection upon the civil and religious author
ities. In his account of this period Luke has not
always stated things in the right order of time. It is
not, however, difficult to discover the original connec
tion. At an entertainment given ostensibly in honor
of Jesus by a leader of the party, Jesus could hardly
have healed a man suffering with dropsy, or have
uttered such offensive expressions as we find in the
third Evangelist.1 The healing of the man took place
probably before the repast, and the remarks upon the
ambitious efforts of the guests to secure the highest
places at the table were made by Jesus, we may sup
pose, at the conclusion of the feast and to a small circle.
He used the occasion, however, to express in the hearing
of the Pharisees, by means of a parable, his conviction
that the Gentiles were to be invited into the kingdom
of God.2 The admonition to invite, not friends,
brothers, kindred, and neighbors on these festive occa-
1 Luke xiv. 7-11.
2 That only the parable was told during the repast, Luke himself
intimates (xiv. 7).

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 113
sions, but the poor, the maimed, the lame and the
blind, cannot possibly be understood to the letter. It
cannot have been addressed merely to the host. Jesus
doubtless had chiefly in mind the narrow-hearted spirit
of caste and pride of position that marked the Phari
sees. He was thinking of the entire want of kindly
sympathy for the poor and perishing people peculiar to
the hierarchs. It was, moreover, characteristic of
orthodox Judaism to be exclusive and narrow. The
Pharisaic Jgw acknowledged as brothers only those
connected with him by the tie of a common descent
and religion. He looked upon the Gentiles as poor,
maimed, lame and blind, — as the refuse of the human
race, with whom he neither ate nor drank. To show
a human loving heart to a Gentile was contrary to his
religion. He had no assurance of future reward there
for ; only for the love which he manifested for the Jew
was a recompense to be made him.1
That Jesus at that feast proclaimed, to the confusion
of intolerant Pharisaism, the calling of the Gentiles
into the kingdom of God, appears also from the para
ble of the supper.2 This parable is probably the origi
nal form of the parable of the marriage feast, found
in the first Gospel.3 In both there is the feast, a
picture of the kingdom of heaven (in the first Gospel
a marriage feast significant of the establishment of the
New Covenant), in both there are invited by the ser
vants (messengers of salvation) certain persons who
refuse to accept the invitation, and urge all sorts of
subterfuges to excuse themselves. In both is the
anger of the Giver of the feast (God calling men) at
these persons who refuse to attend it. In both para
bles is there the determination of the host to extend
1 Luke xiv. 12. 2 Luke xiv. 15-24. a Matt. xxii. 1.
vol. n. 8

114 FIFTH SECTION.
his invitations even to such as were not particularly en
titled to be invited, the Gentiles. In addition to these
details there is in the first Gospel an allusion to the
persecution suffered by the Apostles,1 to the destruc
tion of Jerusalem,2 to the intrusion of unworthy persons
from among the Gentiles into the kingdom of God.3
Every thing thus shows the parable in the first Gospel
to be an amplification of what was said by Jesus (upon
the occasion of the feast at the house of the Pharisee)
in a simpler form, and without any reference to events
which had not then happened.
3. This extension of the original boundaries of the
kingdom of God founded by Jesus, taking in the Gen
tile world, was not merely a consequence of the obdu
racy of Israel. It was also the necessary fulfilment
of the Divine plan of salvation. God does not prefer
one peculiar people ; humanity itself is called to sal
vation. Nothing that Jesus said offended the pride of
the hierarchical party so deeply as his declaration that
the Gentiles were invited to share equally with the
Jews in the Divine kingdom. A handle was here
found which might be used with success to destroy
him. Doubtless the friendly disposition towards the
Gentiles, so distinctly expressed by him at a public
table, soon became the daily talk in all the Pharisaic
circles. He lost no time however in defending him
self against the violent charges of the hierarchical
party. Such was the aim of a series of parables, the
most striking and beautiful of which Luke has pre
served. The lost sheep,4 the lost piece of money,5 the
lost son,6 are not types of the people of Israel misled
1 Matt. xxii. 6. 2 Matt. xxii. 7. a Matt. xxii. 11.
* Luke xv. 4 - 7 ; Matt, xviii. 12 - 14. r" Luke xv. 8-10.
6 Luke xv. 11-32.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 115
by their spiritual guides and morally lost. According
to the connection in which these parables were told,
they are symbols of the Gentile world despised and
hated by the hierarchical party, and regarded by them
as emphatically the world of sinners. In the parable
of the lost son especially, the reference to the Gentiles
is as clearly apparent in the idea that the lost son no
longer belongs to the father's house, as it is manifest
that this same proposition is not applicable to Jewish
sinners or publicans whose position in the household
of God was held to be assured in consequence of their
circumcision. This same proposition also applies to
the Gentiles, inasmuch as they received their inheri
tance from the hand of God before the theocracy was
instituted, and had squandered it in a strange land,
away from the father's house, away from the Temple
and its sanctities, from the Law and its benefits, from
the priesthood and its ordinances.1 The Gentile is
also strikingly indicated by the younger son, while
Israel on the other hand accounted himself the first
born son of God.
The admission of the Gentiles into the kingdom of
Jesus was now also a necessary consequence of the
loving concern that Jesus felt for sinners, that portion
of mankind who were morally degraded and perishing.
He saw it to be one of his chief labors to excite. and
develop the slumbering moral powers and spiritual
gifts of the middle and lower orders who had been
deliberately and heartlessly neglected by the privileged
classes. The theocratic Messiah was the hero of the
polite world, the suffering Messiah the helper of the
poor oppressed people. ' The parable of the Pharisee
and Publican has here a pointed significance. The
1 Luke xt. 13.

116 FIFTH SECTION.
Pharisee is the representative of orthodox Judaism,
looking down upon sinners, and of course upon Gen
tiles, with contempt. The Publican is the representa
tive of the Gentile world of sinners, in which was
stirring a conscious longing, obscure indeed, but hum
ble and sincere, for moral regeneration. He, the
Publican, offering his prayer within the precincts of the
Temple, is no proof that Jesus intends to represent him
as a Jew. He stands afar off. He ventures not into
the forecourt of the Jews. He deems himself only a
stranger in the house of God. But even if we con
sider the Publican a Jew, he is still the representative
of all those whom the hierarchical party esteemed
worthless and outcast. At all events the Publican
gives up all the means prescribed by the Mosaic law,
whereby the Divine favor is to be obtained, and puts
his trust unreservedly in the Divine mercy, and God
holds him justified or reconciled to Him, without
requiring of him any external observance as an atone
ment. The state of the conscience in the sight of God is
not determined by external observances.. This was
reason enough why Jesus should offer salvation to the
Gentiles also. No circumcision, no sacrifice, no cere
monial purification, no Sabbath solemnities, no fastings,
but the condition of the heart, of the inner life, decides
every man's relation to God. The inevitable downfall
of haughty, orthodox Judaism, the certain elevation of
the Gentile world, humble, penitent, and longing for
salvation, were the chief themes of the preaching of
Jesus during his last abode in Judea. The fact that
he urged upon his hearers the same thoughts substan
tially in perpetually new shapes and applications shows
how interested he was at that time in overcoming

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 117
immediately around him the hereditary prejudices of
Jewish exclusiveness, and especially in making his
disciples more and more intimate with the idea that
the kingdom of God established by him and to be
extended by them, must embrace all nations. But he
combated not only in word but in deed the prevailing
exclusive spirit. Passing through Jericho, he did not
disdain to enter the house and partake of the hospital
ity of a chief publican, Zaccheus, who had shown an
earnest desire to see him.1 Zaccheus was most proba
bly a Gentile. For this reason we are justified in sup
posing he was popularly denominated a sinner. But
Jesus declared that he also was a son of Abraham,2 a
fact of which, if. Zaccheus really were a Jew, the by
standers needed not to be told. During this period Je
sus looked upon the Communion of the " faithful " as
the true Israel, and consequently in every Gentile who'
received him into his house and heart he saw a true
descendant of Abraham. The same key-note is heard
again in the discourses of Jesus of the same period,
preserved in the fourth Gospel. That he had still other
sheep from another fold, that he must lead them like
wise, that they hear his voice, that there will be one
fold and one Shepherd,3 Jesus declares with great dis
tinctness. The desire of certain " Greeks " to see
him, bringing vividly to his mind the longing of the
Gentile world for salvation, seemed to him the begin
ning of the glorifying of his work on earth.4 (c)
1 Luke xix. 1-9. Q Luke xix. 9.
8 John x. 16. 4 John xii. 20.

118 EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER.

NOTES.

[a. p. 110. It is not to be denied that the " cursing of the fig-
tree " presents great difficulties. The explanation given above,
namely, that the incident (Matt. xxi. 18 ; Mark xi. 12) is an ex
aggeration or legend growing out of the parable (Luke xiii. 6)
is plausible, and would be satisfactory if it did not involve so ex
tensive a fabrication of particulars as, being admitted in this
instance, would leave but little of an historical character to the
Gospels ; particulars too, as truly worthy to be .entitled " histori
cal traits " as any which our author indicates elsewhere in these
narratives, particulars, all the more striking for being found in
connection with a legend so rudely composed, if it be a legend.
I refer especially to the remarkable and characteristic utterances
of Jesus in regard to faith and prayer, so naturally suggested by
the withered tree. Although it is difficult to conceive how the
will of Jesus should act upon the tree, yet we cannot presume to
deny the possible existence of occult relations between mind and
matter by which such action took place. If, as there are no
slight grounds for believing, Jesus were possessed of an extraor
dinary energy of will that was native to him, then the sudden
and passionate expression of it may have been attended by effects
that perhaps he himself did not distinctly anticipate. The lan
guage which Jesus is related to have used in reference to the
tree (differently reported by Matthew and Mark), does not strike
us in itself as sufficiently forcible to be termed a curse. And yet
so it was called by those who heard it. It must therefore have
been the manner and tone of Jesus that gave it this appearance.
That the tree was barren at the time is evident from the fact that
it was not the season, as it is stated, for figs. Had it been the
season it would have been a fair inference that the fruit being
ripe had all been plucked. But here it is difficult to understand
why, as it was not the right time for this fruit, Jesus should have
expected to find ripe figs on the tree. This passage of the his
tory is an embarrassing one. I am .aware that the explanation
of it at which I hint and which I have endeavored to set forth
more fully elsewhere (Thoughts on the Life and Character of Jesus
of Nazareth, p. 2G0), must task the credulity of the reader. I do
not urge it with confidence. It looks to me however as if some
effect must have been visible on this occasion of an unusual char-

NOTES. 119
acter, for Jesus himself was struck with the mighty force of faith,
to judge from the way in which he expressed himself. When his
attention was called to the condition of the fig-tree he said, —
and mark the strength of his asseveration : " Have faith in God.
For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say to this moun
tain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, and shall
not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which
he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith."
Supposing that the tree did really wither away under his curse,
" is it not striking to think that although there was a power in
him that could uproot mountains, he. was yet so exalted above
every thought of "using it for his pride or passion, that only once,
when he was disappointed at finding no fruit on a fig-tree, was he
betrayed into a hasty and passionate exertion of his mighty will ?
He becomes even more wonderful for his forgetfulness of his
power than for his exercise of it."
b. p. 111. Dr. Schenkel, I apprehend, puts modern ideas into
the mind of the man mentioned in the third Gospel (Luke xiii.
23), who inquired of Jesus whether there were only a few to be
saved. According to Jewish modes of thinking, salvation was
synonymous with the coming of the Messiah and the establish
ment of his glorious Jewish empire. Consequently there is no
reason to suppose that the individual who inquired of Jesus as to
the number who were to be saved had any other thought in his
mind than to ascertain, if he might, how many were to be admit
ted to a share in the wealth and honors of the coming kingdom
of the Messiah. The Jews believed that adniission to the king
dom required some personal qualifications therefor ; that the
righteous only, according to the traditional Jewish standard of
righteousness, would be received. The way in which they flocked
to the Baptism of John reveals this faith. It is very doubtful
however whether the inquirer mentioned above had any idea of
" conversion," or was of the number of those who had a presenti
ment of " the inevitable downfall of Israel."
I have been accustomed to understand the words of Jesus in
the seventh chapter of Matthew, thirteenth and fourteenth verses,
in a much more comprehensive sense than is given to them by
our author. " Enter ye in at the strait gate : for wide is the
gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many
there be that go in thereat. Because strait is the gate and

120 EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER.
narrow the way which leadeth to life, and few there be that find
it." Is not this to be taken as a representation of human life at
all times and everywhere ? Was Jesus when he uttered these
words thinking only of the " broad road of Pharisaism ? " I think
not. Dr. Schenkel thinks that Matthew places at too early a period
the declaration of Jesus, " that many were to come from the east
and west, and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in
the kingdom of heaven, &c." (ch. viii. 11.) (See note 2 on p. 111.)
But is not the connection in which it is found in Matthew's Gos
pel strikingly natural ? Aecording to this Gospel, it was called
forth by the confidence reposed in Jesus by a Gentile. This
experience was unexpected to Jesus. He evidently was not
prepared to find in a foreigner such a disposition to trust in him.
He " marvelled " at it. But to his quick discerning insight there
was more in the fact than lay on the surface. It was a revela
tion to him. It lifted a veil from before his eyes, and his vision
was instantly extended beyond his own country. He perceived
then more clearly than ever that truth and goodness have affini
ties with our universal nature.
c. p. 117. This chapter is colored throughout with the idea
that Jesus constantly spoke with a view to certain proposed
effects. That he had certain definite aims I do not presume to
deny. It is by no means easy to draw any precise lines and to
say when and wherein he was seeking to fulfil a particular pur
pose or plan. But certain it is that the indications of any or
ganized movement in his history are neither numerous nor
decisive. It is only by pressing various passages into the service
of his theory, and by interpreting them in a manner more in
genious than satisfactory, that Dr. Schenkel succeeds in giving
Jesus the appearance of aiming to carry out a defined scheme.
It is the occasional, spontaneous, impulsive character of most of
the sayings and acts attributed to Jesus that seems to me the
predominant trait of his history. Not that he is deficient in con
sistency and method. But it is the profound consistency, the
wonderful method, of nature that I see in him, and by his un
conscious observance of which his thoughts breathe and his words
burn. — Trans.]

' SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 121
CHAPTER XIX.
FINAL- INSTRUCTION OP THE DISCIPLES.
1. How much had yet to happen in order, in
the few weeks which Jesus still had to spend with
his disciples, to prepare them for the great work that
awaited them of announcing and extending the king
dom of God throughout the world ! Jesus had re-
quired of them extraordinary sacrifices. Worldly pos
sessions and enjoyments they had surrendered with
out grudging. They had relinquished domestic joys
and household comforts. They had put themselves,
property and life, hand and heart, at the service of their
Master and his Cause. After such sacrifices, they
might justly demand that he should thoroughly instruct
them concerning the final aim of his and their work.
They knew what this work was in its general outlines.
But now they needed to have it set before them, and
fixed in their hearts in a series of particular instructions,
and as clearly as possible. Jesus had founded a new
Communion. To maintain what he had instituted, to
cherish, protect, extend and enlarge it, the Apostles
were first of all called. Numberless evils were to be
met or avoided, immense difficulties put aside or over
come. First of all, the young Association was exposed to
the danger of disputes and divisions, caused by offence
given, within their own body ; they were liable to fall
apart through the want of due consideration. The
disciples themselves were not yet morally and spirit
ually matured. Self-will, harshness, intolerance could

122 - FIFTH SECTION.
not fail to have the most serious effect upon the forma
tion and progress of the new Communion. To obviate
this danger, Jesus uttered the warning against the
offence that might so easily be given to the "little
ones," i. e. to the weak among them, by the stronger
and the more passionate.1 The scandal which in the
coming time of conflict and need was most to be
feared, was the example of a want of love among them
selves.' Jesus, therefore, required of his disciples with
special emphasis a heart gentle and always open to
explanation and forgiveness. The fault of the offender
is not indeed to be wholly overlooked. Well-grounded
reproof is a duty to our brothers and associates. But
reproof should always be administered in the language
of love, and not in the language of passion. And the
party personally injured was always to be ready heart
ily to forgive the injurer, especially when he was sorry
for his fault, and resolved to repair it, — yes, and he
should forgive as often as he had opportunity ; and the
fault, though several times repeated, was to be no bar
to a continued forgiving disposition. The exhortation
to be always placable was not probably uttered pre
cisely in the form in which it has been handed down
by the first Evangelist,2 as in this form it presupposes
a more formal Association than then existed. The
rule, however, that the final decision of disputes aris
ing among the brotherhood should be referred to the
members of the Communion collectively, is altogether
in harmony with the spirit of Jesus. More difficult to
understand is the declaration of Jesus, that everything
which they, i. e. the Communion of the faithful (it is
not the Apostles as such that are referred to, as the
connection shows), should bind or loose on earth,
1 Luke xvii. 2 : Matt, xviii. 6. 2 Matt, xviii. 15.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 123
should ordain as legal or cancel as illegal, was to be
considered as ordained or as set aside in heaven, i. e.
before God.1 That the first Evangelist addresses this
declaration to Peter alone, is a liberty that he has
taken. This same word could not possibly have been
spoken on both the occasions mentioned in the first
Gospel, as the supreme authority of the Communion
and the supreme authority of the Apostles reciprocally
exclude each other. The authority to bind or loose,
to command or forbid, is granted to the Communion of
the believing. But this authority, apparently given
without qualification, is limited by what immediately
follows, namely, that whatever two of them shall unite
in praying for, God will grant them, and that where
two or three are gathered together in the name of
Jesus, he too will be in the midst of them. The bind
ing and loosing, the ordaining and forbidding, is ac
cordingly not intended to be an arbitrary, absolute
exercise of power. It has authority and force only
when it is, not merely unanimous and fraternal, but
in accord likewise with the will of God or in com
munion with the Holy Spirit.
Even the Apostles could exercise their office suc
cessfully only in the spirit of self-renouncing humility.
Jesus solemnly warns them against self-exaltation in
the parable of the Master and his Servant.2 Even
when they do the will of God without fault, they only
do their duty; they have established no manner of
claim to a reward. This parable also shows very
strikingly that Jesus promised his disciples, even in the
prospect of the greatest clangers and sacrifices, no other
reward than that which is found in the faithful per
formance of duty itself.
l Matt, xviii. 18. 2 Luke xvii. 7 - 10.

124 FIFTH SECTION.
2. But Jesus had to require of his disciples more
than was demanded of them according to Customary
standards. The disturbed state of the times, the in
evitable persecution awaiting them, the insecurity of
their condition, their calling admitting of no rest, — all
this, as we have already seen, had imposed upon them
the necessity of breaking away from their domestic
relations. The question whether an Apostle might
marry, had become a question of conscience. Jesus
held it, therefore, his duty to instruct his disciples par
ticularly concerning the marriage relation, and their
position in regard to it. A special occasion for in
structing them in regard to the nature and worth of
marriage had been afforded him, it appears, during his
last abode in Judea, by the emissaries of the hierarchical
party. It was probably upon his first visit to Jerusa
lem, that the Pharisees brought to him a woman taken1
in the act of adultery, and demanded of him his judg
ment in respect to her punishment. They hoped,
doubtless, to involve him in a contradiction, either of
the civil and ecclesiastical laws, which in this case pro
nounced the punishment to be death, or of his own
humane principles.1 They most hoped the former, for
he had explicitly declared that he had come to save the
lost.2 Jesus, however, did not pronounce upon the
case brought before him. He simply referred it to the
consciences of his questioners. He demanded of them
that whosoever among them knew himself in his own
conscience to be pure from sin against chastity, should
throw the first stone at the guilty woman.
The spies, touched by the voice of conscience, van
ished, but only to lay a new snare for Jesus. He had'
1 John viii. 1-11. See Appendix, 111. 22, p. 124.
2 Matt, xviii. 11 ; Luke xix. 10.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 125
certainly exposed himself now to the appearance of a
lax dealing with the marriage tie. This appearance
was made use of for crafty questions put to him on the
subject of divorce. His opponents first inquired of
him whether divorce were allowable.1 They might
hope that upon this occasion he would expose himself
on one side or the other. For the theological schools
of the time were divided among themselves in the in
terpretation of the passage of the law referring to this
point. The law gave the husband the liberty in cer
tain cases to repudiate his wife.2 Jesus might, there
fore, in entire harmony with the law, answer the ques
tion put to him (in the first Gospel), that divorces
were not allowable "for all possible causes."3 But
his position became more difficult when (according to
the second Evangelist) i he had to declare himself in
regard to divorce in itself. And in all probability, in
this case also the second Evangelist has given us the
authentic account. As in the instance of the woman
taken in adultery, Jesus did not speak out directly,
but led his questioners to declare their sense of the
meaning and significance of the Law in relation to the
point. Only after they had deduced from the Law a
general authority given to the husband to give his
wife a bill of divorcement, did he declare with deep
solemnity how little he esteemed a lax view of the
marriage tie. He had treated a single case of an adul
teress with tenderness and moderation. He was ever
ready to forgive the sins of the penitent, but he spoke
with sharpness and severity when it came to vindicat
ing the inviolability and sacredness of the marriage
relation against the frivolous sophistries of hypocrites.
1 Mark x. 2 ; compare the later account of Matt. xix. 3.
2 Deut. xxiv. 1. 8 Matt. xix. 3. * Mark x. 2.

126 FIFTH SECTION.
The point of his answer, it must be confessed, strikes
at the Mosaic law itself. Moses, as a man and as a
statesman and lawgiver, had, with reference to the con
dition of his people and to a passing necessity, made a
concession to the weakness of human nature. This,
Jesus considers as not just to the true and eternal idea
of marriage, to its divine origin and its essential sane-
tity.1 According to his conviction, divorce is in itself
contrary to the idea and end of marriage. The design
of the Pharisees to entrap Jesus was in consequence of
this rejoinder again frustrated. They had hoped to be
able to fasten upon him the charge of loose moral prin
ciples, and now he had shown them, that in external
strictness it was their law and they themselves that
were chargeable with lax morality.
But here arises another question, whether Jesus in
pronouncing this judgment upon divorce had also the
design of making a positive monogamical regulation for
his flock ? It must not be overlooked that Jesus only
aimed for once to hold up an ideal to be aspired after
in opposition to the defective decisions of the Mosaic
Law. That he did not seek to lay down any rules as,
to the law of marriage as a civil matter is self-evident.
Nowhere or ever did he lay claim to a right to legis
late in matters of state.2 Neither did he expect to
realize immediately in his Communion the ideal which
he set up. In fact he does not condemn without qual
ification the latitude of the Mosaic Law in regard to
divorce. He suggests a special reason in excuse of it,
namely, the consideration which it shows for the hard
ness of heart of the Jews.3 As it belongs to the orig
inal idea of man that he is upright, so likewise it be-
1 Gen. i. 27. • 2 Luke xii. 13.
8 Mark x. 5 ; Matt. xix. 8.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 127
longs to the original idea of marriage that it is inviola
ble. But as little as man conducts himself in the actual
relations of life as if he had continued pure from sin,
so little is marriage to be treated, moral and social
circumstances being considered, as if the hearts of the
married were strangers to faults and passions.
In what he said of marriage and divorce Jesus un
questionably had a higher purpose than merely to stop
"the mouths of the malicious. It was his aim to es
tablish a standard of morals and of life worthier of our
nature than any mere system of prescribed rules. Tne
Communion formed by him was to repose on the eter
nal basis of truth, right, freedom, honor, brotherly love.
He must therefore make the highest moral demands
upon his disciples, and the solemnity, depth, and com
prehensiveness of his requirements must not be hidden
from his opposers. To consecrate home and the family
was one of his first objects, and it was a point of prime
necessity to secure respect and a true position for
woman. By the Mosaic law of divorce the wife was
put at the caprice of her husband. By the moral
principle laid down by him Jesus would restrain this
caprice. He had no thought, however, of designing to
encroach with his principle upon the civil law. He
simply contended for it as a principle of the Divine
kingdom, and not with a view to its application by
force. Aiming only to create an independent convic
tion and free acknowledgment of the dignity of human
nature especially in the wife, he hoped by the conse
cration of love finally to carry out his principle.
3. The Pharisaic conspirators, confounded, doubtless,
and rendered furious, retreated, and the disciples grew
thoughtful. The high moral tasks which Jesus set
before them disturbed their consciences. In this

128 FIFTH SECTION.
thoughtful frame they probably first went home with
Jesus, as the second Evangelist states,1 and not until
then, in private, was the conversation which had been
broken off with the Pharisees resumed. It was -then
that Jesus made the further declaration, which the first
Evangelist has put into the Sermon on the Mount,2
but which has justly been referred exclusively to the
period of the last visit of Jesus to Judea.3 Jesus pro
nounces every second marriage of either of the di
vorced parties adultery. That his declaration is given
in its original form by the second Evangelist is shown
by the fact that in the second Gospel no mention is
made of the excepted case in which divorce for adul
tery and consequently the second marriage of the in
nocent party are permitted.4 As, according to the
idea of Jesus, marriage is in itself inviolable, then
divorce is in itself never allowable, and the forming of
a new conjugal connection by either of the divorced
parties is formal adultery. Such is the inexorable
consequence of the principle affirmed by Jesus. It is
the later tradition, which, upon the ground of the im
practicability of this consequence, so far qualified the
principle as to declare adultery, and only on the part
of the wife, a sufficient reason for divorce on the part
of the husband.
But in so doing the first Evangelist has not only de
prived the principle itself of its point, but has discharged
the declaration of Jesus of its essential purport, name
ly, the liberation of the wife from the arbitrary will of
the husband. The word of Jesus, pronouncing every
1 Mark x. 10. 2 Matt. v. 32; but also xix. 9.
8 Mark x. 11 ; Luke xvi. 18.
4 Compare Mark x. 9 with Matt. v. 32, xix. 9. In Luke also
(xvi. 18) there is an unconditional condemnation of divorce. So Paul
(1 Cor. vii. 10).

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 129
divorced woman who forms a new marriage connection
an adulteress,1 has been erroneously declared to be an
addition of Mark's, because it is not found in the first
and third Evangelists. It is precisely this word that
expresses most pointedly the opposition of Jesus to the
Mosaic law of divorce. It proclaims the unrestricted
equality of the wife and the husband in their family
relations. It relieves the wife from the degradation to
which she was consigned, ostensibly in the name of
God, by Jewish usage. It states the most important
principle of all Christian culture.
That Jesus rejected the principle of divorce utterly,
is evident from an addition in the first Gospel itself,2
which might indeed have been found in the Collection
of Sayings, but is not in the second Gospel. The pur
pose of Jesus, by a very striking example to impress
his disciples with the extraordinary sacrifices which his
service demanded, was attained. They could now no
longer have any doubt that they must give their whole-
hearts to it without reserve. They were at once filled
with astonishment. If such were the nature of mar
riage, it were better — so it seemed to them — not to
marry at all.3 To renounce divorce under all circum
stances, and to sacrifice to the sacredness of the princi
ple the comfort and peace of one's whole life, appeared
to them an intolerable demand. And were there not
cases in which the principle required a self-restraint
more than human from those who submitted to it ?
Jesus in reply certainly enjoins upon his disciples abso
lute self-denial, renunciation of marriage itself. But
nothing could be more erroneous than to infer that he
preferred celibacy to the marriage state, and considered
it a higher moral condition. He commended single
i Mark x. 11, 12. 2 Matt. xix. 10 - 12. 8 Matt, xixv 10.
vol. n. 9

130 FIFTH SECTION.
life to his disciples simply on account of their special
mission. In their case it was surely a serious matter
to bind themselves permanently by domestic obliga
tions. They must perceive that, if they sought to do
the work given them by Jesus, there was no alterna
tive for them but to resign all other concerns and
duties. It was they whom Jesus was thinking of
when he asserted his principle in its full strength.
That it was not strictly applicable to the great mass
of men who were under the discipline of the law, no
one knew better than he, with his thorough knowledge
of men. Hence he neither concealed from himself
nor from his disciples that a special gift is needed to
the correct understanding and right application of his
principle. Only a few chosen ones are able thoroughly
to appreciate the greatness and sanctity of the domes
tic state. Only a few are able voluntarily to renounce
domestic relations for the sake of God and the Truth,
and at the same time keep themselves pure from all
stain. The moral duty therefore of the. disciples is
twofold : to hold marriage sacred, inviolable, pure, and
also to renounce marriage itself for the sake of the
kingdom of heaven.1 It was of his Apostles and
of them only, under the then existing circumstances
of coming persecution, that Jesus required abstinence
from marriage. It was at this time probably that he
pronounced a look even of unchaste desire, cast upon
the wife of another, adultery, — adultery of the heart.2
And he was thus true to his own character in requir
ing not only abstinence from the external sinful act,
but inward freedom from impure desire.
4. As, on account of their position in the kingdom
of God, Jesus required his disciples to renounce the
1 Matt. xix. 12. 2 Matt. v. 28.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 131
happiness of domestic life, which is in itself allowable,
he had to require of them also the condition, without
which such a sacrifice cannot be made in the right
spirit, and which they were not yet strong enough to
fulfil, namely, the pure childlike mind, which extin
guishes selfish impulses and affections, and gives itself
up with all the heart to the highest ends of life.
Worldly expectations still dimmed their vision, and
hindered their understanding of the Divine kingdom
and its high aims and duties. Even in those days im
mediately preceding the final crisis, the vague dream
of a political empire with Jesus at its head rose before
them, and, in strange blindness, they distributed among
themselves imaginary places of rank and power. They
even betrayed their foolish wishes to their Master.
To their ambitious inquiry, Who is to be the greatest
in the heavenly kingdom, he replied by placing a little
child among them, and, without noticing their confu
sion, admonishing them, with all their proud visions of
the future, to become like that child, and by declaring
to them anew that a childlike spirit alone enables a
man to enter the kingdom of God. And he connected
therewith the requirement of an entire conversion to
the position of a child. In this "conversion" to the
spirit of a child is comprehended all that the Gospel
requires of its confessors, moral and religious purity,
truthfulness, simplicity and singleness. The qualities
so lovely in the child form also the distinguishing char
acter of the disciple of Jesus. The Jewish system of
formulas and forms had destroyed internal purity.
Piety and morality had become creations of Art. It
was on this account that it was so hard for the disciples
to be simply pious and simply moral. Proud hopes
and extravagant expectations were constantly obstruct-

132 FIFTH SECTION.
ing their natural development, moral and religious.
To all this there must now be an end, — so Jesus
solemnly declared. What remained for them to do in
his service was to become self-forgetful and unpretend
ing, as they once were when they were children.1 To
this end they must make up their minds to look no
longer for anything for themselves ; they were simply
to suffer. They were no more to desire anything,
only to resign all things, devoting strength and life to
the cause of mankind. In a word, they were to learn
to humble themselves.2 In renouncing all claims to
honor, reputation, reward, they were to cherish also
the conviction that out of this very self-humiliation,
out of humble labor in the kingdom of God, springs
true greatness, imperishable honor.
From these last instructions of Jesus to his disciples
we gather how entirely his idea of the nature of man
differed from that which is commonly entertained.
The common belief represents children as infected
with hereditary sin, as fallen, even in early infancy,
into the power of evil, wholly subject to wicked desires
and propensities. This is not the idea of Jesus con
cerning childhood. He sees rather in children types
of moral simplicity, examples of purity of heart, living
mirrors of a pure and sincere spirit. To become as
conscious of the right and as free in the conflict of hfe
as a child in its innocence is unconscious and free,
without thinking of its freedom, is, according to Jesus,
the true and the highest condition of his disciples.
We understand now the love which he showed for
children. How touching is it to see him taking chil
dren in his arms, laying his hands upon them, blessing
them, and in impressive words giving them assurance
1 Matt, xviii. 2. 2 Matt, xviii. 4.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 133
of their share in the heavenly kingdom ! 1 The yet
unchildlike temper of the disciples is seen, on the other
hand, in the harsh and arrogant way in which they
repulsed those who brought their children to Jesus for
his blessing. These children had received no baptism.
They had been taught no catechism. Jesus never
theless pronounced them fully accredited members of
his kingdom. The spirit of childhood is the spirit well-
pleasing to God. Innocence, humility, freedom from
pretension, and love are the keys which open the gates
of the heavenly kingdom. When Jesus looked into the
innocent eyes of those children, came there not to his
mind the cunning, suspicious looks of the Pharisees,
who, under a bland exterior, were on the watch to
catch every word of his, that they might find grounds
for a capital charge against him ? All the more was
he stirred with a holy indignation at his disciples for
their harsh repulse of the children. How long he had
been laboring to breathe his spirit into these men, and
how little disposed they were to receive it, was con
tinually making itself apparent. His was indeed the
pure spirit of a child. He sought and desired nothing
on earth for himself. And it was just this that he
required of those who sought admission to his Commu
nion. " Whosoever receives not the kingdom of God
as a child " ; 2 whosoever refuses to serve God and his
neighbor without stipulation or selfish aims, in sincerity
of mind and with hearty love ; whosoever, instead of
losing sight of himself, keeps himself in view even in
his religion and his morality, is no true child of God,
although he may have all the means of grace provided
by the Church, priestly absolution and papal canoniza
tion. The childlike spirit could alone enable the dis-
i Mark x. 13 ; Matt. xix. 13 ; Luke xviii. 15. 2 Mark x. 15.

134 FIFTH SECTION.
ciples of Jesus to labor for his kingdom without
interested views. True piety liberates the mind from
an unworthy dependence on wealth and selfish enjoy
ment. It renders one ready for self-sacrifice, strong
to suffer when the supreme good is at stake, and at
the same time gentle and peaceably disposed towards
blind and bitter enemies.
Immediately after instructing his disciples upon the
subject of marriage, Jesus had occasion to show them
by an example how barren the best intentions are
without this childlike spirit. A teacher of the law,
moved by a better feeling than actuated his class,
asked Jesus the way to eternal life.1 Jesus replied,
obedience to the Ten Commandments. The scribe
declared that he had followed this way, but had not
found the peace which forever satisfies the deepest
want of the soul. Jesus then made upon him the
demand which only the pure, childlike spirit is able to
comply with, namely, the unreserved devotion of all
his earthly goods to the service of the Divine kingdom.
This he required, not of every one who sought admis
sion to his Communion, but only of those who would
labor with him in his great work, and be Apostles in
his missionary field. The teacher of the law was not
equal to this requirement. He lacked the childlike
spirit necessary to a prominent position in the kingdom
of God.
The conversation with this teacher of the law is of
special significance in the light which it throws upon
the character of Jesus. The teacher, learned in the
law, addressed Jesus with the title, " Good Master."
Doubtless it was to his no small surprise that Jesus
disclaimed the appellation " Good," and with the re-
1 Mark x. 17.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 135
mark that this title belongs only to God.1 It is evident
why the later tradition 2 took offence at this disclaimer
of Jesus and sought to deprive it of its offensive point.
As the idea of Jesus passed, even as early as the second
half of the first century, from the light of history into
the twilight of the miraculous and the legendary, his
real human figure became clothed with Divine glory.
That Jesus should have deemed himself unworthy to
be called " Good," seemed incomprehensible. If, as
was generally received, he were of a Divine nature, the
" Logos," of equal nature with God, how could he, not
only distinguish God from himself, but even subordinate
himself morally to God? This disclaimer was without
doubt to be found in the primitive documents. The
first Evangelist endeavored to do it away by putting
in the mouth of the teacher of the Law, whom by the
way he calls " a young man," 3 the inquiry what "good
thing " he should do in order to win eternal life ; and
Jesus is made to ask in reply why the young man in
quired of him about the " good," as there is only One
good? This alteration of an original declaration of
Jesus by an Evangelist is instructive. It shows how,
even so early as before the end of the first century,
embarrassing opinions led to arbitrary changes, in the
evangelical tradition, of utterances of Jesus unquestion
ably genuine. The account of this passage in the first
Evangelist gives a wholly inappropriate meaning to it.
To the question of the teacher what good thing he
should do, Jesus could not possibly have answered
with a rebuke, and still less with the assertion that
" One is good." In both particulars such a reply would
have been unsuitable and without meaning. If Jesus
1 Mark x. 18; Luke xviii. 19. 2 Matt. xix. 17.
8 Matt. xix. 22.

136 FIFTH SECTION.
at once peremptorily disclaimed the quality "good,"
as according to the oldest tradition he did, he could
not have done so out of mere politeness or from false
modesty. His declining the title is all-sufficient evi
dence of his deep and solemn conviction that it did not
belong to him. Only the Eternally Perfect, the source
of all good things, from whose holy fulness all other
moral beings draw life, can be called "good" in the
full, unqualified sense of the word. In this sense Jesus
neither could nor would be esteemed "good." Often
enough had he felt the charm of temptation. Long
enough had he been passing through severe moral con
flicts ; and so had his moral being been unfolded. He
had not yet triumphantly withstood the last temptation
and won the last battle. The great trial was still be
fore him. And if on all occasions he had come off
conqueror it was because there were required of him
persevering efforts, constant labor, inviolable obedience
to the will of his Heavenly Father in order to be more
and more perfect.1 God alone is exalted above all
temptation,2 unchangeable, and therefore perfectly
good. The explicit declaration of Jesus that the
epithet "good" did not apply to him affords at the
same time direct proof that he did not seek to place
himself on an equality with God, as his enemies objected
to him.3 Before the Infinitely High and Holy One,
his Father in heaven, he bowed in profound humility,
not only on the side of his mortal nature, but also in
regard to his spirit. Even in the fourth Gospel there
are preserved traces of utterances of Jesus most ex
plicit to the effect that between himself and God, the
Heavenly Father, there is an essential difference not to
be forgotten. He says there, it is true, that he will
1 See especially Hebr. v. 8. 2 James i. 13. 3 John v. 18.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 137
give eternal life to his followers, " his sheep." While,
according to the other Gospels, eternal life must be
struggled for through a voluntary renunciation of
earthly good. But according to the fourth Gospel,
Jesus omits not to add that the Father is greater than
all,1 i. e. is unconditionally supreme by virtue of the
unity and majesty of His being. And by the declara
tion : " I and the Father are one," 2 Jesus maintains, not
an equality of nature, but simply the unity of his will
with the Father, which appears in the conformity of
his work and his life with the Divine pleasure. For
this reason he could say also, that the Father was in
him and he in the Father.3
5. In the interview with the teacher of the Law, the
source of a false disposition of mind was revealed. It
is the most conspicuous mark of the childlike spirit
that it is perfectly indifferent to earthly possessions, free
from the thirst for gain, and independent of the goods
of this world. Love for earthly goods prevented this
man learned in the Law from joining the Apostles and
the other laborers in the kingdom of God. Under the
fresh impression of this experience, Jesus declared that
the rich could hardly enter the kingdom of God, that
indeed it was easier for a camel to go through the eye
of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Divine
kingdom.4 This declaration not only Contains a sharp
reproof of the pupil of the Law, but it is also the ex
pression of a deep sense of the spiritual danger of
wealth. It was absolutely necessary, from the nature
of their work, that the Apostles should resign all
earthly possessions. Given up to an unsettled, wan
dering life, with no abiding place on earth, in ceaseless
l John x. 2. 2 John x. 30. 8 John x. 38.
1 Mark x. 24 ; Luke xviii. 24 ; Matt. xix. 23.

138 FIFTH SECTION.
conflict with persecution and danger, devoting all their
time and strength to the work of extending and confirm
ing the Divine kingdom, they were not in a condition
to attend to property or money. They had to look to
the friends of the Gospel for the means of subsistence,
or, when this resource failed, to obtain them by the
labor of their hands. That Jesus therefore required
his disciples to' renounce earthly good, was by no means
equivalent to maintaining the incompatibility of prop
erty and wealth with the kingdom of God.
But here he declared wealth itself a positive obstacle
to entrance into the kingdom. And there comes, it
must be admitted, the question whether Jesus exacted
voluntary poverty of the members of his Communion,
or at least whether he considered a limited amount of
property a necessary condition of adhesion to the cause
of the Gospel ? At all events, it is evident from this
declaration, that, up to this time, it was almost exclu
sively only persons of the poorer class who had proved
to be his faithful followers and self-sacrificing friends.
He does not mean to lay down a universal rule. But
he could not be blind to a melancholy fact of almost
daily experience. It was the religion of the poor and
the oppressed that he published, a peculiar Association
from among the people that he gathered. It certainly
was not his settled opinion that wealth is in itself sin
ful and to be condemned. It cannot, however, be
denied that the rich are exposed to the great tempta
tion of putting a false trust in external good. And
that trust in riches prevents a cheerful and self-deny
ing devotion to the kingdom of God,1 Jesus had just
1 Mark (x. 24) gives us the declaration of Jesus in its original form ;
in Matthew (xix. 23) and Luke (xviii. 24) we have the later tradition.
See Appendix, 111. 23, p. 138.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 139
had evidence. How peculiarly hard is it for the rich
to seek support only in moral good ! Generally speak
ing, how haughty, how heartless, how heedless of the
wants of those less favored by fortune, does their
wealth render the rich ! Unquestionably the possessor
of even a limited amount of property is exposed to
this danger ; and in the sense of this danger the dis
ciples exclaimed : " Who, under such circumstances,
can obtain salvation ! " Jesus put an end to their as
tonishment with the quieting word that what is impos
sible with men is possible with God. The spirit of
self-sacrifice, which has gone forth from Jesus, conse
crates even the possession of earthly wealth. It teaches
us to discern its inconstancy and insufficiency, when it
does not serve the eternal interests of life. It dedicates
earthly good to the supreme good, and thus causes that
to be possible with God which seems impossible to men.
It is characteristic of the forward character of Peter,
that he was the first to speak and assure his Master
that he and his companions had practised the required
self-renunciation, and had left all to follow him. The
disciples, it seems, had not been wholly without prop
erty ; and it had doubtless cost them many a struggle
before they resolved to turn their backs upon prop
erty and money, house and home, wife and child.1
But the answer of Jesus is very remarkable. All that
his disciples had relinquished for his sake and the Gos
pel's, houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and
parents, according to his explicit assurance should be
made good to them a hundred-fold in this world.2 That
this assurance was very early variously understood,
appears from the different forms in which it is found in
the first and third Gospels. In the first, Jesus is rep-
1 Mark x. 28 ; Matt. xix. 27 ; Luke xviii. 28. 2 Mark x. 29.

140 FIFTH SECTION.
resented as saying, that at the restoration of all things
he will appear in regal glory, and establish anew the
empire of the Twelve Tribes. He promises to each of
his disciples, as a reward for his present self-sacrifices,
the rank of Prince of a tribe, a throne by the side of
his own glorious throne, and for all the loss suffered a
hundred-fold compensation.1 A manifold compensation
Jesus promises, according to the third Gospel, in " this
time,"2 while, according to this same Gospel, the res
toration of the kingdom of the Twelve Tribes and the
establishment of twelve thrones for his disciples were
first promised by him after the administration of the
Supper.3 It is especially worthy of note that, in both
these Gospels, the hundred-fold compensation relates to
wives also.4 Jesus could not have spoken to his dis
ciples after this manner. He, who so often and so ex
pressly asserted, from the beginning of his career, that
his kingdom rested on a moral basis alone, that he
sought to form a Communion in truth, in righteous
ness and in love, that whosoever labored for the sake
of reward was an unprofitable servant, and that the
only reward that he offered was life eternal, — he
could not possibly have set before his disciples the pros
pect of a restoration of the Old Testament theocracy
and hierarchy increased a hundred-fold in possessions
and enjoyments. He could not possibly have consoled
them with the assurance that they should receive for
one house a hundred houses, for one child a hundred
children, for one wife a hundred wives, as a reward for
their fidelity to his Gospel.
As this promise is found in the first and third Gos
pels, it is evident that the expectation of the return of
1 Matt. xix. 28. 2 Luke xviii. 29.
8 Luke xxii. 29. 4 Matt. xix. 29 ; Luke xviii. 29.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 141
Christ took very early a gross ¦material form among
those who held to the Jewish Christian traditions,
which these two Gospels chiefly followed. The orig
inal meaning of Jesus was early lost among them.
Happily it is preserved in its genuine form in the
second Gospel, wherein Jesus is recorded to have
promised his disciples that compensation a hundred
fold would be made them, "with persecutions,"1 for
the losses suffered by persecution. It is just this ad
dition, which is wanting in the first and third Gospels,
that proves indisputably that the declaration is not to
be taken in its literal sense. Persecutions are and will
continue to be, according to this assurance, the lot
which awaits his disciples in this time. A permanent
condition on this earth will no more be theirs, to say
nothing of a state of quiet and comfort. But brotherly
love among Christians, where that reigns, will have
power to sweeten the bitterest lot. There brothers
have all things in common.2 In the day of need,
one member so far as his circumstances permit, gener
ously places his earthly goods at the disposal of an
other. Whoever once owned a house, to him a hun
dred houses open. Instead of one brother, one sister,
one father and mother, there are now a hundred
brothers and sisters, a hundred fathers and mothers
ready to cheer, and nourish him. A hundred fields,
instead of the one field lost, yield him their produce.
So long as he needs relief, all who in common with
him confess the name of Jesus share with him what
they have. With such benefactions of Christian love,
the sufferings of this time lose their sting, and even the
sorest destitution is thus rendered a source of inex
haustible blessing.
l Mark x. 30. 2 See Acts ii. 44.

142 FIFTH SECTION.
5. Such consolation did the Master give his dis
ciples upon his last journey to Jerusalem. During his
abode in Judea he had probably made in passing sev
eral short visits to the capital.1 For the lamentation
poured forth over the city of the Temple, (wrought by
the first Evangelist according to his custom, into a
longer discourse of Jesus,) 2 refers not to repeated visits
to Jerusalem, but to repeated labors in the city during
his final residence in Judea. Upon this last journey
to Jerusalem, the disciples several times sought to ob
tain from Jesus some authority for their visions of the
Messianic empire. If we have any doubt that he gave
them no hope of receiving a hundred-fold increase of
their earthly possessions and of sitting on twelve
thrones, the way in which he treated those dreams
would dissipate it.
It was the sons of Zebedee, James and John, who,
at that solemn and weighty moment, besought a special
favor of Jesus : 3 nothing less than to appoint them to
the first rank in the approaching distribution of the
offices and dignities of the heavenly kingdom. It
would be inconceivable how these men, belonging to
the most intimate circle of the disciples of Jesus, could
be under the influence of so gross an error, if we did
not know from experience what power, ambition has,
and the hierarchical passion for ruling, to blind the
clearest vision. Jesus had in fact but just before de
clared anew that he was going to meet suffering and
death;4 and. now these two disciples desired a posi-
1 Luke xiii. 34. 2 Matt, xxiii. 37.
3 Mark x. 35 ; Matt. xx. 20. Mark has the older tradition, nearest
to the original. The later tradition, out of consideration for the
Apostles, represents the mother of the sons of Zebedee as preferring
the request.
4 Mark x. 32; Matt. xx. 17; Luke xviii. 31.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 143
tive assurance of a higher reward in the future, to
sustain them in the trouble that was immediately at
hand. With wonderful patience, but also with inflexible
firmness, Jesus set them right. They should drink of
his cup. They should be baptized with his baptism.
They should share in his sufferings and death. They
should be persecuted and ill-treated like him for the
sake of truth and righteousness. Such was his answer.
In adding that to sit on his right and on his left in his
kingdom, as these disciples desired, depended not on
him but on God,1 he declared distinctly that his king
dom was not a worldly one.2 Had he been the founder
of an earthly empire, it would have been in his power
to reward his adherents with worldly honors and dis
tinctions. Jesus seized this occasion to instruct his
disciples more particularly as to the nature of his king
dom and of the honor and rank which have worth
therein. There is indeed in his kingdom, according to
these further revelations of Jesus, the distinction of
great and small, high and low. But the relation of
the two classes to one another, is essentially different
from that which exists in the kingdoms of the world.
Jesus himself states the distinguishing mark in this
respect of the kingdom founded by him. Worldly
empires are supported by force, military force especi
ally, which does not necessarily imply that they do not
rest upon principles of right, but they execute their
will, when they are resisted, with the sword. Against
such as oppose them they employ inexorable force.
The kingdom of God, on the other hand, excludes all
force from its communion. It rests upon the free ac
cord and co-operation of its members. Hence whoso-
1 Mark x. 40 ; Matt. xx. 23. 2 Luke xvii. 20.

144 FIFTH SECTION.
ever desires to take a " great " or high position there,
must begin with renouncing all claims to temporal
power. It is " little," inconsistent, irrational, in the
heavenly kingdom, to aim at the exercise of temporal
dominion. Nothing is clearer, according to these words of
Jesus, than that he never had the remotest idea of
establishing a " church " to be supported by force.
His only thought was to form a free Association of
men faithful to their convictions, drawn to his Cause
through an impulse from within and by hearty interest
and love, and striving with him and with all of a like
mind to accomplish its ends. The idea of " ruling " or
of government is nowhere to be found, according to
Jesus, in the vocabulary of the Gospel. Whoever is
great, shows his greatness in a way directly the re
verse, by readiness to serve. He is the greatest or
" first " of all who serves the most ; and the rank of a
member of the divine kingdom is determined by the
amount and importance of his services.
The ideal of moral and religious greatness, which
had formed itself with steadily increasing clearness in
the mind of Jesus, he could not set before his disciples
more plainly than by his own example. They were to
be his followers, to continue his work. But the end
of his work he now described by saying that " he had
come not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life
a ransom for many." 1 The greatest service rendered
by Jesus to mankind was unquestionably his volun
tary devotion of himself to death in their behalf. And
his disciples in like manner could best serve humanity
by showing themselves ready to give up their lives
for the diffusion of the Gospel among both Jews and
Gentiles. 1 Mark x. 45 ; Matt. xx. 28.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 145
This declaration of Jesus concerning the purpose of
his death has great interest for us now for a special
reason. It is the only declaration of the kind. And
as it was made at the point of time when he was on
his last journey to Jerusalem, it is especially interest
ing to learn from his own lips what significance he
himself ascribed to his death, and what he regarded as
the important result of it.
He describes the sacrifice of his life as a price, a
" ransom " by which those for whom it was sacrificed
were set free. In speaking of the ransomed as "many"
he looks beyond the borders of the Jewish Communion
into the Gentile world, whither his disciples were
appointed to carry the word of the Cross. As at an
other time he called the people and the nations, who
needed help, "the weary and the heavy laden,"1 so now
they appear to him as "prisoners." The condition of
a prisoner is so pitiable that it commands universal
sympathy. Losing his personal liberty, man loses
nearly all the joy and life of life. In such a situa
tion, both among Jews and Gentiles, were the people
so called. Almost all public burdens were thrown*
upon the lower and middle classes. They were for
the most part deprived of the precious blessing of civil
and social freedom ; and by their dependent and op
pressed condition, were in manifold ways exposed to
the temptation of the grosser sins and vices. They
were in the fullest sense of the word in servitude. To
liberate them from this abject condition of slavery, to
bring them truth, freedom, righteousness, joy, peace,
love, the comfort of expiation and forgiveness, the
consciousness of their human worth, and the fresh, glad
sense of life flowing therefrom, to invite them to par-
i Matt. xi. 28.
VOL. II. 10

146 FIFTH SECTION.
ticipate in the enjoyment of the moral and spiritual
good, which alone gives to human life an enduring
value and a new sanctity, to insure to them, as to the
hitherto privileged higher classes, their portion in the
imperishable good of our being, was one of the first
objects of the work of Jesus.
In order to accomplish this object, it was necessary
that he should devote himself to death. Only by his
death could the obstacle to the development of the
true destiny of Israel and of all other nations as well,
be overcome. This obstacle was the stiff inflexible
letter of forms and formulas, which had killed the spirit
of love in Jew and Gentile in civil and social life. In
deference to the authority of his Law which he wor
shipped, the Jew hated the Gentile and excluded him
from the blessings of salvation. The priest looked
with contempt upon the common laity standing far
beneath him. Among the Gentiles, the free citizen
refused even personal rights to the slave and consid
ered him as a thing dead. Countries conquered in
war, prisoners taken in battle, were treated with cru
elty. Among the Jews there was no respect for the
dignity of woman. This state of things was made
sacred by the letter of the Law and the Statute. The
Wrong, flourishing in the world before Christ and
established by usage in the place of the Right, must
be expiated. The letter of righteousness was to be
overcome by the spirit of righteousness. The domin
ion of the letter was bound to kill Jesus, in order
that it might die itself with him. He died, as accord
ing to the letter of the Law he justly deserved. He
had taken a stand in irreconcilable opposition thereto.
It came now to the point that the spirit of freedom and
love that inspired him must break with the Statute.

SPHERE OF ACTION IN JUDEA. 147
And the faith with which he went to his death showed
that the spirit was stronger than the letter and formula
of the Law. With death he paid the Statute its last
debt. All it could do was to destroy the most right
eous person that the centuries had ever seen. It had
become empty, hollow, senseless. But he lived, lived
on in his spirit, in his word, in his love, in the religious
body which testified of him. By his death the Jewish
Law was condemned. A blessed stream of life flowed
into the world from the blood that flowed fronr-him.
Thus his death was the victory of freedom and love,
the fountain of a new and higher righteousness for Jew
and Gentile, a ransom for the prisoners in Israel and
in the whole Gentile world. At the same time, pain
and suffering were hallowed by him as making mani
fest in the most exalted manner the Divine among men.
He glorified self-sacrifice as the most perfect revelation
of heavenly justice and love.
In his giving up his life as a ransom " in the place of
many," there is nothing at variance with truth and
reason. It was doubtless the special duty of the "pris
oners " to help themselves, and by self-sacrifice secure
the blessings of which they were deprived. But we
know from daily experience how individuals are con
tinually called to contend and struggle for the highest
interests of life, to suffer and so to help the " many."
Jesus carried in his heart the consciousness of being the
champion and liberator of many, and particularly at
that time when he was about to undertake the fatal
journey to Jerusalem. It had now become to him an
irrevocable conviction, that he was to contend and
suffer and die, as a sacrifice for the persecuted and
oppressed portion of mankind, as the friend and brother
of the poor, the protector of the miserable upon whom

148 FIFTH SECTION.
the leaders in Church and State were wont to look
down with indifference and contempt. Thus the idea
of the Deliverer going to meet death is put in the
purest light. That he knew himself, not as the repre
sentative of the distinguished, the prosperous and the
rich ; that he relinquished utterly all human approval,
all honor, all aid from these classes ; that he sought
nothing more nor less than to be the helper and rescuer
of those who found nowhere else a heart to help and
a hand to save them ; that his death was a death met in
the service of poverty and of sorrow, of the outcast and
the perishing, — this is the divine seal which the
Eternal Father himself impressed upon his word, when
he said that he gave up his life as a ransom for many.
Therefore upon the very darkest pages of the history
of the nations the name of Jesus shines like a star.

NOTE.

[Throughout this whole chapter the reader cannot fail to
perceive what we have already presumed to indicate as, in our
estimation, the defect of Dr. Schenkel's representation of Jesus.
That Jesus was deeply interested in the instruction of his imme
diate disciples and that he gave them the wisest rules for their
guidance, there can be no question. But Dr. Schenkel sets him
before us altogether too strongly in the light of a tutor, drilling
them, so to speak, for a special office, and, consequently, as giving
utterance to the grandest truths not so much from an irrepressible
sense of their essential and infinite worth and world-wide impor
tance as with a view to a certain effect. But, as we listen to Jesus,
he seems to us to be not so much forming a church, gathering a
communion, as publishing the eternal laws of the spirit written
in the nature of all men, declaring the truth which concerns all
men as men, discoursing not of a kingdom of his own, which he
was to construct, but of the ever-present, all-embracing, everlast-

NOTE. 149
ing kingdom of God. He speaks not altogether, nor chiefly, in
obedience and response to a call from without, but from the rich,
overflowing fulness within. Outward circumstances, it is true,
gave him occasion, but the well-spring of truth and power was in
his own being.
Thus in the account given in the foregoing chapter of the man
ner in which Jesus received children, one misses the naturalness
of the incident. Upon a certain occasion when a great crowd was
gathered round him, some women tried to get near him with their
children, that they might see him and that he might take notice
of them. His disciples, without being especially " unchildlike,"
naturally thought the importunity of these mothers intrusive and
an interruption. The disciples simply did not know their Master,
who expressed himself on the occasion far more from the deep
tenderness of his nature than with any view to effect.
Take again the incident commented upon in the foregoing
chapter, the interview of Jesus with the rich youth. It appears
to us there is a great deal more of living, natural truth in it
than our author gives us the idea of. On a certain occasion
a young man of wealth came running to Jesus, and, kneeling
down before him, asked, " Good Master ! what shall I do to
inherit eternal life ? " Before answering his question Jesus dis
claimed the appellation of " good," observing that there was
only one good, — God. Now, as Jesus, when he looked upon
this youth, " loved him," may we not infer that his appearance
was in no ordinary degree prepossessing ? There was doubt
less an air of ingenuousness about him that went to the heart
of Jesus, and a tone of sincerity in his address that made Jesus
feel that there was more in it than mere custom or ordinary
courtesy dictated. It came to him from those ingenuous lips
— that appellation of " Good " — as something more than an
unmeaning formality, and it seems to me that in disclaiming it
he spoke almost as much to himself as to the young man, for he
paused not for any reply. For the instant, the winning charm of
the youth's appearance and manner was so strong that Jesus
instinctively repelled the seductive flattery, as much to guard
himself as to reprove the youth. Jesus is commonly considered
as having imposed a very severe condition upon this young seeker
of life in that he required him to sell all that he had. But does
not this incident attest the wisdom of Jesus, his moderation, his
freedom from all desire for partisans ? Just as on another

150 NINETEENTH CHAPTER.
occasion when the same question was put to him (Luke x. 25), so
now, he made no personal claim upon the young man. As he
referred the scribe to the Law and what was written there, so he
bade this youth keep the commandments of God. And it was
because the youth was not satisfied and desired to know what
further was needful that Jesus told him that if he would be per
fect, if he would fulfil the highest idea of duty, he must dispose of his
property in the best way possible, and come and join in his great
work. This requisition was so entirely wise under the circum
stances, it was so obviously necessary that any one who joined Je
sus should not be encumbered with property, which furthermore
could not be secure in the times that were at hand, when life
itself, to say nothing of property, would be in constant danger,
that no inference can be drawn from this case as to the views held
by Jesus in regard to the holding of property. The young man,
habituated to the indulgences of wealth, was naturally enough
unequal to so great a sacrifice, excellent and amiable as he was.
And so he who just now came running to Jesus with all the
ardent self-confidence of youth, and with a countenance beaming
with goodness and sincerity, turns with downcast looks, sad and
chagrined, away. As he moved away, Jesus "looked round"
upon his disciples and exclaimed : " How hardly shall they that
have riches enter into the kingdom of God ! " And when upon
the faces of his disciples the greatest astonishment was depicted
at these words (Mark. x. 24), he reiterated the declaration in
still stronger terms, but not without a touch of the tenderness of
mind produced by the affectionate interest which the young man
had awakened : " Children ! " he said, " how hard is it for them
that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God ! It is easier
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man
to enter into the kingdom of God." "What is this but the strong
language in which deep feeling always delights, and which is
never to be understood without qualification, never to be taken
as the expression of a deliberate judgment V The case of this rich
youth moved Jesus very deeply, showing as it did what an ob
stacle wealth was to a self-sacrificing devotion to the truth of God.
Here was a young man, so blameless and so good that one could
not look into his face without loving him, and yet utterly disabled
by his riches from taking part in the great work and serving in
the kingdom of God. He had no strength or will for the priva
tions and self-sacrifices which that service made unavoidable.

NOTE. 151
If such an one as he could not enter the divine kingdom or ser
vice, what rich man could ? Was it not perfectly natural that,
in view of such an instance, Jesus should have created in him,
a feeling of. the difficulty in the way of the rich so strong
at the moment that he could give no adequate expression to it,
except by comparing it to a physical impossibility ? His disciples
were only the more amazed, " astonished out of measure." And
here Dr. Schenkel is led into a misunderstanding, I apprehend, of
the expression of their astonishment, "Who then can be saved?"
by attaching a more modern idea to the word " saved," and by
supposing the disciples to have had a more spiritual conception of
salvation than they had then reached. The salvation which, in
common with all their countrymen, the disciples were looking for,
was the coming rich and glorious kingdom of the Messiah. And
when Jesus declared that the rich could not enter the kingdom,
they were confounded, and this exclamation of theirs, Who then
can be saved ! was precisely the same as if they had said, How
then can there be any grand kingdom, if there are to be no rich
men in it ? What Jesus said in reply was accompanied or pre
ceded, it would seem, by a very impressive look, for it is noted in
the first two Gospels that he "beheld" them, — "looked upon
them," as he answered : " With men it is impossible, but not with
God : for with God all things are possible " ; i. e. " It may seem
impossible to you, how there can be any salvation without riches
and honors, but it is possible with God." It was all that he could
say. They could not understand at once the nature of the divine
kingdom, of the true salvation. This was a matter which it was
to take them their lifetime rightly to comprehend. But this de
claration of Jesus by no means satisfied his disciples. Mark now
how Peter, speaking as he was wont for the others as well as for
himself, betrays his mercenary motives and theirs, and shows that
to whatever privations they had all submitted, whatever self-
sacrifices they had thus far made, it had all been done in no
right spirit, but in full expectation of being repaid in kind when
their Master should ascend the throne of the Messiah. " Look I"
exclaimed Peter, " we have left all and followed thee, what shall
we have, therefore ? " It is somewhat surprising that our acute
author finds so much difficulty in understanding the answer
of Jesus to Peter, and so evidently misses its point. In reply to
Peter, Jesus assures him that for all that they gave up for the
kingdom of God, they should receive a hundred-fold in this life, and

152 NINETEENTH CHAPTER.
had he said a thousand, it would still have been only an inade
quate statement of'a fact. For what amount of temporal blessings
can be compared in value with the conscious possession of the
truth and spirit of God ? Did not the Apostles have the richest
experience of their Master's promise, when in after years they
made the dungeons into which they were cast ring like so many
palaces with the hymns of their triumphant joy ? But doubtless,
at the moment that he gave them this promise, they confidently
understood him to mean that for all that they had forsaken they
were to be paid in kind. Hence, how natural it is that the con
struction, which, with the ideas of the divine kingdom that they
then had, they put upon his promise, should have very early crept
into one of the reports of it, and he should be recorded (as in the
first Gospel) to have told them that they should sit upon twelve
thrones, judging every one a tribe of Israel. This was without
doubt what at the time they honestly understood him to mean.
The disciples through Peter, having thus, with a childlike trans
parency, shown their hearts to Jesus and their expectation that
they were going to gain peculiar advantages from being the first
to join him, he goes on to tell them that many that are first will be
last and the last will be first, and to illustrate this saying by the
parable of the householder, who hired laborers to work in his
vineyard at different hours of the day, and at the end of the day
paid them all alike. This parable, by the way, is commonly en
tirely misunderstood. Its object manifestly was to teach the dis
ciples that they were not to expect to gain any advantage over
those, who, in the Providence of Heaven, should come after them
into the service of Truth, and who would gladly have come ear
lier had they had the opportunity. The eleventh-hour men in
the parable had not refused to work before. Their not working
was their mishap, not their fault.
Our author hardly does justice to the grand answer which
Jesus makes to the petition of James and John, who asked for the
two highest places in his kingdom. The definition which he gave
of true Power on that occasion does it not rank with his greatest
sayings? Is it not destined to revolutionize the world? Whoso
ever will be great let him serve. Mankind, says Jesus, as a great
philosopher has since said of Nature, to be commanded must be
served. — Trans.]

SIXTH SECTION.

THE CRISIS.
CHAPTEE XX.
THE OLD TEMPLE AND THE NEW.
1. During his last sojourn in Judea, Jesus, as we
have already said, probably visited the city of Jerusalem
several times, although the fact is not expressly stated
in the first three Gospels, only his public and solemn
entrance into the city claiming their attention. The
fourth Evangelist, on the other hand, who, besides, has
made use of but scanty records of the career of Jesus
in Galilee, has drawn his statements almost exclusively
from original documents relating to the final abode of
Jesus in Judea. And these he has used with the
understanding that Jesus went several times to the
national feasts at Jerusalem, and thence returned again
to Galilee.
The leaders of the hierarchical party in Jerusalem
had doubtless followed the course of Jesus in Galilee
with great attention, and soon with growing excite
ment. Individuals had been deputed, as we have
related, to go from Jerusalem to Galilee, and investi
gate the scandal which Jesus had caused. And, in the
course of things, it had become clearer and clearer to
the chief men of the high Council that a decisive con
flict between the theocratical constitution and the
God's kingdom established by Jesus was inevitable.

154 SIXTH SECTION.
How favorably was the game now standing for the
ruling party ! They had the power in their hands.
They could at any moment institute legal proceedings
against Jesus. They seem, however, for a consider
able time to have shrunk from any openly hostile act. ,
They contented themselves for a while with endeavoring
covertly to undermine the reputation of Jesus. They
sought to render him an object of suspicion among the
people. They pronounced him a fool, a madman.
They perverted as much as possible his most innocent
expressions, his purest views. . On the other hand, he
was protected from a public prosecution, partly by his
popularity, partly by his moderation, prudence and
wisdom. When, in opposition to this last statement, he is rep
resented as the object of deadly persecution from the
very beginning, it is because this idea rests upon the
erroneous assumption of the fourth Evangelist ; name
ly, that the extreme state of feeling existing between
Jesus and his opposers, which could only have been
the consequence of a series of foregone incidents and
complications, began with the very commencement of
his public life, which is simply impossible. The hostil
ity of the hierarchical party was a steady but only
gradual growth, and it required the strongest incen
tive to excite their hatred to the pitch of determining
to put a violent end to his career upon the charge of a
capital crime.
Even in the fourth Gospel itself, there are traces of
the true order of events. Although, according to this
Gospel, the " Jews " were on the one hand cease
lessly busy in the attempt to execute their murderous
plots against Jesus,1 yet it is evident, on the other
1 John vii. 1, 19 ; viii. 37, 40, 59 ; x. 31, 39.

THE CRISIS. 155
hand, that it was during his last abode in Judea that
they first formed the resolve to devote their victim to
death.1 Up to the time of his last journey to Jerusa
lem, there reigned in the Council great indecision in
reference to the measures to be adopted against him.
There is no trace of a concerted, well-defined plan of
several, years' standing to put him out of the way. It
is only a sudden word of the presiding High Priest,
Caiaphas, together with the weight of his opinion, that
decides the Council that the life of a man, who was
growing more and more dangerous every hour, must
be sacrificed to the good of the whole. 2
By what motives now was the hierarchical party im
pelled to the momentous resolution to institute proceed
ings against Jesus ? To this question, the first three
Gospels give an answer entirely different from that of
the fourth Gospel. According to the latter, it was
the miraculous resurrection of Lazarus that greatly
alarmed the High Council, and hastened the long-
delayed measure.3 That the first three Gospels make
no mention of the raising of Lazarus, does not indeed
prove that the fact is a pure invention of the fourth
Evangelist, but it certainly shows that it cannot have
had the consequence which the fourth Evangelist
ascribes to it. The first three Evangelists could not
have passed it over in entire silence, if it were the
special and essential cause of the legal prosecution of
Jesus. But even the fourth Gospel says nothing of
the resurrection of Lazarus as a ground of accusation
made use of against Jesus at his trial. In the pro
ceedings of the High Council itself, mention is indeed
made according to the fourth Gospel by the enemies
i John xi. 53. 2 John xi. 47.
8 John xi. 46.

156 SIXTH SECTION.
of Jesus, of the " many signs " wrought by him.1 But
they are not spoken of as among the special reasons of
the accusation and the sentence. The remark of Caia-
phas in the final sitting of the Council that, if Jesus
were suffered to go on unchecked, the coming in of
the Romans and the ruin of the theocratic govern
ment were to be feared,2 points to a reason very differ
ent from a miraculous resurrection, which could hardly
have had for consequences the official interference of
the Romans and the change of the hierarchical con
stitution. Besides, upon closer examination, a contra
diction discloses itself in the narrative of the fourth
Gospel. When Jesus received intelligence of the
deadly plots of his enemies, he retired in order to escape
them to the little city of Judea, Ephraim. The ut
most caution was needed, as he was virtually declared
an outlaw.3 Nevertheless, he left his place of retreat
without any hesitation six days before the Feast of the
Passover and betook himself to Bethany, the very
spot where the miracle so eventful for him is said to
have been wrought. And further. There in Bethany
he consented to attend an entertainment given with a
certain degree of show, thus drawing, almost with de
sign apparently, public attention to himself. And then
from Bethany he made a formal entrance into Jerusa
lem amidst the acclamations of the people, thus giving
into the hands of the hierarchical party the most pow
erful weapons against him and exposing himself to
suspicion even in the eyes of the unprejudiced. All
these difficulties disappear of themselves, when we
assume with the first three Evangelists that, after a
sojourn of some length in Judea and occasional visits
to Jerusalem, Jesus, shortly before the Passover, made
1 John xi. 47. 2 John xi. 48. 8 John xi. 54-57.

THE CRISIS. 157
a solemn entrance into the city, and that up to this
time no positive steps had been taken against him by
the High Council. It is only upon this supposition
that no unfavorable light falls upon the character of
Jesus. It is a -manifest trait of his character, that he
never needlessly exposed himself to danger, and never
without the most urgent occasion offered any new
nourishment to the suspicion of which he was the ob
ject. He was careful to avoid hazarding his personal
safety by rashly inflaming his enemies to acts of vio
lence. Had a sentence of death, even only as a pre
liminary step, been already pronounced upon him on
the part of the High Council, had an order for his arrest
been issued J on account of the political clangers with
which the constitution of the Jewish state was threat
ened through him, — the entertainment at Bethany
and the entry into the city of the Temple, prepared
with so much deliberation, — this bold appearance in
the very citadel of the highest temporal and spiritual
authorities would be, not only an historical, but also a
moral enigma.
The enigma is solved by the supposition that up to
the day of his entrance into the city no decisive reso
lution had been formed by the opposing party, and no
hostile measures taken. Thus far the Pharisees had
been laying their snares for him at every step. But
they had not been able to entrap him. Until now
there had been so little cause for a capital charge
against him, that they had to watch every word of his,
in order to find some ground for a legal accusation.
His solemn entry into Jerusalem changed the situation
of things. This it was that first gave the hierarchical
party a weapon to be used against him with effect.
1 John xi. 53 - 57.

158 SIXTH SECTION.
Now at last he had come forth with an apparent claim
at least to a public character, which might be con
strued as showing criminal designs unfavorable to the
stability of the Jewish Constitution and its sacred
traditions. 2. That it was not by mere accident that Jesus, at the
close of his labors in Judea, made a formal and public
entry into Jerusalem, all the Evangelists agree. He
not only made particular arrangements for the occasion,
which the later tradition represents as suggested by a
miraculous foreknowledge,1 but as he approached the
city he allowed his disciples to pay him extraordinary
homage.2 The people had received information of his
coming, evidently not without his consent, for they
flocked to meet him in great numbers and received
him in the most festal manner, with royal honors,
strewing green branches before him, and shouting,
" Hosanna ! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of
the Lord ! Blessed be the kingdom of our father David
that cometh in the name of the Lord ! " 3 If, accord
ing to the fourth Gospel, the popular excitement were
the consequence of the raising of Lazarus, the multi
tude would have cried: "Here comes the Awakener
of the dead ! " They would have streamed forth to
meet him and praise and thank him for that great
deed.4 But the correctness of this account in the
fourth Gospel is very doubtful. That Jesus, with
whom it was a rule to avoid all display in working his
miracles and to impose silence on those upon whom
they were wrought, who, moreover, attached so httle
1 Mark xi. 3 ; Matt. xxi. 3 ; Luke xix. 30 ; John xii. 16.
* Mark xi. 7 ; Matt. xxi. 7 ; Luke xix. 35.
8 Mark xi. 9 ; Matt. xxi. 9 ; Luke xix. 38.
4 John xii. 9, 17.

THE CRISIS. 159
value to his wonder-working gift that he lamented
rather when signs and miracles were demanded of him
as his credentials, should have consented, — nay, that
he should himself have prepared a festal procession to
glorify one of his miracles, is simply impossible. If,
as is not to be doubted, he had in view a solemn entry
into Jerusalem, attended by the lively sympathy of the
pilgrims on their way to the Feast of the Passover, the
impelling motive thereto must have been something
other than the resurrection of Lazarus.
The hour had now come when Jesus had to declare
himself to be the Messiah', and in a meaning of the
word altogether opposed to the theocratic expectations
of the nation, — the founder of a new moral and relig
ious Communion resting on the foundations of truth,
rightepusness, freedom, equality, salvation for all, and
especially for the miserable and the poor among the
people. The necessity for this declaration came with
the moment that he made his appearance for the first
time at the seat of the theocratic power in the midst
of the people gathered to celebrate the greatest national
festival of the Jews. Here in Jerusalem, amidst the
festal music of the great Jubilee, under the eyes of the
assembled nation, on the threshold of its most cher
ished sanctuary, surrounded by his mighty and formi
dable opposers, he dared not wrap himself in an ambig
uous silence. Here and now, before all and especially
before his foes, he must declare his purpose and who
he was. Slowly, step by step, as we have seen, his
Messianic consciousness had been formed into full
clearness in opposition to all the theocratic expecta
tions. He had made himself known, first to the small
er, and then to the larger company of his disciples.
He had prepared them for the inevitable consequences

160 SIXTH SECTION.
of this his public appearance in his high office. He
had placed before them in the plainest manner the
privations, sufferings, and persecutions that awaited
them. They had, without doubt, spread abroad with great
eagerness in these last days the intelligence that in
him the promises of the fathers were fulfilled in an
unlooked for manner, in a sense far higher than that
in which they were commonly understood. And, as is
usual in such cases, the news had flown with lightning
speed from mouth to mouth. That it was wholly
misunderstood by the multitude was natural. The
people had no idea of any but the Old Testament
Messiah, the son of David. And that Jesus,-as King
of Israel, would bring them deliverance from the yoke
of the priesthood and of Rome, they considered as good
as proved. Under this impression they crowded to
meet him upon his entry into Jerusalem. The hie
rarchical party made no attempt to prevent their doing
him homage. While they were surprised at it, they
welcomed with silent satisfaction every step that led to
the longed for crisis. Jesus himself desired that things
should come to a final settlement. His enemies, hith
erto always concealed, — they were ever on the watch,
— would now quit their concealment. The keepers
and guardians of the great national interests and sanc
tities were now to declare openly for or against his
work. On this account he did not prevent the people
from solemnly hailing him as the Messiah coming in
the name of the Lord,1 and with whom was coming
also the' kingdom of their father David.2
The people who met Jesus with their acclamations
had very vague notions of what was to be immediately
1 Ps. cxviii. 26. * Mark xi. 10.

THE CRISIS. 161
expected of him. But that it was not his design to
possess himself of the throne of David by force, they
well knew from what they had learned from his disci
ples ; and all that they had thus far seen or heard of
him could have produced no other impression.
The entry into Jerusalem was altogether pacific in
character. Jesus rode into the city (not with any in
tentional reference to a prophecy x ) upon the foal of
an ass* the symbol of patience and gentleness. His
attendants carried no weapons. The branches and
green leaves, with which the way was strewed, were
emblems of the peaceful thoughts filling the breasts of
those who were thus entering the city. It was an
eventful hour. That which prompted the popular
voice to the expression of devout aspiration and hope,
was hidden from the leaders of the people who were
only maddened by what they witnessed to a deadlier
hate and wrath against Jesus.
3. Jesus was resolved to make his appearance in
Jerusalem as the Messiah, and as the Messiah to bear
himself there. But it was not enough for his purpose
that he should make a solemn entrance into the city.
He was now to show by a public and decisive act that
he had Messianic prerogatives. And of these he was
determined instantly, without regard to consequences,
to make use. According to the first three Evangelists
the procession moved without any pause of any length
to the Temple situated on the road from Jericho.2 If,
as the second Evangelist states, Jesus simply took a
view of the Temple,3 and returned immediately to
Bethany, there is a mistake here, we imagine, in the
later working up of the narrative, and it was erroneously
l Zach. ix. 9. 2 Mark xi. 11 ; Matt. xxi. 12 ; Luke xix. 45.
8 Markxi. 11.
vol. ir. 11

162 SIXTH SECTION.
thought also that the parable of the fig-tree must come
in at this point as an historical fact. Luke mentions a
circumstance which happened during the triumphal en
try of Jesus into the city of Zion, and which probably
gave occasion to the insertion of the parable of the
fig-tree in this place. According to Luke, Jesus, not
withstanding the remonstrances of certain Pharisees,
not only made no attempt to silence the acclamations
of his friends and followers, he gave expression to his
deep sorrow that the city of Jerusalem itself did not
acknowledge him.1 For it was, comparatively speak
ing, only a small portion of the population of the city
that took part in the homage which was paid him.
The multitude was composed chiefly of Galileans
coming to the Feast. Under these circumstances,
Jesus saw the near end of the theocracy, and with it
the ruin of the splendor, wealth, and all the proud
hopes of Jerusalem. He did not conceal the solemnity
of the juncture. He did not pass it over in silence.
It was now manifest that the people, notwithstanding
their overpowering majority, were not in a condition to
liberate themselves from the ruling party, and that it
was no kingdom of peace and freedom, of righteousness
and truth, that they wanted, no religious renovation,
no moral cleansing, changing the whole spirit of the
nation ; they thirsted for power only, and riches and
dominion. Although what Jesus said on this occasion
is no longer extant in its original connection,2 yet it is
not to be doubted that he foretold the near approach
of the overthrow of Jerusalem by the Roman power,
and shed bitter tears over the fate of the deluded city
1 Luke xix. 41 .
2 Luke xix. 43 is an allusion to the impending destruction of Jeru
salem not to be mistaken.

' THE CRISIS. 163
of God. Thus, since the nation as such rejected the
salvation which Jesus offered them, as he now clearly
foresaw that they would, there was nothing left for
them in their blind proneness to excitement but to
yield themselves up without reserve to the men who
were bent upon bringing about a politico-theocratic
revolution. That these men were all unable to cope
with the mighty power of Rome could not escape the
keen vision of Jesus.
But Jesus did not suffer himself to be long delayed
by this melancholy mood in accomplishing the main pur
pose of his entry into the city. He turned first to the
Temple, and thither also rolled the tumultuous billows
of men. It is inconsistent with the earnestness and
purity of his character to imagine that he accepted the
shouts of the crowd, the palm branches and garments
spread in his way, as his consecration to the office of
Messiah. By a Messianic act he desired to accredit
himself publicly as the Founder of the true Com
munion of God, and to announce to the opposing party
especially that the kingdom of God stands not in words
but in power.
Notwithstanding the zeal of the ruling party for
forms, the precincts of the Temple were daily dese
crated in the most shameful manner, partly by money
changers who established themselves in the Court of
the Gentiles for the purpose of furnishing by exchange
the double drachmas required for the payment of the
Temple dues, and partly "by the tradespeople who of
fered for sale the animals, frankincense, wine, oil, and
whatever a devoted Israelite needed for his religious
offerings. Upon entering the outer places of the
Temple, Jesus instantly drove away from the precincts
of the sanctuary, without parleying with them, these

164 SIXTH SECTION.
tradesmen and exchangers and the people who were
dealing with them. The overturning of the tables and
seats of the exchangers and sellers of doves shows that
it was not done without violence, and proves the resist
ance made by those who were carrying their profane
articles to and fro within the Temple.1 vThe fourth
Gospel states, that, in driving out these tradesmen and
their cattle, Jesus made use of a scourge which he
made himself of a piece of cord.2 While this scene of
tumult was enacted, the people, as it appears, thronged
into the outer courts of the Temple, and Jesus seized
the occasion publicly to justify what he was doing by
appealing to passages in the prophets.3 This was un
questionably a very singular act of his. It requires
explanation. If it were, as the fourth Gospel tells us, at the very
beginning of his career that Jesus undertook thus to
purify the Temple in a way apparently so arbitrary,
and in fact almost violent, it would be inexplicable.
The whole subsequent tenor of the Evangelical history
would in this case be a riddle. There would be no
development, no progress to be traced in the con
sciousness of Jesus. And there would be also the
further riddle, why for such a space of time he took
such pains to divert public attention from his person,
and why he so long delayed the confession of his Mes
siahship to his disciples. That the fourth Gospel
states as having occurred at the beginning of his pub
lic Hfe what could have taken place only at the close,
only reveals the fact that the fourth Gospel derived its
statements chiefly from sources that had their origin
1 Matt. xi. 16.
2 John iv. 15. The account in the fourth Gospel bears, evident
marks of a subsequent amplification.
8 Is. lvi. 7; Jer. vii. 11.

THE CRISIS. 165
in Judea. And as the so-called Purification of the
Temple was the first act of Jesus in Jerusalem that
caused a sensation, the fourth Gospel transfers it to the
beginning of his career as the most natural publication
of his Messianic office.
But even considered as an act performed towards
the close of his public life, it still appears in many re
spects objectionable. Jesus had come to found a king
dom of the Eternal Spirit, to build a temple of the
Spirit, as upon this very occasion he declared.1 Whence
then this flaming zeal for the house of God built of
stone ? Up to this hour he had avoided every illegal
step, the faintest appearance even of any violent pro
ceedings. Why then this sudden, stormy, unhesitat
ing procedure, before making any complaint to the
officials who had the Temple in charge ? It was not
his intention, under any circumstances, to bring the
Communion which he was forming in a close rela
tion to the Temple service. He had said most ex
plicitly that the Temple would be destroyed. To
what purpose then this attempt to reform the Temple
service ?
Nothing indeed could be more erroneous than to
imagine that Jesus intended by the purification of the
outer courts of the Temple to announce himself as
the reformer of the Temple service. His design could
only have been to express a warning against any fur
ther devotion to that service. He sought to set plainly
before the multitude that attended him the desecration
of the sanctuary by the base love of gain and a traffic
doubly improper in that place. He wished to make
manifest to them in this fact the ruin of the theocratic
power and the approaching abolition of the Temple
1 Matt. xxvi. 61 ; John ii. 19.

166 SIXTH SECTION.
service, as a fact already at hand. He thus aimed to
prove his sacred right to establish the spiritual temple
of his Communion in the place of this temple of stone,
degraded and desecrated as it was by its own guardians
and servants. The very passages of Scripture, to
which he referred on this occasion for his justification,
authorize such an explanation of this bold deed of
Jesus. In the passage in the book of Isaiah which Jesus
quoted,2 the reference in the original is to the new
Temple, in which not only the Jews but other nations
also will worship the Lord ; and in the passage from
Jeremiah,3 the Jews are commanded to amend their
ways and their doings before the Lord. Thus in both
passages the possible destruction of the old sanctuary
is presupposed.
But the sudden and violent purification of the Tem
ple finds its explanation also in the circumstances of
the occasion. Upon entering the fore-court of the
Temple, Jesus was the more shocked at the profane
din that met him there, because it proceeded from peo
ple who were trading in things sacred, in things conse
crated to his Heavenly Father as sin-offerings and
thank-offerings. Thus the Sanctuary itself, otherwise
regarded with so much external reverence, hedged
round with so many time-honored institutions, had
ceased to inspire an ordinary sense of decency ! Jesus
was doubtless most shocked by the shameless hypoc
risy which regarded and treated things holy as the
means of gratifying the love of gain. In such circum
stances the Temple was no longer the symbol of a
reverent fear of God, but the venal resort of base self
ishness. 1 Is. lvi. 7. 2 Jer. vii. 2 et sea.

THE CRISIS. 167
Far from Jesus then was the thought of wishing to
stand forth as a zealot for the purity and sanctity of
the old Temple service. He performed that bold act
simply as the founder of the new spiritual temple of his
Communion, for a witness against the old Temple, the
ruin of which its own worshippers sealed by their dese
cration of it. While, regardless of consequences, he
punished this desecration, he announced at the same
time the new Temple, of which the old Temple was
only a type.
The correctness of this view of the incident is cor
roborated also by what Jesus said upon the occasion,
the report of which is best preserved by the second
Evangelist.1 By the temple opened to all nations, he
could not possibly have meant the Herodian edifice,
he must have intended the Temple of the Messianic Fu
ture to which the Gentiles were to be admitted. Thus,
since the kingdom of the Eternal Spirit was founded,
the sacrificial services and the institution of the priest
hood must come to an end. Whither the outward
service of the Sanctuary led at last, is shown most
manifestly by the fact that, under the pretence of aid
ing divine worship, the immediate precincts of the
Sanctuary had been turned into places of merchandise.
Hence when Jesus with a bold hand broke in upon this
Godless traffic, the act struck, not only at the abuse
which had become connected with the Temple service,
but at the Temple worship itself. The words which
Jesus addressed to the Jews, as the fourth Gospel has
them, " Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will
build it up again," 2 and which were afterwards proved
1 Mark xi. 17. Mark alone has the words, " Is it not written that
my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations ? "
2 Johnii. 19.

168 SIXTH SECTION.
by witnesses at the trial of Jesus,1 were really spoken
by Jesus, and with a very solemn meaning. As Jesus
had, once for all, publicly and solemnly proclaimed
himself the Messiah of a spiritual kingdom of God, the
theocratic Temple worship ceased to have any intrinsic
justification as a means of religious life. Therefore it
was that Jesus was first drawn to the Temple to
announce the coming end of the Temple worship.
Through the act bv which the announcement was ac-
companied, he stamped upon his word the seal of fact.
It is only thus that the reference of Jesus to the
prophecy of a future Temple for the nations has an ap
propriate significance. Only thus is it intelligible why
Jesus drove purchasers away from the sacrificial animals
exposed for sale, and which were indispensable only so
long as the prescribed forms of sacrifice had validity.
The saying of Jesus which belongs in this place, name
ly, that he would build up the ruined Temple in three
days, was preserved in the original record used by the
fourth Evangelist. But in its original meaning it
found no consistent place in the Evangelist's mystical,
allegorical modes of thought, and, accordingly, he un
derstands it, wholly without grounds, as referring to the
impending crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. That
it should have such a reference is the more unlikely,
inasmuch as, if Jesus, when in full sight of the Temple
and after driving the traffickers away, spoke of the
destruction and restoration of the Temple within three
days and meant thereby the destruction and re-anima
tion of his own body, it would have been proposing to
his hearers an inexplicable riddle. But he could not
have intended at that time to speak in riddles, for it
was the hour when a distinct final decision was to be
met and made. 1 Mark xiv. 58 ; Matt. xxvi. 61.

THE CRISIS. 169
4. The incident in the Temple was the immediate
occasion for the measures that were now taken by the
hierarchical party against Jesus. He had not only
violently interfered with that authority in the Temple
which belonged to the high spiritual dignities alone,
and taken upon himself the administration of the police
of the Temple, he had distinctly declared and before
all the people that he was the Messiah, that the Sanc
tuary of the nation would be destroyed through his
means, and that he would build a new Temple for all
the nations of the earth.
That he had set himself up against the law of the
fathers, transgressed the sacred ordinances, and put his
authority .above that of the High Council itself, — these
were charges that might now be made good against
him without much difficulty. According to the old
law he had incurred the penalty of death. And al
though time had weakened the operation of that law,
and in many respects mitigated its execution, yet the
present case was of so glaring a character that there
might well be the most urgent necessity for making a
terrible example. Thus Jesus might be prosecuted for
violating the Old Covenant, for disturbing the faith of
the people and attempting to set up a new, unlawful
religion. Whether it were advisable to prosecute him
during the Feast and while he was surrounded by so
many of his ardent adherents, whether a popular com
motion might not be produced in consequence, and the
theocracy itself might fall a sacrifice, were certainly
questions to be well considered, and, in case Jesus
designed to establish a temporal kingdom of the Mes
siah, questions full of danger.
Jesus himself was not in the slightest degree insen
sible to the consequences of his recent acts and declara-

170 SIXTH SECTION.
tions. He knew that his hour was at hand, and that
he had come under the condemnation of the obsolete
Letter. He knew that his enemies, if their authority
were to be saved from a speedy end, were bound to use
all the means in their power to put a stop to the mor
al, spiritual, and religious reformation going forth from
him and daily becoming more extensive. With all the
composure and clearness of mind that characterize the
saintly hero standing at the height of his great work,
he went to meet his coming fate. And this fate was
not now to be long delayed.1

NOTE.

[There is more light yet to break upon this part of the history,
which relates the particulars of the final visit paid by Jesus to
Jerusalem. I am inclined to think that Jesus went, as Paul
went, after him, to Jerusalem, " bound in the spirit." The busy
machinations of his enemies, their opposition to him steadily in
creasing in strength and fierceness, satisfied him that his oppor
tunities of publishing the truth and awakening the minds of his
countrymen to it were now numbered. He felt bound to avail
himself of the occasion offered him by the occurrence of the great
National Festival, which drew such multitudes together in the
city ; and he resolved to make himself and his cause as widely
known as possible. At first upon approaching the capital he used
great caution, and withdrew from the plots and snares of the op
position, but as the Feast drew nigh, and the crowds of pilgrims
increased, he felt less the necessity of being upon his guard. And
the feeling was justified. His popularity was so great, that all idea
of publicly arresting him was given up by the ecclesiastical au
thorities. They did not venture to lay violent hands upon him in
the presence of the people. But they felt all the more urgently
the need there was of putting a stop to his career. They would
1 Upon these views of ours, see App., 111. 24, p. 170.

NOTE. 171
have cared little for anything he might have said, or any preten
sions he might have made, had it not been for the immense pop
ular influence he was gaining, an influence which threatened
their ascendency. There was nothing treasonable in the rais
ing of Lazarus, nothing seditious in the act itself. It was not
the fact, but the effect it was having, that gave increased force
to the opposition. I cannot perceive that there is any incon
sistency in this particular between the fourth Gospel and the
other three Gospels. Nor do I see any reason why, even if the
resurrection of Lazarus had the effect of bringing the measures
of the priests against Jesus to a head, they should have made
this act a special ground of accusation against him. There
was a careful avoidance, on the part of his accusers, of any such
specific modes of proceeding. They did not make his purifica
tion of the Temple a formal charge against him. Dr. Schenkel
represents Jesus as intending his public and solemn entry into
Jerusalem as a proclamation of his office as the Messiah. That
it was regarded by his enemies as involving this pretension, I
have no doubt. But it appears to me he had a grander aim, a
more simple comprehensive moral and religious purpose. Our
author seems to think also, that if we credit the fourth Gospel, we
must suppose that Jesus made his public entry into the city for
the express purpose of glorifying the great miracle, which he had
wrought at Bethany. But I can find nothing in the fourth Gos
pel to warrant the supposition. The fourth Gospel tells us only of
the effect which that extraordinary event had upon the enemies
of Jesus, whom it so infuriated that they would gladly have put
Lazarus out of the way also, and upon the people who had heard
of that great wonder, and who, Dr. Schenkel thinks, should have
hailed Jesus as the Awakener of the dead, which by no means
follows. The highest possible dignity was accorded him when he
was welcomed as the restorer of the kingdom of David. That
included everything else.
That the resurrection of Lazarus is not mentioned in the first
three Gospels, that they do not appear to have had any knowl
edge of it, is, it must be admitted, very remarkable and not easily
to be accounted for. Nevertheless, the omission may be safely
left unexplained, if the narrative of the event in the fourth Gos
pel bears intrinsic marks of truth, as it certainly does in its won
derful and undesigned fidelity to the characters of Martha and
Mary, and most especially to the character of Jesus himself.

172 TWENTIETH CHAPTER.
I must confess that the explanation given in the foregoing
chapter of the Purification of the Temple by Jesus, so far from
being satisfactory, I cannot clearly understand. It strikes me as
altogether too ingenious ; and it represents the act as done quite
too much for effect. Unquestionably, if Jesus regarded the Tem
ple as " a house of prayer for all nations," the shock it must have
given him at seeing it so grossly desecrated suffices to account
for his instantly and instinctively insisting that the desecration
should cease, that the trades-people should leave the sacred places
without delay. It is not necessary to suppose that he himself used
any violence. He had a great crowd of people with him, and his
first word condemnatory of the sacrilege must have struck a chord
in the popular feeling which instantly responded. The exchangers
and traders, panic-struck, precipitately retreated, not so much
before one man, as before the populace. It is not necessary to
suppose that they made any resistance. They knew that they
were in the wrong, and the haste with which they fled accounts
for the upsetting of the tables and seats. It is true, the history
states that Jesus made for himself a scourge to drive the traffickers
from the precincts of the sanctuary. This looks at first sight like
deliberation. But it, may be an indication of the very opposite.
There were animals herded there for sale, sheep and oxen. And
the scourge of small cords which Jesus had, may have been noth
ing more than a piece of cord which he found lying there and
which he folded up for the purpose of driving the animals away.
At all events, it is not to be supposed that his will, backed as it
was by the people, met with the slightest resistance, or that any
occasion was given for so vigorous an application of the scourge
as we have seen represented in an old picture of the scene.
It is not likely that this event occurred twice ; and how that
should have been done, as the fourth Gospel states, at the com
mencement of his public life, which the other Gospels represent
as done towards its close, I cannot tell. There is no better ex
planation of it than our author has given. — Trans.]

THE CRISIS. 173
CHAPTER XXI.
THE OLD STATE AND THE NEW.
1. The ruling party did not venture to lay hands
on Jesus immediately. They had as much as decided
to prosecute him, but they desired to be sure of the
result. That Jesus again appeared the very next
day in the Temple is a proof of the indomitable fear
lessness with which in these last days he advanced
to confront the threatening danger. A deputation of
the Sanhedrim, as it appears, was commissioned to
demand of him his authority for interfering with the
police of the Temple. He was questioned as to his
right to do things of this kind.1 He must now show
whether he recognized the established authorities in
opposition to his office as the Messiah, and whether he
would declare himself accordingly as the founder of a
new moral and religious order of things.
It may seem remarkable that, after his solemn entry
into Jerusalem and that bold exercise of authority in
the Temple, Jesus appears to have hesitated to desig
nate himself as the Messiah to the officers of the law.2
But it was not in order that he might continue any
longer unrecognized as the Messiah, but because he
held it inconsistent with his personal dignity volunta
rily to furnish his enemies with the means of prosecuting
him, that he returned an evasive answer. Besides,
was he not justified in questioning them before he
answered them ? And did not their refusal to reply
1 Mark xi. 27 ; Matt. xxi. 23 ; Luke xx. 2.
2 Mark xi. 29 ; Matt. xxi. 24 ; Luke xx. 3.

174 SIXTH SECTION.
to his question further justify him in refusing to reply
to them ? He considered it right, moreover, to let the
deputies of the hierarchical party know that he saw
clearly through their plans and purposes.. His ques
tioning of these emissaries consisted in the relation of
two parables, both of which are given us by the first
Evangelist, while only one of them is found in the
second and third Gospels. By the first, the parable of
the, two sons, he set before his questioners the hypoc
risy and false-heartedness which they had shown to
wards John the Baptist, and which they were now
showing towards him. While the " publicans and
harlots," the classes the most degraded morally, had
at least submitted to the reproof of John and been
converted by him from their evil ways, they, the repre
sentatives of the traditional religion, the upholders of
the national power, had only hardened themselves still
more against the preaching of that teacher of right
eousness ; and, if they had not taken part against John,
but even spoken well of him, it was not from any real
feeling of respect for that earnest, moral instructor, but
only because they feared the loss of their popularity.1
Jesus therefore now told them in so many words that
the kingdom would be taken from them and given to
the " Sinners." They were like the son who promised
to go and work and nevertheless did nothing.2 Still
more pointedly did Jesus describe the character of his
opposers in the parable of the unfaithful laborers in
the vineyard.
In this parable the Jewish people are compared, as
they often are in the ancient Scriptures, to a vineyard.
In the times of the Old Covenant the Lord had sent
the prophets as his laborers into the vineyard. A fine
1 Mark xi. 33 ; Matt. xxi. 26 ; Luke xx. 6. 2 Matt. xxi. 30.

THE CRISIS. 175
allusion this of Jesus to the fact that the priests and
kings, generally speaking, had not fulfilled their duty
to God. The prophets, on the contrary, had fallen a
sacrifice to the ill-treatment received at the hands of
the tools of the theocracy, the kings and priests. In
this parable Jesus distinguishes himself most distinctly
as the " heir," the Messiah, from the Old Testament
prophets, who are only the servants, the laborers. He
tells his opposers to their faces that he knows their de
signs upon his life ; he admits also that they will suc
ceed in executing their deadly purpose. How signifi
cant the designation of himself as the " heir," the
inheritor of the spiritual estate of the Old Testament.1
The heir was not bound to administer the estate in the
old way, least of all when it was proved to have wasted
it. But he would transfigure the letter of the Old Tes
tament spiritually, transmute the written word into life.
In order to do this, however, he must die. The hierar
chy would tolerate no transfiguration of the law, no con
quest of the spirit over the letter, of freedom over spir
itual bondage. In order to prevent what Jesus aimed
at, the men of the letter were resolved to be his mur
derers. They had to resort to this extreme measure,
not from a cruel pleasure in blood, not even from any
personal feeling of revenge, but from hierarchical fanat
icism. They saw threatened by Jesus the institutions
which secured to them honor, power, distinction. And
from their narrow point of view they held that the wel
fare of the nation was identified with the undisputed
continuance of those institutions.
No desire for a personal triumph over his foes awoke
in the bosom of Jesus at that hour. The purest spirit
of submission, devoid of every thought of self, to the
1 Mark xii. 7.

176 SIXTH SECTION.
fearful fate awaiting him speaks in every word that
falls from his lips. The present belongs to his enemies,
the future to him. He carried in his heart the con
viction, which nothing could disturb, that the day of
the religion of the Law was past, that Jerusalem was
about to lose forever its high position as the centre of
revealed religion among the nations. The declaration
that the vineyard would be given to others,1 contains
the prophetic truth that the populations, descendants
of Japheth, were thenceforth to lead all progress, moral
and religious, social and civil. These, as the upholders
of a living faith in God and a reformed morality, were
now to be accounted, in the eyes of God, the true
Israel.2 2. The effect which these denunciations produced
upon the powerful enemies of Jesus, bent upon bring
ing him to trial, may easily be imagined. As, by the
incident in the Temple, he had placed himself in oppo
sition to the theocratic form of worship, so by these
declarations he took the same attitude towards the
theocratic Constitution, in fact, to the whole theocratic
nation, so far as it had shown itself determined to unite
its fate with that of its leaders. This assault struck
to the heart, inflicting a deadly wound, those at whom
it was aimed. The " high-priests and scribes," the
men of the reigning theological schools and the posses
sors of the spiritual power, were painted in colors not
to be mistaken as enemies of God, of his ambassadors,
and, in fact, of his own Son. They were represented
as the murderers of the new life which God sought to
communicate to his people. The conflict between
Jesus and the hierarchical party was thus pronounced
by Jesus himself a conflict for life or death.
1 Mark xii. 9 ; Luke xx. 16 ; Matt. xxi. 41, with a later addition.
2 Ps. cxviii. 22.

THE CRISIS. 177
Under these circumstances there remained nothing
for the hierarchy but to hasten as quickly as possible
the arrest of Jesus. After such deadly attacks it must
have appeared extremely perilous to suffer this man to
go at liberty any longer and to allow him free speech.
From its own point of view the ruling party was not in
the wrong. According to the civil usages of modern
times such bold proceedings as those of Jesus would
certainly not have been endured so long. It was only
the force of popular feeling that held back the authori
ties from arresting Jesus instantly. They feared the
" people," the " multitude." x
This fear may seem surprising, since the Pharisaic
party, on account of their nationality, had the voice of
the people in their favor. But the last imposing ap
pearance of Jesus in Jerusalem, his bold declaration
that he was, in a wholly new sense of the word, the
Messiah, his equally bold action against the disorder in
the Temple, his large and free views of a new spiritual
sanctuary, open to all nations, the holy courage, the
God-inspired intrepidity which he manifested in all
that he said and did, the willingness to suffer and to
sacrifice himself, which his bitterest enemies scarcely
ventured to question, in a word, his singular and in
comparable personal force, — had already won the fa
vor, if not of the larger, yet of the better part of the
population of Jerusalem. Numerous adherents of his
had arrived from Galilee, Perea, Judea. Troops of
ardent friends and sympathizers in his work surrounded
him. The eyes of not a few were opened to the delu
sion into which the hierarchical party had lulled them
and others. The arrest of Jesus in the excitement of
the festal week might be attended with dangerous con-
1 Mark xii. 12 ; Luke xx. 19 ; Matt. xxi. 46.
VOL. II. 12

178 SIXTH SECTION.
sequences. New attempts therefore must be made in
order to secure a safe point of attack against Jesus, and
to justify the seizure of his person, to some extent at
least, in the eyes of those who were well-disposed to
wards him.
3. According to the second Evangelist such an at
tempt first proceeded from the high ecclesiastical au
thorities.1 After the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem it
was no longer mere party intrigues that availed. Of
ficial steps were taken against him, by which his ruin
was to be effected as speedily as possible. The High
Council felt themselves moved, on account of the na
tional repute of Jesus, to strengthen themselves by
calling to their side adherents of the Pharisaic schools
and members of the party of the Herodians, in or
der by their help to obtain the strongest proofs pos
sible against him. They had sufficient grounds of
complaint for a religious prosecution. But it was very
doubtful whether the charge of creating a religious dis
turbance would have any weight with the civil magis
trate, by whom a sentence of death must be ratified.
Hence arose the necessity of bringing the political
character of Jesus under suspicion and of branding
him, if possible, as an enemy to the Roman rule. This
task was undertaken by a deputation of Pharisees and
Herodians.2 They went bending before him with flat
tering expressions about his fearless love of truth. In
order to put him off his guard, they bore honorable tes
timony to his disregard of the distinctions of rank and
to his teaching " the way of God," i. e. the way well-
pleasing to God, in unvarnished truth. By paying
him this personal tribute, they hoped to draw from him
1 Mark xii. 13 ; xi. 27.
2 Mark xii. 13 ; Matt. xxii. 15 ; Luke xx. 20.

THE CRISIS. 179
his most private thoughts as to his position towards the
civil power, and his designs in reference to the Roman
authority. Now there was a question that might be
honestly answered in very different ways, — the ques
tion concerning the duty of paying the taxes imposed
by the Roman government, regarded from the point
of view of the theocratic order of things. The Roman
power was certainly a usurpation. The true Jew
recognized no sovereign but the Lord of heaven and
earth. And as Jesus had distinctly declared it to be
'his great work to establish a heavenly kingdom, must
it not have appeared a logical consequence that he re
leased his followers from the obligation of paying taxes
to an earthly kingdom ? The deputation, therefore,
with well-meditated cunning, put the question to him,
whether the Roman emperor were authorized to lay
taxes on the Jews, and whether the Jews were bound
to pay the tribute imposed by him ? They had reck
oned with confidence upon his declaring from his
point of view that the tribute ought not to be paid.
This calculation showed that they had a very imper
fect idea of the work and aim of Jesus. They would
hardly have put this cunning question to him, had
they not really suspected him of secret designs against
the Roman supremacy. It was doubtless their belief
that he was probably intending to strike a blow at the
governing powers in Judea, and to raise himself to the
command, spiritual and temporal, of the Israelitish
people. The farther he was from having given any intima
tion, either in word or deed, of such a purpose, the
more they desired to make it certain that this was his
design, and so to prevent the meditated blow against
the existing order. Only let it appear that in re-

180 SIXTH SECTION.
ligious matters he was an audacious and incorrigible
transgressor of the laws of the fathers, and at the same
time a daring and violent conspirator against the civil
order, then his death could alone expiate his wicked
ness, and his condemnation by the Roman Procurator
might be confidently anticipated.
But these crafty plotters found themselves balked
in their expectations. The answer that Jesus returned
to their question bears witness, not only to his admi
rable presence of mind and his imperturbable wisdom,
but, we may add, to his lofty humor. It states, more-'
over, in the simplest terms, a principle perfectly suited
to adjust the relations of religion and the State at all
times. Religion and the State, as he declares, have
each its peculiar sphere which must not be confounded
the one with the other. He utters an emphatic warn
ing against everything of the kind. He bids his ques
tioners render to Cassar the things that are Ceesar's,
and to God the things that are God's.1 A charge, to
which the Jewish hierarchy was open, was that they
had mixed together things that are to be treated as
essentially distinct. Their kings had seized and appro
priated to themselves priestly prerogatives, their priest
hood had striven for royal dignity and power. It was
the express design of the kingdom of heaven, founded
by Jesus, to make a thorough end of this mingling of
Church and State. The design of Jesus undoubtedly
was to secure for his kingdom, the " Communion " of
believers, a position wholly independent of the offices
and interests of the State. Nothing was further from
him than the idea of establishing a religious association
to be ruled or led by the State, a so-called " State
Church." He did not indeed regard the State as an
1 Mark xii. 27 ; Matt. xxii. 21 ; Luke xx. 25.

THE CRISIS. 181
institution to which religion was indifferent. He had
the greatest respect for its rights and its dignity. But
the State is to the kingdom of God as the particular to
the universal. In his kingdom, Jesus comprehended
whatever in human life tended to a higher order of
things, an order established under the authority of
God himself and of his spirit. In this Communion,
the State could find its place only as a member and
instrument of the great whole. But the State as such
was not by any means an immediate object with Jesus.
It was in the moral and religious sphere, the sphere of
the conscience, which is essentially wholly free and
universal that his work exclusively lay. The sphere
of the State, on the other hand, is external and re
stricted to the limits of legal force and national condi
tions. The question concerning the tribute, -which
gave opportunity to Jesus to declare what the relation
is between religion and the State, was the very ques
tion to place the fundamental difference between the
two in the clearest light.
The State cannot in the nature of the case treat
taxes as a voluntary matter, depending, whether they
be paid or not, upon the pleasure of individuals. In
case of refusal to pay them, the State must resort to
force. But force is entirely excluded from the con
ditions of life in the kingdom of God. Here, only
voluntary performance has worth and weight; and
whatever is done for the divine Cause unwillingly,
without truth and love in the heart, is before God as
though it were not done ; done hypocritically, it is an
abomination in his sight.
Render to Caesar what is Cajsar's, and to God what
is God's, says Jesus. In other words, the question of
the tax has, in itself, nothing to do with the kingdom

182 SIXTH SECTION.
of God. It is an affair of the State, and the lawfulness
of a tax is not to be disputed upon religious, but only
upon legal and political grounds.
That the deputies of the High Council were filled
with surprise and chagrin at the reply of Jesus, we can
imagine. They had failed in their purpose. For the
declaration of Jesus was not only a direct one, it con
tained also an .indirect summons to fulfil their duties to
the State, i. e. to the Roman Government, conscien
tiously. The vital sense of the words of Jesus the
deputation did not apprehend. A religious Association
without the power to use force and inflict punishment
must have seemed to them, from their point of view,
an impossible thing. The Old Testament order of
things was in itself in a certain sense a State institution.
Obedience to its laws was exacted by force, and dis
obedience punished most severely. Jesus himself was
to answer with his life for his departure from the tra
ditional order. The idea of freedom of conscience and
faith, which was the starting-point of all the labors of
Jesus, was a rock of offence and a scandal to the
Jewish hierarchy. A religion that allowed every one
to believe according to his spiritual needs, was not pos
sible in their eyes. The deputation retired dissatis
fied with themselves, because they had not gained
their purpose, but strengthened more than ever in the
belief that Jesus was a dangerous innovator, an enemy
to the laws and ordinances received from the fathers,
an element of disturbance and agitation, to whose in
fluence a check must be put as speedily as possible.
4. And now all the powerful Jewish parties were
united against Jesus. His enemies were from the
higher classes, his friends were from the people. His
appearance in the Temple, and his explicit claim to be

THE CRISIS. 183
the Messiah, rendered him the object of distrust and
of a persecution to which all the possessors of power
consented. Even members of the Sadducean school
crowded around him to play off upon him their con
tempt, which was without reason or sense. In their
opinion, probably his Messianic pretensions were more
matters of ridicule than alarm. The Sadducees, who
rejected the austerity, the literal faith, and the zeal for
tradition which distinguished the Pharisees, ought to
have appreciated in Jesus the freedom of mind which
their notions favored. But cold, haughty, indifferent to
the eternal truths of Religion, they disliked his ear
nestness and his interest in humanity. And the more
boldly and unhesitatingly he bore himself, the more
they despised him as a fanatic. The doctrine that
Jesus taught of the resurrection, they ridiculed in its
relation to the Mosaic Law,1 by which, when the
husband died leaving no children, his brother was
bound to marry the widow. But Jesus silenced them
by giving them to understand that he did not share in
the material ideas of the resurrection entertained by
the Pharisees ; and in reply to the foolish and frivolous
inference of the Sadducees, that, if seven brothers
should one after another marry one woman without
issue, it would be doubtful whose wife she would be in
the resurrection, Jesus shows on his part a highly
spiritual conception of our continued personal existence
in a higher state of being after death. The relations
of sex then cease, and man then has such a mode of
being as suits his spiritual destiny. The essence of
the doctrine set' forth by Jesus concerning the resur
rection lies, however, in the idea that the personal life
created by God, carries in itself a source of imperish-
1 Deut. xxv. 5.

184 SIXTH SECTION.
able existence, because it is made after the likeness of
God. Consequently, according to the testimony of
Jesus, faith in immortality rests on faith in the living,
original, and indissoluble communion of man with God.
It belongs to the character of the living God, that
he is not a God of the dead, but a God eternally
" living." x
The prosecution of Jesus was, as we know, already
determined upon by the hierarchical party ; but the last
attempts to entangle him in the snares that were set
for him were completely frustrated. The endeavor to
find grounds for accusing him of cherishing designs
dangerous to the State, had especially proved unsuc
cessful. The hierarchical party could not but suppose
that he had such designs. It was not in their power
to conceive of the Messiah otherwise than in connec
tion with revolutionary attempts and an insurrection
of the people against the government of Rome. The
pacific character, therefore, in which Jesus appeared
they could consider only the hypocritical mask of a
demagogue. They deceived themselves. They blindly
judged him by their own standard. Jesus died with
the pure consciousness of having labored only for the
eternal kingdom of the spirit. They perished in the
struggle for worldly power. He demanded for his
Communion simply free space, free air, untrammelled
motion, a position independent of the State. He never
expected nor desired the supporters of the State to
support or promote his Cause directly or indirectly.
He had entered into no alliance with the Roman Pro
curator, made no effort to win Herod Antipas to his
views. Taking this position, independent of all public
authority, he advanced immeasurably beyond the the-
1 Mark xii. 18; Matt. xxii. 23 ; Luke xx. 27.

NOTE. 185
ocratic stand-point. And while he separated religion
from politics, and labored for the former without the
co-operation of the latter, he has established freedom
of conscience, and made religious conviction indepen
dent of the civil power for all time. In the view of the
theocracy, religion is the offspring of royal authoritj'-
invested by God with supernatural powers. Such was
the idea of the opposers of Jesus. In his view, religion
is the offspring of the conscience, self-dependent, and
owning no obligation, but to the immediate source of all
truth and love, to God and His revelations. No charge
was more specious, than that Jesus cherished political
designs, none in reality was more unjust. But there
has certainly proceeded from him the idea of an entirely
new relation of the civil order to religious conviction,
of the State to the Church.

NOTE.
[The strong terms in which both M. Renan and Dr. Schenkel
express their admiration of the memorable saying of Jesus : " Ren
der unto Caesar the things that are Caasar's, and unto God the
things that are God's," lead us to suppose that they consider it
as affording us an insight, which we should otherwise lack, into
the views of Jesus in regard to the relation of religion to the
State. But were it indeed so, were it the only thing in his his
tory which shows us his position in this respect, should we not be
forced to conclude that he held the respective spheres of politics
and religion as entirely distinct, mutually excluding each other ?
Whereas, the whole tenor of the instructions of Jesus teaches us
that his idea of religion embraces all the spheres and relations of
life, our social relations most manifestly. And what are the terms
civil and political, but other names for a certain class of our social
relations ? And what influence of the teachings of Jesus is more
marked even to this hour, than the effect which they have upon

186 TWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER.
political arrangements and institutions ? Jesus recognized nq
ground as neutral where there was " stuff for the conscience," nor
in deference to any social organization did he compromise truth
and right. His commandments were to be obeyed, although princes
and magistrates should forbid. But herein was the divine peculi
arity of his teaching, that he forbade all resort to force on the part
of those who undertook to follow his instructions. They were to
suffer violence to the uttermost, but never lift a finger to inflict
it. Consequently, however his truth and his followers might
come in collision with the political order of society, no disorganiz
ing and destructive consequences could ensue by their agency.
For no such consequences could they be held responsible, ready as
they were to bear patiently all injuries and to return good for
evil. Their triumphs must needs be moral, pacific, and gradual.
And now as to this celebrated saying of Jesus : " Render unto
Caesar," &c, I must confess my inability to appreciate any of the
explanations that are given of it. I cannot for a moment sup
pose that Jesus here gives authority for the withdrawal of the
political relations of life from the jurisdiction of conscience and
religion. That this saying, thus understood, should find favor with
all such as are disposed to support existing forms of government,
however flagrant as usurpations, however despotically admin
istered, I can easily see. But how, in what sense, it is to be ac
cepted in a country representing the pre-eminently Christian
idea of Freedom, under a government of laws which every indi
vidual has a responsible share in making, and upon which the
virtue and well-being of the whole depend, I am not able to per
ceive. Certain it is, that this saying had its effect upon the occa
sion on which it was uttered. It baffled those conspirators, and
they had not a word to say. Certain it is also, that the occasion
was not one upon which Jesus could have felt himself moved to
enunciate a great principle, for in those to whom he spoke there
was no openness of mind to receive it. He would not cast his
pearls before swine. The question that was put to him as to the
lawfulness of paying tribute to the Roman emperor was not put
in good faith. To the keen eye of Jesus, the sinister design was
transparent ; and disgusted, outraged as he was at the hypocriti
cal terms of respect in which these persons addressed him, he
could have had no thought but of balking their malice, and
silencing and warning them. " Show me a piece of your money,"
he said. They produced a piece of money. " Whose image and

THE CRISIS. 187
superscription does it bear? " he asked. " Caesar's," was the reply.
"Very well then, you are making use of what is Caesar's, let
Caesar have what is his, and see to it (and may not this be the
point of his words ? ) that you give unto God what belongs to
God." This question of the tribute he regarded as trifling, in
respect of its lawfulness in comparison with the far more vital
respects in which they were disobeying God without scruple. — ¦
Trans.]

CHAPTER XXII.
THE WOE PRONOUNCED UPON THE HIERAKCHICAL PARTT.
1. There was still one point upon which the enemies
of Jesus might hope to find a sure ground of complaint
upon a political account. At an earlier period he had
taken the title of " Son of Man," but he had since laid
claim to the dignity of " Son of God." Let decisive
evidence of the fact be adduced, and it would not be
difficult to show that he had violated the first com
mandment of the Decalogue, that he had assumed
without qualification divine honors, that he was thus
guilty of blaspheming the divine Name, and had more
over expressed the desire to take possession, like a new
David, of the Messianic throne. A Jewish theologue,
as it appears, was sent to him to ascertain his ideas in
relation to the first commandment.1 In answer to the
question, which is the first commandment, if Jesus
should allow it to appear that he claimed divine au
thority for himself, i. e. should he declare himself
against the one only unrivalled sovereignty of God
over all created existences, then it would no longer be
difficult to hand him over to the law as a blasphemer
1 Mark xii. 28; Matt. xxii. 34.

188 SIXTH SECTION.
of the supreme majesty of heaven, and to charge him
also, as a necessary consequence of such arrogance,
with a design to secure earthly power and supremacy
also. But Jesus in his reply made not the slightest
allusion that could offend the ear of the strictest zealot
of the Old Testament doctrine concerning God. He
made bold, indeed, to distinguish one commandment
above the rest, considering the fact that the law of the
Ten Commandments forms an inseparable whole, and
therefore there could be no discussion as to the greater
or less worth of its particular precepts. For making
this distinction he appealed to several passages of the
Law itself.1 And while he placed the law of love to
one's neighbor by the side of the law commanding
love to God, he pronounced the former to be just as
important as the latter, and both together he declared
to be the most important of all.2 He thus not only
showed that there was not a shadow of authority
for accusing him of destroying faith in the unity and
sovereignty of God ; he emphasized the unity and
sovereignty of God in the most pointed manner, and
repelled most forcibly the suspicipn that he claimed
divine honors for himself.3 This explicit declaration
confounded his questioner, who, evidently taken by
surprise, exclaimed, " Right ! Master, thou hast spoken
according to the truth," (but not as I expected,) " there
is only one God and beside him there is no other." The
charge, circulated against Jesus that he assumed the
honor that belonged only to God, claiming a divine
dignity for himself and destroying the divine unity,
was thus shown to be calumnious. Instead of at all
1 Deut. vi. 4. ; Levit. xix. 18.
2 Mark xii. 31 ; Matt. xxii. 39.
8 Mark xii. 29, which gives us the original declaration of Jesus, en
tirely in the spirit of the Old Testament monotheism.

THE CRISIS. 189
derogating from the doctrine of one Supreme God he
had given new life to it in the moral and religious
consciousness of the soul. The scribe showed that he
was no incorrigible partisan. He was open to better
thoughts. The snare laid for Jesus had failed, and the
man was forced to return to his employers and report
its failure. But so far from suffering any chagrin he
was rejoiced rather at discovering that Jesus was a dif
ferent person from what he had looked for ; and there
fore Jesus could testify that the scribe was not far from
him, not far from the kingdom of God.1 (a)
2. This conversation throws a significant light upon
the character of Jesus as it plainly shows that, not
withstanding his office as Messiah and his dignity as
"Son of God," he did not claim for himself a divine
nature, or divine attributes. He considered his Mes
sianic office and authority as entirely consistent with a
human personality. But in this understanding of his
Messiahship, the hierarchical party were utterly unable
to recognize him in that office. The Founder of a
Communion of the spirit and of faith was the most
dangerous opponent of the theocratic system. Hence
that party had double reason for rendering Jesus as
harmless as possible. The bare fact that he had de
clared the founder of such a communion the Messiah,
had not without reason caused the greatest uneasiness
and excitement among all the friends of the established
religion of the letter, and fully strengthened them in
the determination to prosecute Jesus. From their
point of view they could not regard him as the Mes
siah. He appeared to them to be deceiving himself
and others. He was a deceiver. A word was now
found to inflame the people. And no effort must be
1 Mark xii. 34.

190 SIXTH SECTION.
omitted to show by facts the utter unlawfulness of the
Messianic pretensions of Jesus.
According to the traditions of the letter, the Messiah
was to be a direct descendant of David himself. How
now if it were demonstrable that Jesus stood in not
the remotest relation to the royal house of David ?
In truth, Jesus the Nazarene, the carpenter's son,
had never been supposed to belong to the family of
David. Although upon his entry into Jerusalem he
was hailed as the " Son of David," a yet this title had
reference, not to his natural descent, but to his Mes
sianic kingship, which was already understood among
his disciples in its moral and spiritual sense. The gen
ealogies, that were made up several decades after his
disappearance to accredit him to the Jews as the Mes
siah, contain the most striking proof of the difficulty of
authenticating his descent from David.
As this most essential mark of the Messiah was
wanting in him, the hierarchical party industriously
spread everywhere the idea that he had deceitfully an
nounced himself to be that personage. Had Jesus
himself believed in his royal descent, he would now
have had the most urgent occasion to make good this
claim and prove it by all the means and evidences in
his power. He did not do so. On the contrary, he
proved that the hope of a Messiah descending from
David was visionary.
This truth he set forth in a very peculiar man
ner from Psalm ex. In this psalm, of which David
was erroneously supposed at that time to be the au
thor, God commands the Lord of the Psalmist, i. e.
l This form of salutation is not found in Mark and Luke, but only
in Matthew (xxi. 9). It is wanting also in the fourth Gospel. See
Mark xi. 9 ; Luke xix. 37. [This title was applied to Jesus on other
occasions. See Matth. xii. 23, Luke xviii. 38. — Tkans.]

THE CRISIS. 191
the theocratic king to sit on his right hand. Upon
the supposition that by that king was understood the
Messiah, David had designated the Messiah as his
Lord. But if David considered the Messiah as his
Lord, it is manifest that he could not have expected
him to arise among his sons or posterity. That the
father should call his " son " his Lord is altogether
repugnant to the consideration paid in the Old Testa
ment to the filial feeling. The father, David, con
tinued always to be greater and more glorious than
any son of his. Hence Jesus rejected the popular
opinion that the Messiah must be a descendant of
David. In fact, he could not more directly and powerfully
oppose the worldly hopes of the Messiah, with which
the hierarchical party were filled, than by combating
as he did the idea that the Messiah, in the new sense
in which he claimed to be that personage, must de
scend from David. It is a great error, therefore, to
suppose that Jesus appealed to the passage in the
Psalms to prove his descent from David, and thus to
establish his Messiahship.1 He did no such thing then
or ever.
It was the faith of his followers in his Messianic
office that begot the faith in his descent from David.
The Jews, even the most pious of that day, could not
conceive of the Messiah otherwise than as decorated
with the badge of that high lineage. But Jesus com
bated this notion, and sought, although without success,
to liberate his followers from this superstition in re
gard to his origin. As the Pounder of the kingdom
of God, as the God-commissioned king of truth, of
1 Mark xii. 35 ; Matt. xxii. 41 ; Luke xx. 41 ; and Appendix, HI.
25, p. 192.

192 SIXTH SECTION.
righteousness, of love and peace, he felt, in relation to
a crowned prince like David, as a Lord incomparably
higher and more glorious. How could he have needed
evidence from the genealogical tree of David to ac
credit him as the Messiah, when he was David's lord
by the native royalty and moral greatness of his char
acter shown by a hundred well-known facts.
3. From the height of his consciousness as the Mes
siah, Jesus had publicly and distinctly named himself
the " Son of God." There is nothing in the first three
Gospels that authorizes the idea that he assumed this
title in any sense essentially different from that in
which the people of Israel, or the theocratic king, was
called the " Son of God." And even the fourth Gos
pel furnishes unmistakable evidence that Jesus, dur
ing his last sojourn in Jerusalem, connected with his
position as Son of God no claim to be a superhuman,
divine person. In those stirring days, in the increas
ing public excitement, the " Jews " demanded of him a
direct declaration whether or not he were the Mes
siah.1 The fourth Gospel agrees accordingly with the
first three Gospels in giving us to understand that the
earlier declarations of Jesus in regard to his Messiah-
ship were not sufficiently plain and satisfactory to
those at least who stood at a distance from him. In
reply to the demand that he would declare himself, he
appealed to the works which he had done in the name
of his Heavenly Father, as the only sufficient testimony
to his Messianic character. The excitement against
him appears at that time to have risen to the highest
1 John x. 22. The fourth Gospel certainly misplaces this scene in
referring it to the Feast of Dedication. As Jesus could have been in
Jerusalem, during the time of a feast, only at the last Passover, the
event related must fall in the time of the last abode of Jesus in the
capital.

THE CRISIS. 193
pitch because he spoke of himself as "one with the
Father," 1 although, to prevent all possible misunder
standing, he had previously said that the Father is
greater than all,2 and, at another time, that the Father
was greater than he.8 It had before been objected to
him that, although a man, he made himself God, and
was of course guilty of blasphemy, and this objection
was repeated. The way in which, according to the
fourth Gospel, Jesus defended himself against the
charge of blasphemy is very remarkable. He made
no allusion to his essential equality and unity with
God. But he sustains himself by a passage from the
Psalms,4 in which, according to his own understand
ing of it, mortal men, unjust judges probably, are ad
dressed as "gods," and he thence infers that if this
lofty title is given in the Holy Scriptures to unjust
judges, surely with far better right may he call him
self the " Son of God." It is from such passages in
the fourth Gospel that a light, genuinely historical, is
poured upon his own representations of his Messiah-
ship. It was not in a philosophical theory concerning
his superhuman nature, but in the inmost experience
of his personality, pure and single, that the conscious
ness of his Messianic office and also of his divine son-
ship had its living root. There was dwelling in him,
born of his daily experience, the certainty of being in
personal possession of a life far higher and more
abounding in the life of God, than all the ' religious
institutions of his country and his time could offer to
the longing imagination of man. An unsealed foun
tain of inspiration, refreshment, consolation, and cleans
ing was gushing from divine deeps in his heart. He
1 John x. 30. 2 John x. 29.
8 John xiv. 28. 4 Ps. Ixxxii. 6.
VOL. II. 13

194 SIXTH SECTION.
had attained to a certainty, not to be shaken, of
beino- in direct and inscrutable spiritual union with
God. If Israel, according to the testimony of the
Holy Scriptures, was the " Son of God," if the better
theocratic kings were so styled, was he not the best
accredited representative of his nation, the culmina
tion of the extinct kingship in unapproachable perfec
tion ? Did not the title of " Son of God " belong to
him in its fullest sense? How could he have any
doubt that the moral and religious regeneration of his
country depended upon him? Already he felt him
self to be the head of the new Israel, the deliverer,
the redeemer of all nations, the Saviour of the world,
the Resurrection and the Life of mankind.1
The appeal to the genealogical tree - of David was
an appeal to external and human testimony. But it
was in this relation that he had said that he received
not testimony from men,2 and he referred, on the other
hand, to his works, to the testimony of God living and
working in him.
Thus, then, the fourth Gospel, upon close examina
tion, knows nothing of a dignity in Jesus equal with
God's, nothing of a peculiarity in his person that would
have rendered him the eternal, creative source, the ab
solute cause of his own acts and successes: His Fa
ther in heaven it was from whom all power flowed into
him. Of himself the Son was able to do nothing.
The Son thus appears beyond all mistake in his rela
tion to the Father as a willing and docile pupil.3 And
although the Father has delivered judgment to the
Son, it is still only a charge which the Son has re
ceived from the Father and not an indwelling power
peculiar to himself. Man is indeed to honor the
1 John xi. 25. 2 John v. 34. 8 John v. 19.

THE CRISIS. 195
Son, but not as an original possessor of divine perfec
tions, but as a messenger of God ; and messengers of
God, executors of the Divine will, fulfilling his holy
counsels, were the prophets also. It belongs, above all
things, to the nature of God that His will is primal, in
dependent, ruling the whole creation, its intelligences
and its laws. Had the fourth Gospel intended to rep
resent Jesus as equal in his nature to God, it would
have been bound to ascribe to him a will, underived,
causative, and unconditioned. So far from this is the
case, that Jesus, in this Gospel, expressly declares that
he renounces his own will, and that his sole aim is to
do the will of God his Father.1 Therefore he says,
also, that he came not in his own name. He seeks
only to be a faithful instrument of his Heavenly Fa
ther.2 He relies upon the aid of the Father. He
rejoices in the consciousness that the Father is with
him, that He has not left him alone. But this con
sciousness does not come from the idea of a unity of
nature with the Father, but it springs from the convic
tion that he is ever doing what pleases the Father.3
4. At the first, Jesus simply defended himself
against the assaults of the hierarchical party. But the
knowledge which he obtained at a later period of their
deadly designs released him from all reserve. From
the deprecatory position which he had maintained
until now he changed to an attitude of open and vehe
ment attack. No ebullition of passion, no momentary
excitement, moved him thereto. With the calmest
conviction, with entire presence of mind, he rose
against his foes. He desired now that the final de-
cision might be speedily made. Convinced that they
were not to be turned from their purpose, that his
i John v. 30. 2 John v. 43. 8 John viii. 29.

196 SIXTH SECTION.
death was the necessary condition of his triumph, he
could desire nothing else. By a public attack upon
the leaders of the hierarchical party, the mortal oppo
sition in which he stood to them would be manifest to
all. Every man would then see that he must take
one side or the other. The party itself could no longer
delay the execution of its resolves. The end must
come. The first three Gospels have handed down to
us the discourse in which Jesus advanced to a public
attack upon the opposing party. Only two of them
have fitly interwoven it into the history of coincident
events. But, while the second Evangelist, conform
ably to his custom of avoiding the introduction of dis
courses of any length, gives us only a brief, significant
abstract,1 the first Evangelist, on the other hand, con
tains a discourse of great length, and elaborated with
so much art that it may be safely assumed that if could
not have been delivered by Jesus in this extended
shape upon any slight and incidental occasion.2 The
third Evangelist has preserved the keen points of the
discourse more fully than the second, but in an erro
neous connection.3 With all these differences, how
ever, we gather from the reports of the three Evange
lists, substantially agreeing as they do, that the oppo
sition of Jesus to the theocratic party, which now at
the close of his career was marked by a searching se
verity, was not essentially of a theological, but of a
moral and religious nature.
According to the second Gospel, Jesus charged the
Pharisees, the exclusive and the most enlightened rep
resentatives of the hierarchy, with two fundamental
vices : first, hypocrisy, in that 'they made religion a
trade, and wrapt themselves up in the deceptive show
1 Mark xii. 38. 2 Matt, xxiii. 1-39. 8 Luke xi. 37-52.

THE CRISIS. 197
of an extraordinary piety, and, second, self-seeking,
which was shown in an excessive fondness for distinc
tion, in long, flowing robes, in the claim they made to
be treated with demonstrations of personal reverence
and to be awarded seats of honor, and in an unfaithful
administration of the trusts committed to their charge.
The first Evangelist tells us that Jesus commended
their teaching ; all that they taught was to be ob
served, but all the less was their practice to be taken
for a guide. It was known that they did not follow
their own precepts.1
But Jesus surely could not have expressed himself
in this way. He would thus have given his counte
nance, although only indirectly, to the Pharisaic system
of forms and formulas.2 That the Pharisees did not
follow their own teachings, he doubtless said. Hence
it was inferred by the Evangelist that Jesus esteemed
those teachings commendable.
The special charge which Jesus made against the
Pharisees was, as is evident also from the third Evan
gelist,3 their hypocritical spirit, a disposition of mind
closely connected with the literal and formal observan
ces to which they were sworn. For themselves, they
seemed to have taken it pretty easily with their for
malities. Many of the austere practices which they
imposed on others as indispensable duties, they did not
themselves touch with so much as a finger. While
Jesus pronounced these Pharisaic means of virtue
burdensome and scarcely to be borne, he condemned
likewise the morality of the Pharisees as an oppressive
yoke to the conscience.4 In the interest of their party,
they imposed upon the people who were under their
i Matt, xxiii. 3. 2 See Appendix, HI. 26, p. 197.
8 Luke xi. 39. 4 Matt, xxiii. 4.

198 SIXTH SECTION.
influence the fetters of the strictest discipline, thus
disabling the nerve of all genuine virtue, freedom, and
love. For themselves, their study was to appear pious.
They would fain be seen in their devout exercises.
And so they made the phylacteries worn on the fore
head and arm very broad, and the tassels very long
which were attached to the hem of the upper garment
as sj'mbols of the honor in which the observances of
religion were held. Thus the Pharisees showed their
zeal for the law of the Lord. On all these accounts
Jesus, therefore, must have condemned not only their
practice, but their principles ; all the less probable is it
that he could really have commended their doctrines.
That their zeal for religion was all a pretence was
proved by the absence of all conscientiousness, and the
want of reverence for the fundamental principles of
the moral law, as shown by their acts. Long prayers,
and the plundering of lonely widows committed to
their guardianship ! Flaming zeal to secure only so
much as one proselyte, cost what it might of money,
and — afterwards utter moral neglect of their convert !
Rigorously stickling for every syllable in form, and
boundless levity as to the spirit! High-sounding words
in regard to the sanctity of an oath, and such cunning
reservations in swearing as the adroitest school of
Jesuitism could not excel ! 1 Fidelity in trifling and
indifferent things, and gross neglect in observing the
most important moral principles, the most sacred dic
tates of Right, and especially the indispensable obliga
tions of Justice and Mercy ! How well does Jesus
liken the Pharisees to those fastidious persons who
1 Matt, xxiii. 16. They made a distinction between oaths by the
temple and by the gold of the temple, by the altar and by the gift ou
the altar, between oaths by heaven and by the throne of God.

THE CRISIS. 199
strain their wine before they drink it, lest there should
be a fly in it, and yet afterwards swallow down whole
camels ! With what incomparable truth of nature is
that hypocritical zeal here portrayed, that busies itself
with the mask of godliness, but not in the slightest
degree with its power ! Whoever is so conscientious
in little things, how careful must he be in great : so
judges the ordinary popular understanding. And
upon this superficial judgment the whole artificial sys
tem of Pharisaic morality relied. It was a system of
petty orthodoxy, — of idolatrous devotion to the letter,
and utter contempt for the spirit, of all that is moral
and sacred.
5. The irreconcilable difference between this system
and the character of Jesus and his great work had now
to be exhibited in its full extent. It must be pro
claimed to the people assembled at the Feast. The
momentous question was now to be sent home to every
individual, which he would choose, for which he would
decide. But how infinitely great and pure does Jesus
appear with his truth, his justice and love and humil
ity, the principles of his divine kingdom, with his
profound moral earnestness, his cheerful spirit of self-
sacrifice, in contrast with those miserable sophistries
and tortures ! Everything like this punctilious chaffer
ing about trifles was immeasurably removed from the
sphere of Jesus. There was no trace here of cunning
calculation, of canting impatience for easy and impos
ing results. Here religious feeling was in intimate
alliance with moral effort. There among the Phari
sees, on the other hand, — external piety without
moral earnestness, a zeal for obligations of which no
sense existed in the conscience, — the whole system a
structure fabricated by art for the purpose of lording it

200 ' SIXTH SECTION.
over consciences and ruling souls. The conservation
of religious usages and traditions, the confirmation and
extension of the influence of the spiritual authorities
over the laity were the ends kept first in view. As to
the revival of a vigorous moral and religious spirit and
a reformation proceeding from the central life, the con
science, there was of course no thought, because in such
a work the co-operation of free conviction was indis
pensable. Pharisaism was a system of outward purity
and inward corruption. Hence, in describing it, Jesus
used with striking effect the image of cups and plat
ters, clean on the outside, but filthy within, where the
food is put.1 Notwithstanding external abstinence and
moderation, boundless thirst of getting and gaining
within. In spite of the utmost legal precision, within
a passion for distinction and power overflowing all
restraints. The Pharisees would be everywhere the
first, — in the chair of instruction, in the synagogue,
at the social feast.2 In the street they expected to
be saluted first. By their pupils they were always
to be entitled "Master" (Rabbi). Utter hoUowness
within was concealed under the cloak of exterior as
sumption. With knowledge altogether superficial were
conjoined arrogant and vague notions of the value of
their wisdom.
With such a system Jesus could hold no terms. It
must be broken with wholly and forever. There could
only be pronounced upon it a woe, the cry of doom to
the hierarchy, to the Jewish theologians and priests,
and to the party by which these were favored and
defended. The theology and hierarchy of the Jews were
morally undermined. And on this account, because
1 Matt, xxiii. 25. 2 Matt, xxiii. 6.

THE CRISIS. 201
they had - lost the power and the means of a moral
reform, Jesus saw that their ruin was inevitable. In
comparing their leaders to whitened sepulchres, filled
with the bones of the dead, he virtually declared that
the worm of death was gnawing at the foundation of
the Jewish Church, that its last hour had struck, that
it was a moral plague. So is it with every church
that magnifies formalities, and is without moral power,
without spiritual life. In the judgment of Jesus, the
Pharisees were a brood of serpents. They were chil
dren of hell, murderers, — murderers of prophets and of
souls. They had filled the measure of their reprobate
fathers. Their doom was sealed. The Theocracy was
ripe for destruction, — the future belonged to the Gos
pel.1 The sound of the Woe pronounced by Jesus
has not yet died away. It is still ringing to-day, like a
trump of judgment, over every church that is founded
upon the formulas of tradition and the power of a
privileged clergy.

NOTE.

[a. p. 189. The scribe whose conversation with Jesus is told in
Mark xii. 28 - 34, shows so much candor, and receives from Jesus
such warm commendation, that I cannot for a moment suppose,
with Dr. Schenkel, that he was an emissary of the opposing party.
It is far more likely that his design, in asking the mooted question,
Which is the greatest commandment ? was to obtain the authority
of one so wise as he saw Jesus to be for his own opinion.
Nor does it appear, as our author seems to think, that in an
swering the question Jesus intended to refute the charge that had
been brought against him, of assuming to be equal with God. —
Tbans.] 1 Matt, xxiii. 27.

202 SIXTH SECTION.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE FUTURE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
1. From the certain conviction at which Jesus had
arrived, that the Jewish theocracy was dead, it ne
cessarily followed that Israel itself was ripe for a final
judgment. With the impending death of Jesus, now
determined upon by the hierarchical party, the fate of
Israel was sealed : his death, breathing death to Juda
ism now expiring amidst its formalities, breathing life
to the world struggling for moral and spiritual deliv
erance. That the theocracy would not give up its
schemes for the recovery of national independence, and
the establishment of a kingdom of the Messiah as they
understood it, was self-evident. The coming conflict
between( the visions of the future, cherished by the
population of Jerusalem on the one hand, and the
power of Rome on the other, could end only in the
ruin of the weaker party. Strange ordination of
events ! At the very moment that the hierarchical
party was resolved upon' the destruction of Jesus,
their own destruction was already made certain in
the kingdom of God as a necessary event in the his
toric order of the world.
Jesus had pronounced his crushing discourse against
the " Scribes and Pharisees " before the assembled
people, among whom there were many doubtless who
had come on a pilgrimage to the Feast. As to the
consequences to himself, he was not for a moment de
ceived. Such a speech was not to be endured by the
governing party, unless they were willing to resign the
last remnant of their authority over the people.

THE CRISIS. 203
The fore-feeling of his approaching condemnation by
the law, and of a cruel and ignominious death, threw
an increasing shadow over the soul of Jesus. But in
his inmost being there shone a clear beam of hope.
His was the ultimate triumph. His enemies were ad
vancing to their ruin. Full of this thought, he con
versed with the Twelve, and announced the approach
ing overthrow of the theocratic constitution, the down
fall of Jerusalem, and the desecration of the holy
places.1 It was one of the most powerful and impres
sive of his utterances.
As he was leaving the outer courts of the temple, —
his eye chancing to rest for a while upon its yet un
finished decorations, and some of his disciples breaking
forth into exclamations of admiration, — he was sud
denly filled with an inexpressible sadness. " Of all
this there will not be left one stone upon another! "2
he cried, the sorrow of the prophet mingling with the
consciousness of the future victor. The destruction of
the city and the temple, the doom of the immoral,
hypocritical, obdurate Church, is at the door. This
announcement was proof most impressive to his dis
ciples that his Messianic office had nothing in common
with the hopes of the theocracy. Upon their inquir
ing when these things would occur, he did not with
hold his revelations. But here the Evangelists show
no slight differences one from another. If, as the first
Evangelist states, the disciples further asked for the
signs of the glorious reappearance of Christ, and of the
completion of the then period of the world,3 it is certain
that the second and third Evangelists know nothing of
any such question asked by the disciples, and it is not
i Mark xiii. 1 ; Matt. xxiv. 1 ; Luke xxi. 5. " Matt. xxiv. 3.
2 Mark xiii. 2 ; Matt. xxiv. 2 ; Luke xxi. 6.

204 SIXTH SECTION.
likely that they asked it, as they had not then any
idea that the death of Jesus was so near at hand. The
aim of Jesus in these predictions was to warn his dis
ciples,1 from whom he was soon now to be separated
forever, of the dangers to which they would be exposed
upon the occurrence, of the great catastrophe. He had
already, at an earlier period, told them of the dangers
and trials that awaited them in the work of establish
ing and extending a Communion founded on princi
ples purely moral and spiritual. The Gospel needed
a new soil, new methods and powers. Not until the
old temple was destroyed could the new temple arise.
So thoroughly were the old religions identified with
the established civil order of things, with the whole
moral and spiritual condition of the ante-Christian era,
that the new religion could look to obtain a peaceful
position only through commotions and revolutions that
would shake the world to its centre. With clear vis
ion Jesus read the history of the world in the Future.
He saw, most plainly, that war must come, — war, in
vested with all the horrors by which the arbitrament
of arms is wont to be attended. That the Jewish
hierarchy was advancing towards a bloody and fatal
conflict, a conflict in which it must perish, was plain
to him beyond all doubt. Just as inevitable was it, in
his view, that his Communion would suffer persecution,
not only from the Jewish Church before its fall, but
far more from the civil authorities of the heathen
world. This persecution he regarded as 'the greater
woe, and he had no doubt that his followers would be
called to meet it before the doom fell upon the city
and the temple. Then would the souls of men be
tried. Then would fidelity be put to the test. Then
1 Mark xiii. 5; Matt. xxiv. 4; Luke xxi. 8.

THE CRISIS. 205
would the Christian community be winnowed. Then
it would behoove the Apostles to persevere to the
end. The greatest woe was, however, the strife that arose
in the bosom of his own Communion. Divisions ap
peared in the very sanctuary of converted households.
The father testified before the civil tribunal against his
child, and brother against brother. The fierce flame
of Gentile (and Jewish) fanaticism knows no sympa
thy. A man's own blood is at war with itself. The
nearest of kin deliver up the friends of the new faith
to the executioner. In the days of these tribulations
the weak deny their Christian faith. War, persecu
tion, the divisions of families, were, however, only pre
cursors of the End.1 And what idea had Jesus in the
announcement of the " End " ?
By the End is most commonly understood " the end
of the world." But Jesus had no such meaning. He
used the expression simply to indicate the close of the
Jewish and Gentile period, the termination of the so-
called old world, which was to be succeeded by his
Divine kingdom, or, as we express it, by the Christian
era, the new world. The destruction of Jerusalem
and of the temple, the downfall of the theocratic wor
ship, formed the real dividing line between an old and
worn-out condition of things, and a new and expand
ing development of the life of the nations. With the
overthrow of the city and of the temple, and most es
pecially with the awful desecration and devastation of
the holy places by the profane hand of the pagan sol
dier,2 the theocratic era was, in the eyes of Jesus, per
emptorily closed. There was then to be an end to
i Mark xiii. 13 ; Matt. xxiv. 13.
2 Mark xiii. 14 ; Matt. xxiv. 15 ; Luke xxi. 20.

206 SIXTH SECTION.
priesthoods, sacrificial offerings, and the sway of spirit
ual classes.
Jesus loved his country too ardently not to feel its
fate most deeply, notwithstanding the obduracy which
it had exhibited towards him. Sad was he when he
thought of the fugitive, the woman with child, the
suckling, the houseless in the winter time. With the
horrors of the coming desolation would be the danger
to his followers of being seduced from the truth. For,
as Jesus knew, the deluded people would cling to the
very last to the dream of the conquest of Rome and
of universal empire ; and demagogues, fanatics, false
representatives of the Messianic idea, would drag the
weak down into the abyss of ruin with themselves.
That Jesus predicted at that time the destruction of
Jerusalem and the desolation of the temple, and pro
nounced these events to be the end of the theocracy,
there can be no doubt. He did so in the prophetic
consciousness of triumph, anticipating events and claim
ing the future for his own ; and he uttered the proph
ecy in the presence of those who, in transient posses
sion of power, were vainly trying to revive the dying
Past. In this consciousness he was unappalled by the
death that awaited him. He was strengthened and
elevated by the conviction that from his blood would
stream life for the world.
2. But he is reported to have further told of extraor
dinary appearances in the firmament, the darkening
of the sun and the moon, miraculous manifestations in
the heavens, and of his own return in person upon a
throne of clouds, in pomp and majesty, with a retinue
of angels to gather his chosen ones upon the earth.1
As the disciples asked no questions on this point, may
1 Mark xiii. 24 ; Matt. xxiv. 29 ; Luke xxi. 25.

THE CRISIS. 207
it not be doubted whether he made such statements
of his own motion ? That he gave some hints and in
timations concerning the fortunes of his cause after
the overthrow of the theocracy, we may well suppose.
For, by the destruction of the city of the Temple the
triumph of the spiritual temple, of the Christian Com
munion, was undoubtedly sealed.
The saying of Jesus, preserved by both the first two
Evangelists,1 that the Gospel would be preached to all
nations as a token of the doom of Jerusalem, they did
not rightly understand. It was the downfall of the
theocracy that gave a most powerful impulse to the
diffusion of the Gospel in the heathen world. The
Communion of Christ was then first completely sepa
rated from Judaism. The Gentiles then had free ac
cess to it. The Christian Church of the world then
had its beginning.
It was quite characteristic that Jesus should describe
this period as the period of his Future, of his second
coming, in a manner, upon earth. He came not again
in flesh and blood. But he came in the word and the
spirit, as is strikingly intimated in a subsequent Apos
tolic epistle.2
That, in describing this second coming of his Mes
sianic kingdom, Jesus made use of the figurative lan
guage familiar to the theocratic modes of thought, is
very natural, and as little is it to be wondered at that
this language was misunderstood by the disciples, and
that, disposed as the Apostolic Christians were to trans
fer their old Jewish ideas to the person of Christ, it
was explained as pointing to a personal reappearance
of their Master.
This faith in the second personal appearance of the
l Mark xiii. 10 ; Matt. xxiv. 24. 2 Eph. ii. 17.

208 SIXTH SECTION.
Redeemer was thus brought into immediate connection
with the destruction of Jerusalem and the desolation
of the Temple.
As these last-mentioned events were not followed by
the expected appearance of Christ, it became necessary
among the more thoughtful members of the Christian
Communion to interpret the Future of Jesus in a '
more spiritual sense. The fourth Gospel affords special
evidence in point. In this Gospel the discourse of
Jesus, in which the destruction of Jerusalem and the
end of that era are announced, is entirely wanting. It
cannot, however, escape observation that the essential
idea of that discourse is to be found in what Jesus is
reported by the fourth Gospel to have said to his dis
ciples when he took farewell of them just before his
arrest.1 When he. there tells his disciples that he is
going to the Father to prepare a place for them, and
that he will come again to take them to himself and
unite them to himself most intimately, he thus prom
ises nothing else than a second return to earth. But
that the Evangelist did not understand by this second
coming a personal, bodily reappearance of Jesus is
apparent from the fact that the disciples were to be
comforted by a substitute (paraclete, i. e. helper, coun
sellor, in the place of the departed Jesus), who was to
be with them forever, and not, like Jesus, to be taken
away from them.2 They were not to be left orphans.
Jesus would come again in his spirit,3 the spirit of
truth. Through this spirit the disciples would be in
him and he in his disciples.
Thus, according to the fourth Gospel, the expectation
of the second coming of Jesus is transfigured into the
expectation of the future revelation of his spirit in his
1 John xiii. -xvii. 2 John xiv. 3, 16. 3 John xiv. 18.

THE CRISIS. 209
disciples, while to the world outside of the sphere of the
spirit, the coming of the Lord would be unknown.
The Holy Spirit, as the future representative of Jesus,
was to be the Teacher of mankind in a much higher
degree and much more powerfully than Jesus himself
was. It could discharge this office, however, only upon
the understanding that Jesus was not coming again in
his own person. And therefore the Holy Spirit was to
bear witness to Jesus, which was requisite only because
he could no longer bear witness to himself in his own
person.1 But Jesus considered his ascension to the
Father, and the substitution of the Holy Spirit in his
place, as an indispensable condition of the continued
progress and more comprehensive development of his
kingdom. According to the first Evangelist, Jesus de
clared, in his last discourse to his disciples, that at the
close of that period of the world he would sit in judg
ment upon all mankind.2 According to the fourth, he
told his disciples that the Holy Spirit will judge the
world, nay, more, that the prince of this world, (of the
then age?) the author of all evil, was judged already by
the second period's having begun, — the period of the
Holy Spirit.3 Up to this moment, the moral and relig
ious perceptions of the disciples had been very imper
fect. Jesus now promised them that the Holy Spirit
would lead them, in the way which he had opened, to
all truth. And thus the whole body of his followers
would be made ever more perfect in the knowledge of
the Highest which they needed, under the lead of the
spirit that would be given them, without their requir
ing a second personal appearance of Jesus.
3. The question, whether the first three Gospels, or
the fourth Gospel, have given us the most faithfully
i John xv. 26. 2 Matt. xxiv. 30 ; xxv. 31. s John xvi. 7.
VOL. II. 14

210 SIXTH SECTION.
the meaning of Jesus in his discourse to his disciples,
cannot be allowed to go unanswered. That they all
substantially agree is indisputable. It is certain that
the original subject of the discourse has almost wholly
disappeared in the fourth Gospel. No mention is made,
therefore, of a calamity impending over Jerusalem.
This Gospel is connected with the wholly changed
condition of things, in which it had its origin. The
overcoming of the world by the Gospel, which in the
first Evangelist is dependent upon the ruin of the
fountain-head of the theocracy, had been, aqcording to
the fourth Gospel, already for some time accomplished,1
and, moreover, is not dependent upon external condi
tions. Jesus in this Gospel foretells a period of severe
persecution for his disciples, and he cannot suppress
the apprehension that they will be shaken in their
faith and fall away from the Gospel.2 By the blind
and obdurate world that knows him not, and thinks it
does God a service when it kills his disciples,3 he in
tends particularly to refer to the ruling theocratic party.
According to this Gospel, also, there was near at hand
a mortal contest between that party and his followers.
But it is not through the destruction of Jerusalem by
the sword of the Roman, but through the triumph of
the spirit of truth,4 that he here looks to be glorified,5
and he is confident that his high character, for a brief
period misunderstood, will be acknowledged in the
future. The death hour, with its horror and its shame,
will soon be vanquished, and times of joyous exultation
will succeed. Love and Fidelity are the moral forces
to whose protection Jesus commends his disciples :
Love among the brethren in the spirit of self-sacrifice,
1 John xvi. 33. 2 John xvi. 1. 8 John xv. 18 ; xvi. 2.
4 John xvi. 14. 6 John xvi. 16.

THE CRISIS. 211
of which he himself had given an example,1 and Fidel
ity towards their Master, which he described so im
pressively under the similitude of the vine and its
branches, thereby representing himself as the spring
of life, whence in spiritual communion with him the
disciples drew unconquerable strength for ever new
efforts and triumphs.2
Thus the fourth Gospel faithfully reflects the true
meaning of Jesus in what he said to his disciples in the
Temple, so far as the future of his kingdom is con
cerned, but without any allusion to the connection in
which these things were said, or to the occasion that
called them forth. In the most essential point it gives
us the real thought of Jesus more correctly than the
first three Gospels. In that interesting moment, un
der the pinnacles of the Temple whose beauty drew
from his disciples expressions of admiring wonder,
Jesus announced the speedy destruction of all that
magnificence and the elevation of the spiritual Temple
of his Communion through the power of his word and
his spirit. This last event he represented as a second
coming of himself. He spoke, in the strong figurative
language of the Orient, of the grand influence of this
exaltation of Christianity over Judaism and Heathen
ism. And naturally enough he associated this event
with great physical phenomena. The Apostolic Com
munion has not yet reached the height of this idea of
the Master. Christian tradition was not able to rise
to this faith in the power of the Word and the Spirit.
Thus the clear, divine thoughts of Jesus in regard to
the Future have been corrupted into gross earthly ex
pectations. Thus Chiliasm,3 rooted in the represen-
i John xv. 12. 2 John xv. 1.
8 [Doctrine of the Millennium. Tkans.]

212 SIXTH SECTION.
tations of the first three Gospels, is a sickly offshoot
of the Jewish idea of the Messiah still lingering in
Christianity, a remnant of the religion of the letter
and of sensuous illusion still remaining in the religion
of the Spirit and of Truth.1

NOTE.
[The subject of this chapter is a very difficult one, and the
difficulty arises from the fact that the predictions of Jesus have
come down to us through a highly colored Jewish medium.
These predictions relate to points upon which his countrymen
had very peculiar and extravagant ideas, — ideas by which the
reporters of these predictions, sharing in the popular modes of
thinking, could not fail to be influenced. While there is much
that is valuable and interesting in our author's exposition of this
portion of the New Testament history, we feel the need of more
satisfactory light.
The first Evangelist states (ch. xxiv. 3) that the disciples
asked, " When shall these things be ? And what shall be the
sign of thy coming and of the end of the world ? " Dr. Schen
kel thinks they could not possibly have asked such a question,
as " they had not then any idea that the death of Jesus was so
near at hand." (p. 400.) But it must be borne in mind, that,
while his disciples believed him to be the Messiah, they evidently
did not consider him as having yet come. He was the Messiah to
them, but as yet the Messiah, in a manner, in disguise, the Mes
siah incognito. When they asked, therefore, about his coming, it
was not of his " reappearance " after death that they were think
ing. It was not what we call a " second coming " that they had
in their minds, for they did not regard him as having yet, prop
erly speaking, come at all. The great Coming was yet to be,
and to the day of their death they looked for it momently. When,
therefore, Jesus said that the Temple, which they were admiring,
would be razed to the ground, it was natural that they should
suppose that it was to be destroyed when he should openly
1 See Appendix, HI. 27, p. 212.

NOTE. 213
assume his high office as the Messiah, i. e. when he should come.
And the question ascribed to them in the first Gospel, so far from
being impossible, appears to me to be of an " historical " char
acter. It is observable, by the way, that they ask for " the sign"
of his coming, showing, does it not ? that the Pharisees, in making
the same demand upon him, had only given expression to what
was a popular expectation, namely, that when the Messiah should
appear he would give some signal, or sign, whereby the nation
would recognize him beyond the possibility of mistake.
It is not yet possible to indicate with any precision the extent
to which the Messianic ideas of his Jewish reporters have colored
the utterances of Jesus in regard to the events which his
profound prophetic insight saw coming in the future that lay
before him. Before his penetrating vision, much, it is evident,
lay plain and clear, that was entirely hidden from his country
and his age. He saw at hand the conflict that was inevitable
between the Jews and the power of Rome. And he saw with
equal clearness that the ruin of the former was alike certain.
And, furthermore, so comprehensive and so far-reaching were his
views of the Eternal Providence, — which, as he taught, overlooked
not a sparrow's fall, — that what was hidden from all other eyes,
was visible to him, and he foresaw that the destruction of the
city and the Temple, whose existence was identified in the faith
of his countrymen with the existence of the world, was an event
necessary, in the Divine order and will, to the introduction of a
better condition of things. In the conscious power of the truth
which was supreme in his own bosom, and which was the central
life of the religion of his country, buried as it was under a cum
brous, dead formalism, and imprisoned and fettered by Pharisaic
exclusiveness and bigotry, he felt that that truth was to expand
and fill the world. He confessed that God alone knew the time
and the hour. That he anticipated a speedier triumph of the
truth than has been realized is very probable. But the wonder.
is, not that he did not foresee more, but that he foresaw so much,
not that his sight did not extend further, but that it extended so
far. Wonderful, after all, as his prophetic insight was, it is no
more than was to be looked for in one who on all occasions and
in so many ways showed himself so extraordinarily wise and true.
How could the future hide itself from that eye to which the pres
ent was naked and bare 1 He who knew, as it would seem, by
instinct and intuition how to make circumstances the most ad-

214 TWENTY-THIRD CHAPTER.
verse so entirely subservient to his uses, that they seem now to
have been ordered for the express purpose of moulding his per
sonal being to a divine perfection, — how could he fail to read the
future in the present, and discern in man's nature, man's destiny?
How grandly in the twenty-fifth chapter of the first Gospel (31 -
46) is the time foretold when humanity shall be the standard by
which all nations shall be judged ! The costume of that great
prophecy belongs to the country and the age, but the central
truth was his own.
It is difficult to agree with Dr. Schenkel, that the twenty-fourth
and twenty-fifth chapters of the first Gospel, and the four
teenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth of the fourth, relate to the same
occasion, and are different reports of the same discourse and
the same conversation of Jesus with his disciples. The differ
ence between the two Gospels in these passages is altogether
too great to warrant such a supposition. They differ not only
in detail, but in their whole tenor. It is highly probable that
the passage in the fourth Gospel, extending from the fourteenth
chapter to the seventeenth inclusive, is a very free amplifica
tion of the utterances of Jesus on the occasion. If not written
by John himself, it is the production of an eminently spiritually-
minded person in profound sympathy with Jesus, working upon
notes and communications received from John, catching their
very spirit and the tone of the occasion, and fusing the whole
in the glow of his own feelings, doing this so unconsciously that
he imagined that all that he wrote was received from John. As
I have elsewhere remarked, it is by no means necessary to sup
pose that the name of John was attached to the fourth Gospel
in order to clothe it with an authority of which it would other
wise be destitute. Is it not supposable that the fourth Gospel
was composed by one who was in intimate communication with
John, or who, in some way or another, obtained possession of
materials furnished by the Apostle, which materials may indeed
have been in most respects brief and scanty; but they grew so, in
the quick and ardent mind of the writer, that he gave them the
form in which this Gospel has come down to us, using them in all
honesty, and giving John the entire credit, because he felt that
they belonged to the Apostle far more than to himself? At all
events, there is a touching and subduing charm in that part of the
fourth Gospel above referred to which criticism may not be able

NOTE. 215
to define, but cannot extinguish. It breathes through those mem
orable chapters from that profoundly sad occasion when Jesus
had taken his last meal with those humble friends of his, and they
had at last been made to feel that he was about to be taken away
from them, and they were to be left alone, with all their bright
hopes shivered in the dust. It was from a heart bowed down
under the immediate prospect of a lonely and terrible death, and
yet not absorbed in its own awful fate, but bleeding out its inex
haustible sympathy, that those immortal consolations streamed.
Those chapters of the fourth Gospel are imbued with a personal
feeling of which no trace appears in the predictions in the other
Gospels which our author refers to the same occasion. After such
an effort to comfort his disciples at a moment when it was he
himself who most needed comfort, we cannot wonder at the scene
of agony shortly afterwards in the garden, when in that lonely
place and in the still midnight Jesus suffered a natural revul
sion of feeling, and his own sorrows, kept off so long by such ex
traordinary strength of mind, suddenly came rushing upon him
and threatened for a while to overwhelm him.
That Jesus should have predicted in a general way, as is
stated in the first three Gospels, extraordinary appearances in
the heavens in connection with the great events that he foretold,
appears to me entirely natural. Such appearances — meteors,
shooting stars, eclipses, peculiar appearances of the sun and the
moon — are always occurring, and necessarily so often coinci-
dently with great revolutions in the history of human affairs,
that they have always been regarded, especially in ancient times,
as portents and precursors of such revolutions. The prophecy
of Jesus, therefore, was to the effect that there would be nothing
wanting to indicate the greatness of the events that were • at
hand, that the violent commotions and terrible calamities which
were coming would be accompanied by the extraordinary signs
and portents that attend all great occurrences.
That Jesus ever promised to appear himself arrayed in visible
glory cannot be supposed consistently with the pre-eminent spirit
uality of his teachings and his character. It is much more likely
that he was misunderstood by his disciples, whose minds were
teeminn' with visions of Messianic magnificence, than that he
should make any such promise. — Tbans.]

SEVENTH SECTION.

THE CONSUMMATION.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE CONSECRATION BT ANOINTING.
1. While the events just related were taking place,
the time of the Passover was drawing nigh. The
crowds of pilgrims increased in the holy city. The
strict hierarchical party in the High Council had for
some time been resolved upon the prosecution of Jesus,
but doubts appear to have arisen whether it should be
undertaken immediately, during the season of the
Festival, or be deferred till the Festival was over.
Danger was apprehended from his numerous friends
among the Galileans who had come to the Passover,
and who the hierarchy feared might rise in his favor.
But opportunity was given for immediate proceedings
by the unexpected overtures of one of the Twelve,
Judas of Kerioth, who informed the leaders of the
hierarchy that he was ready to deliver his Master into
their hands in a manner that would cause the least
possible disturbance. How came an Apostle to become
a traitor ? A dark page in the history of the Redeemer
here lies open before us. Will light ever be shed
upon it ?
If, as is commonly assumed, Jesus were all-know
ing, or even had he been endowed with superhuman

THE CONSUMMATION. 217
knowledge, he must have known when he called Judas
to be a disciple, that he was taking a serpent to his
bosom, training up a future traitor, a child of darkness,
in which case the grave question presents itself, with
all the weight of its unavoidable inferences, How came
Jesus, notwithstanding his foreknowledge of the cer
tain treachery of Judas, to receive him into immediate
connection with his own person, and into the service
of his sacred Cause? If he were convinced that Judas
could never be a worthy instrument in his service, why
did he call him ? When he knew that he had taken
a traitor to his bosom, why did he not send him
away ? If he were indubitably certain that the connec
tion of Judas with him and his Cause must be the
occasion of the temporal and eternal ruin of Judas,
why did he not break at once the fatal tie ? So much
was imperatively demanded of Jesus, as due to the
cause of the Gospel, to himself, and to Judas. Upon
the supposition that Jesus had exact knowledge from
the beginning of the fate of Judas, it was the duty of
wisdom, of self-respect, and of humanity, either not to
have allowed the connection with Judas, or to have
dissolved it as soon as possible. We are delivered
from this great difficulty by the supposition that Jesus,
when he received Judas among his immediate disciples
did not foresee his treachery, and that when he began
to doubt his moral purity, he was not without hope of
keeping the unhappy man from the path of destruc
tion. The position of Judas is of great significance in esti
mating the character of Jesus. On this account it
requires a more thorough consideration. Judas was
not among the first that were called to the company of
disciples. He became a disciple when the number was

218 SEVENTH SECTION.
increased to twelve.1 He was not distinguished by
Jesus in any way. In the short missionary excursions
upon which Jesus sent his disciples, Judas was doubt
less employed with the rest. The circumstance that
he had charge of " the bag " is mentioned only in the
fourth Gospel.2 That Jesus should thus have trusted
him is, from the point of view of this Gospel, the more
unlikely, as, according to this Gospel, Jesus looked upon
Judas as a " devil," and knew from the first that he
would betray him.
2. That Jesus knew from the beginning that Judas
was a thoroughly bad man, and yet received him among
the Twelve, is altogether impossible. There is reason
to suppose, rather, that it was not until the last abode
of Jesus in Judea, and in consequence of the last dis
course of Jesus to his disciples in the Temple, that the
thought of playing false took definite shape in the mind
of Judas. At an earlier period he had been, with the
rest of the disciples, in a state of uncertainty as to the
peculiar aims of Jesus. He had shared in the error
of believing that Jesus would establish the Messiah's
kingdom promised by the Old Testament prophets, and
would not withhold from his disciples a due participa
tion in the power and glory thereof. The solemn en
try of Jesus into Jerusalem, amidst the acclamations
of the people, may have tended to confirm him in the
. error. But the scene in the Temple, the declaration
of Jesus that the theocratic worship would come to an
end, the trouble arising with the ecclesiastical authori
ties, the disclosures made by Jesus with increasing
emphasis respecting the speedy death that awaited him
by violence and with shame, and the dark fate awaiting
his disciples, and perhaps also some secret intelligence
1 Mark iii. 9 ; Matt. x. 4 ; Luke vi. 19. 2 John xii. 6 ; xiii. 29.

THE CONSUMMATION. 219
received in regard to the hostile measures against
Jesus resolved upon by the High Council, — all these
things were heavy blows to the heart of Judas, thirst
ing for honor and power. Instead of dominion, service,
instead of power, persecution, instead of honor, shame,
— this was all that was left to him after hopes and
prospects once so brilliant. A sudden and complete
awaking from a great delusion best explains the sudden
revolution of feeling in one who held himself to have
been grossly deceived.
It escaped him, in his gross blindness, that he had
deceived himself. He rushed at once into a state of
furious exasperation. In an instant his cherished idea
had vanished. A stern fate, like that which had been
so plainly foretold to him, he was not the man to bear.
The love he had borne for Jesus turned into hatred,
for to Jesus he imputed as its author the bitter chagrin
that he felt upon awaking from his delusion. This
exasperation, this hatred, appears to have broken forth
in Bethany, two days before the Passover. What oc
curred there has come down to us, in somewhat differ
ent forms indeed, through the different channels of
tradition. The accounts, however, pretty well agree
in substance.1 In all, there is a woman who anoints
Jesus, there are disciples (or at least there is a disciple,
a Pharisee according to the third Gospel) who are
displeased with the woman and reprove her for it, and
there is Jesus who commends her. In the third Gos
pel the essential fact has suffered very considerable
change. The spirit of the story is in full keeping with
the immediate proximity of the final catastrophe. The
outpouring of the ointment is a most expressive symbol
1 Mark xiv. 3; Matt. xxvi. 6; Luke vii. 36; John xii. 1. See
also Appendix, 111. 28, p. 219.

220 SEVENTH SECTION.
of the devoted foreboding love of the disciples already
fearing the worst. It is in keeping also that Jesus
should interpret the act as an ofiice consecrating him
to his approaching death.
This touching token of the love of one, who was dis
tinguished for her fidelity even to death, appears to
have kindled into a flame the hate smouldering in the
breast of Judas. He, a disciple, frantic at the ruin of
those hopes which, in his overpowering but coarse
enthusiasm, he had identified with the person of Jesus,
— she, another disciple, inspired, elevated by the con
viction that Jesus, as the true Messiah, had now relin
quished forever all earthly hopes and was resolved to
seal the work of his life with his blood, — what a con
trast ! That office performed at the table, made sacred
to the woman by her love, was his consecration to
death. The disciples, with Judas doubtless at their
head, murmured at this act of love, concealing their
indignation under the pretext that the money for which
the precious ointment might have been sold would
have been better given to the poor. Jesus was known,
in fact, as the friend and helper of the needy and the
suffering. How much want might have been relieved
by so large a sum ! How many tears might have been
wiped away ! The murmurings of the disciples arose
under the erroneous impression that it was the special
office of Jesus to alleviate physical suffering. The
woman, with greater truth, recognized in him the de
liverer from spiritual poverty ; and, viewing him thu«,
she saw clearly the necessity of his offering up his life
for his holy cause. She felt that such a death should
have its symbolical consecration, and all the moro
needful was it because they who were dedicated to his
work did not yet appear to have any right idea of the

THE CONSUMMATION. 221
necessity of the self-sacrifice laid upon Jesus. They
would rather have had him anointed for the throne
upon Mount Zion than for the Cross upon Golgotha.
3. But how significant is the reply that comes from
the lips of Jesus to the fault-finding of the disci
ples ! There is nothing bitter here, or severe. From
first to last it is characteristic of Jesus that prejudices,
and even passions excited by false impressions and ex
pectations, were dealt with by him with the greatest
tenderness. The sympathy for the poor, expressed in
the objection of the disciples, was in itself commend
able, but it was a sympathy that might be manifested
at any time. • The sympathy awakened in us when we
see others destitute of what we are enjoying, or of what
we possess to superfluity, springs from a benevolence
akin to selfishness, and is found in unconverted men.
In the words, " The poor ye have always with you, and
when ye will ye can do them good," Jesus plainly
recognizes the duty of the Christian Communion to
care for the poor. But this is a universal duty. At
that moment there was a quite special and much higher
duty to be fulfilled. The stubborn heart, ever flatter
ing itself with false Messianic hopes, was to be brought
down. The disciples had, first of all, to open their
minds to the supreme conviction that faith in the
future of God's kingdom was to be shown in self-sac
rificing love. It was of the first necessity that the idea
of a suffering and dying Messiah, of such a Messiah as
the establishment of a New Covenant required, should
be acknowledged and appreciated in its necessity and
power. The deep significance of the anointing in Beth
any lay in this, that it gave expression, simple, intelli
gible, and touching, to this acknowledgment and this
appreciation. The simple eye of a woman saw farther

222 SEVENTH SECTION.
than the keen vision of men, and she with her deep sen
sibility understood the future more truly than they with
all their calculations. What Jesus said in commenda
tion of her act has been handed down to us most cor
rectly by the second Gospel : " She hath done what
she could. She is come aforehand to anoint my body
to the burying. Verily, I say unto you, wheresoever
this Gospel shall be preached throughout the whole
world, this also that she hath done will be spoken of
for a memorial of her."1 Thus Jesus regarded this
office of love, his anointing, as intimately connected
with the future publication of his Gospel in the heathen
world. Thus was his death emphatically proclaimed
to be, not only a fountain of power, of elevation, of
sanctification for all the members of his Communion,
but also the indispensable condition upon which de
pended the abolition of the theocratic Constitution, and
the recognition of the religious equality of Jews and
Gentiles. The woman who anointed him was the first
to discern in its full worth the significance of his death
in relation to the future, and to give expression to her
faith by that symbolical act.
Thus she presents a contrast, the sharpest and most
striking, to Judas, the disciple who, in his uncontrol
lable rage, suffered himself to be hurried away into
treachery towards his Lord and Master. She offers
up her money, in order worthily to celebrate the ap
proaching death of Jesus, in a prophetic sense of the
blessings to flow therefrom. He takes money from the
hands of the deadly enemies of Jesus, in order to gain
what he could from the now accursed connection with
him, and by helping to accelerate his death. In the
former we see childlike self-forgetfulness, the pure
1 Mark xiv. 8.

THE CONSUMMATION. 223
spirit that asks nothing for itself, but would give all in
love of the departing Master, going to his death. In
the latter, base self-love, the darkened heart, which
awaking from a great delusion, in bitter hate, deems
no means too base to satisfy its revenge. In secret in
terviews with persons sent to him by the hierarchical
party, Judas had probably become satisfied that the
destruction of Jesus was inevitable. What, then, could
he do better than turn the case to his own advantage ?
The love of gain was throughout only a secondary mo
tive of his treachery. The prime object was revenge.
It was not with cool, calculating selfishness that he
went to work in the first instance. How could Jesus
have ever admitted a cunning self-seeker among his
disciples? Judas was a man of a hot-blooded tempera
ment, of an excitable, jealous spirit, rash in his resolu
tions, hasty in his acts. This is shown by his death,
probably by his own hand.1 His remorse after the
condemnation of Jesus was sincere.2 It could hardly
have been, as is supposed by many, that it was the
shock, which the unexpected result of the trial of Jesus
gave him, that led him to lay violent hands on himself,
but rather the agonizing self-reproach that he felt at
the treachery of which, in his blind rage, he had been
guilty. His case illustrates the moral law, which ex
perience attests, that the sins of passion first come home
to the deluded conscience through their consequences,
too late for reparation before men, but not too late to
be expiated before God.
Thus viewing the case of Judas, we at least see
nothing inexplicable in the fact that Jesus received him
1 Matt, xxvii. 5. Less credible is the later tradition (Acts i. 18),
according to which he did not hang himself, but lost his life by a fall.
2 Matt, xxvii. 4.

224 SEVENTH SECTION.
into the company of the Apostles. When Jesus called
him, he was, on the whole, no better and no worse than
his associates. He had fixed his hopes on the " con
solation of Israel." He looked for their fulfilment
through the restoration of a reformed theocratic order
of things. The first moment that Jesus asserted his
Messiahship, he believed in a coming theocratic em
pire of the world under the sceptre of Jesus. He
would have labored with the rest with passionate
devotion to set up the Messianic throne of Jesus.
Jesus trusted that he as well as the others would in
due time undergo a moral change. Unhappily no
such change came over him. It is only at critical
moments that men are put to the proof. Judas proved
false in the hour of trial. This fact cas.ts no shade
upon the character of Jesus. He had erred in his
judgment of Judas, but the error sprang from the pur
est motives. He hoped for a gradual correction of the
will, and for an ultimate conquest of the prejudices and
passions of his disciple. That the vision of Judas was
blinded in, the hour of danger, and that his will suc
cumbed to the powers of darkness, was an event un
foreseen, one of the heaviest sorrows that befell Jesus
on his thorny way. On the very threshold of the final
decision, he beheld the little band of his most intimate
friends divided between love and hatred, most of them
wavering, fearful, losing all heart, one of them filled
with the bitterest rancor. Into this cup of sorrow the
woman, who anointed him in Bethany, poured a drop
of soothing balm. She understood the character and
the work of the Master. In her loving and hopeful soul
his kingdom had found a firm place. Like a prophet
ess, she pointed from the nocturnal shade of death
to the morning splendor of a bright Future. That act

NOTE. 225

in Bethany consecrating his self-sacrificing death by
the hand of that gentle disciple, was the Consecration
of his work on earth. Anointed with the oil of love
he went, comforted and serene in the calmest wis
dom and with consummate patience, to meet his awful
fate.

NOTE.

[The view taken in this chapter of the anointing of Jesus by
Mary, and by which this incident is elevated into a necessary and
solemn juncture in his history, is rendered probable only by an
assumption which appears to me to lack sufficient authority. It
supposes an extraordinary degree of spiritual discernment in
Mary, in that, according to Dr. Schenkel, she recognized the
necessity and significance of the death of Jesus. If she did, her
spiritual insight was hardly second to that of Jesus himself.
As I have already had occasion to remark, our author, I think,
misunderstands the nature of the chief influence which Jesus
exercised upon his personal disciples during his lifetime. He
appears to think that Jesus was steadily initiating them into the
spiritual nature of his kingdom. He was doing so ; but, as is
most important to be observed, not so much through the under
standing, not so much by his verbal instructions, as through
their hearts, in which he was awakening new affections. His
verbal instructions were slowly interpreted by events, and chiefly
by his death, through which a spirit of mind was communicated to
his disciples, that true spirit, that brought to their remembrance
what he had said and enabled them to understand him. That
they were growing more and more attached to his person, learn
ing to reverence him and confide in him more and more surely,
there can be no question. Neither can there be any doubt that
they were steadily becoming more and more fully persuaded
that he was the Messiah promised by the prophets. But the
more their faith was confirmed in him, the more firmly were
they convinced that he would realize their fond hopes of
worldly good, and the more incapable did they become of be
lieving that he could,suffer a violent and shameful death. How
vol. n. 15

226 TWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER.
earnestly did Peter resent the idea of such a fate for his Master,
at the very moment that he had avowed his faith in the Messiah-
ship of Jesus! The reason, so far as his immediate disciples were
concerned, why it was necessary that he should leave them was
that, so long as he was with them, they would persist in the
worldly expectations, which their belief in his Messiahship fostered.
As for Mary and the other women who " ministered " to him,
their attachment was far less alloyed, doubtless, than that of the
men by worldly expectations. It was not in their woman's nature
to cherish with equal ardor those ambitious hopes. But still there
is no reason to suppose that their Messianic ideas differed materi
ally from the popular opinions of the time. To Mary, Jesus was
a very Prince, probably, already. And I can see no ground for
supposing that, in breaking that box of precious ointment over
his person, she had any thought but to express her deep personal
reverence for him. Such an act was in perfect keeping with
Oriental customs, which authorized a liberal use of perfumed
unguents upon hospitable occasions. If Mary, whose deep ten
derness of nature was shown at the grave of her brother, had
had any clear foresight of the awful death that was impending
over Jesus, would she not have been overwhelmed by the appall
ing prospect ? Would she not have shrunk from an act which,
if she meant it as Dr. Schenkel represents, must have seemed to
her as if she herself v^ere dooming him to that horrible fate ? If
she had so intended it, and if it were because she so intended it
that Jesus commended her, how is it that he interpreted it, not in
the sense of a consecrating office, but as his embalming ? She
poured the costly ointment upon him, simply, I apprehend, in
token of her profound personal veneration for him. It was not as
the Messiah that was to be, but as the present king of her soul,
that she offered him this expression of her homage. Probably that
box of ointment was the costliest thing that she possessed, and she
felt moved to honor him by the offering of the best that she had.
And what struck Jesus was the coincidence of this act with his
death, which he alone had foresight of as very near at hand.
Mary had no thought of embalming him. Her whole gentle heart
would have shrunk from the idea. All the more striking was the
act to Jesus. It is evident, as he approached the dark hour that
was before him, that the images of death thronged thick and fast
upon him. So only can be explained his emotion, his deep mel
ancholy at the grave of Lazarus. It was the full sense of his

NOTE. 227
own lonely and fearful fate that moved him then to groans and
tears. The tokens of sympathy and death then presented all
around him, the weeping sisters, their friends weeping with
them, and the sight of the grave, how must these things have
brought home to him with overpowering effect the consciousness
that he was shortly to suffer, unwept, forsaken, alone ! Then again
at the last Supper, so vividly did the broken bread and the red
wine bring up before him the images of his own mangled body
and streaming blood, that for the moment he lost sight of the
visible symbols, and exclaimed, "It is my body!" "It is my
blood ! " And so also it was when Mary poured the ointment
upon his head. It instantly had a funereal scent to him. And he
interpreted the act as his embalming. How very significant, from
its very delicacy, is his allusion to his death in the words, " Ye
have the poor always with you, but me ye have not always." And
so struck was he with the coincidence of the act of Mary and his
own near burial, that it came to him like a providential event, —
something sacred, that must not be interfered with or criticised,
but accepted, — one of those occurrences which never could be
forgotten, but must be told and remembered everywhere and for
ever. At first sight the suggestion that it was a great waste, that
the poor might have been relieved instead, is a very plausible one,
and one which under other circumstances Jesus himself, we think,
would have been the first to make. But there is no trait of his
character finer, more exquisite, than his instinctive recognition of
occasions. His feeling is always in admirable symmetry with the
exigencies of the moment, and marked with a perfect fitness. At
the first glance we are ready to ask, Is he who thus freely accepts
so costly a token of personal respect, who seems to put his own
personal claims before the claims of the poor, — is he the same who
on other occasions disclaimed so peremptorily all personal homage,
forbidding a young man at one time to call him good, and at an
other rebuking a woman who broke forth in blessings upon his
mother ? But the apparent inconsistency vanishes when we look
carefully into the particular circumstances of these several occa
sions, and a deeper consistency is disclosed, and we perceive how
finely and yet how all unconsciously his feeling was adjusted to
the moment, how seasonable it always was, and pertinent. He
was not fettered by formulas, or disabled and driven into sense
less and untimely exaggeration by mere abstractions. He recog
nized in the act of Mary a truth of feeling, a sanctity of affection,

228 TWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER.
which was not to be frustrated or postponed, even to the claims
of the poor, most especially as it was performed at such a moment
when his death was so near at hand. And did he not rightly
judge ? What is the small amount of physical relief which the
price of the ointment would have afforded the poor, compared
with the fragrance of that act, vitalizing all the air that men
breathe forever !
Dr. Schenkel thinks the incident related by Luke (vii. 36 - 50)
is the same incident told by Matthew (xxvi. 6-13), by Mark
(xiv. 3-9), and by John (xii. 3-8). But the story in Luke is
in substance so entirely different from that given in the other
three Gospels, that I find it much easier to suppose that some of
the particulars of the two stories, coinciding as they do in certain
obvious respects, early got confounded with each other in the
Evangelical narratives, than that they refer to only one and the
same occasion. Both Matthew and Mark state, that the woman
poured the ointment on the head of Jesus, while in Luke and
John it was the feet of Jesus that were anointed. Luke states
that the woman who anointed Jesus, was a " sinner," a woman of
notoriously bad character, and the parable of the two debtors,
which Jesus relates, implies that she had sinned greatly. John
tells us that it was Mary, the sister of Lazarus and Martha, who
anointed him. Although Jesus treated the penitent with great
tenderness, yet it is difficult to suppose that Mary, who, we are
told by John was with her brother and sister an intimate friend of
Jesus, could have been a person of the character ascribed to the
woman whom Luke tells us of. Had Mary suffered any loss of
character, she would hardly have had friends from Jerusalem
visiting and condoling with her upon the death of Lazarus. As
both the women anointed Jesus, the one, Mary, breaking the box
of ointment over his head, while the other, an unknown woman,
anointed his feet, I cannot but think that the manner of the act
early got transferred from one story to the other, and that there
is an error in John's Gospel where it states that Mary anointed
the feet of Jesus and wiped them with her hair. There is a mis
take there, I am strongly inclined to suspect.
As to Judas, our knowledge of him is not sufficient to enable us
to pronounce with confidence upon any explanation that may be
given of his treachery. That he was received by Jesus into the
company of the Twelve, is abundant proof that he was by no
means a man utterly depraved. And his great and quick re-

NOTE. 229
morse is certainly not an indication of a character hardened in
evil. The common belief that it was the love of money that was
his ruin, appears to me on the whole most probable. Being per
haps a man of cooler temperament than the other disciples, he
probably saw more clearly than the others the formidable char
acter of the opposition to Jesus, and how idle it was to expect
that the glories of the Messiah's kingdom were to be realized
through a person of such low origin and of such humble circum
stances as his Master. It may be doubted whether his design was
fully matured when he and the rest sat down with Jesus to the
last Supper. It was what occurred at the table that brought him
to the resolution of executing his purpose without any further
delay. How Jesus discovered his meditated treachery we are not
told. There are so many ways in which Jesus may have come to
a knowledge of it, that it is not at all necessary to suppose his
foreknowledge of it miraculous. Jesus treated Judas on that
memorable evening, knowing him to be a traitor, with that char
acteristic magnanimity for which we can find no parallel. In
the next chapter, Dr. Schenkel represents it as apparently inex
plicable that Jesus, knowing that Judas was in league with his
enemies did not expel him on that evening from the company.
But the explanation which Dr. Schenkel suggests is both obvious
and satisfactory. The crime which Judas meditated was not
yet consummated. The conscience of the traitor might yet be
reached. To have driven him away would have been equivalent
to hurrying him on to the execution of his traitorous design.
And besides Jesus wished for a few last moments with his dis
ciples, and so long as Judas was present, he must have felt him
self in some degree secure from arrest. He felt, however, that it
was necessary to let his disciples know that he knew what was
going to take place, as he said, " I tell you before it happens, so
that when it does happen, your faith in me may not be shaken,
and you will recollect that I was prepared for it." (John xiii. 19.)
But he does not mention the name of the traitor. He confides it
only to John in a whisper, and not even to him directly, but by a
sign, lest, as it appears, the others, who were watching him, should
catch it from the motion of his lips. Thus he avoided excit
ing against Judas the wrath of his fellow-disciples. Could the
wretched man have only caught the faintest glimpse of that great
and generous heart, and thrown himself in confession and remorse
at the feet of his Master, who had just washed his feet, without, I

230 SEVENTH SECTION.
doubt not, one shadow of personal unkindness in his mind, but
only with infinite pity, would he not have received at once the
kiss of forgiveness and peace ? But the vision of that divine love
was hidden from Judas by his demon passions, which rose at once
so fiercely and so filled all his soul, that John saw the devil in
him in his countenance. (John xiii. 27.) He could have no
thought but that he was about to be exposed before them all, and,
stung and maddened, he rose up and left the room, resolved irrev
ocably now, since he was suspected and charged with being a
traitor, that he would be revenged, and be a traitor indeed. —
Trans.]

CHAPTER XXV.

THE SUPPER.

1. On the evening of the fourteenth of the month
Nisan, at the time appointed by the Law for the sacrifice
of the Paschal lamb, Jesus desired to celebrate the Pass
over with his disciples. It is somewhat surprising that
he should have had this desire, since he had renounced
the obligations of the ceremonial law, and had at last
completely broken with the theocratic order of things.
On this account, many accept the representation of
the fourth Gospel, according to which he did not really
observe the Passover, but only sat down with his
intimate friends to a parting meal, which had no im
mediate relation to the Passover, the day before that
appointed for the Feast, on the evening of the thir
teenth day of Nisan. We regard, however, as entitled
to credit the unanimous statement of the first three
Gospels, that he really observed the Passover on the
fourteenth with his disciples. The account of the
fourth Evangelist is encumbered with very serious

THE CONSUMMATION. 231
difficulties. Its correctness being supposed, it is espe
cially difficult to understand how the tradition in
which the other three Evangelists agree, namely, that
Jesus partook of the Paschal lamb with his disciples,
could have arisen, certified as it is by the original
authority of Mark, who derived his account from
Peter. Still more inexplicable is it that the fourth
Gospel omits, together with the Paschal feast, the in
stitution of the Supper, which, according to the first
three Gospels, stands in indissoluble connection with
it. It is not at all credible that Jesus celebrated the
Paschal feast in the ordinary theocratic meaning of the
word. It was not that ceremony that he observed, ac
cording to the first three Gospels. As is clear from
their account, Jesus simply made use of the legally
prescribed observance in order to institute in immedi
ate connection therewith another feast, — the feast of
the New Covenant. Accordingly, he celebrated the
Passover, not to authorize, but to abolish it. The cele
bration of the first Lord's Supper was connected by
necessary consequence with the celebration of the last
Paschal supper, the abolition of the Old Covenant with
the inauguration of the New.
The Paschal feast, therefore, which Jesus celebrated
with his disciples is only the last of a series of previ
ously arranged acts, a solemn ending in view of his
death and of the formal institution of his Communion.
Without such a conclusion the work of Jesus would
have lacked completeness. It was necessary that, once
more before his departure, he should declare, in the
circle of his Apostles, with the utmost solemnity and
by a symbolical act, stamping itself on the memory
forever, that the Old Covenant had now come to an
end, and that a New Covenant had taken its place.

232 SEVENTH SECTION.
Thus the celebration of the Paschal feast stands in
significant connection with the consecration at Bethany.
The death that awaited Jesus, to which, with a thorough
understanding of it, the woman had dedicated him,
must be placed in the pure light of the future of the
divine kingdom by the Master himself before the dis
ciples, from whom its deeper significance had been
hidden. He must set it before their eyes with over
powering force as the imperishable foundation of a new
spiritual communion between God and all mankind.
2. But of the last Supper of Jesus with his disciples,
thus understood, there is not the slightest trace in the
fourth Gospel. There is a supper,1 but not this supper.
The Evangelist is interested solely in relating what
followed the supper : the washing of the disciples' feet,
and various things said by Jesus in connection there
with. That the washing of the feet of the disciples,
related by this Evangelist, is a fact, there can be no
doubt. But at the same time it is certain, that if
Jesus, at the conclusion of the last meal with his dis
ciples, instituted the Supper, he could not at the same
hour have performed the act of washing the feet of the
disciples also. Two symbolical acts so essentially dif
ferent and so unlike in aim could not have taken
place at one and the same time ; the impression of one
would necessarily have obliterated the impression of
the other. As, moreover, the washing of the disciples'
feet had no relation to the death of Jesus, — that es
sential condition of the New Covenant, — it is not to
be believed that it took place in that parting hour. It
must have occurred at an earlier period.
The representation of Jesus in the fourth Gospel
shows, in the portion of it devoted to his last hours, the
1 John xiii. 2.

THE CONSUMMATION. 233
same coloring, the same ground-tone, which we have
remarked in its earlier chapters. Long before the
death of Jesus all is defined, completed. The disciples,
with the exception of the traitor, are all pure ; 1 they
require no further cleansing save from a few special
failings. Jesus himself is already glorified, and God is
glorified in him.2 According to such representations,
an institution like the Supper was by no means essen
tially needed. To what purpose the distribution of
earthly bread, when the person of Jesus Christ is the
only true bread coming down from heaven?3 Why
dispense the wine of earth, when his person is the liv
ing water springing unto everlasting life ? 4 Faith in
his person stills all hunger and quenches all thirst. It
is not merely his final submission to the death of the
Cross, but it is his giving his flesh for the world, which
is a heavenly source of nourishment.8 Therefore were
the Jews required to eat the flesh and drink the
blood of the living Christ.8 How remote from the
point of view of this Gospel is any thought of partaking
of material food in order to receive spiritual nourish
ment, is shown by the remark that the spirit giveth
life, but the flesh profiteth nothing, and that the words
of Jesus, as a source of nourishment to the world, are
spirit and life.7 There is no doubt that, at the time
when the fourth Gospel was composed, a physical effi
cacy, a magical influence, was already beginning to be
ascribed to the solemnity of the Lord's Supper, — an
idea which the Evangelist held himself bound to com
bat. A presentiment of the . inconceivable delusions
and fatal abuses by which the observance of this rite
i John xiii. 10. 2 John xiii. 31. 8 John vi. 33.
4 John iv. 14. 6 John vi. 51. 6 John vi. 53.
1 John vi. 63.

234 SEVENTH SECTION.
has been overcast, and which has rendered it the most
fruitful source of superstition and strife, appears to
have arisen in the mind of the Evangelist, and he prob
ably thought that he might do somewhat to check the
threatening danger by not mentioning the institution
at all, although it must, without doubt, have been
known to him as an institution of Christ's. And
here also may be the reason why he placed the last
supper of Jesus and his disciples a day earlier, and con
nected with it the washing of the disciples' feet, — an
act which was peculiarly fitted to humble that priest
ly pride which, contrary to the original design of the
founder, afterwards found in the Lord's Supper its
main support.
3. Jesus really observed the Paschal supper on the
evening of the fourteenth day of Nisan, as the Pales
tinian traditions, having no special point to serve, unan
imously attest.1 He had seen through the designs of
Judas, and had not prevented them. He could not
really have effected any change in his fate. He well
knew that by a strict construction of the statutes of the
Old Covenant, his life was forfeited. He could have
no doubt that his enemies would not rest until they
had destroyed him. That his death had become neces
sary to the future development and establishment of
the kingdom of God he was profoundly convinced.
He took no step either to hasten the catastrophe or to
delay it. With the calmest self-possession he allowed
events to take their destined course, and it is this
repose of mind which most fully illustrates the purity
and greatness of his character. To submit to an un
foreseen calamity requires neither courage nor wisdom.
To meet a fate that is foreseen demands courage, but
1 See Appendix, HI. 1 and 2.

THE CONSUMMATION. 235
does not always show wisdom. It calls for the highest
courage and the largest measure of wisdom to see with
clear insight a terrible fate approaching, and never to
waver in the determination to accept it without a mur
mur and endure it with perfect confidence.
It was in such a lofty frame of mind that Jesus
seated himself at table on the evening of the fourteenth
day of the month Nisan with his disciples, in accord
ance with arrangements previously made, and in a
chamber especially prepared for the occasion, with no
other witnesses than those who had thus far been his
companions in his sufferings, his conflicts, and his suc
cesses. The traitor was present with the rest. He
proposed to accompany his Master after the Supper to
the garden, whither the officers of the men in author
ity were ordered to go to arrest Jesus. Why did not
Jesus expel him from the company? It seems inexpli
cable. We know of but one possible explanation.
The crime was not yet consummated. The traitor
might yet be brought to reflection, and the spark of
repentance be kindled in his breast, which afterwards,
when it was too late, flamed forth within him, a con
suming fire. When Jesus, at that last supper, de
clared that one who was sitting at table with him
would betray him, and that it were better for that man
if he had not been born,1 was not this fearful word a
last attempt to awaken the slumbering conscience of
his disciple ?
It was not only, as Jesus well knew, the last Pass
over that he was to observe, .but thenceforth there was
to be no Passover to be celebrated any longer. An
intimation that this observance of the Passover by
1 Mark xiv. 1 8 ; Matt. xxvi. 23 ; Luke xxii. 21 . This expression
is evidently misplaced by Luke after the institution of the Supper.

236 SEVENTH SECTION.
Jesus was to bring the Feast prescribed by the Old
Covenant to an end forever has been preserved in the
third Gospel.1 According to this Gospel, Jesus sol
emnly declared that he would thenceforth no more
eat of this Passover, but that it would find its fulfil
ment in the kingdom of God, i. e. in the new Com
munion instituted by him. As the Passover, in the
Old Covenant, was a feast commemorative of the liber
ation of Israel from the yoke of heathen oppression,
and celebrated in every household, at whose head the
father of the house stood as priest, so was this deliver
ance truly realized only in the New Covenant Com
munion by the admission of the Gentiles to the Covenant
of God; and thus was the Old Testament Passover
fulfilled. But now, when, notwithstanding this fulfil
ment, the inauguration of the New Covenant was con
secrated by a new symbolical observance, which was
to take the place of the Passover, it required to be
explained with more precision.
The Passover was essentially an observance through
which the theocratic system exercised its influence in
the domestic sphere. The principle of theocratic dis
cipline and exclusiveness was at the foundation of it.
In this solemnity the people, sanctified to the Lord,
united in their family relations in expressing their joy
at the mercy shown to Israel. No uncircumcised 2 or
unclean person 3 was permitted to take part in the feast.
The neglect of it, according to the later construction
of the Law, was threatened with death.4 Thus this
observance, otherwise so* elevating, was surrounded
with the terrors of the Law.
Such a ceremony was wholly at variance with the
1 Luke xxii. 43. 2 Exodus xii. 43.
8 Numbers ix. 7. 4 Numbers ix. 13.

THE CONSUMMATION. 237
spirit and character of Jesus. His aim had rather
been to break down the narrow limitations of the theo
cratic statute, to offer salvation to the uncircumcised
when they repented and believed, upon the same terms
with the circumcised. And he based the future of his
kingdom, not on the penal law, but on the tender love
of God. His whole public life had been an expression
of this love. But only in his death was it fully mani
fested. His death, and in his death the redeeming,
reconciling love of God, which opens the door of the
Divine kingdom to the whole Gentile world, — this it
was that Jesus now desired to celebrate with his dis
ciples. This whole, deep love could be but partially
expressed to the common understanding in a formula,
in words. Full expression was to be given to it by a
symbolical act, — an act adapted to make all who shared
in it partakers in the richest gifts of Divine love.
4. The death of Jesus had become a moral neces
sity. We have already seen that Jesus had trans
gressed the theocratic law deliberately and boldly, and
engaged in mortal conflict with the hierarchy. This
conflict must go on to the end. He could not suspend
it, or only partly carry it through. The theocratic
system must fall. But this result was possible only on
the condition that the champion, who had raised the
sword of the Spirit against it, should devote himself to
death. He must fall a sacrifice to the Law, that the
Law itself might be sacrificed. It was to be made
manifest to every honest mind, in the fearful fact of his
death, that the law which condemned him was unjust,
that a cruel and atrocious legal murder was perpetrated
in his case, and that the severities of the law had the
effect to destroy whatever was pure and noble, and not
preserve it, — to ruin men, not to save them. The

238 SEVENTH SECTION.
execution of Jesus on the Cross, resolved upon by the
constituted authorities, by the Jewish High Council
and the Roman Procurator, carried out in conformity
with the most cruel and ignominious usages, without
mitigation and without humanity, must, in its conse
quences, affect, not the innocent victim, but the guilt-
laden law. The death of Jesus, therefore, to be flung
upon his head as at once a curse and a shame, was
changed into a source of blessing and honor to him who
suffered it. The tender Love, as the representative
of which he died, arraigned the inhuman law, the Let
ter, which killed him. Jesus was acquitted, the law
was placed at the bar, and with it the whole theocratic
system. The hierarchy was now judged, its law con
demned, its fanaticism rendered an object of abhor
rence by the Cross, which was exalted into a symbol
of innocence, purity, truth, righteousness, love, and
freedom. These spiritual forces, the living roots of
the kingdom of God, now received the highest honor
among the nations, and the dead and deadly letter was
consigned to weakness and shame.
Jesus clearly foresaw the effect of his death, and
therefore he regarded it as a fountain of salvation to
mankind. But he saw in it likewise a means of recon
ciliation with God and of expiation for our sins. Even
under the Old Covenant, reconciliation and atonement
were provided in case of a transgression of the law of
God, but within very narrow limits. There was no
special atonement for the conscious and deliberate vio
lation of the law. According to the Old Testament,
there was no expiation possible for the assaults which
Jesus had made upon the theocracy. His shameful
death as the consequence of a persistent transgression
of the Letter was, in the eyes of fanatical Jews, the just

THE CONSUMMATION. 239
punishment of the great crime which he had committed
against the sanctity of their venerated traditions. This
death was now to make expiation for the sins of the
world. This end it effected, because the blessed con
sequences flowing from it would annihilate the condem
natory Letter, because it would give it to be known
by all mankind that God did not judge sin by the stand
ard of the dead, prescriptive Letter, and because,
through that death, the righteousness of God appeared
in an entirely new light, as flowing from eternal wis
dom and love. In the death of Jesus love triumphed
over hatred and the power of the written law, the
Spirit over the Letter, truth over hollow appearance,
eternal, Divine right over the arbitrary force of human
authority. But now, as every true revelation of love
is a sacrifice, the death of Jesus, as the highest proof of
love that a man could give on earth, is the sacrifice of
sacrifices. For love of God and man he offered him
self up a sacrifice to the deadly Letter, in order, by his
death, to abolish it as the greatest obstacle in the way
of true religion and morality.
How natural was it, then, that he should consider his
death as the fulfilment of the Old Testament sacrifice,
and that, as the Paschal lamb was assuredly, in a cer
tain sense, a lamb of sacrifice, he should appear to him
self, in his impending sufferings and death on the
Cross, as the Paschal lamb of the New Covenant. It
was this idea of his death that floated before his mind
durino- the last observance of the Passover. Hence we
may understand what occurred at .the conclusion of the
meal. The institution of the Lord's Supper is seen in its
true light only in connection with the Old Testament
Paschal solemnity, and only as a higher fulfilment

240 SEVENTH SECTION.
thereof in the New Covenant. What a sacred mo
ment was that, when, at the conclusion of the supper,
Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to
his disciples with the words, " Take it, it is my
body." x Shortly afterwards he took the cup, uttered
the prayer of thanks, and handed it to his disciples
to drink, with the words, " This is my blood, the blood
of the New Covenant shed for many." And he added,
he would no more drink of the Paschal wine till he
drank the new wine in the kingdom of God. Whether
he said anything further at the distribution of the
bread and wine is doubtful. It is more probable that
tradition has made additions than that one authentic
word has been lost. The remark found in the Apostle
Paul's account of the Lord's Supper, namely, that the
observance was to be repeated in commemoration of
the death of Jesus,2 is a probable addition of the later
Apostolic tradition, although it was doubtless the de
sign of Jesus that the New Covenant rite should, like
the old ceremony, be repeated from time to time.3
To present the new Paschal lamb to his disciples as
a symbol, and by this observance to seal the New Cov
enant in the most solemn manner, in view of his near
death, was the purpose of the institution of the Lord's
Supper. Bread and wine Jesus regarded as symbols
of his own person dedicated on the Cross to the sacrifice
of death. As, under the Old Covenant, the Paschal
lamb was to be partaken of in order to refresh and
strengthen faith in the redeeming power and grace of
the Lord, so now the person of Jesus, as the Paschal
lamb of the New Covenant, was to be accepted for the
refreshment and elevation of the faith of the New Com-
1 Mark xiv. 22. 2 1 Cor. xi. 24.
» See Appendix, HI. 29, p. 240.

THE CONSUMMATION. 241
munion in the redeeming love of God manifested in
him. The Old Covenant rested upon an emphatically
legal foundation, and therefore the observance of the
Passover was a specially legal observance. The New
Covenant had an emphatically moral basis, and there
fore the partaking of the Paschal lamb of the New
Testament was of a peculiarly moral nature. Bread
and wine, therefore, were merely the expressive means
whereby was represented what came to pass in the
death of Jesus for the salvation of the world. No
vainer dispute has been carried on for centuries than
that which relates to the words with which the Lord's
Supper was instituted : " This is my body," " This is
my blood." Jesus, using the Aramaean dialect, omit
ted the connecting " is." Taking the words to the
letter, the conclusion is unavoidable that at that very
moment a change took place of the bread into the
flesh, and of the wine into the blood of Jesus. But,
according to the express declaration of Jesus,1 flesh and
blood as such are nothing. There is only one way of
partaking of the Supper that has worth and effect in
the kingdom of God : the moral and spiritual apprecia
tion of the sacrifice made for mankind by Jesus on the
Cross, of that holy love revealed in his death, of the
reconciliation and reunion of sinful man with God.
As the Old Covenant depended upon the stern disci
pline of the Law, so the New Covenant rests upon vol
untary self-devotion, upon the tenderest love. In dedi
cating the members of his Communion collectively by
the Lord's Supper to a free, fraternal union, Jesus im
pressed upon the body of his disciples its distinguishing
character, and its ineffaceable moral significance, its
seal from heaven : its distinguishing character, for he
1 John vi. 63.
VOL. II. 16

242 SEVENTH SECTION.
grounded it, not upon human prescription, but upon a
Divine fact and communication, upon a faith in the
free grace of God, which cannot be forced, but lives in
the conscience and must be spiritually experienced, and
of which the Old Testament theocracy knew nothing
and would know nothing ; its moral significance, for in
the institution of the Lord's Supper he made it plain
with impressive simplicity to the members of the Chris
tian body that, as they were grounded in faith in the
evidence of God's love, so likewise, bound to one an
other through the evidence of mutual love, they were
to bear themselves and grow in all gentleness, consid
eration, patience, fidelity, and helpfulness; and, finally,
its seal from heaven, for in the Supper he instituted
the most intimate communion between himself, ac
credited as he was by the testimony of his Heavenly
Father, and the members of his Communion. He thus
showed that his death concerned his followers, not
merely as he was an example ever present in their
minds as an historical remembrance, but as he was a
spiritual source of life and strength, full of inexhaust
ible power, to be taken into the life of them all, so that
they should be forever nourished, quickened, sanctified
thereby. 5. Thus, doubtless, Jesus had no purpose but to
give a symbolical meaning to the Supper, as the oldest
Apostolic tradition represents.1 He desired to insti
tute it as a means of recalling and refreshing the influ-
ences of his death among his followers. It is not upon
any formally prescribed acts, it is not upon any church
ordinances, that our position before God and our work
in the Divine kingdom depend. The Lord's Supper is
in itself only an external act. It can easily become a
1 Luke xxii. 19 ; 1 Cor. xi. 24.

THE CONSUMMATION. 243
dead matter of custom. It has become a legal formal
ity throughout the greater part of Christendom to this
very day, in opposition to the design, the spirit, the
express will of its Founder.
It is evident, from this danger to which the institu
tion is so imminently exposed, that Jesus gave no direct
command that its observance should be regularly re
peated. He has bequeathed it, as a social ordinance
wholly free, to the free use of his followers. As a
mere external act, it has no very high object. It must
receive moral and spiritual life from the Christian body.
The bread and wine in the Lord's Supper are, as we
' have shown, merely symbols. But symbols as such
belong in religion to the period of Law. Until the
kingdom of God has reached the period of its full de
velopment, it cannot entirely dispense with symbols.
It is at the same time, however, the duty of its mem
bers to convert the ideas veiled in symbolic forms into
spirit and life. The true Communion of the Supper is
the Communion in which the sacrifice of Jesus on the
Cross has become spirit and life, giving practical evi
dence toward God and man of the love of Christ which
was sealed in his blood. The Lord's Supper is there
fore a means whereby the Christian body diffuses an
active Christian life through the whole sphere of its
influence, and, in manifesting its own loving spirit,
lives in conformity to the self-sacrificing love of the
Redeemer. If Judas, as is very probable, partook of
the Lord's Supper, it is plain that Jesus did not forbid
him : the most striking proof possible that all attempts
bv external discipline to purify the body of partici
pants m the observance from unworthy members are
doubtful and worthless.
Since Jesus himself did not exclude from the Com-

244 SEVENTH SECTION.
munion of the Supper one of whom he said that it
would have been better for him had he never been
born, it surely is not advisable for us to drive from the
table of the Lord such as we, according to our narrow
and short-sighted judgment, hold to be unworthy. It
must have been deeply painful to Jesus to permit the
traitor to take part in the institution of the feast of the
New Covenant. If he endured that pain, it could only
have been from his desire to preserve the Supper from
even the appearance of being a positive and formal ob
servance. He required from those who partook of it
no special preparation, nor did he exact a previous
confession before the first Communion. Entire free
dom was granted to all who joined in it. Thus has
Paul also treated the institution : " Let a man examine
himself, and so," i. e. after previous, free, personal
self-examination, " let him eat of the bread and drink
of the cup." J What would Jesus have thought of
those who make assent to a certain precise, dogmatic
formula the indispensable condition of a participation in
the Supper ? Never before had Jesus stood at so lofty
a height as at the moment of instituting this observ
ance. With a violent death before his eyes, expect
ing from his disciples, in their weakness of character,
neither help nor comfort, with no anxiety for victory
over men, with his hopes placed only upon his Heaven
ly Father and upon the truth and power inherent in
his great work, and uniting with all this an elevated
repose, a still submission, and perfect patience with
one who at this very moment was meditating the bas
est treachery ! A brief storm, however, was to rise in
this, until now, untroubled calm of his mind.
i 1 Cor. xi. 28.

NOTE. 245

NOTE.

[ The reader cannot fail to perceive how little some of the
concluding remarks of this chapter correspond with the account
which it gives of the greatness and deep significance of the so-
called institution of the Lord's Supper. It tells us that Jesus had
a very important and deliberate purpose, namely, to provide for
his followers, in the most solemn manner, a symbolical representa
tion of himself as the Paschal lamb, sacrificed in consecration of
the New Covenant, which abolished and superseded the Old with
all its rites. After giving us this account of the Lord's Supper,
Dr. Schenkel remarks that, the observance of it may easily become
a dead formality, and that it has in fact become such throughout
the greater portion of the Christian world. And, finally, he
doubts whether it were meant by Jesus to be regularly re
peated. It was designed, he says, to promote the spiritual life
of the Christian Communion, but it has life, he remarks, only
as it receives life from that Communion.
If it were as our author states, if the institution were designed
to have the character and meaning which he supposes, the result
is most melancholy. But the truth is, Jesus founded no institu
tions. And herein did he show that consummate and instinctive
wisdom for which he stands alone in human history. Institutions,
Lord's Suppers, sacraments, and churches have sprung from him
and will spring. But Jesus himself instituted nothing of the
kind. He left such things to take care of themselves, seeking
only to inundate the world with the Spirit and the Life dwelling
in him without measure, and flowing forth from his spirit out of
its own irrepressible fulness.
That memorable evening, so far from being calmly occupied
by Jesus in founding an institution, appears to me to have been
an occasion awakening in him deep and painful emotion. Although
he was the open and bold opponent of the hierarchy, I find no
difficulty in supposing, not only that he observed the venerable
feast of the Passover, which must have contracted in time an emi
nently domestic and social character, but that he had looked for
ward, as he says, with special interest to this festival, as to the last
opportunity that would be given him of being alone with his dis<-
ciples. (Luke xxii. 15, 16.) But when the evening came,, it
passed, probably, not as he had anticipated. He had looked to be

246 TWENTY-FIFTH CHAPTER.
cheered by the presence and affection of his friends. But they
hardly met before they began to dispute which should be the
greatest. (Luke xxii. 24.) Then the meditated treachery of a
friend,' of which possibly Jesus may have received just before
some new confirmation, threw its black shadow over the occasion,
not only wounding him deeply, but making him feel more vividly
than ever how all alone he was in the world, and the certainty
and close nearness of the last awful hour. I do not wonder that
institutions, formal commemorations, have claimed their origin
from the occurrences of that evening, so profoundly moving as
they were. But that any thought of instituting a formal observance
grossed the mind of Jesus at such an hour as that, I find it hard to
imagine. The special incidents, which are considered to indicate
such a purpose on his part, are the breaking of the bread and the
pouring out of the wine, represented by him as symbolical of his
body and his blood. But have we not here, as' I have already
had occasion to remark, an instance of that habit of mind, so char
acteristic of him, which led him constantly to see correspondences
between external objects and incidents on the one hand, and his
own thoughts and emotions on the other, so that his spirit was al
ways picturing itself in the world around him ? How full was
he of spiritual thoughts, and how near were they to his heart,
how deeply was he interested in them, when nothing could occur
in his presence, when a lily could not wave or a sparrow fall
without bringing them to mind, and a piece of bread could not be
broken without figuring his thought! It was a correspondence
of this sort that suddenly suggested itself to him as he broke the
bread and poured out the wine. There flashed upon him the
striking resemblance between the bread and wine, which nourish
and refresh the bodily life, and his body and blood, which were to
be given up for the nourishment of men's souls. There occurred
to him also the likeness between himself and the lamb sacrificed
at the Passover. His blood was to seal a new and better tes
tament. It seems as if it must have been almost with a shud
der that he noted the similitude. It struck him so vividly that
(the interest of the incident, and the monstrous errors connected
with it, justify the repetition) he lost sight of the bread and wine,
and saw, in imagination, only his own body lacerated and bleed
ing. Hence the form of speech that he used, " It is my body ! "
" It is my blood ! " His wounded body and his flowing blood he
alone saw. And was it not probably the shock that the resem-

NOTE. 247
blanee gave him that prompted him to tell his disciples to take
the wine and divide it among themselves, but that he himself
would drink no wine any more ? The language of Luke is : "I
will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God
shall come." The first two Evangelists report this same declara
tion with variations, but they all three have preserved the words,
" the fruit of the vine." Is there not a pointed significance in the
comprehensiveness of this designation ? Does it not seem as if he
felt at the moment that he could no more drink wine than he
could drink his own blood ? The added clause, " until the kingdom
of God shall come," or, according to Matthew, " until the day when
I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom " ; according to
Mark, " until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of
God," appears to be an instance of a Hebrew idiom, in conformity
with which a proposition appears to be limited by a circumstance
referred to, in order to exclude the idea of limitation. Thus in
Matthew's Gospel (xii. 20) we have a quotation from Isaiah :
" A bruised reed shall he not break and smoking flax shall he not
quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory," which evidently
means, not that he will break the bruised reed and quench the
smoking flax after he has sent forth judgment unto victory, but
that he will never do these things. See also Job xiv. 12. It was
the purpose of Jesus to assure his disciples, not that he would
drink wine after the kingdom of Heaven shall come, but that he
would never drink it again on earth.
It is observable that neither the first nor the second Gospel
contains a word that intimates that Jesus designed to institute a
commemorative observance. Luke alone has the words : " Do
this in remembrance of me." According to Matthew and Mark,
there was nothing formal in what Jesus said and did. It was all
purely extemporaneous and occasional. That a formal service
commemorative of Jesus, and especially of his death, should have
come at once into observance among his followers, lay in the na
ture of things. And it is equally natural that it should have
grown out of this memorable scene, and taken form therefrom.
All this was indeed so natural, that the primitive disciples very
readily received the impression that Jesus must have given a di
rect command to this effect, and so the words, found only in
Luke, may have been believed to have been uttered by Jesus
himself, although neither Matthew nor Mark has preserved any
such direction.

248 TWENTY-FIFTH CHAPTER.
According to Dr. Schenkel, the alleged institution of the Sup
per was of so formal and elaborate a character, that he is un
der the necessity of supposing that the washing of the disciples'
feet must have taken place at an earlier period. But is it not
evident that this act was a last lesson? Jesus perceived that
all that he had said and done to bring his disciples to renounce
their ambitious desires for distinction and cherish a spirit of
mutual forbearance, had been but of little avail. They were
still full of selfish rivalry. It was only a last opportunity, I con
ceive, that could have suggested to him this strong way of cor
recting the temper of his disciples. In order to make an in
effaceable impression on them, to shock them into a sense of the
truth, he, their Lord and Master, to whom they looked up with
the deepest reverence, discharged for them a low, menial office.
Dr. Schenkel finds in the recital of this scene, as it is given in the
fourth Gospel, no relation to the death of Jesus, whereas it is
deeply overshadowed by that event. And there is no other scene
in his history that more truly and touchingly illustrates the ten
derness of his human sensibilities, and the characteristic greatness
of his mind.
How significant of the reverence with which they regarded
him is the silence in which the disciples submitted to the dis
charge of so low an office by their Master! No one of them
made any resistance but Peter, and the few words that passed
between him and Jesus, how characteristic in every syllable of
each ! How human and how tender the reluctance with which
Jesus discloses his knowledge of the treachery of a friend ! How
Godlike the insight with which he discerns the intrinsic glory of
his fate when it is brought home to him with new force by the de
parture of Judas to consummate his purpose ! And then how
profoundly true to nature is the melting tenderness with which
he turned to his disciples, whom he now felt that he was to be
with only a little while longer ! How humanly does he feel the
intolerable burden of suspense, as shown in the " What you mean
to do, do quickly," addressed to the traitor. The narrative glows
and throbs all through with life.
There is no evidence that the mind of Jesus was so entirely
occupied, as our author represents, with a " New Covenant." On
the contrary, he appears singularly free from all such Jewish and
Judaizing modes of thought. It is but a passing allusion, suggest
ed by the occasion, the Passover, that he makes to the " New
Testament," which his blood was to seal. — Teans.J

THE CONSUMMATION. 249

CHAPTER XXVI.
GETHSEMANE.
1. Jesus rose from supper to make, according to
custom, his evening visit to the garden at the foot of
the Mount of Olives. He was drawn more strongly
than ever at this time to the repose of that still spot
and the free presence of nature. He had held a sol
emn feast, dedicating himself to death, in most intimate
communion with his disciples. But had they really
understood him ? There was still nothing more offen-'
sive to them than the thought of pain and death.
They were still unable to comprehend why it was ne
cessary that their Master should suffer and die. What
will they do when the very next hour the fearful blow
shall fall upon his head ? To all of them his suffering
will be a stumbling-block and an offence. Without
heart, without any strength of character, they will turn
faithlessly away from him in the hour of peril, — leave
him to his fate to save themselves from sharing it with
him. Such were the thoughts that moved the soul of
Jesus on his way to the garden, and he could not con
ceal them from the disciples who accompanied him.
They had thus far entirely mistaken their own spirit.
They were confident that they possessed all the cour
age, resolution, readiness to sacrifice themselves, that
could be desired. Accordingly they were wounded by
the words of Jesus. Their spokesman, Simon Peter,
protested in the name and with the assent of them all,
their joyful willingness to share the adverse fortunes

250 SEVENTH SECTION. ,
of their Master. Such self-delusion in those who had
just witnessed the solemn consecration of the New
Covenant must have filled the mind of Jesus with still
more painful emotions. He felt it to be his imperative
duty to tell the self-confident Peter beforehand of the
fall which he was to suffer the very next hour. No
misgivings, however, were created in the conscience of
Peter or in any of his companions. They professed
themselves ready to give up their lives for Jesus : big
words, loud protestations, and for their fulfilment
neither strength nor courage. They were oppressed
at this hour as with a mountain's weight. They all
felt that the decisive hour was at hand. In such a
frame of mind they reached the garden at the foot of
the Mount of Olives, whither Judas had hastened on
before, and where he directed the officers charged with
the execution of the orders of the High Council to
meet him ; Jesus, on his part, oppressed with a fore
boding, not only of the bitter and shameful death that
awaited him, but also of the weakness and faithlessness,
by which his disciples would be disgraced ; the disci
ples, on their part, in that defiant and presuming tem
per which, with the most exalted idea of its own per
formances, unites feeble insight and an untried will.
A profound melancholy had taken possession of the
mind of Jesus, and it increased from moment to mo
ment until it became an intense agony, convulsing his
inmost soul. The fourth Gospel makes no mention of
this mental conflict, as it would not harmonize with
the representation which this Gospel gives of Jesus,
of his state of mind, and of his bearing in these last
hours of his life. Jesus had indeed, according to this
Gospel, on the evening of his arrest, a presentiment of
his impending violent death. " Only a little while am

THE CONSUMMATION. 251
I with you," said he to his disciples.1 To the question
of Peter whither he was going, he replied that he was
going whither Peter could not follow him then, but
would follow him by and by.2 According to this Gos
pel, likewise, Peter asseverates that he is ready to lay
down his life for Jesus. The Master warns him on
this occasion also, and predicts the subsequent denial
of Peter. So far the representation of. the fourth
Gospel follows a tradition kindred to that of Palestine.
But just at the point at which, according to the first
three Gospels, agitation and anguish overwhelm the
soul of the Redeemer, the fourth Gospel assumes for
him a thoroughly self-possessed and imperturbable atti
tude. " Be not distressed, rely upon God, rely upon
me," 3 he exclaims to his disciples. He is conscious of
perfect faith, of a blessed peace, of a wondrous sense
of power and victory. " Peace I leave with you, my
peace I give unto you ; let not your hearts be troubled,
neither be afraid."4. Such is the expression of his
state of mind. So little does he himself need to be
comforted, that out of the very fulness of his joyous
confidence he comforts his disciples. The prince of
the world has no further power against him.5 Death
and its horrors are already overcome. His last ad
vance towards death has no purpose but to convince
the world that he loves the Father and obeys his com
mandments.6 According to the fourth Gospel, it is the
disciples only who are sad,7 but not the Lord. He
calls to them from a spirit at peace, whose depths no
wave of disquiet disturbed. " Be of good cheer, I have
conquered the world." 8 The last hour before his ar-
1 John xiii. 33. 2 John xiii. 36. 8 John xiv. 1.
4 John xiv. 27. 6 John xiv. 30. 6 John xiv. 31.
1 John xvi. 22. 8 John xvi. 33.

252 SEVENTH SECTION.
rest is here not the hour of hjs agony, but the hour of
his glorification.1 Hardly does he reach the spot where
Judas had agreed to meet the band charged with the
office of seizing his person, when he comes upon the
traitor and the armed men led by him. But at the very
first word with which Jesus announces his presence,
the men fall to the ground as if struck by lightning.
There arises not the slightest doubt in his mind that
he should drink the cup which the Father had given
him.2 With the all-penetrating eye of omniscience he
ever saw beforehand what was to befall him. Nothing
came to him unexpectedly. There was at no moment
any surprise. Everything in regard to his approaching
fate had been settled long before in his mind. He has
considered and arranged everything. Going, in the
full assurance of victory, to meet death, how could he
be sad and tremble and be dismayed ?
2. In the representation, given us by the fourth
Gospel, of the last hours of Jesus before his arrest,
there lies unquestionably a deep truth. It shows us
Jesus at the height and in the splendor of his moral
completeness. But how he rose to this height, — on
this point we are left in the dark. The portrait of the
Redeemer is here fully depicted in its finest linea
ments. The eternal, personal self-revelation of God
stands before us in the transfigured form of a human
being. The shadows, cast by the weakness of human
nature, are effaced from the picture. Such was Jesus
in the sacred hour of his transfiguration, in his most
exalted moments, when his views were the clearest
and his spirit was the most elevated. But such he was
n,ot in the moments and hours of his severest struggles,
in the fire of temptation. These struggles, this trial,
1 John xvii. 1. 2 John xviii. 11.

THE CONSUMMATION. 253
— they were still to be met and borne before the final
victory on the Cross. The sacred champion was not
to be spared this last proof. The first three Gospels
have described the final struggle with a frankness and
vividness which allow not a doubt to be entertained
of the historical truth of the picture. The Evangelists
certainly had no occasion to invent spiritual conflicts
for Jesus. There were stronger reasons why the later
tradition should be led to avoid the mention of such
struggles as actually had place. But that they have
not been omitted in the Evangelical narrative is due to
the fact that they were authenticated by the direct tes
timony of the Apostles.
Having reached the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus
felt the need of prayer and of being alone with the
most intimate of his disciples. The mental anguish
with which he was seized he has himself most strongly
expressed in the words, " My soul is sorrowful even
unto death."1 Even the third Evangelist, who, more
over, likewise follows a later tradition, regards these
words as offensive and suppresses them.2 Even to him
such distress of mind, such deadly sadness, seems irrec
oncilable with the exalted repose and serenity which
Jesus had just before shown at the institution of the
Supper. The common ideas of the Church are quite
incompetent to explain the strong emotion evinced by
Jesus in the garden. How indeed could the possessor
of the Divine nature on earth, the equal . of God him
self, the second person of the Godhead become man,
tremble and be appalled in view of death, which could
have no power over the Divinity ?
But, even from a human point of view, the question
1 Mark xiv. 34 ; Matt. xxvi. 38.
2 Compare Luke xxii. 40 et seq.

254 SEVENTH SECTION.
arises, Whether such distress as Jesus suffered in
Gethsemane be in accord with his otherwise lofty
character, whether at that critical moment he did not
evince a hesitation, a weakness, although transient,
yet not worthy of him. In answering this question,
all depends upon discovering the true cause of his ex
treme emotion.
The nearer the final and decisive hour approached,
the more profoundly was he made conscious of his
lonely and deserted condition. His heart which beat
so warmly with inexhaustible love was now to drink
the bitterest cup of human hatred. And when do we
feel ourselves more utterly forsaken than when hatred
is threatening to destroy us ? Thus we are able to
understand Jesus when he besought his most intimate
disciples, weak indeed as they were, but still not want
ing in love for him, to stay with him : " Tarry ye here
and watch with me."1 This truly historical circum
stance does not appear in the third Gospel, in which
Jesus withdraws from his disciples, who do not watch,
but fall asleep, and he returns to them only at the close
of his agony to reproach them for their slumbers.2 The
clear foresight of the necessity that was upon him to
suffer the extreme consequences of human hatred,
crushing him in the eves of the world, to die covered
with contempt and shame and curses, moved his soul
to its inmost depths. And now he wrestled with him
self and with his God and Father. He flung himself
in terrible agony upon the earth, praying repeatedly
and with intense fervor, and the purport of his prayer
was only this, that " this cup " might, if possible, pass
from him. What did he mean by " this cup " ? Un
questionably nothing less than the violent suffering and
1 Matt. xxvi. 38. 2 Luke xxii. 46.

THE CONSUMMATION. 255
death that awaited him. It was not the sins of his
country and of mankind, bringing death to him, the
innocent and the pure ; it was not the infinite guilt,
which, according to the popular idea, he had to expiate
by his sufferings and death ; it was not the immeasur
able punishment, which, according to the same idea,
he was to suffer in his death-offering, — it was nothing
of this kind that filled his soul with anguish. There is
not the slightest hint of the sort in the Evangelical
narrative. What oppressed and agonized him was the
forefeeling of the horrors and tortures that were close
before him. A shrinking purely human, a dread per
fectly true to nature, shook his whole being. His soul
quivered and quaked with horror at the mortal agonies
then at hand, and so terrible and so shameful that no
suffering more fearful was to be imagined. It was not
the mere physical suffering that was the cause of his
distress. It was not death as such, — but to die, con
demned as a vile criminal, as a miserable slave, by the
highest spiritual and civil authorities, pierced through
and through with the arrows of hate, amidst the
devilish jeers of his triumphing foes and the cowardly
shrieks of his disciples fleeing from the scene of his
suffering and his shame : hence his agony, and hence
his transient wish that he might not die.
Not for a single instant had Jesus any doubt in re
gard to the great work of his life. His deep conscious
ness of the purest aims, of unwearied endeavors and
faithful concern for the welfare of mankind, continued
ever steadfast. His kingdom was founded, — a kingdom
of moral freedom and spiritual glory. But for one mo
ment, might there not come to him the thought whether
so dreadful a death were absolutely necessary to the
building up and extension of this kingdom ? He might

256 SEVENTH SECTION.
yet perhaps escape the deadly blow. Why should he
not then ? God could rescue him. He is Almighty.
To Him all things are possible.1 Before Him then he
prostrated himself, even in his agony, humbly and sub
missively. In that hardest hour he yielded himself to
the Almighty will in sincere obedience. Only he hid
not from his Heavenly Father the wish that his work
might be consummated without this mortal sacrifice.
3. The prayer of Jesus that the cup of death might
pass from him, if it seemed good to the Divine Will,
is attested by the first three Evangelists.2 What light
it sheds upon the character of Jesus ! At an early
period he had foreseen and foretold his sufferings and
death, but not in a supernatural way, as plainly ap
pears from this prayer, not with indubitable certainty.
How could he have been disturbed as he was, had he
had the certainty of supernatural inspiration ? How
could he in this case have fallen into such a state of
distraction and expressed the wish, not without hope of
its fulfilment, that his Heavenly Father would save his
life ? He had foreseen and foretold his sufferings and
death, as, under the then existing circumstances and
for the accomplishment of his great aim, an inevitable
necessity. He had seen, on the one hand, that the
theocratic party would not rest till it had destroyed
him. On the other hand, he had early, with clear
vision, recognized that his death, under1 the curse of
the Law and laden with dishonor, must put an end to
the dominion of the letter over the conscience, and
that that dominion must cease as soon as Israel and
the nations should appreciate his death, as the death
of a righteous man who died for truth, for freedom,
and for the salvation of the world. This insight into
1 Mark xiv. 36. 2 Mark xiv. 36 ; Matt. xxvi. 39 ; Luke xxii. 42.

THE CONSUMMATION. 257
events was now most assuredly dimmed for a moment.
Otherwise the doubt never would have arisen in his
soul, whether the great end might not be attained
without his death, the wish would never have risen to
his lips that the cup of death might pass from him.
Not sinful, but only human, was the doubt and the
wish. They arose simply, although only transiently,
from a necessarily limited insight into the illimitable
deeps of the Divine counsels, into the heart of the
world's spiritual development. And they would not
have arisen at all, had not Jesus had a momentary
persuasion that his death was not absolutely necessary
to the salvation and reconciliation of the world, and
that his great work might be a complete whole, full of
power unto salvation, even without that violent and
terrible result on the Cross.
But even in this transient hesitation the character
of Jesus still continues to be a model of submission
and patience, of childlike deference to the will of the
Father. "Not what I will, but what thou wilt,"1
he prays ; less strikingly according to the first Gospel :
"Not as I will, but as thou" ;2 — an expression of the
unconditional surrender of his own will, morally, spir
itually limited since it was, to the perfect counsels of
the Divine will : an evidence, amidst the tempest that
convulsed him, of a sacred repose in the inmost depths
of his soul.
Once more had the tempter approached him. Once
more had the natural instinct of self-preservation sought
to o-ain the ascendency over the divine instinct of love.
Once more would flesh and blood fain assert them
selves when the hour came for submitting his whole
being to the high purpose of his soul.
1 Mark xiv. 36. z Matt. xxvi. 39.
VOL. II. 17

258 SEVENTH SECTION.
For a moment the soul of Jesus was shaken. But
soon the spirit from above, in this severest assault, con
quered the temptation from below, and Jesus stood the
test triumphantly.
The later tradition was not satisfied with the un
adorned simplicity of the elder narrative. Its embel
lishments afford us an instructive glimpse into the for
mation of marvellous stories. An angel must come
to strengthen him,1 who had found his only strength
in submission and obedience to the will of God. His
sweat is reported to have poured from him during his
conflict in the form of drops of blood : an evident ex
aggeration, by which superficial critics have been be
trayed into bold and even unworthy conjectures.2 The
later legend has, moreover, arbitrarily omitted several
historical traits which set the purely human character
of the scene in a strong light. How greatly is the
portrait of Jesus aided by the word with which, in
that moment of profound mental suffering, he excuses
his disciples, all unprepared as they were for watchful
ness and prayer ! " The spirit is willing, but the flesh
is weak."3 It does not indeed accord with the popular
notion of the radical depravity of. the spirit that is in
man, inherited from the parents of our race. A prov
erb borrowed probably from the people, it gives us the
judgment of Jesus respecting the moral quality of the
human heart. And how gently it sounds at the very
moment one would have expected a tone of the
greatest severity ! Thus had Jesus learned to know
men in general, ready for good works, but without
strength for their performance, without force of mind
and without firmness of character. Physical weak-
1 Luke xxii. 43. 2 Luke xxii. 44.
8 Mark xiv. 38; Matt. xxvi. 41.

THE CONSUMMATION. 259
ness, irresolute good nature, well-disposed half-hearted-
ness, — such is the average character of mankind.
The leaders of the hierarchical party did indeed form
an exception, the men of the letter, the upholders of
official power. Their will was corrupt. They were
incorrigible slaves of formulas, which they made a
matter of trade to their own advantage, blind tools of
ambition and pride, — such had they become through
the fanatical pursuit of party ends. These men Jesus
had therefore denounced. He called them a brood of
serpents. But they had not thus come into the world.
They were not always so. They had become what
they were by the habitual suppression of the prompt
ings of conscience, by the disabling influence of the
spirit of caste, by the deadening force of custom, by
minds buried in prejudice and selfishness, by self-love
and self-will, whereby they were rendered incapable
of receiving any light from others. Mere weakness
leaves the heart open, and susceptible of truth and
goodness, but there may gradually spring from it the
strength of passion and the cunning of malice.
How far away had the disciples already strayed in
consequence of their weakness ! How self-confident
they were ! How little of true faith had they as yet
manifested ! One was contemplating the basest treach
ery, others of them, even the three whom Jesus most
confided in, appeared weak and lukewarm, while the
heart of their Master was torn by the deepest anguish.
The flesh, physical sloth and self-indulgence, the han
kering after ease and comfort, is the prime cause, often
unregarded and even fostered by parents and educa
tors, of the sins and vices of men. The flesh had never
shown itself in the disciples as the root of evil deeds
more plainly than at this moment. The weakness of

260 SEVENTH SECTION.
the flesh, and a self-seeking disposition, prevented the
spirit in them from discharging the duty which they
owed to their Master. The life of the Old Testament
system had become stiffened into sensuous forms. In
sensual excesses the heathen world had squandered its
inheritance and lost its original communion with God.
This evil spirit from below now threatened to extin
guish the moral courage and spiritual strength of the
disciples just at the hour when they stood in special
need of the light and fire of the spirit from above.
Out of this weakness of nature had arisen the storms
which so deeply disturbed the soul of Jesus.
4. But in the very moment that the traitor with his
companions entered the garden, those storms were
allayed. Firm and self-possessed, he went to meet the
armed men, who had come to seize his person. All
the more striking by contrast was the want of com
posure and presence of mind shown by the disciples,
whom the danger evidently took by surprise. One of
them, — Simon Peter, according to the later tradition,1
— undertook with drawn sword to defend Jesus against
this midnight surprise, and wounded a servant of the
law on the ear, which, according to the latter legend,
was healed by Jesus on the spot.2 According to the
earlier tradition, Jesus seems scarcely to have been
aware of this act of his disciple, as unwise as it was
ineffectual.3 In the confusion and darkness, the blow
given with the sword and its consequence escaped his
notice, and there surely was no time for a conversa
tion between him and his disciple.4 The falling to the
earth also of the men who came to take Jesus is men
tioned only by the fourth Gospel, and no satisfactory
i John xviii. 10. 2 Luke xxii. 51.
8 Mark xiv. 47. 4 Matt. xxvi. 52.

THE CONSUMMATION. 261
reason is given for it, as those who fell were instantly
on their feet again, and the seizure of Jesus was ef
fected without difficulty.1 On the other hand, the
words spoken by Jesus to the men and their leaders at
the moment of his arrest are attested by all the first
three Evangelists. The reproachful words, " Are you
come out as against a thief, with swords and clubs to
take me? I have been daily with you in the Temple
teaching, and you took me not," 2 are fitted far less to
a rabble of soldiers who had just been thrown to the
ground by a word of power from the lips of Jesus than
to officers engaged in the unobstructed execution of
the orders which they had received from the authori
ties. A word of power at which, as the fourth Evan
gelist relates, his enemies were struck down, although
but for a moment, would not at all events be in keep
ing with the remark of Jesus, that all this was done
that the Scripture might be fulfilled,3 which remark
shows how quietly Jesus acquiesced in his now swiftly
approaching fate, regarding it as the fulfilment of a
divine decree determined upon from eternity, and har
boring no doubt that the promise of future glory, made
to the suffering righteous in the Old Covenant, would
be redeemed in his case likewise. He bowed calmly,
therefore, under the yoke of sufferings which were to
lead him to final victory and eternal joy.
This consideration, however, does not lessen the
guilt of the enemies of Jesus, nor extenuate the vio
lence with which, under the pretence of law, they
treated him. He had ground for the gravest com
plaint. He had reason to protest against the artifice
practised against him, which was the more unjustifi-
1 John xviii. 6. 2 Mark xiv. 48 ; Matt. xxvi. 55 ; Luke xxii. 52.
8 Mark xiv. 41, 49 ; Matt. xxvi. 56.

262 SEVENTH SECTION.
able as it was openly and without reserve that he had
always followed his convictions. Up to this moment,
they had done nothing to check his public career.
They had dogged his steps, they had laid snares for
him, but had never once attempted to stop him. Now,
when the moment seemed favorable, in their want of
grounds for proceeding against him they had recourse
to violence, and carried out their designs against his
life under the cover of night.
An act thus accomplished always exercises a depress
ing influence upon weak minds. After the arrest of
Jesus a panic seized his disciples. They all took to
flight,1 a circumstance which the fourth Gospel, owing
to its peculiar point of view, finds no room for ; 2 and
the third, out of consideration for the Apostles, passes
over in silence.3 The disciples had claimed for them
selves a braver faith than they possessed. The person
of their Master, seized and dragged away by the ser
vants of power, a picture of the extremest human
weakness and of heart-rending grief, filled them in
their first surprise with affright and despair. For the
moment they gave up his Cause and their own for
lost. 1 Mark xiv. 50 ; Matt. xxvi. 56. a John xviii. 8.
8 Luke xxii. 53.

NOTE. 263

NOTE.

[Dr. Schenkel represents that portion of the fourth Gospel
which records the assurances and consolations given by Jesus to
his disciples before he went to the garden (see chapters fourteenth
to seventeenth inclusive), as inconsistent with the scene of agony
presented on that spot, and related by the other three Evangelists.
Whereas, as between the Baptism of Jesus and his subsequent
Temptation, so between the wonderful strength and generosity
of mind evinced in those chapters of the fourth Gospel, and the
agony in Gethsemane, I find a connection profoundly historical.
That what Jesus said to his disciples is much amplified, and has
received a coloring and a style from the glowing feelings of the
spiritually-minded author of the fourth Gospel, is in the highest
degree probable. That Jesus said everything precisely as it is
there set down it is difficult to suppose. But that the spirit of
Jesus is there one feels an intuitive conviction, not only because
of the Christ-like truth and love which inspire this portion of the
Gospel, but because the occasion called for such utterances on the
part of Jesus, and he could not have been regardless of it. Let
us note the circumstances.
On that last evening so marked was the emotion of Jesus, so
impressive were his words and his tones, that his disciples, as I
conceive, for the first time fully took in the idea that they were
really to be separated from him, and that very soon. They were
overwhelmed with dismay and sorrow. So great was their grief,
into such a depth of misery were they sunk, under the dark cloud
which had all at once gathered round them, veiling all their
bright visions in thick night, that Jesus, burdened as he was with
the thought of his own awful doom, needing solace far more than
they all, put aside all his own mighty griefs, and set himself to
comfort these poor terrified weeping friends of his. Saddened as
he was, he yet understood what was coming. They were utterly
bewildered and lost in the deep darkness. How great their grief
was is evident from the tenor of the thoughts which he suggests
to cheer and comfort them. So great was their anguish, that they
lost sight of the simplest and plainest considerations. " Be not
distressed," he says. " Trust in God, trust in me. In my Father's
house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told
you." So plunged in sorrow were they, that they needed to be re-

264 TWENTY-FIFTH CHAPTER.
minded of what to him were ever-present, self-evident truths, —
God and immortality. He tells them that they were full of sor
row because he had told them he was going away, that if they
loved him, they would rejoice, because he was going to the Father.
He assures them that, though he is about to leave them, they will
not be forsaken, they will not be. as orphans, that still whatever
they shall ask of God in his name, i. e. in the spirit which his
name represented, they will receive, and that they will have an
other friend, guide, helper, comforter in his place, — a friend who
will never leave them, but be with them always, as he himself
could not be, — one who will recall to them all that he had said, and
enable them to understand everything; and that other helper was
the true spirit that was in them already, and would come to them
more and more, and lead tbem into the knowledge of all truth.
Thus talking with them, he leaves the place where they had
supped together for the last time, and turns his steps late in the
evening to his favorite spot, the Garden of Gethsemane. He
seems to have been aware that his whereabouts was known, that
his enemies were busy and would soon appear. Arriving at the
Garden, he takes with him only his three most intimate disciples
into the place. And now having said and done all that was pos
sible, exhausted in a manner by the effort he had made to en
courage his friends, in the stillness of the spot and of the night, in
the awful suspense of the hour, his, mortal nature asserts itself.
There comes a natural revulsion of feeling. He is seized with a
deadly sickness of the soul. It seems to him, as he tells his dis
ciples, as if he should die. I cannot dare to fathom the depths
of that agony. It was his utter loneliness, the profound and ap
palling solitude, in which he was to-encounter the coming horror,
that most aggravated the bitterness of that deadly cup. So far
as the purposes which were dearest to him and for which he was
about to die were concerned, there was not a heart on earth
that beat in sympathy with him. His disciples loved him, but
far, far were they from understanding him. He wants to be
alone, and yet he cannot bear the thought of being out of the
reach of human fellowship. He prays his three disciples to re
main and keep watch where they are, while he goes off a little
distance by himself. All his movements are as of one distraught.
He goes apart and throws himself with agonizing ejaculations
upon the earth. His disciples catch only a few words. Wearied,
exhausted by grief and excitement, they are overcome by sleep.

NOTE. 265
He returns to them only to find them slumbering. Dismayed,
distressed as they were, how little did they appreciate the situa
tion! " Could you not watch with me for one hour?" he exclaims,
and then, wrung from his own experience at the moment, come
the characteristic words, "Watch and pray, lest ye enter into
temptation." With a generous consideration to which no suffer
ing of his own could make him insensible, he suggests an excuse
for the unseasonable slumbers of his friends. " The spirit is will
ing, but the flesh is weak." Thus also he found it with himself
Thrice he went apart, thrice he returned to his disciples, turning
from man to God, and from God to man, and for a while finding
in his agony no relief. It is easy to pronounce the mention of his
sweat streaming from him, " as it were blood," a legend. But the
question is, What could have given rise to such an idea ? May we
not suppose that, as he bent over his disciples to arouse them, the
sweat fell in such big, heavy drops upon them, that one of them
at least, Peter perhaps, who was quick to take such impressions,
having his mind filled with vague dreams of violence and death,
fancied, in his half-awake state, that the drops of sweat were drops
of blood ? However this may have been, agonizing as the mo
ment was, the agony was not in vain. It could not overcome — it
only strengthened — his disposition to submit himself unreservedly
to the Eternal Will: That such was the result appears from the
fact that, as soon as he perceived, either by the sound of their
footsteps or by the distant light of their lamps and torches, that
they whose errand it was to apprehend him were approaching,
there is no shadow of weakness. He is wholly himself. So
far from showing any wavering, any fear, he goes to meet the
armed men. Unexpectedly to them, he presented himself right
before them, and inquired whom they were looking for. Struck
as by an apparition, they involuntarily started back with such
a sudden motion that they fell momentarily into confusion, and
some of them were thrown to the ground. Considering the dark
ness of the hour, the loneliness of the spot, and the rumors ev
erywhere rife of the extraordinary power of him whom they
came to seize, and the commanding air which it is impossible to
disconnect from his personal presence, could anything be more
probable than that they kept so close together that some of them
were thrown down, when those in front shrunk back at the
sudden appearance in their path of the very man whom they
were in search of, and who, as we may infer from their number

266 SEVENTH SECTION.
and their arms, they expected would endeavor to escape them ?
And is not this what we are to understand the narrative to
mean, where it tells us that, when Jesus declared himself to be the
person they were seeking, the men who came to take him " went
back and fell to the ground " ? Although Jesus gave himself up
so fearlessly into the hands of his captors, it was not without a
sense of the indignity with which he was treated, as is shown in
the few words which he said to them : " Do you come after me
with swords and clubs as if I were some miserable thief ? You
did not dare to lay hands upon me in public and in the daytime.
But night is indeed your fit season."
Our author appears to me to overlook a great many particu
lars, strikingly significant of the character of Jesus, which I would
gladly specify here, had I not noted them in previous publica
tions. See Jesus and his Biographers, 1838, and The Veil Partly
Lifted, 1864. — Tkans.]

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE TRIAL.

1. A committee of the High Council, composed of
persons to be entirely relied upon, were already as
sembled in nightly session, Caiaphas presiding ; and
witnesses also had been summoned in all haste. Jesus
was to be speedily examined, the case brought to a
conclusion with all possible despatch, and the sentence
of death executed at once.1 Only Jewish witnesses
appear to have been called. The earlier part of the
career of Jesus in Galilee, comparatively quieter than
at a later period, was not brought under notice. It
is remarkable that entire unanimity, such as the Law
required,2 could not be obtained from the witnesses.
They evidently were not suborned ; for, had they been,
1 Mark xiv. 55 ; Matt. xxvi. 59. 2 Deut. xvii. 6 ; xix. 15.

THE CONSUMMATION. 267
the desired unanimity would have been secured.
Several of them, however, appear to have agreed
in stating that Jesus had publicly declared that he
would destroy the Temple made with hands and in
three days build a new temple not made with hands.1
Why the Evangelists pronounce this testimony false
is not easy to see, as Jesus had undoubtedly used very
nearly these words. It can only have been the con
struction, which both witnesses and judges put upon
them, that was false. Jesus did not, as the fourth
Gospel supposes, speak symbolically, and mean, by
the temple destroyed and built again, his own body
crucified and risen,2 but he had reference to the actual
Herodian Temple as the centre of the Old Testament
theocracy. It was this that, in the consciousness of
his Messianic authority, he intended to say that he
would speedily put an end to, and establish in its place
a new Temple, the Communion of his followers built
up by the word and the spirit of God. What he said
about building the temple in the space of three days
was taken by one and another of his hearers to the
letter, and understood as a vainglorious assertion that
he would destroy the Herodian Temple, and in three
days, as with a magician's wand, erect a far more
splendid temple in its place. Had he made any such
pretensions he would have confessed himself, not
only a fanatical destroyer of the Sanctuary, but a
boaster vaunting the possession of omnipotence. The
witnesses, however, do not appear to have agreed as
to this understanding of his words. One took them
literally, another had a tolerably correct idea of their
meaning. According to the fourth Evangelist, whose
representation of this particular is entirely credible,
i Mark xiv. 58 ; Matt. xxvi. 61. 2 John ii. 19.

268 SEVENTH SECTION.
Jesus spoke these words upon the occasion of driving
the traders from the Temple. He had at that time
publicly and irrevocably broken with the external
forms of the theocracy ; ,and doubtless he said, in con
nection with these words, what he understood by the
true Temple and the worship of God in spirit and in
truth. Those words, rightly understood, were also a
declaration of war against traditional Judaism and its
supporters, the hierarchical party. He who foretold,
as the necessary consequence of his life and work, the
destruction of the visible temple, with which all the
memories and hopes of pious Israelites were associated,
— he who promised to build up in its place into an in
visible temple the great body of the people, who, under
the Old Covenant, were the wards of the guardians
of the external temple service, — he stood forth in the
sharpest antagonism to the time-honored traditions of
Judaism and to all its formulas and usages ; he boldly
and peremptorily summoned the spiritual authorities
to the protection and vindication of their alleged sanc
tities which were thus threatened.
If, however, the presiding officer of the Council
were not fully satisfied with the testimony, he had
reason for his dissatisfaction in the fact that the decla
ration of Jesus concerning the approaching destruction
of the Temple contained no direct assertion of the
office to which Jesus laid claim. It was necessary
that the members of the High Council, conducting
the examination, should ascertain directly whether
Jesus really demanded to be acknowledged as the
Messiah. He had avowed himself as such mostly
among his intimate friends, and only towards the close
of his public career. Whether he would now, in the
presence of the supreme spiritual authorities of Israel,

THE CONSUMMATION. 269
proclaim himself the Messiah, was the' question. To
make this point certain, all depended upon his judges.
If that pretension should be avowed by him, then it
would be proved that he was dangerous to the state,
as well as a fanatic in religion, and the Roman author
ities in Jerusalem would have just as great an interest
in condemning him to death as the Jewish spiritual
court. The presiding High-Priest was resolved to
bring the matter to a speedy end. He demanded of
Jesus a direct answer to a simple question. He asked
him whether he regarded himself as the Messiah, the
Son of the Blessed.1 That this question was put
amidst a storm of excitement at a sitting of the High
Council held the following morning, as the third Gos
pel reports,2 is unlikely. The hearing in the night
had this very purpose, — to force from Jesus the neces
sary confession, which might be laid before the public
meeting of the High Council on the morrow.
Under the circumstances, Jesus could not but an
swer the question of the High-Priest. He had held
his peace when conflicting witnesses were putting a
false construction upon what he had said. For, to
prove that he had not been understood, would have
led him too far away ; and his irreconcilable opposition
to the theocracy — the very point of the testimony
— would, at all events, have to be admitted. To have
declined answering the High-Priest would have been
equivalent to a renunciation of his Messiahship. There
came therefore from his lips the decisive, " I am the
Messiah," and the asseveration that his judges "would
yet see him at the right hand of power and coming in
the clouds of heaven."3 These last words are evi-
i Mark xiv. 61 ; Matt. xxvi. 63. 2 Luke xxii. 66.
8 Mark xiv. 62; Matt. xxvi. 64.

270 SEVENTH SECTION.
dently not to be understood to the letter. Jesus here
expresses, in the most impressive manner, his convic
tion that the dominion, the kingdom of the future is
his, that he is the true king, in spirit and in truth, not
only of Israel, but of all mankind, and that his enemies,
who are now triumphing over him for the moment,
will be obliged to bow before his royal power.
The party in the High Council, hostile to Jesus,
had now gained their end. The horror shown by the
High-Priest at the declaration of Jesus was not alto
gether feigned. That declaration, from the theocratic
point of view, at which the High-Priest, the head
of the Spiritual Council, stood, might easily be con
sidered a contempt of the consecrated institutions
and statutes of Judaism. There stood there in the
presence of the highest spiritual dignities of Israel,
the guardians of the venerable Law, a man claim
ing to be king of Israel, — a man without crown or
sceptre, without army or power, with only a little
company of followers from the lowest class of the
people. Did not this look like contempt cast upon
the present and the future of Israel ? Was it not
blaspheming God, whose Son the accused pretended
to be ? What need was there to hear any more wit-
¦ nesses? He had convicted himself. He bad blas
phemed. He had incurred the penalty of death ac
cording to the ancient Law, although the Law had
now for some time been mitigated in practice.1 As a
sign of the greatness of the crime, the presiding Priest
rent his garments, and a wild cry of horror filled the
hall. Jesus was pronounced guilty. His fate was
decided. Hence the brutal and shameful treatment,
which he was allowed to receive at the hands of the
1 Levit. xxiv. 16.

THE CONSUMMATION. 271
retainers of the Court, and which lasted from the
breaking up of the sitting till the dawn of day.1
2. In the mean while an incident occurred in the
court of the building where the High Council were
assembled, which forms a most striking contrast to the
fearless confession made by Jesus in the presence of
those high dignities. Simon Peter, having recovered
somewhat from his first fright, had followed his Master,
sincerely sympathizing with him, doubtless, to the court
of the hall. But he had not yet regained his self-pos
session. When a maid-servant recognized in him an
adherent of Jesus his courage instantly died away.
He boldly denied his connection with Jesus. And
when others also made the same charge against him,
he undertook even with an oath to clear himself from
the suspicion of being a friend of Jesus.2 What a
contrast between the direct, fearless confession of
Jesus in the face of inevitable death, and the weak,
cowardly denial of his disciple, intent only upon sav
ing his life, and a little while before so loud in his
protestations of fidelity ! There, in the moment of the
greatest danger, is seen the greatest strength of char
acter, here, the most shameful weakness. Jesus could
rely upon the inexhaustible fulness of his own spiritual
power, upon his own strength of character ; but the
instruments he had chosen had shown themselves up
to this moment and at this critical hour utterly incom
petent. Jesus was happily spared the pain of witnessing the
shame of Peter with his own eyes. That at the second
cock-crowing he turned a reproachful look upon Peter,
i Mark xiv. 65 ; Matt. xxvi. 67.
2 Mark xiv. 66 ; Matt. xxvi. 69 ; Luke xxii. 56, who is the most
minute.

272 SEVENTH SECTION.
is a legendary addition of the later tradition.1 Jesus
was not in the court of the building while that scene
was going on. He was examined and guarded within,
and all communication between him and his disciples
was necessarily cut off. His condemnation was now
decided upon, although only in a shape to be acted
upon by the full Council who were called together
during the night to a sitting, to be held at daybreak.
The result of the hearing in the night was laid before
them. The assembly, in conformity with the proposal
and motion of the president, Caiaphas, were unanimous
in condemning to death the "blasphemer" and "de
stroyer of the law of their fathers." Jesus, as a con
demned criminal of the worst description, was bound
and handed over to the Roman Procurator, without
whose order the sentence of death could not be exe
cuted.2 Herein the first three Gospels are agreed :
on the evening of the 14th the arrest, in the night
of the 14th - 15th the hearing before a deputation of
the High Council, and on the morning of the 15th
a full public meeting of the High Council and the
formal sentence of death, upon the ground of the
result of the previous examination. But the account
of the fourth Gospel is not clear. In this Gospel
mention is made of a hearing had before the father-
in-law of Caiaphas, the High-Priest Annas, which,
however, led to no conclusion, and in which Jesus is
stated to have returned only an evasive answer to a
question put to him respecting his disciples and his
teaching. When Jesus, in answer to Annas, bade
him seek the information he desired among; those who
had heard him, there followed, it is said, a very rude
assault upon him, whereupon he is led away to Cai-
1 Luke xxii. 61. 2 Mark xv. 1 ; Matt, xxvii. 1 ; Luke xxiii. 1.

THE CONSUMMATION. 273
aphas, and the hearing before Annas is thus abruptly
broken off.1 Of a second hearing before Caiaphas
the fourth Gospel says nothing.2 This Evangelist ap
pears to have attached special importance to the fact
that Jesus made the distinct confession of his Messiah-
ship, not before the Jewish High Council, but before
the Roman Procurator. Here seems to be the reason
why he represents Jesus as passing the night before
his final condemnation in the dwelling of Annas (who
was at that time clothed with no official authority),
and taken in the morning to Pilate, without any fur
ther proceedings before the presiding officer of the
High Council. But how much more likely is it that
Jesus underwent a hasty examination in the night
before a deputation of the Council, and that his formal
condemnation followed in the morning at a full meet
ing of the spiritual authorities ? 3
3. The result of the examination held in the night
was doubtless communicated in due form to the Pro
curator, Pontius Pilate. That such a communication
had been made to him is implied in the question — ex
pressive, by the way, of his contempt of Judaism —
which he asked Jesus, whether he were the Jews'
king, i. e. the pretended Messiah.4 Here is apparent
the particular ground upon which the High Council
had condemned Jesus. They had pronounced him
deserving of death, under the pretence that he had
assumed the office of the Jewish Messiah. The fourth
Gospel tells the story differently. It states that Pilate
inquired of the "Jews " the ground of complaint;6 a
l John xviii. 13-22. 2 John xviii. 28.
» See Appendix, 111. 30, p. 273.
4 Mark xv. 2 ; Matt, xxvii. 11 ; Luke xxiii. 3.
6 John xviii. 29.
vol. n. 18

274 SEVENTH SECTION.
statement evidently resting upon the erroneous sup
position that there had been no decisive examination
of Jesus in the night, no formal sentence of death
passed by the High Council in the morning, and no
confirmation of the same required of Pilate. If, ac
cording to the first and second Evangelists, Jesus
returned a simple affirmative to Pilate's first question
as to his Messiahship, allowing all further questions to
go unanswered, the reason of his silence is to be found
in the fact that he could not suppose the Roman mag
istrate and man of the world to have the slightest
understanding of the case. According to the fourth
Gospel, on the other hand, Jesus does not by any
means remain silent when questioned by Pilate. His
utterances are of the loftiest import ; and he describes
to the Roman Procurator the super-worldly nature of
his kingdom and the moral glory of his kingship.1 The
language ascribed to him is unquestionably fully wor
thy of him, and, it is very probable, was uttered by
him on some other occasion and in another connection.
But he could not have spoken thus, as the fourth Gos
pel relates, on this occasion, according to the manifestly
trustworthy reports of the first three Gospels and the
personal and official position of the Procurator in re
lation to Jesus. There is no reason whatever for with
holding faith from the express assertion of the first
three Evangelists, namely that Jesus gave Pilate no
further answer.2
In this silence there was the mute eloquence of a
man whose cause needed no advocate before his tem
poral and spiritual judges. In this court his case was
1 John xviii. 34.
* Mark xv. 5 ; Matt, xxvii. 14 ; Luke also (xxiii. 2) knows nothing
of any further reply made by Jesus to Pilate.

THE CONSUMMATION. 275
closed. The ecclesiastical statute, the civil law, con
demned him. According to the strict Jewish law, he
was an evil-doer, and in the eye of the Roman law, a
seducer of the people. He could free himself from the
suspicion of being dangerous to the state only by
being utterly false to himself and to his cause, should
he retract the free and voluntary confession of his
Messiahship, which he had made before the High-
Priest. Pilate would perhaps not unwillingly have
saved him. According to Josephus, he was neither
bloodthirsty nor cruel. When the military standards,
bearing the image of the emperor, gave offence to the
Jews in the City of the Temple, he removed them at
their request. He did not willingly expose himself
without necessity to the suspicion of bloody-minded
severity.1 He had probably heard of Jesus before,
and he had been represented to him as a man politi
cally harmless. The hatred of Jesus manifested by
the hierarchy was no reason in the estimation of Pilate
why Jesus should be condemned to death, for the
hierarchy were by no means well disposed towards
the Roman supremacy. Most probably he saw in
Jesus a religious enthusiast who might disturb the
public peace. At all events, another, a seditious indi
vidual, then in confinement, appeared to him as really
dangerous. Hence his attempt to persuade the people
to favor Jesus as the state-prisoner to be set at liberty
according to an established custom upon the occasion
of the Passover, an attempt which led the hierarchical
party to make counter-efforts in behalf of Barabbas.
The steps Pilate took in favor of Jesus could not have
been very earnestly meant. From his point of view,
as a man of the world, he must have despised a man
i Josephus, Ant. XVIII. 3. 1 ; 4. 1.

276 SEVENTH SECTION.
of the people in Jesus, and with scorn upon his lips,
he ratified the sentence of death pronounced by the
High Council.1 How little he thought of treating the
condemned man with mercy is shown in his consent
ing to deliver him over to the cruel and ignominious
punishment of crucifixion.
While the High Council were importuning Pilate
to ratify the sentence of death, Jesus maintained per
fect composure. He made not the slightest attempt
to beg or purchase his life of the magistrate. Whether
by referring the people to the tribunal of Herod Anti-
pas Pilate really sought to withdraw himself from the
affair is doubtful. This episode is mentioned only by
the third Evangelist, and it does not agree well with
the jealous watch which the Roman authorities kept
upon the Jewish princes.2 But tradition, in the nar
rative of this incident in the third Gospel, preserves
the idea that Jesus made not the slightest sacrifice of
the dignity of his character, and that to the questions
put to him he answered only with an impressive si
lence.3 If the fourth Gospel places the character of Jesus
in a different light, if he is there represented as most
ready to speak to Pilate, as referring the Procurator
from his earthly judgment-seat to the Supreme Source
of all power and authority, and as, moreover, excusing
Pilate in comparison with the hierarchical party,4 it is
because it was the evident aim of this Gospel to make
Pilate, as the representative of the Gentile power, ap
pear in a favorable light compared with the Jewish
authorities from whom the bloody sentence had pro
ceeded. 1 Mark xv. 12 ; Matt, xxvii. 22.
2 Luke xxiii. 7 et seq., and Appendix, 111. 31, p. 276.
* Luke xxiii. 9. i John xix. 11.

THE CONSUMMATION. 277
4. In other respects also, the conduct of Pilate,
according to the fourth Gospel, is not free from pecu
liarities. While, according to the first two Evangelists,
he made only one attempt, and according to the third
Evangelist only two attempts, according to the fourth
he made four attempts to persuade the people to show
mercy to Jesus. He first tried, according to this Gos
pel, to induce the Jewish judges to take the case in
their hands and settle it by their law, whereupon they
reminded him of what it was not creditable to a Ro
man official to need to be informed of, that the Roman
Law did not grant them liberty to execute a sentence
of death.1 He then endeavored by repeated assertions
of the innocence of Jesus to move the "Jews" to set
him free instead of Barabbas.2 When this attempt
proved unsuccessful he still persisted in his exertions
to soften the Jewish opponents of Jesus, and caused
him to be most cruelly treated in order to awaken the
pity of his foes,3 a proceeding that certainly evinces no
very deep knowledge of the human heart. Finally, he
tried to touch the chords of patriotic feeling in the
breasts of the Jewish judges of Jesus by representing
to them the disgrace to their national dignity of the
public crucifixion of a pretended Jewish king.4
It is the evident tendency of this representation, far
more than that of the first three Gospels, to throw the
chief guilt of the execution of Jesus upon the Jews,
and upon the hierarchical party in particular. But
in carrying out this purpose, this Gospel places the
character of Pilate in a very ambiguous, and, histori
cally considered, unintelligible light. That a high
Roman officer of State should so emphatically pro-
l John xviii. 31. 2 John xviii. 38.
8 John xix. 5. * John xix. 15.

278 SEVENTH SECTION.
claim the innocence of a man condemned to death,
that he, in whose power it was, by a simple veto of
the sentence, to save the prisoner and protect the
right, should make so many fruitless efforts to induce
those inferior judges to reverse their decision, that,
finally, against his better knowledge and conscience,
he should ratify the judgment of a subordinate court,,
— all this is certainly not very probable. It is only the
oldest tradition — Mark's — which preserves its credi
bility throughout in the account of Pilate's dealing
with the case. Pilate saw through the party spirit of
the hierarchy.1 He would fain have saved Jesus,.
but without offence to the priests, without loss of
popular favor. Since his attack upon the Temple, the
adherents of Jesus had become intimidated. The fanat
ical party of the old faith were embittered to the last
degree, and Pilate, after the failure of his one attempt
to save Jesus by trying to induce the people to ask
for his liberation, hesitated not a moment longer, but
Suffered himself to be a willing tool in the hands
of the priests.2 He was willing " to content " the
people. The startling dream of the wife of Pilate,3
and the scene of Pilate's washing his hands in sign of
his throwing off from himself, notwithstanding his rati
fication of the death sentence, all share in the guilt of
putting an innocent man to death,4 are additions made
by1 the first Evangelist for the purpose of laying a
heavier burthen on the hierarchy. As the later tra
dition has thus depicted the character of Pilate in
colors all too fair, so, on the other hand, the personal
greatness of Jesus is let down from its purely historical
1 Mark xv. 10. He saw that the hierarchy had delivered Jesus to
him through " envy."
8 Mark xv. 15. 8 Matt, xxvii. 19. 4 Matt, xxvii. 24.

THE CONSUMMATION! 279
height. According to the older tradition, Jesus an
swered Pilate, when Pilate asked him whether he
were the, Messiah, just as he answered the same ques
tion before the High Council, with a simple affirma
tive, not a syllable more.1
This silence before his heathen judge, who had
neither any clear understanding of the nature of the
charge brought against Jesus, nor any disposition to
inquire into it, was the most dignified course that
Jesus could have chosen. Conscious as he was of his
position, he was no less humble. He would neither
justify nor excuse himself; and it is not likely that, in
order to impose a heavier guilt upon his hierarchical
opposers, he would relieve a man of the world like
Pilate of his share of the responsibility.2 But, all
circumstances considered, his emphatic condemnation
of his Jewish judges would be irreconcilable with the
declaration that the authors of his death acted in igno
rance.3 His silence was no dumb insensibility or defi
ant pride, but moral self-possession and calm dignity.
No needless word, liable to be misconstrued and turned
into ridicule, should in the last hours of his life es
cape his pure lips. In mute patience, in still submis
sion he was to bear his fearful doom as the inevitable
consequence of the irreconcilable difference between
the Communion of the Spirit instituted by him in
truth, freedom, righteousness, and love, and the Com
munion of the Letter founded by the hierarchy in
external discipline, in artificial observances, in blind
subjection, in fiery fanaticism.
1 Mark xv. 5 ; Matt, xxvii. 14. 2 John xix. 11.
8 Luke xxiii. 34.

280 TWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER.

NOTE.

[Notwithstanding Dr. Schenkel's distrust and rejection of
the historical character of many of the incidents relating to Pilate
in the Trial of Jesus, I am free to confess that I know not where
to look for an historical portrait more consistent in all its features,
and more life-like than the portrait of the Procurator as it is un
designedly drawn in the four Gospels, and as it is rendered vivid
by the very incidents which our author regards as involving mani
fest inconsistencies. It appears to me we should have but a feeble
foundation for the credibility of any portion of the history, if such
incidents are mere legendary additions, as our author states. And
furthermore, because a certain definite conclusion may be drawn
from a narrative of facts, it does not by any means follow of neces
sity that the author of the narrative had only that conclusion in
view and was so bent upon making it conspicuous that he colored
and fabricated facts for the purpose. It is possible after all that he
may have had no purpose but to tell the truth. Thus Dr. Schen
kel thinks that the fourth Evangelist aimed to hold the Jewish
hierarchy chiefly responsible for the death of Jesus. But was it
not true that the Jewish priests were the chief criminals ? Upon
any telling of the story, is this anything more than the plain
truth ? Where is the need then of supposing that the Evangelist
had any other object than the truth ?
In reading these different accounts of the Trial, there is one
important fact, which Dr. Schenkel does not take into con
sideration, but which must be brought fully into sight if we
are to have any adequate idea of the scene. It is a fact, it
is true, which is not directly referred to in the narrative, for
the simple reason that its influence, none the less- powerful
but the more so on this account, was an unconscious influence,
a fact definable at the very best only in a degree, but not
definable at all in any language which the unpractised authors
of the Evangelical accounts had at their command ; a fact, that
was rather felt in its effects than perceived in itself. I refer to
the personal presence of Jesus, the power of which is to be con
stantly kept in view, if we are to have any appreciation of the
reality, the life, of his history. But in no part or scene of his his
tory is the recognition of it so important as in these last scenes,
and most particularly on the occasion of his arraignment before

NOTE. 281
the Roman Procurator. It stands to reason, that if there is any
power in the human countenance, in the eye, in the voice, in the
whole air and manner of a man, that power must have been
manifested in Jesus in the very highest degree. For when was
there ever a man so moved by exalted purposes, so profoundly in
earnest, so full of the light and life of God, as he was on all occa
sions, but most especially in those last trying hours ? There is no
necessity of claiming for him extraordinary personal beauty and
grace. The indwelling spirit, glowing with the grandest truth
and the purest love, must have given an expression to his features,
a light to his eye, a music to his voice, and a power to his whole
presence, which must have riveted attention upon him, and
wrought like a spell upon whatever sensibility lingered in the
hearts of the people around him. Upon no occasion was his na
tive greatness more conspicuous than when he stood on trial for
his life before the Roman Governor. Then all his great soul was
shown, not in what he said, although' the few words that he is
recorded to have uttered became him grandly, but in that won
drous silence, a silence kept by him not because he had nothing
to say, not because he could not have vindicated himself before
righteous judges at once triumphantly against all that his accus
ers had to say, not because, as our author gives us to understand,
he had made himself justly responsible to the theocratic law, but
because, understanding thoroughly the persons with whom he was
confronted and who had his life in their hands, seeing that they
were no more capable of listening to truth and humanity than so
many hungry wolves, that whatever he might say would just as
certainly be disregarded or perverted as had been all that he had
already said and done, — seeing this with a clearness of vision
which no self-concern could dim, he felt intuitively that perfect
silence on his part fitted the circumstances and the hour. He
kept silent, in fine, because he knew as well when to hold his
peace as when to speak, and no word that he ever uttered was
fuller of inspiration than that silence ; no, not even does that lofty
declaration to Pilate, " Yes, I am a king, and every true man is
my subject," show a more regal dignity of mind. From every
feature, from his whole person it spoke, spoke of a world of power
in him, power to rise above all personal considerations, and, under
the most terrible circumstances, to find entire serenity in the per
fect possession of himself.
The Boman Procurator, the only one present whose vision was

218-2 TWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER.
not blinded by prejudice, was evidently struck by the bearing of
Jesus. How could he possibly have helped being so ? And he-
reveals the impression which the prisoner made upon him in
his repeated efforts, not to save the life of Jesus be it observed,
but to escape himself from the responsibility of condemning to
death one whose whole manner and appearance inspired him with
a sense of the presence of a power which he could not under
stand, with awe and indefinable dread. Is there anything plainer
than that Pilate was a weak man, wholly unequal to the emer
gency ? And as a weak man, he was peculiarly susceptible of
the impression of power, which the bearing of Jesus must have
made. Not that he had- the slightest insight into the lofty nature
of that power. His very ignorance of it served only, by creating
a feeling of mystery, to heighten the effect of it upon his mind.
Added to this, the alleged high pretensions of this unknown per
son, the rumors which Pilate doubtless had some knowledge of
respecting the career of Jesus, — all united to make the Procura
tor, weak man that he was, shrink from having anything to do
with putting Jesus to death. Dr. Schenkel thinks that Pilate
made one attempt to save Jesus. In truth he made no attempt
to save Jesus. But that he should have made only one attempt
to save himself would be far stranger than that he made so many
attempts to extricate himself from a responsibility which the
appearance of the prisoner caused him to tremble at. If he made
one attempt to evade his responsibility, the uneasy feeling that
prompted it would not be likely to be allayed by the failure of
that attempt, but increased rather. The very vagueness of the
feeling that had come over him, did not admit of its being reasoned
down ; and it would have required more strength of mind than
Pilate possessed to overcome it in any other way than as it was
finally overcome, namely, by a stronger fear, the dread of Caesar.
First he would have the Jews do the deed, although he knew
what they told him, that they had no authority to put a man to
death. Our author seems to consider this suggestion of Pilate's
unlikely, because it was not creditable to a Roman magistrate to
need to be told that the Jews had not the requisite authority.
But discreditable propositions are very apt to be made by weak
men in the predicament in which Pilate felt himself to be. Hear
ing next that Jesus was a Galilean, he seized upon the oppor
tunity of sending him to Herod, with the double hope that that
prince would dispose of the case, and would also regard the rcf-

NOTE; 283
erence of it to his tribunal as a friendly overture on the part of
Pilate, there being, as is recorded, a quarrel between the two at
the time. With all the jealousy, to which Dr. Schenkel alludes,'
with which the Roman authorities kept watch over the Jewish
princes, a case might very possibly occur, like that of Pilate and
Herod Antipas, in which the Roman official might be personally
the weaker of the two, and precisely such relations might arise
as appear to have existed between the Procurator and Herod.
This attempt to have the matter settled by Herod failing, with
characteristic weakness Pilate next tried to persuade the people-
to ask that Jesus might be liberated rather than Barabbas.
This device also proving fruitless, Pilate caused Jesus, innocent
as he declared him to be, to be subjected to the cruelty of the
Roman scourge, which shows how little any feeling of humanity'
had to do with these efforts of Pilate to evade the necessity of
dooming Jesus to death. He evidently condemned Jesus to be
scourged, as our author states, with the hope that this would con
tent the priests. For after Jesus had been scourged, Pilate1
caused him to be led forth covered with blood and barbarous ridi
cule, and called attention to him, bidding the people look at him1
and see what a miserable object he was and how little to be feared.
But the sight only whetted the bloodthirsty appetite of the im
placable enemies of the prisoner, because Pilate showed by this
concession that he could be finally overcome. Because it had
this obvious effect and showed so little " knowledge of the human
heart," Dr. Schenkel appears to think it not likely that the
scourging took place, as if it were an improbable thing that Pilate1
should not have known the human heart. Why, have we not
had in this enlightened nineteenth Christian century a whole
great nation of Pilates, who, for thirty years kept scourging the
slave with Fugitive slave laws and I know not what other ac
cursed enactments, with the ignorant hope of contenting the
Slave Power, and inducing it to abate its cruel demands ? Our
author appears also to think the scourging an improbable incident,
because, according to the testimony of Josephus, Pilate was not- a
cruel man. He may not have been of a cruel disposition, but
fear, selfish fear will extinguish even in the tender-hearted every
particle of mercy, and Pilate was on this memorable occasion the
slave of his fears. When the Jews menaced Pilate, still hesitating
to pronounce the fatal word, with the displeasure of Csesar, (the
reigning Ca;sar was- Tiberius, the most suspicious, and conse-

284 TWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER.
quently the most merciless of tyrants,) then Pilate gave way and
yielded himself, a weak but reluctant tool to their bloody pur
pose. One more wretched effort he made to escape the responsi
bility of the murderous deed. I imagine there was very much
less of formality in the washing of his hands before the people
than would seem at first sight from the simple language of the
narrative. Dr. Schenkel finds difficulty in crediting it, but it was
probably the act of a moment. The water, we may suppose, was
standing by, and Pilate dipped his hands in it and dashed it off
to signify that he had nothing to do with shedding the blood of
Jesus. The act was expressive enough, but how characteristic of
the weak man that Pilate had shown himself to be throughout 1
Finally, we have the last finishing touch to the portraiture of
Pilate's weakness in the obstinacy with which he insisted upon
inscribing on the Cross : " Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the
Jews," an inscription evidently dictated by the Procurator's desire
to revenge himself for the conscious self-humiliation to which
the Jewish priests had forced him to submit, by casting ridicule
upon them, and representing a miserable crucified man as their
king. Dr. Schenkel sees nothing more in this inscription than an
official act of the Roman authorities.
I see no reason to discredit the statement that the wife of
Pilate sent word to him during the trial to beware how he con
demned the person brought before him, as she had had a remark
able dream concerning him. Dr. Schenkel (see first note in his
Appendix) thinks the dream a miracle. That the sensation
caused by the wonderful career of Jesus reached even the house
hold of the Roman Procurator is no more than probable. The
Roman lady possibly had Jewish maidens in attendance upon
her, and from them she may have heard such stories of Jesus as
excited her imagination and occasioned the dream which startled
her so much. At any other moment, her husband, a man of the
world and probably a freethinker, would have ridiculed the idea
of giving heed to an idle dream. But the message of his wife,
coming to him precisely at that juncture, no doubt increased the
apprehensions by which he was embarrassed.
Through the whole scene Jesus stood there uttering not a syl
lable in self-defence, with all those faces of malignity and hatred
glaring upon him, and those horrid cries for his crucifixion Ting
ing in his ears. To the priests and their charges he said nothing.
He no more thought of expostulating or reasoning with them

NOTE. 285
than with so many wild beasts. Their bloody purpose was alto
gether too plain. He could not, for his life, demean himself
to waste upon them a single word. Even when Pilate called his
attention to what they were saying, he would not open his lips.
He spoke to Pilate when Pilate spoke to him until, after declar
ing him innocent, Pilate commanded him to be scourged. But
after that act, which showed Pilate to be utterly regardless of
justice and humanity, Jesus refused to speak to him also. It was,
he saw, a mere waste of words. The question which Pilate put
to Jesus just before he condemned him to death discloses the
state of Pilate's mind : " Whence art thou ? " i. e. " Who are
you ? Where do you come from ? " showing the curiosity con
cerning him, which was awakened in Pilate. When Jesus re
fused to answer, Pilate threatened him with his power. Then
Jesus spoke, but not to gratify Pilate's curiosity, not in answer
to his question, but to tell him that he had no power of his own,
that others were,the chief actors in the scene.
Dr. Schenkel questions the credibility of Luke's statement
(ch. xxii. 61) that when Peter denied his Master, "Jesus turned
and looked upon him." The circumstance is too slight and too
characteristic to be regarded as a mere legendary embellishment.
The only reason given for regarding it as such is that Peter was
in the outer court of the High-Priest's mansion while Jesus was
within. But the narrative is in no instance so exact as to re
quire us to allow considerations of this kind to weigh against
the moral harmonies of the history. It is not impossible that
Jesus may have been led into the outer court where Peter was,
just as the terrified disciple was making his last denial of all
knowledge of him. (See John xviii. 25 - 28.)
Our author, erroneously as I think, regards the prayer of Jesus,
" Father, forgive them, they know not what they are doing "
(Luke xxiii. 34), as referring to the priests, the authors of his
condemnation. But it is more natural, since the connection au
thorizes it, to suppose that this ejaculation was wrung from him
by the extreme torture to which he was put when they were
nailing him to the Cross, and had reference to his immediate
executioners, those Roman soldiers, as ignorant as they were
barbarous. No physical agony could abate the unconquerable
generosity of his mind.
Dr. Schenkel gives implicit credit to the statement of the first
two Evangelists, that Jesus declared to the High-Priest and the

•286 SEVENTH SECTION.
other members of the High Council present, that he was the
Messiah, and that thereafter they would see the Son of Man sit
ting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of
heaven. (Matt. xxvi. 60 ; Mark xiv. 62.) But if, as Dr. Schenkel
intimates (p. 468), all communication between Jesus and his dis
ciples was cut off during his examination before the High-Priest,
the report of what Jesus said on the occasion is to be received
with great distrust, as it comes to us only through his enemies.
That he was, perversely or otherwise, understood to have con
fessed himself the Messiah is certain. But if he made the dec
laration, which is found in the first two Gospels, it is not easily
to be explained why it is wanting in the fourth Gospel, the
avowed purpose of which was to prove that Jesus was the Mes
siah. (John xxi. 31.) — Trans.]

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE CRUCIFIXION.

1. After the ratification of the sentence by Pilate,
its execution was instantly ordered to take place on
the pillar of the cross. The execution was conducted
with all the unfeeling harshness and extreme barbarity
with which heathen Rome was wont to treat its vic
tims. Jesus was first given up to the mockery of the
Roman soldiers. What Pilate did not permit — as
the fourth Gospel erroneously reports 2 — so long as
he held Jesus guiltless, was now allowed. The
cause of his condemnation — his pretension to the
royal dignity of the Messiah — gave his executioners
the occasion which they coveted of the cruellest ridi
cule. The whole guard, stationed in the government
quarters, were called together that they might give
1 John xix. 2.

THE CONSUMMATION. 287
free play to their savage love of wanton mischief upon
the Jewish rebel and fanatic. With grinning scorn
royal honors were paid to his person. A soldier's
cloak was thrown over him for a regal mantle. They
twisted round his head a crown of thorny stems. The
soldiers did homage to him in derision. They forced
him to hold a reed in his hand for a sceptre, and then
they snatched it from him and struck him with it to
make him feel the wretched condition to which he
was reduced. They spat in his face and tried upon
him all the rude jests of a coarse soldier rabble. It is
the Jew that they despise in him. It is the preten
sions of Judaism to the empire of the world that they
cover with ridicule. These Gentiles had not the
remotest idea that it was by the hatred of the Jews
that he was condemned to the Cross, that it was his
unavoidable conflict with the Jewish dream of univer
sal empire that had plunged him into this abyss of
shame. What a contrast between the clear, calm out
look of Jesus, comprehending within its sphere the
future of the world's history, and the stupid blind
ness of these tools of power, bent only upon the mo
mentary gratification of their barbarian humor.
Those moments of derision and mockery were
doubtless among the most torturing that Jesus had
in those last hours to endure. No complaint fell from
his lips. He might have spoken, groaned, entreated,
implored the soldiers to have pity on him. He might
have appealed'to their feelings of honor and humanity.
Does there not beat in the rudest breast a human
heart ? But he opened not his mouth. This imper
turbable silence indicates no sinking of the heart
under the overwhelming sorrows poured upon his
head. He had indeed trembled and shuddered in

288 SEVENTH SECTION.
Gethsemane. But now he is perfect master of his
agony. It was a proof only of his holy, childlike
submission to the will of his Heavenly Father. He
suffered for the work of his life in accordance with the
counsels of God and in sacred love of his country and
mankind. No man understood him at this moment.
His royal mind was veiled in suffering and contumely.
But not on this account was he any the less conscious
of his eternal worth. Ever clearer and clearer was
presented before his vision the purpose of his death :
to abolish the dead and deadly Letter, for the sake of
which his death was decreed as a reconciliation of
Divine righteousness, to teach the world that it can
be reconciled to the righteousness of God only through
the sacrifice of Love.
His executioners dragged him, covered with ridi
cule and contempt, to a place of execution upon a hill
outside the city.1 The comparatively long distance
which he had to go increased his sufferings. Ac
cording to the fourth Gospel, he had to carry his
cross himself.2 The statement of the older Gospels is
however more probable, that, although against the
common practice, Simon of Cyrene, a countryman
accidentally passing by, was forced to carry it.3 The
probably delicate organization of Jesus, the extreme
mental distress which he had undergone, the exhaust
ing trials and cruel usage he had suffered, and all
the savage uproar around him, — all rendered it
impossible for him to drag along the" burden of the
cross. 2. That Jesus, on the way to the place of execu-
1 Mark xv. 21 ; Matt, xxvii. 32 ; Luke xxiii. 33 ; John xix. 17.
2 John xix. 17.
8 Mark xv. 21 ; Matt, xxvii. 32 ; Luke xxiii. 26.

THE CONSUMMATION. 289
tion, broke the silence which he had preserved till
then, Luke alone informs us, following in this particu
lar a special and authentic tradition. To his judges,
after he had once declared himself the Messiah and
his condemnation had followed in consequence, he had
nothing more to say. No murmur of pain, no outcry
of indignation was allowed to betray his inmost emo
tions. It was his part to bear patiently the utmost
severity of legal violence, the consequence, heavily as
it might fall upon him, of the work of his life : the
deliverance of the human soul and of all nations from
the yoke of the letter and the chains of sin. But those
lips that had been closed hours long were opened again
when, on the way to the place of execution he saw
many who were accompanying him, full of sympathy,
many women especially, in tears and uttering excla
mations of woe.1 Touched at the sight Jesus was
moved to speak a doubly monitory word to these
women. He called to them and bade them not weep
for him. He was not to be commiserated. He was
to die in the bloom of life indeed but in the faithful
performance of the work assigned him. His death
was the necessary consequence of his. great work.
His apparent destruction was in reality his indefeasi
ble victory. He could have been an object of pity
only in case he had not completed his work by such a
death, — had he, from fear of the horrors of death, pre
ferred a broken life to death. Rather were they to
weep for themselves and for their children. The over
whelming flood of his own agonies could not make
him forgetful of the woes impending over the city of
Jerusalem. He well knew that the doom of the city
was sealed. And how much more to be pitied was
1 Luke xxiii. 27.
VOL. II. 9

290 SEVENTH SECTION.
the fate of Jerusalem and her population than his
sufferings which were but for a moment ! He com
pares himself to the green tree.1 His is fresh, sound,
imperishable life ; and the blood flowing from his cross
will soon be a refreshing stream of living water for the
world. But Jerusalem with its hierarchy and with its
deluded people chained to their fate, is — a dry tree.
Israel is a trunk, stripped of its foliage, bearing fruit
no more. From the desolation and ruins of the city
of Zion, from the rivers of blood which its stones and
walls were to drink up, from the woes of all kinds
that were to befall its inhabitants and especially the
most helpless, women and children, there would spring
no fountain of life for the world. A terrible doom,
in every way deserved, would fall upon the city of the
Temple, upon its watchmen and shepherds, with the
curse of centuries of wrong, of hypocris)"-, and selfish
ness. When Jerusalem should fall, it would not be by
the death of the righteous that the old worn-out Let
ter would be judged, but after long forbearance the
unrighteous would be visited by the eternal justice of
God. With such words did Jesus break his long, deep
silence, not to lament his own terrible fate, but to
deplore the sufferings of others, the frightful calamities
that were to plunge his unbelieving and obdurate
countrymen and the city upon whose soil the place
of his execution was now prepared, into the depths
of despair. It was words of holy love, of pity gush
ing from the heart of this love, that he spoke. He
had always regarded little children with tender in
terest. Their loving eyes had greeted him when he
took them to his bosom and promised them they
1 Luke xxiii. 31.

THE CONSUMMATION. 291
should have part in the kingdom of God. To them
as to a better generation, he had looked for a better
future. But now he pronounced that womb happy
which had never borne a child, and happy the breast
that had never given nourishment. When a nation
no longer has strength to extricate itself from dead
traditions, when it contemns the spirit of reform,
when it repels the hand that offers it life, freedom,
salvation, when it murders its prophets and rends in
pieces its deliverers, then it has no longer any future,
and no generation that may rise in it can inspire any
hope. In such a case, a grave is all that can be de
sired for it, and the despair is justified that calls upon
the mountains, " Fall on us ! " and upon the hills,
" Cover us ! " J
3. Jesus, upon reaching the place of execution, was
immediatelv nailed to the cross. According to cus-
torn there was offered him an intoxicating drink,2 by
which the torture of crucifixion was, in some degree,
mitigated. Tradition went early astray, even in the
first Gospel, in representing Jesus as refusing to take
the " wine " mixed with gall because of its nauseous
character.3 The Evangelist was led into this error by
a passage in the Psalms which seemed to him typical
of the last hours of Jesus.4 This drink was offered
him not as an additional torture but to alleviate his
sufferings, and Jesus refused it, not to endure one
pang less, but in order to meet the last moment with
unclouded consciousness. To die in a stupor, pur
posely caused, would have ill suited the sanctity of his
character and the dignity of his Messianic office. To
hang naked upon the cross — his clothes the soldiers,
1 Luke xxiii. 30. 2 According to Mark (xv. 23) wine of myrrh.
8 Matt, xxvii. 34. 4 Ps. lxix. 22.

292 SEVENTH SECTION.
according to custom, divided among themselves —
with two malefactors crucified in like manner with
him, was surely an aggravation of this hour of tor
ture, a barbarous laceration of his sensibility, and a
savage degradation of the sacredness of his person to
the level of a common criminal ; at the same time it
showed also how little in earnest Pilate was in his
wish to treat Jesus with merciful consideration.
But it was through this extreme humiliation,
through these severe tortures, that the character of
Jesus was shown in its unparalleled purity and great
ness. He maintained perfectly his humility, his love,
his tenderness, his fortitude, the Godlike nobleness of
a soul made perfect in suffering. Silent before his
judges, now he spoke. Few but golden are the words
that he uttered, and that come down to us stamped
with the seal of authenticity.
His voice was first heard in a prayer for his mur
derers : " Father ! forgive them ! they know not what
they are doing,"1 — fit words from the heart of the
Crucified, overflowing with an unspeakable fulness of
love, patience, submission, and goodwill towards men.
Under the acute torture, caused in crucifixion by the
raisins of the cross, covered with all the indignities
that could be heaped upon the vilest criminal, forsaken
and disowned without thought or feeling by friends
and disciples, there comes no groan from his lips, no
cry, no bitter or despairing word, but a prayer for the
forgiveness of his murderers. These men, he was
persuaded, were under a delusion. They were the
tools of religious and political fanaticism. The mem
bers of the High Council, who voted for his death,
doubtless believed that by his execution they were
1 Luke xxiii. 34.

THE CONSUMMATION. 293
doing God an acceptable service. Their God was a
God of the strict letter, who had made a covenant with
the Israelites,1 which threatened with its curse every
one who did not obey all the words of the Law.2
There never once glimmered in their minds the re
motest suspicion that the law of God would be any
thing more than a dead formula, and the promise of
the Old Testament an empty letter, had they not de
livered Jesus up to a cruel and shameful death. With
all the learning of the schools, they were wrapt in
blind ignorance. Their ignorance certainly was not
without blame, for Jesus had endeavored with great
power and earnestness to bring them to better knowl
edge. But their guilt was pardonable in so far as
it was the mighty and magical influence of an au
thority consecrated by centuries of custom that led
them astray. And when Jesus now implored his
Heavenly Father to show mercy to these murderers,
the prayer was an outburst of the pitying love of
which he was the herald and the representative, and
a confirmation of his saying that he sought to be the
Saviour not of the well but of the sick.
Religious fanaticism and political hatred continued
to persecute him even on the cross. A tablet, as was
the custom, was put over his head, upon which was
inscribed his alleged crime. The words, " The Jews'
King,"3 were a severe satire upon the hierarchy, the
Jewish national party, and their feeble attempts at the
empire of the world. Thus it would seem that the
Roman authorities did not consider it beneath their dig
nity to indulge a mocking spirit even in an inscription
l Dcut. xxix. 14. 2 Dent, xxvii. 26.
8 Mark (xv. 26) has the original inscription. Luke xxiii. 38 ; Matt.
xxvii. 37 ; John xix. 19.

294 SEVENTH SECTION.
on the cross. But the Jews themselves, treated as
they were by Pilate with contempt, indulged the same
spirit also under the cross. The affair of the purifica
tion of the temple was still fresh in the remembrance
of the crowd gathered round the cross, and the saying
of Jesus was still in their" minds, that he would destroy
the temple and in three days build a new temple.1
When this saying was uttered, many exulted in words
so full of hope and in the bold deed by which they
were accompanied. Now, they looked upon Jesus as
a vain boaster. So much had been told of his miracles,
why did he not now work a miracle for his own deliv
erance ? He had healed so many people, why did he
not now save himself ? Now, some cried out, he may
work a real miracle, come down from the cross and
deliver himself from his torments.2 What miserable
proof did they give of their moral and religious igno
rance when they declared that, if they saw him by su
pernatural aid come clown from the cross, they would
believe in him ! 3 Their religion rested on the five
senses. The invisible power of the spirit in which
Jesus taught and labored and founded his kingdom
had no existence to them. Only what they could see
with their own eyes and clutch with their own hands
had any weight with them as authority for their faith.
They wanted what Jesus did not want, — the, religion
of miracles. The religion of truth and freedom which
he desired they cared not for.
The criminals crucified with him, also, joined in the
jeers of the Jewish rabble,4 moved thereto partly
perhaps by a bitter feeling against him because he
1 Mark xv. 29 ; Matt, xxvii. 40.
2 Mark xv. 31 ; Matt, xxvii. 42 ; Luke xxiii. 35.
8 Mark xv. 32. 4 Mark xv. 32 ; Matt, xxvii. 44.

THE CONSUMMATION. 295
would not* work a miracle to deliver them as well as
himself, and partly to find favor with the crowd in
their last hours, the poor comfort of savage natures.
The later tradition throws over the dark scene a some
what softening light by the statement that only one of
the criminals joined in the mockery, while it puts into
the mouth of the other a rebuke of his fellow-sufferer,
together with an earnest acknowledgment of the inno
cent character of Jesus, and a prayer to be admitted
into his kingdom.1 The reply of Jesus, promising the
penitent immediate admission to Paradise, the dwelling-
place of the righteous until the final resurrection,2
fully accords, it is true, with the tenderness and good
will which, according to the same Evangelist, Jesus had
just manifested towards his murderers, and is entirely
worthy of the character of Jesus. But the concordant
statement of the first two Evangelists, that both the
criminals reviled him, comes from the oldest and most
authentic sources. To the later, i. e. the Gentile Chris
tian tradition, the temptation was strong, on the other
hand, to make manifest, even in immediate vicinity to
the cross, the opposition between the believing and the
unbelieving portion of mankind, and to represent one
of the two thieves as the type of unbelieving obdu
racy, the other as the type of repentant conversion.
4. Jesus had refused the stupefying drink. With
full consciousness, amidst increasing tortures, he con
fronted the last moment. After six hours of extreme
suffering that moment came, earlier than usual in this
manner of dying. The Saviour of the world was not
to be spared the pang of the death struggle. There
then broke from his crushed heart the first and only
cry of anguish that Jesus uttered in these hours of
i Luke xxiii. 39. a Luke xxiii. 43.

296 SEVENTH SECTION.
horror. It burst forth in the words of the Old Testa
ment sufferer, " My God ! my God ! why hast thou
forsaken me?"1 They evidently sunk ineffaceably
into the memory of the persons standing around the
cross, and were, beyond all doubt, uttered by Jesus.
If the later tradition omits them,2 it was because they
were thought to be inconsistent with the idea of Jesus
afterwards formed. They express a feeling so purely
human, that they were not reconcilable with the ex
aggerated notions of his divinity, which grew up at a
later period. They have been variously misinterpret
ed. They certainly do not mean that Jesus, when he
uttered them, really felt himself forsaken by God, that
the consciousness of communion with his Heavenly
Father was extinguished within him. It is a common
experience for the dying in the last struggle to recall
to their wandering memory words of comfort and in
spiration. In this respect Jesus shared in our weak
ness. The horror of the death-agony, wrapping his
soul in night, obscured for a moment his otherwise
clear consciousness of God, and he could express the
momentary feeling only in the words of the Psalm
ist, who was conscious of most intimate communion
with God.3 But his condition was so unutterably
miserable, that it seemed to him as if God had for
saken him. Therefore his cry of distress is not, " 0
God, why have I forsaken thee ? " but, " My God,
why hast Thou forsaken me ? " Such a sense of ex
treme loneliness certainly did so overpower the soul of
Jesus in the last moment, that he expressed himself as
if he felt that his Heavenly Father had hidden his face
1 Mark xv. 34; Matt, xxvii. 46 ; Ps. xxii. 1.
2 They are wanting in Luke xxiii. 44 -46, and in the fourth Gospel.
8 Psalm xxii. 11, 21.

THE CONSUMMATION. 297
from him and left him to the overpowering burden of
his agony. It was, however, only as the shadow of a
cloud passing over the sun, dimming for an instant the
light of the Divine love. But thereupon came the
blessed end of his sufferings, and he expired with a
loud cry. A pitying hand had just before wet his
parched lips with a cooling sponge, — an act of human
ity in which scorn mingled its gall, which would be
strange if the human heart did not so often surprise us
with its riddles. The report of Luke changing the out
cry into a dying prayer, is doubtless of a later origin.1
5. According to the first three Gospels,2 there were
neither acquaintances, relatives, nor apostles present
as witnesses of the last moments of Jesus. There
were certain women, friendly to him, from Galilee,
whom the rumor of his final labors in Judea and Jeru
salem had drawn to the capital, who witnessed the
terrible tragedy from a distance. The mother of Jesus
was among them. These women, in their deep and
loving sympathy, found no rest at home. To be near
and witness the scene of suffering, to behold him. help
lessly put to shame under their very eyes, their revered
friend, who was always so forgetful of his own comfort,
and to whom, on that account, they had been wont to
minister,3 was beyond their strength ; his mother was
unable to bear the sight except at a distance.
According to the fourth Gospel, the mother of Jesus,
a cousin, and some young female disciples, passed those
terrible hours with him at the cross.4 But it is as
much against historical probability that the oldest tradi
tion, coming from the very theatre of those last events,
1 Luke xxiii. 46 ; see Ps. xxxi. 6.
2 Mark xv. 40 ; Matt, xxvii. 56 ; Luke xxiii. 49.
8 Mark xv. 41. 4 John xix. 25,

298 SEVENTH SECTION.
should make no mention of the presence of the women
near the cross, an historical fact so noteworthy and
so fitted to stamp itself at once on the memory, as it
is offensive to natural feeling to think of the mother of
Jesus and the other women as being, during his exe-
cution, in close proximity to the cross dripping with
blood. The statement of the fourth Gospel belongs to
a later tradition, that took its origin at a time when the
persons of whom it tells were no longer living. As,
according to the fourth Gospel, the public life of Jesus
commenced with a sharp repulse of his mother, who
had not then been converted by him,1 it was natural
for the same Evangelist to represent Jesus as con
cluding his career with a tender word making provi
sion for his mother.2 Her steadfast clinging to the
cross appears, however, an all-sufficient atonement for
her early indifference to the Gospel.
There are yet two other utterances of Jesus on the
Cross reported by the fourth Gospel, but they could
hardly have proceeded from him. According to this
Gospel he gave words to his intolerable thirst.3 But
the first two Gospels give us to understand that his cry
to God awoke of itself the pity of the bystanders ;4 and
it is not probable that he uttered any want in that mo
ment of increasing agony; as the fourth Gospel attri
butes the exclamation " I thirst " to the necessity
there was for the fulfilment of a passage of the Old
Testament.6 The statement also that Jesus died ejacu
lating " It is finished," appears to belong to the group
of traditions peculiar to the fourth Gospel, and is not
confirmed by the older Evangelists.
1 John ii. 4. 2 John xix. 26.
8 John xix. 28. 4 Mark xv. 34 ; Matt, xxvii. 48.
6 The passage is Ps. Ixix. 22.

THE CONSUMMATION. 299
The oldest tradition reports only one thing said by
Jesus on the cross, and that is the exclamation of utter
loneliness under the black shadow of the last agony,
that entirely credible utterance, which could not pos
sibly have been invented, as it was irreconcilable with
the ideas which very early began to prevail concern
ing the divinity of the person of Jesus, and was, on this
account, passed over by the later tradition.
Three of the exclamations ascribed to Jesus on the
cross were derived from the original document fol
lowed by Luke. Of these three, the first J appears to
be the most authentic, the second2 less certain, and the
third3 seems the least credible of all, and does not ap
pear to be in keeping with the later tradition of the
fourth Gospel. That Jesus, after the example of a de
vout personage of the Old Testament,4 should have
commended his departing spirit into the hands of his
Heavenly Father, was offensive to the faith in the di
vinity of Christ, which was becoming more distinctly
defined at the beginning of the second century. From
the point of view of the fourth Gospel, moreover,
the words of Jesus on the cross handed down by
the first three Gospels appeared inappropriate. How
could the " Logos," the voluntary personal self-revela
tion of the Father say of himself that he was forsaken
of God ? How could Jesus on the cross excuse his
Jewish judges, and say that they had sinned against
him in ignorance, when in the fourth Gospel they are
represented as the malignant instruments of Satan ?
Whether a malefactor, without making any previous
confession of faith in the divine Sonship of Jesus could
become a member of the kingdom of God was at least
i Luke xxiii. 34. 2 Luke xxiii. 43.
3 Luke xxiii. 46. 4 Ps. xxxi. 6.

300 SEVENTH SECTION.
doubtful in the view of the fourth Gospel ; and the
Logos, if equal with God, could not resign his spirit
into the hands of the Father, being in and of himself
perfectly one with the spirit of the Father. On the
other hand, the fourth Gospel has reported three differ
ent utterances of the Crucified : the first, receiving his
mother into full favor by a provision made for her wel
fare ; x the second, testifying to the complete fulfilment
of a prophecy of the Old Testament ; 2 and finally, the
third, putting the seal of a victorious consummation
upon the whole work and sufferings of Jesus,3 a hu
man, a mediatorial, and a Divine word.
For the consecration of the moral Idea of the Cruci
fied these seven utterances are not needed. Only one
of them is wholly unquestionable. How much of the
others was really his, may be open to doubt. His
silence, the expression of childlike submission, of im
perturbable trust in God, of lowly obedience to his
Heavenly Father, will ever remain the most exalted
revelation of his holy character. His cry of suffering
in the death struggle is an utterance of the infinite
depth of the distress which he bore. This agony he
conquered. The pillar of the Cross became the throne
of his triumph. Even though he spoke not the word,
" It is finished," the moment of his death was the con
summation of his great work.
1 John xix. 26. 2 John xix. 28. 8 John xix. 30.

NOTE. 301

NOTE.

[That extreme physical torture wrung from Jesus the de
spairing cry, " My God ! My God ! why hast thou forsaken me ? "
there can be no question. As Dr. Schenkel remarks, such an ex
pression of mortal weakness could not have been invented. But are
not the other utterances, ascribed to Jesus on the cross, most if not
all of them, as truly if not as strikingly marked by the impress of
truth? The first words he is recorded to have spoken were: "Fa
ther ! forgive them ! they know not what they are doing," a prayer
which loses its life, its pathetic power, when it is understood as a
general prayer for all his enemies, the hierarchs with the rest.
Surely it would argue in him great physical insensibility, if in the
condition he then was, a state of excruciating bodily torture, he
could have been occupied with such a general consideration. It
would not have been natural. The living and divine beauty of
this prayer is disclosed when we understand it as having burst
from his lips, while they were nailing him to the cross, and as im
mediately referring to his brutal and ignorant executioners. He
could not believe that it was in human beings to cause such agony
as they were inflicting on him, if they knew what they were
about. His prayer for them was not at all of the general char
acter which our author supposes, but a sudden, passionate ejacula
tion, revealing a generosity of mind which the most barbarous in
juries could not embitter, and which could cease only with his life.
So also with the final words on the cross: "It is finished."
They lose the sound of reality by being understood in too general
a sense. It comes naturally to us to think that it is impossible to
ascribe too deep a significance to the last words of the dying. We
catch at every syllable and fancy it to have a world of meaning.
But considering the circumstances, is it not most likely that this
last brief utterance referred to the cessation of the intense physi
cal suffering which he had been so long enduring, rather than to
the consummation of the great work of his life ? The relieving
lethargy of death was creeping over him. His sensibility to pain
ceased, and the ejaculation " It is finished," was simply equivalent
to, " It is over."
The brief words addressed by Jesus from the cross to his
mother and John, our author regards as very doubtful. He
thinks it impossible that she could have been near enough to her

302 TWENTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER.
son to hear them, — that her maternal affection must have shrunk
from witnessing his agonies. Unquestionably it must have been
agonizing to her to witness that awful sight. And it would have
been no less agonizing to her to keep at a distance from him.
May she not have thought within herself: " It kills me to see him
suffer so, but I cannot lose a word that may fall from his lips, —
perhaps he may speak to me." The women, friends of Jesus,
stood looking on from a distance, but if there were one among
them who stood nearer to the cross than the rest, it must have
been his mother. Here again the words of Jesus to his mother
and the beloved disciple lose the living truth of nature in -our
Common Version, which, gives them in the form of complete
sentences, " Woman, behold thy son," and to John, "Behold thy
mother." But in the original it is: "Woman! look! thy son,"
and to John, " Look ! thy mother," brief as possible, ejaculatory,
broken, in the fullest accord with the physical condition in which
he then was, a state of extreme torture, admitting only at the
moment of such imperfect utterance. His mother was not very
near the cross, but near enough to allow Jesus, by a strong effort
mastering his agony, to gasp out these few words, leaving it to
the keen sense of his mother and John to make out his meaning.
Indeed, if I could suspect such an incident as this to be an inven
tion, I should not know what limit to assign to the inventive
power of the authors of the Gospels.
I cannot but wish that we might have some clearer insight into
what is recorded to have passed between Jesus and one of the
malefactors crucified with him. There is an indefinable pathos
in the incident. Amidst the horror of the scene, when mercy
seemed to have vanished from earth, the penitent and generous
emotion of that poor criminal must have gone to the heart of
Jesus like balm dropping down from heaven, — the only sign of
human sympathy coming from one, suffering like him, but not
like him innocent.
In his very able analysis of the first Gospel in the first note of
his Appendix, Dr. Schenkel alludes to the startling circumstances
attending the crucifixion, and mentioned in Matt, xxvii. 52, 53, as
miraculous. He does not appear to imagine that .they are sus
ceptible of being viewed in any other way. He los_es sight
altogether of the extraordinary sensation which so wonderful a
person as Jesus must have made, when he fails to perceive how
perfectly in accord with nature and all human history it is, that

THE CONSUMMATION. 303
at the death of such a person under such circumstances of horror
and agony, rumors should be rife of precisely such strange facts
as Matthew makes mention of. All things were then seen by the
excited imaginations of the sensitive under exaggerated aspects.
Circumstances which upon ordinary occasions would have ar
rested no notice became fearful portents. The gloom of an over
cast day grew into a preternatural darkness. A rent in the veil
of the Temple, which may very possibly have existed before, was
then observed for the first time, and ghosts, apparitions, were seen
by " many." Who can resist the evidence which such things as
these furnish, not merely to the fact of the Crucifixion of Jesus,
but to tbe whole great history ! With -awe I read in them the
sign manual of Nature — of God himself. — Trans.]

CHAPTER XXIX.
THE GLORIFIED.
1. All the evangelical reports testify to the pro
found moral impression made by Jesus while hanging
on the cross upon numbers of those present, and espe
cially upon those who were of his Communion. Al
though of his disciples the men fled from the place,
the strength of character shown by the women, in their
sympathy with their Master in his last agonies, is all
the more striking. And that they wished to pay the
last honors to the Departed by embalming his corpse,
according to the custom of the Jews, is an irresistible
proof that his horrible death had not been able to
shake their faith in the sanctity of his life, and the
moral greatness of his person.1 A member of the
Hio-h Council even, Joseph of Arimathea, who had
taken no part in the condemnation of Jesus,2 had the
i Mark xvi. 1 ; Luke xxiii. 55. 2 Luke xxiii. 50.

304 SEVENTH SECTION.
courage to beg his body of the Procurator, that it
might be decently buried.1 Although he had not ven
tured before the condemnation of Jesus to avow him
self openly as his disciple, yet the greatness of char
acter shown by Jesus on the cross, had made such an
impression upon him, that no concern for consequences
could deter him from giving this proof of his reverence
and love for the Crucified. Only in the way in which
Jesus bore his sufferings and overcame the terrors of
his death was the full greatness, until then hidden, of
his spirit and his nature manifested. It was in the
depths of his mortal agonies that he rose to the height
of his glory.
The Apostles in particular could not be insensible
to the great impression made by his Cross. To the
paralyzing terror, by which they were prostrated at
his arrest, condemnation, and execution, there suc
ceeded a revival of their love and trust and hope.
The women, however, were in advance. They visited
the grave of Jesus at sunrise on the morning of the
first day of the week. They found the stone rolled
away, and the grave empty. In the place of the
corpse of Jesus, they saw as they believed a celestial
apparition. They fell into an ecstasy, the consequence
of the great excitement which, with the sensibility char
acteristic of their sex, they had just undergone. But
they did not venture at the first even to speak of the
mysterious event. Jesus did not appear to the women
in his own person. But it was an angel whom they re
ported to have told them that Jesus would personally
appear to his disciples in Galilee.2 The whole conduct
1 Mark xv. 43 ; Matt.- xxvii. 57 ; Luke xxiii. 50 ; John xix. 38.
2 Mark gives us the simplest and most primitive account of the
resurrection of Jesus (xvi. 1-18).

THE CONSUMMATION. 305
of the women, the visit to the grave at the early dawn,
the apparition of the angels, — all furnish indubitable
proof that the faith of some of his adherents in the
indestructible life of Jesus was not shaken by the man
ner of his death, but had received new nourishment
and strength. The oldest tradition has nothing to tell
of the appearances of Jesus in Jerusalem. It says only
that they found the grave empty. This it asserts.1
The belief on the other hand that Jesus, having risen,
would appear to the Apostles in Galilee, the earliest
and largest theatre of his career, must have been very
generally spread among his disciples in Jerusalem a few
days after his death. A later tradition has amplified
the account of what the angels said at the open grave.2
A still later tradition has left it all out. Instead of the
direction to meet Jesus in Galilee, the third Gospel
has a reference to the communication, made by him to
his disciples in Galilee before his final journey to Jeru
salem, concerning his then impending death and resur
rection.3 With the oldest report, amplified, of the appearance
of angels to the women at the grave, the first Gospel
gives place also to a report unknown to the oldest
Evangelist, namely, that Jesus, on the first day of the
week after the crucifixion, appeared to two of the
women returning from the grave to Jerusalem. But
even according to this report it is not Jerusalem but
Galilee where the risen Jesus wishes to show himself
to his disciples.4 The appearance of the angels, like
the appearance of Jesus, serves no purpose but to com
municate to the disciples, through the women, a direc
tion to meet their risen Master in Galilee. There,
i Mark xvi. 4. 2 Matt, xxviii. 2.
8 Luke xxiv. 6. 4 Matt, xxviii. 9.
20

VOL. II

306 SEVENTH SECTION.
according to the first Evangelist, Jesus really met the
Eleven upon a mountain, and took leave of them with
the declaration that all power was his in heaven and
upon earth. At the same time he gave them his last
instructions. He commanded them to convert and bap
tize all nations, and promised them his powerful assist
ance till the end of the world.1 According to the docu
ments which the third Gospel followed,2 not one angel
but two angels appeared to a number of the women at
the grave ; but Jesus himself did not appear to them.
The reports of the women, moreover, found no credit
among the Apostles. Nevertheless, Jesus appeared,
according to this Evangelist, not in the morning, but
in the evening of the first day of the week after the
crucifixion, to two unknown disciples on the way to
Emmaus, in the neighborhood of Jerusalem. He
walked and talked with them as an ordinary person,
conversed with them especially about the Messianic
promises of the Old Covenant, sat down with them at
table, and vanished from their sight in the act of bless
ing and distributing the bread.3
In the mean while, Jesus had appeared also to Peter
in Jerusalem,4 and to the eleven disciples in the even
ing of the first day of the week after the crucifixion.
According to the third Gospel, Jesus on this last oc
casion refuted the idea that he was a " spirit " by
showing his hands and feet, (that had been nailed to
the cross,) in order that they might be seen and
touched, and he ate of a broiled fish and of an honey
comb, the object being to convince the assembled dis
ciples of his bodily presence.5 He availed himself also
1 Matt, xxviii. 18.
2 Luke xxiv. 10. The original Mark is here neither used nor
worked up by Luke.
8 Luke xxiv. 13-32. 4 Luke xxiv. 34. 6 Luke xxiv. 37-43.

THE 'CONSUMMATION. 307
of this occasion to prove to them from the Scriptures
of the Old Covenant that in his sufferings, death, and
resurrection, the promise of Moses and the Prophets
and the Psalms was fulfilled. And what happened on
the same evening in Jerusalem is reported by the first
two Evangelists to have taken place upon a mountain
in Galilee. He blessed his disciples and bade them
farewell. But if, according to the older tradition pre
served by the first Evangelist, Jesus promised his dis
ciples on the Galilean mountain to be with them
always till the end of the world, according to the
later tradition of the third Evangelist, after giving his
command to the disciples not to leave Jerusalem until
they were endued with the power of the spirit from
on high, he was carried up to heaven.1
2. The evangelical tradition in the fourth Gospel, in
regard to the events following the crucifixion of Jesus,
does not vary very materially from the older reports
of the first three Gospels. It was not several women,
but only Mary of Magdala, according to this Gospel,
who visited the grave early in the morning of the first
day.2 Peter and John were convinced, upon the in
telligence received from Mary, that the corpse was no
longer in the grave.3 But they found it very hard to
satisfy themselves of his resurrection.4 Then first
Mary saw an angel, and in fact two angels,5 in accord
ance with the third Gospel. The appearance of Jesus
followed immediately the appearance of the angels,
under wholly different circumstances, however, from
1 Luke xxiv. 51 ; Acts i. 4-9. The book of Acts differs from the
Evangelists in representing the appearances of Jesus after his resur
rection to have been repeated during forty days. It follows a later
document. 2 John xx. 1. 8 J°hn xx- 6-
4 John xx. 9 ; compare Luke xxiv. 12. 6 John xx. 12.

308 SEVENTH SECTION.
those stated in the third Gospel. While, according to
the third Gospel, Jesus suffered himself to be touched,
and while he takes food, according to the fourth, on
the other hand, Mary is not permitted to touch him,
and is directed only to inform the disciples — " his
brothers," he calls them — that he had not yet as
cended, but was about to ascend, to his Heavenly
Father.1 And here, within the circle of this tradition,
the history of Jesus is concluded. Jesus does not
appear again to his disciples. He does not appoint
them to meet him either upon a mountain in Galilee
or in Jerusalem. He merely sends word to them
through Mary (and only indeed, apparently, because
she had distinguished herself above the others by her
devotion and fidelity), that he still lived and was
about to enter into full possession of the immortal
life of heaven with his God and Father and their
God and Father.
The account therefore of two other additional ap
pearances of Jesus after his resurrection, related in the
fourth Gospel, must have been derived from other
sources, connected with those used by Luke, but taking
a new shape in the hands of the fourth Evangelist.
According to this account, Jesus, on the evening of
that same first day of the week, appeared among his
disciples, the doors being closed, — thus as a spirit with
out a material body, — and, after saluting them, showed
them his hands and his side, to convince them, doubt
less, of his corporeal presence.2 Here also he took
leave of them. What the first Gospel represents him
as doing on the mountain in Galilee, he does also,
according to the fourth Gospel, in Jerusalem. He
gives his Apostles the same commission to convert
1 John xx. 17. 2 John xx. 19.

THE CONSUMMATION. 309
mankind, and bestows on them his Holy Spirit and
the power to remit sins. From the kindred account
in the third Gospel, according to which they were to
wait in Jerusalem, the fourth Gospel consequently
varies ; with the promise, however, contained in this
Gospel of the approaching return of Jesus through the
revelation of his Holy Spirit, this representation en
tirely agrees.1 The narrative of another appearance
of Jesus eight days later in the presence of Thomas,
who was absent on the previous occasion, is evidently
an addition from another source. This narrative tells
us that Jesus again appeared among his disciples, the
doors being closed, and offered his hands to be touched
and his side to be felt2 by Thomas, in order to con
vince him of his resurrection. In a closing addition
it is declared that Jesus, after his resurrection, did
many other " signs " in the presence of his disciples,3
of which, however, in a still later addition to the Gos
pel, only one is mentioned.4 The appearance of Jesus
at the sea of Tiberias plainly betrays, in its details, the
traces of a post-apostolic legend. The intercourse of
Jesus with his disciples on this occasion is such as im
plies that he was still living an earthly life. As, at an
early period, when upon the shores of the same sea, he
called his first disciples,5 so now, in taking his depart
ure, he causes a miraculous draught of fishes.6 Peter,
who, by the denial of his Master, had shown himself
unworthy the Apostolic office, Jesus receives again in
the most solemn manner into the company of the
Apostles, and finally Jesus corrects a legend respect
ing John that had gone abroad to the effect that this
Apostle was not to live to see the return of Jesus.
1 John xiv. 16. 2 John xx. 26. 8 John xx. 30.
* John xxi. 1. 6 Luke v. 1. 6 John xxi. 4.

310 SEVENTH SECTION.
Finally, an addition, in the second Gospel,1 is evi
dently a later composition drawn from the older evan
gelical traditions ; its origin is to be attributed to the
fact that the Gospel appeared to end abruptly with
-the eighth verse.
3. The various traditions concerning the appear
ances of Jesus after his death may, on the whole, be
distinguished with tolerable clearness in the following
manner :
a. The oldest tradition, contained in the original
Mark (TJrmarcuS), is confined to the statement that
early in the morning of the first day of the week after
the crucifixion, some women, friends of Jesus, visited
his grave and found it empty. Upon this occasion an
angel is said to have appeared to them and informed
them that Jesus, in accordance with a previous under
standing with his disciples,2 would appear to them in
Galilee. Of an actual appearance of Jesus, the oldest
source of tradition affords us no information. The
idea that the conclusion is missing is a mere unfounded
conjecture. b. In the first Gospel, the author of which made use
of the original Gospel of Mark, we find a double man
ipulation of the oldest tradition, in conformity to which
Jesus is represented to have appeared first to the wo
men, upon the morning of the resurrection, in Jerusa
lem, and secondly, to have taken leave of his disciples
upon the mountain in Galilee referred to by the angel.
As to the second statement, it may possibly, in its es
sential points, be tortured out of the original Mark ; it
stands in contradiction with the first.
1 Mark xvi. 9-20.
2 For this understanding we are referred to Mark xiv. 28, the decla-'
ration of Jesus upon his last visit to Gethsemane.

THE CONSUMMATION. 311
c. As the elder narrative contains no precise specifi
cation of the particulars of the appearances of Jesus
after his crucifixion, a later source of tradition, made
use of by the third Evangelist, sought to satisfy the
demand of the reflecting understanding. The appear
ances of Jesus were not merely promised by the angels,
or only transiently made mention of by the women
when they were charged with the commission of in
forming his disciples that they were to go to Galilee
as in the first Gospel,1 but these appearances were
actually made to the disciples in Jerusalem, and in
deed on the very day of the resurrection. The story
is founded, beyond doubt, upon the idea that the phys
ical organization of Jesus remained unchanged,' and
that even the functions of the lungs, of digestion, and
of locomotion, had suffered no derangement from the
death of the cross. Not as a glorified " spirit," but as
a formal man, Jesus appeared, according to this tra
dition, in the midst of his justly amazed disciples.
The account was, doubtless, meant to dissipate every
doubt as to the corporeal reality of Jesus. But in
truth our doubts are only the more strengthened by
the fact that Jesus nevertheless passes without any
difficulty through shut doors, suddenly vanishes like a
disembodied spirit from the eyes of his disciples, and
is carried up to heaven. The demand of the reflecting
understanding is met by this tradition, it is true, but
not by any means even moderately satisfied. The aim
was to dissipate doubt, but it is of necessity strength
ened by the contradictions involved in these accounts.
d. There is still less satisfaction in the statements
i The statement in Matt, xxviii. 9, that the women held Jesus by the
feet, is intended, not to prove that he was really flesh and blood, but
to express the reverential feelings of the women.

312 SEVENTH SECTION.
of the fourth Gospel. At one time, Jesus is repre
sented as a " spirit," — Mary, for example, must not
touch him. At another time, he bears himself like a
living man. Thomas lays his fingers in the wounds
in his hands and side. Now he comes among his as
sembled disciples through closed doors, and now, upon
another occasion, he requires his disciples to have faith
that the organs of his body are really flesh and
bone. e. The tradition in the last supplement to the fourth
Gospel departs the farthest from the oldest reports.
Here Jesus holds intercourse with his disciples en
tirely as if he were still living among them.1
According to all the evangelical accounts, the ap
pearances of Jesus after his resurrection have substan
tially one and the same purpose, to give to the great
work of the Lord a fitting termination, and to an
nounce his last will to the band of disciples. There
fore, in the primitive Mark the angel directs them to
go to Galilee for a final interview with Jesus. There
fore, in the third Gospel he gives them his last bless
ing, and promises them the Holy Spirit. For the same
reason, in the fourth Gospel, he sends them forth, and
gives them the Holy Spirit. All that he does is in
keeping both with his personal dignity and his official
position. So far, the tradition rests upon historical
grounds. The case is different with the final addition
to the fourth Gospel. This has throughout inferior
purposes, partly to prove the miraculous and prophetic
gifts of the risen Master, partly to save the memory
of Peter, and partly to account for the death of John
before the return of Jesus. So little does Jesus ap
pear here in really new glory that the incidents nar-
1 John xxi. 4 et sea.

THE CONSUMMATION. 313
rated might be transferred back without any difficulty
into the time of his early career in Galilee.
4. The accounts of the resurrection no doubt form
a necessary conclusion to the evangelical history.
They belong to a complete historical portrait of Jesus.
It is an indisputable fact that in the early morning of
the first day of the week following the crucifixion the
grave of Jesus was found empty. The place where
the grave was was known to hundreds. How could
the belief that the grave was found empty have arisen
and continued uncontradicted, had not the fact been
really so ? The belief in the resurrection of Jesus
among the disciples in Jerusalem was certainly founded
at the first upon this fact of the empty grave. The
company of disciples in Jerusalem pronounced it a
miracle of divine power, and believed that it was
wrought by means of angels. Thus arose the oldest
tradition of the apparition of angels, and it rested
upon the declarations of those highly excited women.
It is a second fact that the disciples and other members
of the Apostolic Communion were convinced that Jesus
was seen after his crucifixion. Appearances of the
Crucified were reported with such unanimity on the
whole, although varying in particulars, that the faith
of those who first reported them is beyond question,
and certain it is that these accounts contributed much
to strengthen the disciples and keep them together,
bowed down and crushed as they were in consequence
of the crucifixion of Jesus. We have a classic wit
ness to the fact that Christ appeared several times
among his disciples in the Apostle Paul,1 who in proof
thereof appeals to five hundred of the brothers, still
living in his time, to whom Christ appeared.2
i 1 Cor. xv. 4. 2 1 Cor. xv. 6.

314 SEVENTH SECTION.
There is a third fact : the appearances of Jesus after
his death, related in the Gospels, had, substantially, no
other character than that which marked the appearance
of Christ to the Apostle Paul upon his journey to Da
mascus.1 Paul mentions the appearance of Christ to
himself among the other appearances related in the
Gospels as in every respect of a like description.
Thence we may conclude that the accounts in the
Gospels which represent the risen Master as having
a material body cannot be well grounded. From the
account in the book of Acts, it does not appear that
Jesus wrought any effect upon the Apostle through
the organs of a material body.2 It was an appearance
of light attended by a voice, which, according to this
representation, was perceived by Paul. He himself
describes his vision of Christ as emphatically an in
ward revelation of Christ. It pleased God to reveal his
Son in him.3 Consequently, the Risen Christ is the
transfigured and glorified Christ, the Lord, who is the
Spirit,4 as the fourth Gospel represents him, essentially
the living Spirit leading his Communion into all truth,
and not until he was glorified in death, penetrating
the body of his disciples more and more effectively
with his life.
Thus Jesus himself — according to the evangelical
tradition — solemnly recognized in his resurrection a
victory of the eternal Spirit over tha Jewish letter and
the sensual illusions of Heathenishi. As the Risen
One, he is exalted above earthly powers and the limi
tations of sense. When he enters the circle of his
disciples through closed doors, it is a symbol that,
thenceforth, he reveals himself to his disciples invisibly,
1 1 Cor. xv. 8. 2 Acts ix. 3 ; xxii. 6 ; xxvi. 13.
8 Gal. i. 16. 4 2 Cor. iii. 17.

THE CONSUMMATION. 315
and that he is to be discerned with the inner eye of
the spirit. It was through these appearances of Christ
that the disciples arrived, in a way unknown before,
at a clear, untroubled consciousness of the character of
their Master as of a spiritual and eternal presence, and,
on this account, essentially divine. They now first dis
cerned his kingdom as a kingdom of the spirit and of
the truth. Now first was it revealed to them that his
Messianic kingship consisted in making all nations his
disciples, and in illuminating all mankind with the light
of his Gospel.1 Now first they understood his office
of peace in the true light of the pre-ordained salvation
of all nations. They saw that the promises of the Old
Covenant could find their real fulfilment, — not in the
glitter of an earthly crown, — but only in the pure fire
of love, transfigured in the glow of suffering and through
the pain of self-sacrifice. Now first were they con
firmed in the joyful confidence that the Spirit giveth
life, and they ceased to have any doubt that the Let
ter kills.
It is common to regard the physical re-animation
of the Crucified as the essential point in the accounts
of the Resurrection, and to build faith in the power of
the Gospel to overcome the world upon this external
fact. That Jesus came forth from the grave on the
third day after his crucifixion with the very same body
that hung upon the cross, that his body could be felt
by the hands of his disciples, that his bodily functions
went on as before, appears to many to have been the
indispensable condition of the success of Christianity.
Only thus, it is thought, can we explain the sudden re
vival of the faith of the disciples, utterly cast down as
they were by preceding events. But it is forgotten
1 Matt, xxviii. 19.

316 SEVENTH SECTION.
that the women showed courage and devotion even be
fore the resurrection ; that on the evening of the first
day of the week, before any appearance of Christ had
taken place, the Apostles, according to the later tradi
tion, were assembled x in Jerusalem, and therefore nei
ther scattered nor wholly disheartened ; that — still
according to the Gospel accounts — it was the mirac
ulous communication of the Holy Spirit on the day of
Pentecost that first kindled in the Apostolic body the
fire of an unquenchable faith and the glow of self-sac
rificing love. To a faith that rests upon the external
fact of a bodily resurrection of Jesus, the Apostle Paul
has denied any worth, for he says, " Though we have
known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know
we him no more so. If any man be in Christ, there is a
new creation ; old things are passed away, all things be
come new." 2 Jesus Christ, the risen, the glorified, the
exalted, is as such the Christ living in his Communion,
and he will be with it, therefore, to the end of the
world.3 If, after his crucifixion, he returned among
men the same as formerly, in a material body, and if
this re-animation in the body were the most effectual
expression of victory gained by him over sin, death,
and condemnation, why should he not, in this case,
have shown himself to the Jewish judges and to the
Roman Procurator ? Why did he not appear in the
streets of Jerusalem to the people who were so grossly
deceived in regard to him ? Why did he not, by his
bare appearance, revive anew the courage of his af
frighted adherents everywhere, and at the same time
and in the same way annihilate his malignant foes?
Nothing of this kind happened. The risen Saviour
appeared only in the little circle of the Apostles and
1 Luke xxiv. 33. 2 2 Cor. xvi. 17. 8 Matt, xxviii. 20.

THE CONSUMMATION. 317
of his disciples, exclusively to those who believed in
him already before his death, and not to those who
had rejected and killed him. His appearances were
so many glorified illustrations of his Idea in the hearts
of those who believed in him, and in whom, until then,
that Idea had been overcast and dim. In these appear
ances, he showed himself as the eternally Living, build
ing his kingdom on earth by his word and his Spirit,
delivering Jews and Gentiles from the yoke of the Let
ter, fulfilling the Law by the spirit of evangelical truth
and freedom, forever taking away the curse of the Let
ter from the nations, and kindling, from age to age, in
an ever brighter flame, the life of love in mankind.
5. It creates a feeling of sadness to observe how
many are still seeking to rest the truth of Christianity
upon external facts, which can never be a really sound
basis for it. This is especially the case with the fact of
the resurrection, the only indisputably sufficient proof
of which is the proof of the spirit and of power. Jesus
Christ has truly risen, for he lives in his Communion,
not in flesh and blood, not perceptible to the senses,
not to the earth-blinded eye, but clearly seen by the
children of the spirit, always present to the eye of
faith, — daily, hourly, visible to this in the crises of the
world's history, and in the still private sphere of hu
man life, proving himself the Saviour of mankind.
Those, who do not believe in the real presence of the
living Christ, in history and in life, must, in order not
to doubt altogether his existence in history, endeavor
to produce authentic proof that, eighteen centuries
ago and upwards, he lived on earth in the body some
time after his death, and was carried up in the body
to heaven.
The Christian Communion needs now, more than

318 SEVENTH SECTION.
ever, a living Christ, who, in death, conquered death,
and became the creator, for time and for eternity, of
imperishable life for mankind collectively and individ
ually. The attempt has been renewed at the present
period to bring the Christian Communion under the
yoke of the Letter and into subjection to obsolete
traditions. Hierarchs of the stamp of Caiaphas and
statesmen of the character of Pilate are still ever
nailing Christ to the pillar of the Cross. In their
hands Christianity is a shell and not a living germ ;
the Church, instead of being a living Communion,
is a corporation of priests established for the subju
gation not for the deliverance of the nations, a scourge
of Divine wrath, not a gift of Divine grace. The king
dom of God in its truth, freedom, and spirituality is,
in their eyes, a phantasy, the Saviour a dogmatic idea,
faith a formula of the catechism to keep children, large
and small, in order.
The living Christ, although still hidden from Phari
sees and Herodians, is, nevertheless, with ever-grow
ing clearness and power, revealed to babes. He lives
in his Communion. He takes up his abode now, as of
old in Galilee, in the huts of the people. The poor,
the despised, they who are persecuted for righteous
ness' sake, children, are his favorites. Here is his
home. The Communion of his friends is his Temple.
The living Christ is the spirit of his Communion. It
is incumbent upon the Christian Communion, as its
destination, its duty and its glory, to restore again to
its peculiar life and calling, in the truth and freedom
of the Gospel, the true consciousness, and therewith
to serve the nations. In this it will all the sooner
succeed, the sooner it attains to a correct knowledge
and living appreciation of the person of Jesus Christ.

THE CONSUMMATION. 319
For he must be known, — the living, and on this ac
count the historical Christ, who not only taught in the
body centuries ago in Galilee and suffered in Jerusa
lem, but still lives on in all those in whom his word
has become spirit and life, through freedom of thought
and the truth of faith and love. To the liberty of
the Gospel all nations are called, and the truth of the
Gospel will make them free.

NOTE.

[In what I have to say upon the subject of this final chapter,
the reappearance of Jesus alive on the morning of the third day
after his crucifixion, I premise that I am not conscious of being
biassed in my views of this extraordinary fact by any dogmatic
interest in it whatever. I am free to confess, that I can see no
purpose which it served beyond that which Dr. Schenkel states
when he remarks, that the belief entertained by the Apostles and
first disciples in the fact, had a powerful influence in reanimat
ing their faith and hopes. It tended, as he says, " to strengthen
tbe disciples and keep them together, bowed down and crushed
as they were in consequence of the crucifixion of Jesus " (p. 313).
But what further significance the fact itself has, admitting it to be
a fact, does not yet clearly appear. I do not rest the truth of
Christianity, nor any of its great ideas, upon the actual reap
pearance of Christ alive after his crucifixion.
The difficulties that encumber such accounts as have come
down to us of the resurrection of Jesus are beyond all question
many and obvious. Our author has not failed to state them faith
fully. He does not for a moment entertain any idea of fraud in
the composition of these narratives, for the simple reason that,
whatever inconsistencies, contradictions, and errors they contain,
the suspicion that any fraudulent design had part in producing
them is utterly inadmissible. If, in regard to the essential fact,
the reappearance of Jesus alive, these accounts are not true, then
the only possible supposition is, that their authors were not de
ceivers but mistaken, the victims of an illusion. Such is mani-

320 TWENTY-NINTH CHAPTER.
festly the conclusion of Dr. Schenkel. The only certain facts
that he can gather from these conflicting stories are, that the
grave of Jesus was found empty on the morning of the first day
of the week after the crucifixion, and that it was the universal
belief of the first disciples, that Jesus reappeared alive after his
death on the cross. Beyond these points he finds himself bound
to regard the stories of the reappearance of Jesus as illusions,
fables, legends. But that these two facts are all the truth that
can be extracted from the stories of the Resurrection, cannot be
admitted, as the investigation is by no means complete. Every
historical fable, legend, or fiction, which cannot be accounted for
on the supposition of a fraudulent origin, has a cause, a genesis
of its own, and until that is satisfactorily traced, there still re
mains matter of inquiry. It is easy enough to pronounce any
given historical relation a fiction. But we cannot stop there. The
question comes up and is to be answered : How came this fiction
ever to have been believed to be true ? And this question be
comes especially urgent and interesting when the story is in any
good degree circumstantial. Illusions are vague and loose, but
what if the account of them is minute, particular ? Are we not
curious in such a case to discover what caused such distinct and
particular impressions of reality ?
Now the four different accounts of the first reappearance of Je
sus are of this minute character, and one is curious to know how
the details of these stories are to be accounted for, what it was
that produced so many various impressions upon the minds of
their authors as are herein related. I confine myself here to the
accounts of the first appearance of Jesus after his crucifixion. In
regard to the accounts of bis other and subsequent appearances,
I can come to no equally satisfactory conclusions. But the four
different stories of the first appearance of Jesus alive after death
are very peculiar, and a careful sifting of them produces certain
most remarkable results.
Before entering upon a careful examination of them, I must ob
serve that I can find no ground for the representation which our
author gives of the state of mind among the disciples of Jesus
after his crucifixion. We are told, in the second paragraph of the
foregoing chapter, of a revival of " love, trust and hope " among
the friends of Jesus ; and the visit of the women to the grave is
referred to as an indication of such a revival. But the women
went to the grave upon a funereal errand, to embalm the remains

NOTE. 321
of Jesus. And the other disciples " mourned and wept." (Mark
xvi. 10.) They were all overwhelmed by the dread calamity
which had scattered their splendid visions, blasted the hopes,
which they had so fondly cherished of the Messiah's glorious
reign. I would further remark, that there is one fact stated in
the first Gospel to which Dr. Schenkel makes no allusion * the
fact of a guard stationed at the grave, which I see no reason for
discrediting, a fact which evidently was not known to the disciples
until after the extraordinary occurrences of that memorable morn
ing. It is not to be supposed that the women would have gone
to the grave with the expectation of accomplishing the errand
upon which they went, had they known that there were Roman
soldiers stationed there. Had the disciples known of the guard,
and of the purpose for which the guard was placed at the grave,
it might possibly have led them to revolve in their minds the
promises of Jesus that he would rise again. But in their igno
rance of this circumstance there was nothing to recall to their
remembrance the assurances of their Master that he would return
to life. At the time those assurances were uttered, the disciples
were so pre-oecupied with those brilliant Messianic hopes, which
would not allow them to entertain the thought of his dying, that
they could not take in the import of his promises. And now he
was dead, and why, as I have already had occasion to observe,
should they recall anything in particular that he had said, when
* In the first note of his Appendix, however, reference is made to
the " almost more than miraculous " incidents mentioned by Matthew
in relation to the guard at the tomb of Jesus. I can see no reason
for characterizing them thus. What is there in the account given of
a guard at the tomb to tax our faith ? We read in the Gospels that
Jesus again and again predicted his resurrection. This prediction the
disciples, believing him to be the Messiah, were utterly at a loss to com
prehend. They questioned among themselves "what the rising from
the dead should mean" (Mark ix. 10). But, be it observed, the
Priests, having no such faith in his Messiahship, had no difficulty in
understanding him. They caught at the meaning of his words in
their obvious sense, and, having no faith in him or his disciples,
feared that some fraud was intended, and therefore procured a guard
to watch the grave. And, certainly, as there is nothing miraculous
in this fact, neither is there anything strange in the report which th«
guard made of what occurred at the place. It bears the manifest
marks of the greatest terror.
VOL. II. 21

322 TWENTY-NINTH CHAPTER.
his death, as it seemed to them, falsified every thought and hope
which his life had encouraged and authorized them to entertain ?
Let us now see what may be fairly gathered from the four narra
tives of the first reappearance of Jesus. Mark the incidents of
that morning in the order in which they occurred.
First, there is a rumor that evidently comes from the soldiers
stationed as a guard at the grave. They come running into the
city, saying in great affright that there had been an earthquake
at the grave, and that a figure all in white had appeared and
rolled away the stone from the entrance of the grave and seated
himself upon the stone. The story is in one respect very natural.
It bears the marks of the exaggerating effect of terror. But
right upon this rumor comes another. Mary rushes in pale and
breathless, and tells Peter and John that she and some other
women had gone to the tomb, carrying spices with them, in which
according to custom they proposed to wrap the body ; that as
they approached the spot, querying among themselves how they
should get access to the grave, doubting their own ability to re
move the stone, they discovered to their astonishment that the
stone was actually moved out of place. Instantly impressed with
the idea that tbe body had been removed, without waiting to
verify the impression, having no doubt of its truth, she came to
tell Peter and John, and to beg them to go back to the grave
with her, which they do in the greatest haste. Hardly have they
gone, when the other women who had gone with Mary to the
place, make their appearance in a state of still greater excite
ment. They say that, after Mary left them, they stood for a mo
ment at the entrance of the grave wondering what the removal
of the stone could mean, and then went into the grave, and
to their amazement and affright found there " a young man
sitting on the right side in a long white, garment." Some of the
women said there were " two men standing " close to them " in
shining garments.'' They reported that they were so terrified that
they prostrated themselves on the ground. One of these per
sons spoke to them, told them he knew who they were and what
they came there for, but that what they sought was not there j
and he bade them see for themselves that the grave was empty.
He told them moreover that Jesus had risen, and that they must
go tell the disciples and Peter, and that Jesus would meet them
in Galilee. Such is the report of the women, who were in a con
dition of the greatest alarm and wonder. But in a little while in

NOTE. 323
come Peter and John, and they verify the report of the grave's
being empty. They went into it, they say, and found that the
body was gone, although, strange to say, the grave-clothes were
still there, and exhibiting no marks of violence. They saw no one
there. Hardly is Peter and John's story told, when Mary, whom
they had left at the grave, rushes in, in a state of unutterable
delight and wonder, and she says, that, after Peter and John left
the place, she was standing there by the grave weeping, and she
stooped down, and just as she was looking into it she was startled
by a voice, which came, she did not exactly know at the moment
whence, inquiring why she was weeping. She answered it how
ever by stating that it was because some one had taken away the
body of her Master, and she did not know where it was. But be
fore she could say all this, she became aware of some one approach
ing behind her. She turned, she said, and glanced at the person
approaching, and supposed it must be the man who had care of
the garden in which the grave was. He asked her why she wept
and whom she wanted, and, under the impression that he must
have heard her just tell the cause of her grief, she begged him,
if he had laid the body elsewhere, to tell her where it was, and
she would take it away. To this, the only answer of the supposed
gardener was her own name, " Mary," uttered in a voice that
thrilled her whole soul. It sounded like the voice of Jesus him
self! She gazed into his face, recognized him and fell breathless
in an ecstasy of rapture, and clasped his knees with such strength
of emotion as if she would assure herself that it was real flesh and
blood, and as if she would never let him go. Whereupon he told
her not to stop to embrace him then, as he had not yet ascended
to his Father : she would have other opportunities of seeing him.
And he bade her go and tell his disciples that he was going to his
Father and theirs.
I state Mary's account thus, because it is plain that she could
not have thought at the moment when she stooped down and
looked into the grave that she saw angels and that it was they
who addressed to her the first question : " Why weepest thou ?"
Had she so thought, it is impossible that her attention could have
been diverted from them, as it was, immediately. And it is plain
also why she was led to tell the story as it stands in the fourth
Gospel. When she returned to the city and talked with the
other women, and heard their story, and learned that they had
seen what they believed to be angels, she instantly concluded that

324 TWENTY-NINTH CHAPTER.
¦ the white objects she had seen in the grave were the very same
angels that the women had seen, and that that first question,
which at the moment startled ljer (and which really came from
the person behind her), was put to her by those angels. I suppose
also that, as, in telling her story, she appealed to that act of clasp-
inc his knees, or " holding him by his feet " to prove that she had
the evidence of the sense of touch that it was real flesh and blood
and not an apparition which she saw, she herself, or those who
heard her account, undesignedly varied the phraseology of what
the supposed gardener said to her, and he is represented to have
told her not to touch him, when he may have used words that
had no such obscurity as the address now has as it stands in the
narrative. The first Gospel states, that all the women met Jesus as they
were returning from the grave, and that they " held him by his
feet." Is it not evident that this is an error ? And is it not evi
dent also how it arose ? As all the women went to the grave to
gether, and as, shortly after the women came back, declaring that
they had seen an .angel or angels, who told them that Jesus had
risen, Mary came declaring that she had seen Jesus himself, the
two stories naturally enough got mixed, and the impression was
received by some, that all the women had seen Jesus. As it was
Mary alone who saw him, it was Mary alone who " held him by
his feet." The mention of this circumstance, though erroneously
ascribed to the women, — does it not intimate that this fact was
referred to as evidence of the sense of touch that it was a real
person who had been seen, and no illusion of the eye?
Although the fourth Gospel makes no mention of any women
but Mary at tbe grave, it is evident from this Gospel even that
she did not go to the place alone, for it reports her as saying to
Peter and John, when she ran back to them upon finding the
stone removed, "They have taken away the Lord, and' toe know
not where they have laid him."
Is it not evident also, that, although the third Gospel mentions
two persons seen by the women, there was in truth but one ?
The first and second Gospels mention only one, and it is note
worthy, that this supposed angel speaks in the first person singu
lar, — " Lo ! / have told you," not, " We have told you."
It cannot fail to be observed that the most striking thing de
scriptive of the person seen by the women at the grave and by
the guard is his while garments. As the white grave-clothes were
found by Peter and John not lying together, but in two separate

NOTE. 325
places, is it not natural that the excited imagination of some or
of all of the women, when they suddenly found themselves ad
dressed by a person in white, should have mistaken the other
white appearance, imperfectly seen in the dimness of the grave,
for another figure in white ? And as Peter and John were sur
prised at finding the white grave-clothes when the body was gone,
is it not natural that Mary should be so much startled at the
white things, which she caught sight of when she stooped down
and looked into the grave, as to have concluded afterwards, when
she was told by the other women that they had seen two angels
in white in the grave, that those white objects must have been
those very angels V
Not to leave any point unexplained, I suggest that " the great
earthquake " reported by the guard, was simply the jarring of the
ground, caused by the motion of the stone when it was rolled
away, and exaggerated by the panic-struck soldiers into an
earthquake. Now just as certain as Dr. Schenkel admits it to be, that on
the morning of the first day of the week after the crucifixion the
body of Jesus had disappeared and the grave was found open
and empty, so certain is it that there was some living unknown
person there, who was mistaken by the guard and by the women
for a supernatural apparition. We may pause and < rest in this
conclusion and go no further, saying that we cannot tell who this
stranger was ; but that a living person was actually there we are
compelled to admit. Even if we accept our author's account of
the second Gospel, which recommends itself to him as the most
primitive of our Christian Records, partly because it contains no
accounts of the reappearance of Jesus after his crucifixion, (see
Appendix, 111. 1 p. 25,) we must, even following only the second
Gospel, admit that there was a living person at the grave who
spoke to the women. For my own part, I am free to confess
that it is out of my power to resist the still further conclusion that
this unknown person was no other than Jesus himself alive. I
feel all the difficulties by which this conclusion is beset. The
questions which it raises I cannot answer. Nevertheless, the fact
that it was Jesus who was there and who spoke to the women, is
established by evidence, which to my mind is absolutely irresisti
ble. It is evidence which there was no human design to furnish.
It was Jesus himself, who, waking mysteriously from the myste
rious sleep, pushed away the stone from the mouth of the grave,
and, clad in the long white grave clothes, came forth to the terror

326 TWENTY-NINTH CHAPTER.
of the guard, who fled at the startling apparition. Hardly had the -
guard left the spot when Jesus, hearing, the voices of the women
approaching, perhaps in the dimness of the morning twilight de
scrying them in the distance, retired into the grave, not prepared
to make himself then known. When the women entered the
grave, he spoke to them and sent them " quickly " away. His
particular mention of Peter betrays him to us. With character
istic magnanimity he loses not a moment in sending to his faith
less but penitent friend a virtual assurance that the past was for
given. As soon as the women had gone, Jesus came forth, and,
as I conjecture, found other and suitable garments near by, left
there possibly by tbe soldiers, or by the persons who, having
deposited his body the day but one before in the grave, regarded
the garments which had come in contact with the dead body
as unclean, and thus habited anew Jesus met Mary, and made
himself known to her as the fourth Gospel relates.
Nothing can exceed, in artlessness and simplicity, the four ac
counts of the first appearance of Jesus after his crucifixion. If
these qualities are not discernible here, then we must despair of
ever being able to distinguish their presence anywhere. The
most imperfect of the four is the first, Matthew's, and yet it
breathes in every line the spirit of nature. It tells things all at
once. It huddles together all the prominent points of the story,
just as a child would have done, and thus incidents are' con
fused, rendered coincident, which could have happened only one
after the other.
I cannot resist the conclusion, that Matthew's account must
have been written down almost on the spot and at the time, so
visible to me in this narrative is the impress of this childlike
simplicity and naturalness, so faithfully does it represent precisely
such impressions as were likely to be among the first received.
So far only have I any insight into this wonderful passage of
the history of Jesus. As to the manner and purpose of his re
turn to life, we can only make the feeblest guesses. So much,
however, is certain. The resurrection of Jesus, considered as a
fact established, far as it is beyond the range of our experience,
is not and cannot be a fact out of the Divine order of the world.
Anomalous as it appears to us, it is nevertheless, we may be sure,
not a departure from that order, but a new and enlightening
revelation of it, a fact profoundly natural, throwing light upon the
hidden laws of the body and the spirit, upon the nature and phi
losophy of the soul. — Trans.]

APPENDIX.

CRITICAL AND HISTOEICAL ILLUSTRATIONS.

APPENDIX.

ILLUSTRATIONS.
15. p. 7. The words of Matthew, v..' 17 - 20, at vari
ance apparently with the spirit of Christ, have given occa
sion to many arbitrary and sophistical interpretations. Even
De Wette 1 has not kept entirely clear from these when he
expresses the opinion that, in spirit, i. e. for the purposes of
devotion, Christianity has really not abolished but fulfilled
the Mosaic ritual. But in verses eighteenth and nineteenth
there is nothing said of an attempt on the part of Jesus to
fulfil the Mosaic Law, but Jesus declares that not the small
est letter (the Yod), not a point in the Law shall "pass
away," i. e. fall, lose its worth and its importance among
the members of his Communion. Therefore, as De Wette
understands the words, Jesus should have said that the letter
indeed and the points would pass away, i. e. lose their worth
and importance, but the spirit of the Law would find in his
kingdom an ever more and more complete fulfilment. He
would thus have said directly the opposite of what the first
Evangelist reports him to have said. Hofmann 2 interprets
the passage in a still more arbitrary manner, when he main
tains that it was not any single points of the Law which the
Lord sought to enforce or render more severe, but that he
had reference to the will of the Lawgiver lying behind them
and imprinted upon the manifold details of the Law, but
which he did not come to fulfil to the letter, or by any
means minutely and externally. This explanation, as every
unprejudiced,' critical eye must see, is forced upon the text
i Erklarung des Evangeliums des Matthaus.
2 Schriftbeweis, II., 1, 75.

330 APPENDIX.
from beginning to end. Olshausen is even of the opinion
that Jesus designs to say that the whole Old Testament is
typical, that he abolishes it as soon as that which it typifies
is fully developed, as the blossom perishes in order to com
plete itself in the fruit.1 Into such sophistries and distor
tions does the interpretation of the Scriptures inevitably
run, when simple truth is sacrificed to dogmatic theories.
The fact that this difficult passage is found only in Matthew
is noteworthy. The original declaration of Jesus is given
most probably in Luke.2 In Luke the subject of discourse
is the Pharisaic pride, which is an abomination in the sight
of God. This pride had its deepest root in the relation of
the Pharisees to the Law and the Prophets, as the guard
ians and chosen interpreters of which they would fain be
esteemed. Jesus, on the other hand, means to show that
they no longer had any authority to justify themselves by
tbe Law. According to verse sixteenth, the Law was bind
ing only till the time of the Baptist John. With him a
new era — the era of the Gospel — had dawned, and now,
says Jesus, men press with violence into the Divine kingdom
of the Gospel. In connection with this saying, as is com
monly understood, Jesus went on to say 3 that it was easier
for heaven and earth to pass away than for the smallest
point of the Law to fail. But it is clear that verse sixteenth
contradicts verse seventeenth. In verse sixteenth Jesus de
clares that the Law reached its period with the Baptist ; the
Gospel is a new thing, improving upon the Law ; and the
fact that every one is pressing into the kingdom announced
by Jesus shows that the period of the Law had found its
full end. After so explicit a declaration against the Law,
how could" Jesus have gone on to say that not the smallest
point should fail in the Law, which he considered obsolete ?
The particle hk in verse seventeenth shows that this verse
stands in contradiction to the preceding verse. On this ac
count, the commentators who endeavor to reconcile the two
1 Biblischer Commentar zu Matt. v. 17-19.
2 Luke xvi. 15. 8 Luke xvi. 17.

APPENDIX. 331
verses are forced to try to improve the text, as, for example,
Marcion, instead of rod vajiov, would read to>v \6yav pov, and
recently Volkmar 1 proposes to read tSv \oyav toO 6<-o0. Acute
as they may be, these are violent solutions. A rational con
nection between these two verses is made to appear only by
supposing that verse seventeenth is not a saying of Jesus,
but the opinion of the Pharisees which Jesus was contending
against, and which, in opposition to his assertion that the
Law and the Prophets had authority only until the time of
John, maintained that heaven and earth would pass away
before one tittle of the Law should fail. They thus as
cribed to the Law in its traditional form an eternal au
thority. This is abundantly proved to have been a Rab
binical idea.2 The eighteenth verse is consequently to be
understood as a crushing rejoinder of Jesus to the Pharisaic
assumption in the seventeenth verse. The Law allows Di
vorce and second marriage of a divorced woman ; 3 the
Gospel, on the contrary, declares that whoever repudiates
his wife and marries another, or who marries a woman that
has been divorced, breaks the marriage vow. Thus, not
only in one little point, but in an essential matter, is the
Law abolished by the Gospel. The Pharisaic assertion
(verse seventeenth) is consequently directly contradicted by
the evangelical declaration (verse eighteenth). The third
Evangelist probably did not clearly perceive the connection of
verse seventeenth with the declarations of Jesus (verses six
teenth and eighteenth) ; these declarations came to him in a
fragmentary form in the Collection of Sayings, and the logi
cal links were wanting. But as Luke, in conformity with
his very objective treatment of his documents, took these
passages from the Collection, word for word, it is still pos
sible to discern the original connection. On the other hand,
it is in keeping with the character of the first Evangelist as
1 Das Evangelium Marc. p. 151.
2 Josephus says, c. Apion II. 38 : o yoOx xo|iO! i)iuy A&iraTOS SmfieVei
Matt. v. 17 is found almost in the same words in Schemoth Rabbah, 6 :
Nulla litem aboletur a lege in aeternum, and still oftener in substance.
8 Deut. xxiv. 1.

332 APPENDIX.
a writer, that he should put his own construction upon the
connection in which verse seventeenth was uttered by Jesus,
and in which it stood perhaps in the Collection of Sayings,
— a construction directly at variance with the fundamental
position of Jesus towards the Law, but affording a desirable
defence against those who might charge Christianity with
being in design or in fact antinomistic. The seventeenth
verse was literally uttered by Jesus. But nothing is more
certain than that in the eighteenth and nineteenth verses he
expresses, not his own belief, but only the belief of those to
whom he was fundamentally opposed.
16. p. 17. The reference of the Sign of Jonah to the
resurrection of Jesus by the first Evangelist, has recently
been defended anew, but not with success, by Meyer} The
fact that the second and third Gospels know nothing of such
a reference puts the statement of the first Evangelist in a
doubtful light. The declaration of Jesus in the second
Gospel,2 that no sign whatever should be given to that
generation, leads us plainly to the conclusion that the point
of the declaration is the refusal to work any miracles for
the sake of accrediting himself. It is only thus that his
reasoning has any point against the demand of his oppos
ers. That generation, craving miracles, caring not for the
teachings of Truth, should have no, " sign " given to it but
the preaching of God's kingdom, which it rejected. And
was not this preaching the sign of the awakening and
gathering of the true Communion ? The arguments, with
which Meyer seeks to defend his interpretation of the Sign
of Jonah as given in the first Evangelist, have very little
force. It is said in Matthew 3 of the preaching of Jonah,
that, in consequence of it, the Ninevites repented. That
the marvellous fortune of the prophet was known to them
is not intimated. Hence, in all probability, it was the
preaching of Jonah, and not his confinement for three days
1 Ex. Handbuch zu Matt. xii. 10. 2 Mark viii. 12.
" Matt. xii. 41.

APPENDIX. 333
in the belly of the fish, that alone had a significance to the
Ninevites. The idea of Meyer, that what Jesus says of the
" sign " ends with the fortieth verse, is a mere fancy. On
the contrary, the comparison of Jesus with Jonah is not
ended there ; it concludes, not, as Meyer erroneously main
tains, with the designation of himself by Jesus as the anti
type of Jonah, but with his representing himself as a higher
authority than the old prophet ((Sou nheiov 'lava <aSe). Thus
it was not to Jonah confined in the fish that Jesus compared
himself in the grave, but it was the inferior significance of
the preaching of Jonah that Jesus compared with the supe
rior import of his own preaching, and what he condemned
the Pharisees for so severely was that, while the Ninevites
were moved to repent by the inferior teacher, they, the
Pharisees, were unmoved by a greater. The future BodfjcreTai
in reference to the preaching of Jesus was taken by the first
Evangelist from the original Mark,1 and in Luke2 it appears
in its right place : There will be no sign given to this gen
eration but the sign of Jonah (the preaching of the Gospel),
i. e. the future stands for the logical possibility. Meyer in
deed questions whether Jonah were a " sign " to the Nine
vites, but — apart from the fact that, in the first Gospel3 the
Ninevites. are set before the Pharisees as an example, and, as
is declared, are to rise up in judgment against them at the last
day — Luke gives the correct explanation on this point :
Ka6ii>s yap eyivero 'lavas rols Nivevirais o-rjiMiiov. According to
the first Evangelist, the reasoning of Jesus would have had
no logical point. What he condemns is the impenitence of
the Pharisees notwithstanding his preaching. .They demand
a sign (miracle) ; had he replied to this demand, that there
should be no other miracle shown them than his own resur
rection, he would not only have said what was not correct,
— as, before his resurrection, he had wrought many other
miracles, — but, in this case, it would not at all appear why
he referred to the repentance of the Ninevites as an effect of
i Mark viii 12. 2 Luke xi. 29. 8 Matt, xii. 41.
1 Luke xi. 30.

334 APPENDIX.
the preaching of Jonah. In this case, he would rather have
said : As the Ninevites repented in consequence of Jonah's
confinement in the fish, so will a similar sign — the resur
rection — be given to the Pharisees, that they also may
repent. But what Jesus designed to say was that, as the
Ninevites repented without miracles, purely in consequence
of the preaching of Jonah, so the Pharisees must be con
verted without miracles, in consequence of the preaching
of the Gospel.
[When the circumstances under which the demand was
made upon Jesus for a " sign " are duly considered, when it
is recollected that his own disciples on one occasion inquired
of him what would be the " sign " of his coming, and that
the Apostle Paul says that a " sign " was the one thing re
quired by the Jews, we have reason to suppose that it was
not a mere miracle that was wanted, but a sign or miracle
conformable to the Jewish idea of the Messiah. See note b.
to ch. xii. p. 28. — Trans.]
17. p. 44. There is scarcely an Evangelical narrative
so hard to be understood literally as that of the Trans
figuration of Jesus. To appeal with Ebrard1 in order to
save the story, to the fact that with God nothing is im
possible, is to confess one's self philosophically bankrupt.
Neander 2 likewise is embarrassed by the idea of an appa
rition of spirits on the mount of transfiguration. But the
supposition that it was all a vision, passing in sleep before
the disciples, has no better historical foundation ; for how
should all the three disciples have dreamed the same thing,
and, upon awaking, have all regarded their dream as an
actual fact ? The supposition of a dream finds support,
moreover, only in the third Gospel,3 and the account there
shows traces of a later tradition. According to the oldest
narrative,4 the disciples were all awake. The idea that
1 Wissenschafttiche Kritik, p. 444. t
2 Leben Jesu Christi, 1, 516. 8 Luke ix. 32. * Mark ix. 4.

APPENDIX. 335
there were really two men, not Moses and Elias, but un
known persons^who talked with Jesus on the mountain,1 is
opposed by the fact that the tradition asserts a supernatural
appearance, and gives the two known names of Moses and
Elias. Hence there remains for us only the supposition of
an early legend, by which the communications of Jesus to his
disciples concerning the relation of his Messianic work to
the Law and the Prophets were popularized, and the imagi
native power of Jesus was manifested, whereby he was able
to reanimate for his disciples and bring within the sphere of
their vision, the heroic figures of those old personages, so illus
trious in religious history. Even Mark adopts this tradition,
already, in his time, universally circulated in the Apostolic
community. Thus understood, the event loses nothing of its
truly historical element ; while it receives an almost childish
character, if we suppose that it must have served Jesus as
an opportunity to communicate to the fathers of the Old
Covenant the blessed intelligence of his readiness -to save
them by his death.2 From Ebrard's orthodox point of view,
this intelligence was altogether superfluous, as the fathers of
the Old Covenant had foreseen in the clearest manner and
foretold the Messiah and his work of Eedemption, and
therefore were fully able to communicate the intelligence to
others, and were by no means under the necessity of coming
down to earth to receive it. Least worthy of assent is the
rationalizing supematuralism, by means of which Meyer en
deavors to render the story in some degree plausible to a
believing understanding. According to this mode of expla
nation, the appearance of Moses is pronounced impossible,
because his resurrection had not taken place.3 That the
three disciples should have the same " vision " at the same
moment, is ascribed to a "divine influence." But why
should not God, to whom nothing is impossible, have been
able to create an external apparition, as well as a vision to
three individuals at the same time ? Besides, there is no
i Hose, Leben Jesu, p. 161. 2 Ebrard, p. 438.
8 Ex. Handbuch zu Matt. xvii. 1-8.

336 APPENDIX.
reason apparent for giving (with Meyer) the preference to the
first Gospel over the second. The sunlike splendor of the
countenance of Jesus, in Matthew,1 is an embellishment, like
the snow-white shining of his garments in Mark.2 According
to this Evangelist, at the very beginning of the vision Peter
knew not what to say, which is more credible than that it was
not until the voice was heard that the disciples were seized
with fear, as Matthew reports.3 The way in which Jesus is
stated to have treated the three disciples, quieting them by
laying hold on them, appears to belong to the later tradition.
18. p. 74. It was at the great decisive moment of his
departure for Jerusalem that Jesus gave utterance to the
saying extolling the simple-minded, the babes.4 Only a
mind fettered by dogmatic considerations can gather from
this passage that Jesus intended therein to give a metaphys
ical explanation of the higher quality of his own personal
ity. Of the wise and prudent, the theologues and meta
physicians of his time, Jesus would fain, on the contrary,
know nothing ; it was the " babes " only whom he pro
nounced blessed. It is true, he designates himself in this
passage as the " Son " of the Heavenly Father, a designa
tion singular in the Synoptics. He had then attained the
height of his personal consciousness, a height which until
then he had not' reached. The weight of his words lies in
the declaration that the Father had given all things to him.
When Meyer pronounces every limitation of navra arbitrary,
he unfortunately fails to explain what is to be understood
by an absolute resignation of "all things" to the Son by
the Father. For " all things " possessed by the Father
would include his omnipotence, his omniscience, the preser
vation and government of the world, &c. In Luke (in the
first Gospel all connection is wanting) the words of Jesus
are connected with the eighteenth verse of the tenth chapter.
He had previously declared that Satan had fallen from
1 Matt. xvii. 2. 2 Mark ix. 3.
8 Matt. xvii. 6. 4 Luke x. 21 ; Matt. xi. 25.

APPENDIX. 337
heaven, he had empowered the disciples to tread on ser
pents and scorpions without receiving injury, and given
them the assurance also that spirits should be subject to
them. When he connects herewith the still further assur
ance that " all things " were given to him by the Father, he
can have in view only the things relating to his own work,
the building up of the divine kingdom. As to the reading of
the received text, in which the knowledge of the Son through
the Father precedes this assurance,1 the conjecture of Hil-
genfeld has much weight, namely, that the original text, as
Marcion had it, read thus : OiJSeis 'iyva rbv warepa el p,T\ 6 vior,
Ka\ tov vlov €t firj 6 Trarrjp, Ka\ <a t\v 6 vlos cnvoKakv^rj? It is
the new consciousness of God in him that Jesus keeps pres
ent above all things to the minds of his disciples, and it is
only in a subordinate way that there connects itself there
with the new consciousness of his Sonship, created in him
through the revelation made by God of himself in Jesus,
whereby the Son appears as he into whose hands the Father
had given " all things.''
19. p. 79. The received reading, Kal elirev, ovk o'lSare o'lov
¦nvevjxaros e'ore fyieir,3 gives us, it is true, a perfectly good
sense; and is entirely in keeping with the character of
Jesus, but it is so destitute of authority,4 that it must be re
jected as a later addition. How it got into the text is by
no means unaccountable (as Meyer thinks) : it was prob
ably by oral tradition. It is an arbitrary explanation, on
the other hand, to attribute the omission of it to the error of
transcribers, or to a pietistic consideration for Elias.
20. p. 96. That the Lord's Prayer is not in its right place
in the Sermon on the Mount, is admitted by Neander,6 and
l Luke x. 22 ; Matt. xi. 27.
2 Zeller's Theol. Jahrbiicher, 1853, p. 202; Hilgenfeld, Die Evan-
gelicn, p. 76, 185.
3 Luke ix. 55.
1 The Codex Sinaiticus also wants these words.
6 Leben Jesu Christi, p. 230, Note.
VOL. II. 22

338 APPENDIX.
Ewald likewise acknowledges Luke's report of it to be
evidently the oldest.1 It is only through a blind zeal to
harmonize the Gospels that one can suffer himself to go
so far as to suppose (with Meyer) that the prayer was given
upon two different occasions.2 The form of the prayer in the
first Gospel is evidently a later amplification of an older,
original form. It is quite natural that additions should
have gathered around the original prayer, especially as the
Lord's Prayer very soon found a permanent place in Chris
tian worship, and hence assumed a liturgical character.
Such additions are the f]p.av 6 iv rals ovpavo'is, joined to
ndrcp? and the doxology at the end. Amplifying additions
are,4 yevndrjra to 6i\rjp.a aov, as iv ovpava km eVi yijs, and° aK\a
pvaai ripas anb rov novnpov. The first of these reminds us of
the liturgical address nartp 6 iv rols ovpavo'is, and is a more
definite form of the petition for the coming of the kingdom
Of God, inasmuch as it intimates how the kingdom of God
ghall come. The second softens the offensive idea that might
seem to be contained in the prayer to our Heavenly Father
not to lead us into temptation. The historical situation
which introduces the Prayer in Luke illustrates it. From
the fifty-first verse of the ninth chapter on, the account of
the journey of Jesus is interspersed with stories of the time
Spent by him in Judea; and what is related after that time,
occurred upon the journey from Samaria and during the
last abode of Jesus with his disciples in Judea and Jerusa
lem. As the scene in Bethany6 is related somewhat at
length, Jesus must have given the Prayer to his disciples
after his arrival in Judea. At all events, most of the say
ings contained in the eleventh chapter of Luke were uttered
during the last sojourn of Jesus in Judea.
21. p. 110. In reference to the story of the Cursing of
the fig-tree, Strauss has justly observed, that what tradition
1 Die drei ersten Evangelien, p. 286.
2 Ex. Handbuch zu Matt. vi. 9, and Luke xi. 1.
8 Matt. vi. 9. • 4 Matt. vi. 10.
6 Matt. vi. 13. 6 Luke x. 38.

APPENDIX. 339
found as1 an apothegm and a parable it converted into a
.real event.1 Neander 2 also concedes that the right under
standing of the parabolic act3 is found in the parable related
in the third Gospel,4 and is even of opinion that Jesus
uttered the parable on this occasion. In this case, it would
hardly seem to be necessary to endeavor to make the mir
acle less by representing the decay of the tree as having
commenced long before, and its final destruction as only
accelerated by the influence of Jesus. Whoever, in opposi
tion to the first two evangelists, sees with Meyer in the
withering of the fig-tree, on the one side, a miraculous effect
of the will of Jesus, and on the other, a prophetic, symboli
cal representation of the punishment of moral unfruitful-
ness, mixes together, in contradiction to the text, two en
tirely different interpretations of one and the same fact, and
besides, taking an honestly human view of the person of
Jesus, cannot justify, either dogmatically or morally, his ex
erting a destructive influence upon a barren tree.
22. p. 124. Since Luche's thorough examination of the
section of John vii. 53 -viii. 11., it is pretty generally ac
knowledged that "the authenticity of the passage (Perikope)
as the work of John, if not to be decisively rejected, is yet in
a high degree doubtful, and that recent criticism has decided
fully against its genuineness."5 We cannot, however, main
tain with ffase,6 that the narrative shows in itself merely the
style of a better sort of apocryphal writing, and lacks those
marks which commonly distinguish what has actually occurred
from what is invented. The apparent lightness with which
Jesus here forgives7 a heinous sin, — upon the condition, it is,
true, of the most thorough repentance, — early gave an offen
sive character to this narrative ; and for this reason, it would
1 Lcbeh Jesu, Bd. II. § 100 ; Leben Jesu fur das deutsche Volk,
p. 515.
« Leben Jesu Christi, p. 382.
3 Mark xi. 12; Matt. xxi. 18. * Luke xiii. 6.
8 Commentar iiber das Evangelium des Job. Vol. II. p. 245 et seg.
6 Leben Jesu, p. 155. 7 John viii. 11.

340 APPENDIX.
seem, it found no place in the Synoptics. For that it found
its way into John's Gospel from a quarter connected with
the Synoptics, Baur has correctly supposed.1 If it were re
ceived into the Gospel as a later addition, as its being want
ing in some important MSS.2 intimates, then the fact that it
was so received as an addition shows how highly it was
esteemed as an authentic tradition of the time following
that of the apostles. Its high age is also proved by the
fact that it existed in the Gospel of the Hebrews, and that
Papias appears to have had knowledge of it.3 At least,
the words, IcrToplav rrepi yvvaiKos srl 7roA\aij d/xaprlais 8ia/3A)j-
6eio-ns, give no reason for doubting the identity of the narra
tive, as the designation here is, in all probability, not exact.
But we cannot easily understand how this story should
have been invented purely in the interest of the idea that
the power of every sin is broken by the consciousness that
men have of their own sinfulness. It is not in the fact that,
among the Jews, adultery was generally punished with
strangling, that the main difficulty lies4; since upon quali
fied adultery, especially, the criminal transgression of a be
trothed woman, the punishment of stoning was pronounced5;
and the case would seem to be of this character, as Meyer
has justly remarked, from the words xar Totavras.0 But
that the Pharisees, in consequence of the awakening of
their consciences, immediately upon the question of Je
sus7 confess themselves beaten and slink silently away;
that, as Baur expresses it, they actually acknowledge in
such a way, in the presence of Jesus, the Christian principle
of the consciousness of sin, seems rather to stand in the
way of the credibility of the narrative. But it is to be
observed that it was not specially the design of the Phari
sees to procure the condemnation of the woman by Jesus.
For in this case they would have had to remind him of
1 Kritische Untcrsuchungen, p. 170.
8 E. g. in the Codex Sinaiticus.
8 Eustb. Hist. Eccles. III. 40. 4 Lev. xx. 10 ; Deut. xxii. 22.
6 Deut. xxii. 23. 6 John viii. 5. 1 John viii. 7.

APPENDIX. 341
the great difference between notorious transgression and the
secret sins of the conscience. What they wanted was to
dr,aw from Jesus an answer, which they might use against
him, — a declaration either against the Mosaic (or Roman)
law, or for it; a condemnation of the tradition of the fathers,
or a condemnation of himself and his own principles. And
this design they failed to accomplish, as Jesus, in his strik
ing way, as in the case of the tribute money, left undecided
the special point to which their question pointed, and, in
stead of remaining in the unfavorable position of a person
put to the question, placed his opponents in this predic
ament. If they were justly embarrassed by this turn in
the interview, they were far more so by the words with
which he searched and stung their consciences. At such
moments every thing depends upon the impression of per
sonal power ; and how great that was that Jesus exercised
on those around him, the Gospels furnish sufficient evidence.
This narrative is in remarkable keeping with the other
attempts made by the Pharisees to embarrass Jesus in re
gard to the conjugal relation. That they took this position
towards him without any external occasion leading them so
to do, is not readily to be supposed. An incident like this
here narrated could very naturally lead to further attempts
to entrap Jesus. The Pharisees, especially after the blow
they had received, might well feel a strong impulse to re
turn it.
23. p. 138. It is an entirely false representation of E.
Henan's,1 when he maintains that, in regard to the poor and
to poverty, Jesus taught the doctrine of the Ebionites, le pur
ebionisme, la doctrine, que les pauvres seuls seront sauves,
que le regne des pauvres va venir. This alleged go fit
exagere de pauvrete,2 — by which Jesus is affirmed to have
been ruled, and in consequence of which he is said to have
declared, que ne rien posseder fut le veritable etat evan-
g«yique, — is nowhere to be found, in the form maintained,
i Vie de Jesus, p. 179. 2 »• p. 182.

342 APPENDIX.
in the teachings of Jesus. He never expressed himself to
the effect that the rich as such were to be excluded from the
true Communion, as seems to be thought by E. Eenan ; ljut
he simply declared a fact to which experience bears witness,
namely, that it is very hard for the rich to fulfil the con
ditions indispensable to admission into the divine kingdom,
and this, not indeed on account of their riches, but because
of the false disposition of their hearts in regard to worldly
good. Besides, it must not be overlooked that the declav
rations of Jesus concerning the moral dangers of wealth
were made during his last abode in Judea, consequently at
a point of time when it had become the indispensable duty
of his disciples to renounce utterly all dependence upon
earthly goods and devote themselves wholly to the service
of the Gospel. That the saying, moreover, of Jesus in
Matthew1 and in Luke2 has suffered a distortion of its
original meaning is a fact not to be denied, and that Ebi*
onitic traditions occasioned the change is at least very prob
able. In the treatment of parallel passages in the Gospels,
Renan's book is deficient in the acuteness indispensable in
the department of comparative criticism.
24. p. 170. In no point does the difference between the
Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics present itself more promi
nently than in regard to the immediate cause of the crimU
nal process instituted against Jesus. The Fourth Gospel
so represents the incidents preceding the arrest of Jesus
that the extraordinary excitement caused by the raising
of Lazarus from the dead would seem to have determined
the Pharisees to put an immediate stop to the career of
Jesus.3 So great was the exasperation of the leaders of
the theocratic party at the effect of the raising of Lazarus,
that the life even of Lazarus was threatened.4 It has
justly been considered very remarkable that the Synop*
tics not only know nothing of this cause of the last decisive
I Matt. xix. 23. 2 Luke xviii. 24.
8 John xi. 46. i John xii. 10,

APPENDIX. 348
measures of the Sanhedrim against Jesus, but appear even
to have had no knowledge of the resurrection of Lazarus.
But it is not so easy as Liiclce : thinks to account for the
absence of this event in the Synoptics by their ignorance
of the fact. Luke was so far from being unacquainted
with the events that took place during the last sojourn of
Jesus in Judea, that he has drawn peculiar accounts of
them of from some tolerably full record, left unused by
the other Evangelists. One who was so particularly
acquainted with the final events in Jerusalem that the
anecdote of the widow's mite z did not escape him must
have known of the raising of Lazarus, if it really took
place. On this account, apologists like Meyer 3 have of late
assumed it as unquestionable (!) that the Synoptics were ac
quainted with the raising of Lazarus, and have sought to
explain their silence about it by reference to the alleged
Galilean limits, to which those elder historical compositions
were restricted. But this attempt at solving the difficulty
is rendered unavailing by the synoptic narrative of the heal
ing of the blind man at Jericho,4 and by a number of other
accounts of the last labors of Jesus in Judea.
It certainly does not follow from the fact that there is no
mention of the raising of Lazarus in the first three Gospels,
that it is a pure fabrication. We have shown that the last
and only sojourn of Jesus in Judea must have been of longer
duration than appears at first sight in the Synoptics. That
Jesus at that time wrought cures among the people, the Sy
noptics themselves sufficiently attest.5 That he effected a
miraculous cure of a man by the name of Lazarus in Beth
any is, in itself, not improbable. The parable of the poor
Lazarus also, who lay sick at the rich man's gate,6 passed over
into the Synoptic tradition. That from such elements, after
1 Commentar zum Evang. des Joh. Vol. II. p. 475.
2 Luke xxi. 1 .
8 Ex. Handbuch zum Evang. des Joh. p. 379.
* Matt. x. 46 ; Matt. xx. 29 ; Luke xviii. 35.
6 Matt. xix. 2 ; Luke xvii. 11. ' e Luke xvi. 20.

344 APPENDIX.
the lapse of seventy or eighty years, at a considerable dis
tance from the scene of the events, a narrative like that in
the Fourth Gospel1 might form itself, is just as probable as it
is certain that it cannot now be determined what actually
occurred. It is not impossible that the Lazarus " carried
by angels to Abraham's bosom," 2 the symbol of the poor,
oppressed people redeemed by Jesus, became transformed
in the later circle of the Ephesian traditions into a Lazarus
raised by Jesus, and, as a witness of the great works done by
Jesus, giving occasion to the Pharisees for their last decisive
measures against him. According to the Synoptics, it was
the purification of the Temple by Jesus that alone was the
immediate cause of his arrest.3 This act of Jesus the Fourth
Gospel relates as having taken place upon his first coming
to the Feast in Jerusalem.4 The more liberal commenta
tors, like Lueke, acknowledge the improbability of this
event's having happened twice, — at the beginning and at
the close of the career of Jesus, — not only under precisely
the same circumstances, but also in almost the same way ;
and, assuming the fourth Evangelist to have been an eye
witness, they decide in favor of his account.
There is nothing, in fact, in itself more improbable, noth
ing more at variance with the originality which marks all
the acts of Jesus than that he should have done the very
same things at different times in the same place. And it is
just as improbable that they who were so much disturbed
by it should have quietly submitted to a proceeding that
had so arbitrary and violent an appearance. We have al
ready remarked, how little it is to be supposed that Jesus
at the very beginning of his public career, before his Mes
sianic consciousness was awakened or his fame established
in the popular mind, should have done so bold an act under
the very eyes of the Sanhedrim in the capital of Judea, — to
say nothing of the fact, to which the Synoptics bear witness,
1 John xi.
2 Luke xvi. 22 ; Baur, Krit. Untersuchungen, p. 249.
8 Mark xi. 18 ; Matt. xxi. 15 ; Luke xix. 47.
4 John ii. 13.

APPENDIX. 345
that it was only toward the close of his public life that Jesus
entered the city of Jerusalem. But what excited the theo
cratic party so violently against him was not only his in
terference with the police of the Temple and the disturbance
of the public peace within those sacred precincts, but what
was said by him on the occasion.1 These utterances of Jesus,
in conformity with the occasion that suggested them, could
have related only to the Temple and to the significance
which the Temple had for the divine kingdom established
by him ; and we have shown in our exposition that in all
probability Jesus used the two passages from the prophets 2
adduced by him against the old theocratic Temple, and in
favor of the new spiritual Temple, founded by him. Here
the Ephesian traditions have preserved the emphatic word
employed by Jesus, which the Synoptics have put into
the mouths of the witnesses who appeared against him
when he was examined by a deputation of the Sanhedrim.3
They have not ascribed it directly to Jesus, out of fear
of the misunderstandings that might possibly be connected
with it.
The Fourth Gospel, from its peculiar point of view, had
no such tender considerations for the Jewish Christian party ;
but even in this Gospel there appears to be some hesitation
in representing Jesus as aiming outright to destroy the Jew
ish Temple. Accordingly a mystical, allegorical sense is
given to that striking word of his, a sense which he knew
nothing of, namely, that it had reference to his resurrection
on the third day after his crucifixion. In stating that Jesus
was not so understood at the time,4 the fourth Evangelist
shows that this was an interpretation of his own. Had
Jesus really meant to say, " Kill me and within three days
I will rise again," 6 he could not have expressed himself in
a manner more artificial and more unintelligible. But the
1 Mark xi. 1 8 : IK; 6 5x^0! e£<rirA)j(7creT0 e?ri rjj SiSaXB avroG.
2 Is. lvi. 7 ; Jerem. vii. 11.
8 Mark xiv. 58 ; Matt. xxvi. 61 ; xxvii. 40. 4 John ii. 22.
8 Meyer, Ex. Handbuch zum Evang. des Joh. p. 122.

846 APPENDIX.
interpretation of the Evangelist (who is obviously, accord
ing to our views, not to be confounded with the Apostle
John) is otherwise irreconcilable with the New Testament
representation of the " body " of Christ. Nowhere in the
New Testament is the body of Jesus that died and was
raised again represented as the " real God's temple " (as
Meyer has it) ; but by the symbolical expression, " body of
Christ," is meant the Church. If we suppose (with Meyer)
that, with the Temple before him, Jesus, when he uttered
the language under consideration, pointed to himself, such a
gesture would not only have had very little propriety, but
it would be unintelligible why the disciples did not under
stand it, or, if they did not understand it, why they did not
ask for an explanation. We are not prevented from sup
posing that the allusion in the words of Jesus is to the ap
proaching destruction of the theocratic form of worship and
the building of the new Spiritual Temple, by the fact that
the building of the new temple took place only gradually.
With the destruction of the old Temple the new one was
substantially in existence, ready built and complete.1 That
by the words iyepa airov tbe identity of the old Temple
with the new was asserted by Jesus, cannot correctly be
said. In this case it must have read rbv airov. Equally
incorrect is the doctrine that Jesus raised himself, as it is
his Heavenly Father who is always represented as raising
him from the dead. But neither is the declaration of
Jesus to be understood hypothetically of the desecration
of the Temple, as if he had said : " Suppose you not only
desecrate the Temple but destroy it utterly, I have power
to build it up again in the shortest time." The meaning of
Jesus is concessive rather : " Instead of pursuing your work
of defiling the Temple, destroy it ; it has now become useless
since the time of the Baptist, and in the shortest time I will
build a new temple, the spiritual temple of my kingdom, for
Jews and for Gentiles."
1 See Hosea vi. 2. The words of the prophet likewise relate to a
spiritual Israel renewed by Jehovah.

APPENDIX. 347
[It is somewhat surprising that the Commentators should
be so much disturbed by the absence of any mention of
Lazarus in the Synoptics, when it is so generally supposed
by the learned that the Synoptics are hardly anything more
than compilations, records made up of such previously ex
isting documents as were within the reach of the compilers.
Consequently in times when written works were multiplied
and circulated very slowly, is it not easy to imagine that there
may have been various reasons why the story of Lazarus
did not become known to the authors of the original records,
— of those documents of which our Gospels are composed,
— and which bear strong marks of having been composed
very early? They (the Gospel narratives) seem, for the most
part, to have all the character of first, fresh impressions
of the events recorded. At all events, no difficulty in ac
counting for the silence of the first three Gospels in regard
to Lazarus can for a moment outweigh the "historical traits,"
— the internal evidence of truth, — which mark the nar
rative in the Fourth Gospel. I cannot but observe that, if
our learned author had appreciated this evidence, he never
could have suggested that the story of the raising of Laza
rus may have grown out of the parable of the rich man and
Lazarus. Could I entertain such a suggestion, I could as
easily believe the whole history to be a similar invention.
In regard to the purification of the Temple, I think Dr.
Schenkel exaggerates both the boldness of the act and its
effect upon the enemies of Jesus. It was a bold act, but it
was a very popular act also ; and it is highly probable that it
was the people rather than Jesus before whom the traders
retreated so precipitately. I see no evidence of the offence
which our author alleges it gave to the Pharisees. It seems
rather to have overawed them. They asked Jesus imme
diately ' afterwards for a " sign," which request, as I con
ceive intimates that a sign was all that was wanted to iiir
duce them to recognize his authority. It was not a mere
miracle but a Messianic sign that they wanted, such a sign
as he could not give. — Trans.]

348 APPENDIX.
25. p. 191. One cannot more entirely misunderstand the
design of Jesus in arguing against the Jewish theologues
from Ps. ex. 1, than by adopting the view taken by Meyer,
namely, that Jesus aimed to make the Pharisees, whose as
saults were directed only against his Messiahship, sensible
that they did not even know of what nature the Messiah
was, although Ps. ex. would " so easily " (!) have taught
them.1 Neander was on the right way to an understanding
of the passage, when he remarked2 that, if we hold the form
of words found in Mark to be the original form, we are led
to conclude that Jesus quoted Ps. ex. to oppose the idea
that the Messiah must be of the lineage of David, and in
order to assert his Messiahship against those who found in
him no evidence of his descent from David. But the er
roneous idea of Mark's literary dependence, rendered uni
versally prevalent by Griesbach's hypothesis, together with
his concurrence in the common opinion that Jesus was a
descendant of David, prevented Neander from admitting
the truth.
The fact that Paul speaks of the descent of Jesus from
David as a settled matter3 proves nothing against our
view of the case. The Apostle proceeds upon the suppo
sition, received in the Apostolic community and resting upon
passages of the Old Testament, according to which the de
scent of Jesus from David and even from Abraham passed
for a self-evident proof of his Messianic dignity.4 Bleek
thinks it " might easily seem " that, in referring to Ps. ex.,
Jesus intended to intimate that the idea of the Messiah as
a descendant of David was not reconcilable with the desig
nation of the Messiah as the Lord of David, i. e. it might
appear to be the design of Jesus to dispute the opinion that
the Messiah was the Son of David.5 By the contrary re
mark that " it is, however, not provable," the opposite truth
is surely not disproved.
1 Ex. Handbuch zu Matt. xxii. 41-46.
2 Leben Jesu Christi, p. 606.
8 Kom. i. 3 ; ix. 5. 4 Gal. iii. 16.
6 Synoptisehe Erklarung, II. p. 340.

APPENDIX. 349
The fact that Jesus was not a descendant of David ap
pears, according to the Fourth Gospel, to have really stood
very much in the way of a more general recognition of his
Messiahship.1 Had he had grounds for holding himself to
be of the lineage of David, he would necessarily have been
bound to remove the obstacle to the universal acknowledg
ment of him by appealing to the fact of his descent. That
he made no such appeal shows the supposition to be well-
grounded that he made no claim of relationship to the royal
house of David. According to the original form of the
words in Mark, whom Luke follows in substance, Jesus took
pains to meet the objection which was made by the Jewish
theologians to his Messiahship. and which was based upon
his low origin, and especially upon the want in his family
of the blood of David, by a very simple and popular mode
of reasoning : — since David called the Messiah his Lord, he
could not have expected the Messiah to be one of his sons,
i. e. of his posterity ; for no father, especially with Hebrew
ideas of family order, would speak of his son, — no ancestor
of his descendant, — as his Lord. The first Evangelist had
not the key to the words of Jesus, and he understands Jesus
as simply putting a puzzling question to the Pharisees
gathered around him, in order to reduce them to silence by
the difficulty of finding an answer ; but, according to this
Gospel, the only fitting answer they could have given would
have been : If such be the case, then the Messiah cannot be
expected to come from the family of David.
26. p. 197. The words in Matt, xxiii. 3, in which Jesus
is reported to have bidden the disciples to do and to keep
all that the Pharisees said (prescribed), are a Jewish-Chris
tian addition by the same hand that added the eighteenth
and nineteenth verses of the fifth chapter of this same Gos
pel. What Meyer means when, in defence of the original
ity of the saying of Jesus, he remarks2 that Jesus here
l John vii. 41 et seq.
2 Ex. Handbuch iiber das Evangelium des Matthaus, p. 417.

350 APPENDIX.
leaves out of sight the abuse of their office (the office
of instruction ?) by the Pharisees, as it existed in praxi, is
to us unintelligible. Bleek, on the contrary, very justly
observes that Jesus could not surely have recommended
observance of all the Pharasaic precepts, as in the same
discourse he denounces the Pharisees on account of their
casuistical distinctions.1 But when Bleek is of opinion —
although the opposite is positively expressed — that Jesus
nevertheless meant to be understood only as saying compara
tively that the teaching of the Pharisees which urged the im
portance of holiness of life (?) was more commendable than
their practice, he puts into the mouth of Jesus something en
tirely different from what he actually sought to say in the
passage referred to. As to the occasion of the denunciatory
discourse of Jesus, Mark gives us the true account when he
represents Jesus as addressing it to the people in the Tem
ple. The Jews were to decide either against the Pharisees
or against him. A position between the two had become
morally untenable. That the first Evangelist represents the
discourse as addressed to the disciples,2 is explained by the
fact that he has put together several of the anti-Pharisaic
discourses of Jesus taken from the time of his last abode in
Jerusalem. Luke, who has here taken a pnssage parallel
to that of Matthew from the Collection of Sayings, is in
error as to the occasion ; 3 for that Jesus broke out upon
his host in such a way as he would seem from verse forty
to have done, is altogether improbable. From men such as
are there described Jesus would hardly have accepted invi
tations. 27. p. 212. The original substance of the so-called es-
chatological discourse of Jesus is preserved in Mark and
Luke, while in Matthew it is considerably amplified. The
exclamation of admiring wonder which the sight of the
1 Matt, xxiii. 16. Comp. Bleelc, Synoptische Erkliirung, Vol. II.
p. 342.
2 Matt, xxiii. 1. 8 Comp. Luke xi. 37 with Matt, xxiii. 25.

APPENDIX. 351
Temple drew from the disciples, and which led Jesus to
disclose to them the catastrophe impending over the Temple
and the city, has been erroneously omitted by the first
Evangelist. The question as to how far Jesus could have
known the coming fate of Jerusalem is answered, from our
point of view, by reference to his deep insight into the cor
rupt and effete condition of the theocracy, and to his full
appreciation of the increasing restlessness of the nation un
der the Roman supremacy. He thus saw that the speedy
destruction of the Jewish State had become an historical
necessity. He was not indeed possessed of an absolute
knowledge of the fate of Jerusalem,1 and therefore his pre
dictions are not to be taken to the letter. He was, in the
main, however, perfectly correct when he declared the de
struction of Jerusalem and of the Temple service to be so
near that persons then living would witness it.
The special difficulty of the eschatological discourse be
gins only at the point at which Jesus announces his own
retuf/n, and indeed in immediate connection with the de
struction of Jerusalem. All attempts made in the interests
of the apologists to deny such a connection are sophistical
and deserve no refutation. According to Mark,2 the re
turn of the Son of Man was to take place iv ixeivais rah
f]p.ipais pcra. rrjv 6\l\jnv eKelvnv, according to Matthew,3 evSeas
pfra rfjv 8\tyiv. In the Gospel of Luke, to whom the de
struction of Jerusalem was a past event, it first appears4
that a considerable interval was to elapse &xpi ov ¦nXnpw8aa-i.
Kaipo\ idvav. That thus, according to the Synoptics, Jesus
must have been in an error if he expressed himself as they
say, there can be no doubt. Although, in accordance with
free historical criticism, there is no ground for denying the
possibility of such an error in Jesus, yet there are not want
ing considerations that forbid the supposition. The idea
that the Messiah was to establish his kingdom amidst mira-
1 [Did lie not declare in so many words that his knowledge of the
coming event was limited ? Mark xiii. 32 ; Matt. xxiv. 36. Trans.]
2 Mark xiii. 24. 3 Matt. xxiv. 29. * Luke xxi. 24.

352 APPENDIX.
cles and signs from heaven, with great splendor and celestial
pomp, was entirely in the spirit of the Jewish theocracy, but
not at all in keeping with the spirit and character of Jesus
and the Communion founded by him. Jesus had indeed, as
we have shown, set forth with the greatest distinctness his
idea of the divine kingdom as a moral and spiritual con
dition of things, in opposition to the theocratic idea of a tem
poral kingdom of heaven. But had he, notwithstanding,
taught that, some years after his departure to his Heavenly
Father, he would descend from heaven to erect an outward
worldly empire, it would have been simply giving in to the
theocratic error which he had spent his whole life and labor
in combating, i. e. he would have placed himself in irrecon
cilable contradiction to his own great work and to all the
purposes of his mission. As we have seen, the disciples did
not put to him any question relative to his return in the
body ; and although Bleek} for example, considers it prob
able that such a question was put by them, yet the suppo
sition merely comes from his prejudice in favor of the credi
bility of the first Gospel. The discourse of Jesus is taken
up exclusively with the doom impending over Jerusalem
and the theocracy ; some hints of the future of his kingdom
are incidentally connected therewith.
What expressions he used in foretelling the triumph of
his cause, closely connected as it was with the downfall of
the theocracy, we are not now able to determine. It is not
impossible that, in order to a vivid presentment of his idea,
he may have availed himself of a figuratively prophetic
style of speech, like that employed in the books of Daniel
and Enoch in regard to the glorious exaltation of the ideal
Israel. But that the eschatological discourses of Jesus were
conceived in a purely spiritual sense, the fourth Gospel
assures us.2 There lie before us, in fact, two representations
of the eschatological discourses of Jesus : 1. the report of
the first three Gospels, with its high Jewish coloring; and 2.
1 Synoptische Erklarung, II. p. 352.
2 John xiii. 31 -xvii. 26.

APPENDIX. 353
the report of the fourth Gospel, imbued with the universality
( Universalismus) of the Gentile-Christian mode of thought.
Since the idea of the kingdom of God, as set forth accord
ing to the Synoptics by Jesus, was of an essentially moral
and spiritual nature, and since it was precisely this idea of
it that brought him into collision with the theocracy, we are
fully justified in adopting the second representation, and in
putting the sensuous, apocalyptic coloring of this discourse
to the account of the Palestinian tradition.
28. p. 219. It is questionable whether we are authorized
to consider the anointing of the person of Jesus, related by
Luke (vii. 36), as one and the same with the incident men
tioned in Mark xiv. 3, Matt. xxvi. 6, and John xii. 1. When
an event is told twice in the Gospels, substantially under the
same or tolerably similar circumstances, it is very natural
to suppose that it happened really only once, and has been
variously related by tradition. On this account, Schleier-
maeher,1 Ewald,2 and Bleek 3 have with justice assumed that
these two narratives are at bottom one and the same, and
that Luke has given to the story too early a place in the
history. If, as Bleek remarks, Luke, by the position of
the narrative in his Gospel, gives us the impression that
the scene of the event was in Galilee, then in this case
Luke, misled by a false pragmatism {Pragmatismus), has
certainly misplaced a narrative, drawn from his Jewish
sources, when he places it in the ante-Judaistic period
of the Saviour's labors.4 The similarity of the two sto
ries appears, however, not only in the name of the host,
Simon,5 and in the fact that, in all the Gospels, it is a
i Ueber die Schriften des Lucas, p. 110.
2 Die drei ersten Evangelien, p. 342 ; Geschichte Christus, p. 422.
8 Synoptischo Erklarung, II. p. 111.
* The words, vii. 34, " The son of man is come eating and drink
ing " suggested to Luke the idea of introducing at this point an ac
count of the entertainment at tbe Pharisee's house.
6 Luke vii. 40 ; Mark xiv. 3 ; Matt. xxvi. 6.
vol. n. 23

354 APPENDIX
woman that is related to have anointed Jesus,1 but also in
the further circumstance that the Evangelists all unite in
stating that the persons present murmured at the act. The
greatest difference between Luke and the other Evangelists
appears in the fact, that in Luke the woman is a sinner, who
thus expresses her reverence for Jesus and her sorrow for
her sins, while in the other Gospels the woman is a loving
disciple of Jesus (in the fourth Gospel it is Mary of Beth
any), who desires before his death to give him a token of
her love consecrating him to death. The difference is best
explained by the fact that the third Evangelist, having lost
the connection of the incident with the near death of Jesus,
appears to have concluded that such an act as this of the.
woman was appropriate only in a sinner.
[This note presents a striking instance of the painfully
circumstantial character of German biblical criticism, its
strong tendency to dwell upon superficial matter-of-fact
points of agreement or difference, to the overlooking of the
far more vital moral consistencies of the evangelical history.
There are no two events recorded'in the Gospels essentially
more truly different than these two which are here decided
to be one and the same. So entirely distinct are they in
their vital moral import, that it is far more likely that the
subordinate details in which they resemble each other have
become mixed and confounded together in the Gospels, than
that they are one and the same incident. Trans.]
29. p. 240. What the precise words were that Jesus
used in the distribution of the bread and wine at the in
stitution of the Supper, the variations in the evangelical
tradition render it difficult to determine. The words of
Mark in the giving of the bread are, Adhere, roGro la-nv
to aS>p.a pov,2 and in the giving of the wine, ToOro lonv to
alpd pov rrjs Siq^ijkijj to ix^vvvopevov Imip ?roXAcoi>. Then fol-
1 According to John xii. 3, Mary of Bethany.
2 Mark xiv. 22.

APPENDIX. 355
lows the declaration of Jesus, that he will no more drink of
the fruit of the vine until that day when he will drink it
new in the kingdom of God. In Matthew the Xtifcre at the
distribution of the bread is followed by (pdyere.1 Luke
leaves out the imperatives \dpere and tpdym; but we have in
his Gospel the addition, iirip ipav SMpevov, and the injunc
tion, rouro noietre els ttjv ipi)v dvdpvr\oiv? With this the re
lation of the Apostle Paul8 substantially agrees. In the
distribution of the wine, Matthew adds the requirement,
Trivere ig avroij rrdvres, with the addition of els acpfcriv apapn&v
to eKxvwipevov* According to Luke, Jesus at the distribu
tion of the wine spoke the words, ToS™ to -rorrjpiov 17 xaivh.
Stad^Kj] iv tw atpari pov,6 and the assurance that he would
no more eat bread and drink wine preceded the distribution
of the Supper. According to Paul, Jesus at the giving of
the wine repeated the monition that the Supper was to be
observed in memory of him.6 It may be questioned which
report is nearer to the original, Mark's or Paul's (Paul is
Luke's authority). In Matthew, the multiplied forms of
command and the addition of els &<peo-iv apapnay clearly indi
cate amplifications. To the assertion of Paul that he re
ceived his knowledge of the Supper Smb rov xvplov, too great
weight must not be given, as by the words "from the Lord"
he intended only to say that his account really went back to
the Lord, — i. e. the Lord's institution was the source of his
report, — just as elsewhere in the same manner he appeals to
a Xo'yos Kvpiov,'1 without meaning to be understood as having
had a supernatural revelation. That he did not obtain that
communication in consequence of such a revelation and of a
special commission, is proved by his making no mention of
an diroKaXvij/is made to him or to his informant, but still
more fully by his using the formula, iya irapeKa^ov, indica
tive of tradition as his authority. Peter, on the other hand,
is undoubtedly the authentic indorser of the account in
1 Matt. xxvi. 26. 2 Luke xxii. 19. 8 1 Cor. xi. 24.
1 Matt. xxvi. 27. 6 Luke xxii. 20. 6 1 Cor. xi. 25.
7 1 Thoss. iv. 15.

356 APPENDIX.
Mark, and there is internal evidence that this Evangelist
comes nearest to the exact words of Jesus. Had Jesus said
that the disciples were to repeat the Supper in remembrance
of him, it would hardly have passed unnoticed by the elder
tradition. It is much more probable that, after the Sup
per was once formally observed as a divine service by the
Apostolic Christians, it was sought to justify this observ
ance of it by an express command of Jesus. So also the
more difficult formula in the distribution of the cup, ToCto
io-rtv rb alpd pov rrjs SiadrjKrjs,1 is to be preferred to the less
difficult, Tovro to 7VOTr)piov f] KaLVrj BiadrjKn iv ra ipa aipari.2
When, finally, Paul omits entirely the declaration of Jesus
that he would drink no more of the fruit of the vine,3 and
adds of his own authority that the Lord's Supper -was never
to be observed without showing forth the Lord's death,4
Paul's omission of the declaration is explained by its diffi
culty; but at the same time this difficulty is the surest
pledge that the words in Mark are the original words.
30. p. 273. The Synoptics know nothing of the hearing
which, immediately after his arrest in the garden, Jesus had
before Annas, but according to their account he was led
away to a preliminary examination before Caiaphas, the
president of the High Council.5 In the court of the Hall of
Justice the denial of Peter took place (the fourth Gospel
states it as having occurred in the court of the palace of
Annas), and not until the morning was the decisive public
sitting held. All attempts to reconcile the fourth Gospel
with the synoptical account, especially by saying that the
scene of the denial of Peter0 is erroneously placed within
the precincts of the palace of Caiaphas, are rendered unavail
ing by the fact that Jesus is stated to have been led away
from Annas to Caiaphas much later.7 To take the aorist
dnlo-TeiXev in the passage referred to as a pluperfect is only
1 Mark xiv. 24. 2 1 Cor. xi. 25.
8 Mark xiv. 25. 4 1 Cor. xi. 25.
6 Mark xiv. 53 ; Matt. xxvi. 57 ; Luke xxii. 54.
6 John xviii. 15. ' John xviii. 24.

APPENDIX. 357
a poor expedient of the harmonists. We should rather ap
prove of reading ovv, with Lachmann, after drrto-TeChev, where
by the explanation of the aorist as a pluperfect becomes
altogether inadmissible. According to the fourth Gospel,
Jesus was not examined by Caiaphas, but was immediately
sent by him to Pilate.1 Further, as this Gospel states, sen
tence of death was not pronounced by the High Council upon
Jesus, but only urgently sought from Pilate, who gave Jesus
up to them to be crucified.2 That Jesus was examined by
a person who, like the High Priest Annas, exercised no
official functions, who had been deposed by the Procurator
Valerius Gratus, and was out of favor with the Romans, is not
in itself very probable. That he was the supreme judge, and
that the acting High Priest did not undertake such examina
tion in his own person,3 are both unfounded conjectures. It
is much more probable that, in so weighty a matter, the pre
siding High Priest, in a grand sitting,4 conducted in his own
person the hearing, upon the result of which the issue of the
affair essentially depended. Besides, the hearing before
Annas, according to the fourth Gospel, led to no conse
quences whatever.5 The idea of Bleek, that Luke also reports
the hearing before Annas,6 — whose person to be sure he men
tions once, — and that, because the name of the High Priest
conducting the examination is not given in the relation which
Matthew made use of, Matthew erroneously thought it was
Caiaphas,7 rests upon the incorrect assumption that Mark
copied the other two Evangelists. The greatest difficulty is
in ascertaining why the fourth Evangelist was led to sup
pose that Jesus was examined by Annas and not by Caia
phas. The difficulty is not fully explained merely by
supposing that the Evangelist desired to strengthen . the
evangelical evidence of the unbelief of the Jews by showing
that two high priests had passed sentence of condemnation
i John xviii. 28. 2 John xix. 16.
8 Compare Ewald, Gesehichte Christus, p. 472.
4 Mark xiv. 53 ; Matt. xxvi. 57 et seq.
8 John xviii. 19-23 6 Luke xxii. 54.
i Synoptische Erklarung, II. p. 438.

358 APPENDK.
upon Jesus.1 The most probable idea is that the fourth
Evangelist here followed the later tradition, current in
Asia Minor, according to which at the instigation of Caia
phas the Sanhedrim had at an earlier period come to the
conclusion which condemned Jesus to death.2 Thus also
is solved the enigma, that, according to the fourth Evange
list, neither on the night of the arrest nor on the following
morning was any condemnation passed upon Jesus by the
High Council, and that the examination of Jesus by Annas
appears to have been without aim, or at all events could
have served only for the information of Pilate.
31. p. 276. As, with the exception of Luke, no Evan
gelist mentions Pilate's sending Jesus to Herod, as also the
older tradition, which Mark and Matthew follow, knows
nothing of it, there arises no slight doubt of the historical
credibility of the story. We do not see why the other
Synoptics should not have mentioned so interesting an
episode, had they been acquainted with it; neither do we
clearly understand how so much could have taken place in
the few hours of the day on which Jesus was crucified, — a
full session of the High Council, the delivery of Jesus to
Pilate, Pilate's examination of Jesus, the appeal to the
people in behalf of the prisoner, the sending of Jesus to
Herod, Herod's examination of Jesus, &c. The scene with
Herod must at least have occupied several hours. The
story certainly was not invented by the third Evangelist,
but it was generated by the later Gentile-Christian tradition,
and therefore further removed from the scene of the events
of the history. The tradition took this direction from the
Same cause which is more distinctly visible in the fourth
Gospel, namely, for the purpose of throwing upon Judaism
and its representatives the chief guilt of the crucifixion of
Jesus, and of relieving the representative of the Gentiles,
Pilate, as much as possible of the responsibility. All cir-
1 Baur, Kritische Untersuchungen, p. 268.
2 John xi. 49-57.

APPENDIX. 359
cumstances considered, the story may rest upon the fact,
that not only the Pharisees but also the Herodians were
determined opposers of Jesus, and these, with Herod Antipas
at their head, might, during the last abode of Jesus in Ju
dea, have repeatedly discharged against him the arrows of
their scorn, and rejoiced from their hearts at his condem
nation and his crucifixion.
[In concluding a labor, which he has found full of interest,
and which he trusts is to serve the Truth, the translator is
free to confess that, with great respect for the learning and
industry of German critics and commentators, he is struck
with the fact that these eminent and laborious scholars ap
pear never to perceive that the records owe their existence to
the reality of the fads recorded. They search with wonder
ful acuteness for every shadow of a "dogmatic necessity,"
for every possible extrinsic consideration, in order to ac
count for the telling of the story. They look everywhere
but directly at the facts related, to solve the secret of their
having passed into history. The facts of the Life of Jesus,
— it is one of the translator's strongest convictions, — when
once they are truly and distinctly apprehended, will be felt to
be so full of life and power, that it would have been strange
indeed if " many " (Luke i. 1) had not taken it in hand to
record them, and if also, of the numerous early records that
must have sprung into existence, such narratives as we now
have in the Four Gospels had not lived on from age to age
and proved themselves imperishable. — W. H. F.]

THE END.

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