KEIM'S HISTORY
OF
JESUS OF NAZAKA.
VOL. V.

CJ

THE HISTORY OF
JESUS OF NAZAEA,
FREELY INVESTIGATED
IN ITS CONNECTION WITH THE NATIONAL LIFE OF ISEAEL,
AND BELATED IN DETAIL.

DR. THEODOR KEIM.

TRANSLATED BY ARTHUR RANSOM.

VOL. V.

WILLIAMS AND NORGATE,
14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON;
And 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.
1881.

LONDON :
PRINTED BY 0. GKKEN AND SON,
178, SIKAND.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.

Circumstances over which I had no control are responsible
for the delay that has taken place in the translation of this
volume. The next — and last — volume is being proceeded with
as rapidly as possible, and its publication may confidently be
expected early next year. That volume will contain a copious
Index of the whole work ; and the large mass of valuable histo
rical and literary information contained in both the text and the
notes will be thus made readily accessible to the student.
Great care has been taken, in this as in the previous volumes,
to make the translation correct. If, however, students should
discover or have reason to suspect any error, they would oblige
by drawing my attention to it before the whole of the next
volume has left the press, that such error, if serious, may be
corrected.
ARTHUE RANSOM.

Bedford, May, 1881.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

FIRST PART.
The Messianic Progress to Jerusalem
I. — The Journey to the Feast .
A. Perasa
B. Judaea and Jericho
C. A Day at Jericho .
II. — The Entry into Jerusalem .
A. From Jericho to Bethphage
B. The Johannine Christ at Bethany .
C. The Jubilant Recognition of the Messiah
D. The Lord of the Temple
III. — The Decisive Struggle
A. The Assailants
B. The Tempters
C. The Last Disclosures and
upon the System
IV. — The Farewell
A. On the Mount of Olives
B. At Bethany
C. At Jerusalem. The Last Supper

Announcement

of Woe

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Jfirst fart.
THE MESSIANIC PROGRESS TO JERUSALEM.

Division I.— THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.

A. — Per^ea.

After the official announcement of the first of Nisan, the
moon of blossoms and of Easter, had been carried from Jerusalem
throughout the land with haste and jubilation, because in two
weeks Easter would have come, Jesus set out from Galilee, pro
bably on the first day after the Sabbath, viz. Sunday the third
of April, A.D. 35. He found himself, perhaps to his own asto
nishment, in the midst of a festival caravan.1 This was not, how
ever, the stream of festival visitants from Galilee, which as a rule
flowed specially full and strong, nay, menacing to the rulers of
Jerusalem, to this spring feast, to the most venerable and the
most eminent of all the Jewish festivals. Jesus made a practice
of withdrawing himself from the masses in order to secure liberty
and rest; and he avoided them on this occasion in particular,
when the menaces of his foes, the estrangement of the unstable
populace, and the seriousness of his decisive course, imposed
1 The announcement of the new moon, and of the first of Nisan, by fire signals, later
by messengers, see Rosh hashanah, 1, in Lightfoot, p. 201 ; and Friedlieb, Archaolgie
der Leidensgesch., 1843, p. 43. The chronology will be treated of in a separate section.
VOL. V. B

2 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
solitude upon him.1 If, in view of the great train of followers
who accompanied him, we were to think of a marching forth of
Jesus at the head of the Galilean people as a necessary moral
and indeed also material commencement of his Messiahship in
Jerusalem, we should be trifling not only with the immediate
testimony of our documents, but also with all the facts, great
and small, of the history of Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem, and
with the whole character of his life.2 It will suffice here to point
out that the very road which Jesus chose proved his entire
renunciation of any attempt to excite a movement of the masses
between Galilee and Jerusalem.
The retinue of Jesus rather consisted exclusively of a part of
that body of adherents that afterwards, in the apostolic period,
constituted the church of Galilee.3 If we yielded to the first im
pression produced by our Gospels, we should suppose it was only
the Twelve who followed him.4 We have, however, incidental
intimations that those who accompanied him were much more
numerous, even if we deduct the people that sought out and
accompanied him after his entrance into Judsea and Jericho.6 All
the Gospels mention a numerous company of Galilean women,
among whom appear in particular Mary Magdalene, Mary of
James, Joanna, and Salome. But Luke, at the entry into the
Holy City and at the scene in Golgotha, knows also of a mass
of disciples and acquaintances, of whom it is true he mentions
only one by name, the Clopas who was probably the father of
the second James among the Twelve, and the husband of the

1 That Jesus joined the Galilean festival caravan is thought even by Meander, pp.
465, 467 ; Strauss, New Life of Jesus, Eng. trans., I. p. 383. On the crowding to
the Easter festival, above, I. p. 303. Also Irenaeus, 2, 22, 3. Magnitude of the
caravans, Tholuk, Glaubw. p. 215.
2 Comp. the Fragmentist, Yon d. ZwecJc Jesu u. s. Jilnger, pp. 140 sqq. Geiger
Judenth. I. pp. 115 sqq.
3 This Galilean church is first seen in 1 Cor. xv. 6, and by name, Acts ix. 31.
4 Matt. xix. 10, 13, 23, 25, 28, xxi. 1 sqq. ; Luke xxii. 28.
6 Matt. xix. 2 (according to verse 1, already in the Judsean territory, against Hilg.
Zeitschrift, 1868, pp. 22, 43), xx. 17, 29, xxi. 8 sqq.

PERJEA. 3
above-mentioned second Mary.1 Though we may have to sub
tract something from the account by Luke, since ^he mythical
narratives of the seventy disciples whom Jesus chose besides the
Twelve, and of the one hundred and twenty adherents who
formed the first Christian community immediately after the de
parture of Jesus, have probably magnified his numbers ; yet,
on the other hand, the retinue of Galilean women remains
untouched, whilst at the same time the accompaniment of a —
though smaller — number of men and youths belonging to the
outer circles of disciples is not only very probable in and of
itself, but is also directly established by certain indications in the
oldest Gospel.2 If there were needed a proof that Jesus had no
intention of seeking to influence Jerusalem and the hierarchy
there, and of compelling Messianic success by the aid of Galilee
or even merely of his own most trusty adherents from Galilee, the
proof would in fact be found in this very retinue. He invited
no one to accompany him to Jerusalem, certainly not the women
who could not strengthen, nor support, nor dignify, nor com
mend him. He left his friends behind in their home, in order
to implicate none but himself in the decisive struggle ; but he
could not turn away his most intimate adherents if they of their
own free will determined to accompany him and to share his
entry into Jerusalem — his triumphs as they hoped, his fatal
destiny as he feared.
The road which, Jesus chose was an unfrequented one. Not
merely the shortest, but also the most frequented way from
Galilee to Jerusalem led directly southwards through the heart
of the country west of the Jordan, through southern Galilee and
Samaria. The Jewish historian expressly says that it was the
1 Matt, xxvii. 55, xxviii. 1; Luke xix. 37, xxiii. 49, xxiv. 10, 13, 18; Mark
xv. 40 sq. Clopas, above, III. p. 274.
2 Comp. Matt. xix. 21, 29 sq., xx. 17. James, the brother of Jesus, was not among
those who accompanied, although in 1 Cor. xv. 7, as well as in the Gospel of the
Hebrews, he is cited as witness of the resurrection. The appearance in question was
in Galilee (see Resurrection) ; and had it been in Jerusalem, the still unbelieving
brother need not — according to John vii. 3 sqq. — have gone up to Jerusalem with
Jesus. There can be no reference to the mother of Jesus.
B 2

4 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
custom of the Galileans, when they went to the festivals in the
Holy City, tatake the road through the country of the Samaritans.
In three days, he remarks elsewhere, it was possible to reach
Jerusalem from Galilee by this route.1 From Capernaum it was
twelve, from Nazara six, leagues to Ginsea and the Samaritan
frontier ; six leagues further lay Sichem, nearly twelve further
lay Jerusalem ; and thus it was possible to exchange the view
of the lake for that of the temple by a journey of thirty leagues.2
But our most reliable sources tell us that Jesus passed into the
Judaean frontier from the other side of Jordan, that is, instead
of taking the direct southerly way west of the Jordan, he took
the south-easterly and more circuitous way through Persea beyond
the Jordan, and finally re-crossed to the west bank of that river.3
Indeed, we can understand why he took this course. He thus
not merely gave expression to his antipathy to Samaria, which
district he had previously expressly closed to the mission of his
disciples and which he now himself avoided ; but he also here
enjoyed the advantage of the quietest, most secure, and least ob
served route of travel. On this by-way he was disturbed by none
of those evil-disposed and contentious Samaritans who so often
filled the journeys of the Galilean festival-pilgrims with obstacles
and annoyances. Here the quiet and the incognito of his journey
were broken by no Galilean festival-trains, with their confusion
and noise and the abandon of their humour and their jubilant
singing, nor even by the inquisitive and obtrusive populations
of southern Galilee and northern Judaea. And the remoteness
afforded protection against tetrarchical attacks, even though the
way, with the whole of Persea, was under the rule of Antipas,*
1 Jos. Ant. 20, 6, 1 ; Vita, 52.
8 According to Van de Velde. Comp. above, II. p. 1. Ginasa (Dshenin), Jos Ant
20, 6, 1 ; B. J. 2, 12, 3 ; 3, 3, 4.
3 Matt. xix. 1 ; Mark x. 1. See below. Correct definition of Persea as country
ieyond Jordan, Pliny, H. N. 5, 15 : Persea asperis dispersa montibus et a ceteris
Judsais Jordane amne discreta.
4 The caravans of the Galileans, and the sanguinary conflicts with the Samaritans
close by Ginaja, Jos. Ant. 20, 6, 1 ; comp. Vita, 52. Other evil deeds of the Samari
tans, Ant. 18, 2, 2. Lightfoot, p. 201 (deceptive fire-signals of the new moon).

PERJEA. 5
The sparsely populated and little frequented Jordan valley on
other occasions served as a means of escape from difficulties and
perplexities. The Roman general Vitellius, in the spring of 37,
when he purposed to help the tetrarch Antipas against the Arabs,
marched his troops along "the Great Plain" of the Jordan, be
cause the Jews had forbidden an army with heathen standards
to pass through their country.1
Without doubt, Jesus went directly from Capernaum eastward,
at once over the lake and over the river that flowed through the
lake, in order thus at a stroke to escape the populous district of
southern Galilee and to get out of sight of the court. Journey
ing still a few leagues on the banks of his favourite lake, he
entered upon the thirty -leagues -long Jordan valley between
Taricheea-Hippos and Jericho, and left behind him all the charms,
all the life and social intercourse of Galilee, and with it the
greater part of his own history. The middle and lower Jordan
valley offered a direct contrast to the landscapes amongst which
Jesus had hitherto moved between the Jordan sources and Caper
naum. The plains on both sides of the Jordan were dry and
treeless; both ranges of flanking hills presented barren and shape
less outlines ; the heat was oppressive, and the dazzling reflection
of the sunlight from limestone hills was intolerable ; while houses
and villages were rare both in the plain and on the ridges of the
hills. Naturally in the summer heat of the deep cleft the trees
and bushes were burnt up, and there prevailed a heavy sultriness
in the air which was fatal to the health of man and beast. To
judge from the vivid description by Dixon, the feet became as
burning coals on the hot sand, the temples throbbed painfully, the
tongue became swollen and inflamed, the lips blistered, the eyes
blinked and closed themselves before the unbearable light. But
the Jordan, rushing onward among green bushes through its
hundred windings in the narrow fifty -foot -deep river-bed, the
steep incline of which fell a thousand feet, and the numerous
1 Jos. Ant. 18, 5, 3. "The Great Plain" here simply the plain of the Jordan
(above, II. p. 235), comp. B. J. 4, 8, 2. Comp. Vespasian's march, ib. 4, 8, 1.

6 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
streams and brooks — from the Hieromiax (Yarmuk) at Gadara to
the Jabbok (Wady Serka) in the latitude of Sichem, and to Wady
Sheriah at Jericho — which pierce the monotonous hills right and
left, and call forth a southern vegetation of palms, olives, and
vines, lent to the district a scanty adornment, and presented at
spots rest and variety to the eye, chiefly at that very time of the
year when everywhere the copious waters were rushing in wild
and noisy tumult, and the cooler air awoke and protected the
beautiful tints of spring.1 Unfortunately there remains no notice
of this Persean journey of Jesus, beyond a colourless sentence ;
but we can surmise that four or five days were consumed before
the arrival in the district of Jericho ended the fatigues which
must have attended the condition of the roads in the spring, the
dangerous fording of the torrents, and the want of provisions
and lodgings, the procuring of which had as usual been left to the
disciples.2 One of the few inhabited places which Jesus passed
was directly over against Scythopolis on the southern frontier
of Galilee, situated high upon the hill, that " well- watered" city
of Deoapolis, Pella, in which a generation later, in the stormy
time of the Jewish wars, the community of the Messiah found
its safety.3
This Persea journey of Jesus is not altogether unchallenged.
It is true that the language of Matthew and Mark, although
somewhat obscure, excludes every other explanation.* On the
1 Comp. Jos. B. J. 3, 3, 3, and generally above, II. pp. 234, 235. W. H. Dixon's
Holy Land.
2 The danger of the torrents in the spring, Joshua iii. 15, and above, I. c. note.
Provisions, comp. Matt. xvi. 5 ; Luke ix. 52, x. 1. Day's journey of the caravans,'
from 6 to 12 leagues, average 7 to 8 ; comp. Winer, Tagreise.
3 P. aquis dives, Pliny, H. N. 5, 16.
4 The expression in Matt. xix. 1 does not require elucidation from Mark (x. 1),
since a misunderstanding is quite impossible ; for even admitting it possible that the
Gospel was written in Pella, the author can neither (with Delitzsch, Kostlin) wish to
say that Judfea lay to him beyond the Jordan (for he assumes the contrary, iv. 25) nor
that a part of Judsea lay in Perssa (against iv. 25), but simply that the "coming" to
Judsea took place (Lig., Fr., Mey., Strauss) via trans amnem (beeber hajarden, -nkpav
LXX.). In Mark, not only is the reading did (A) a correction, but also Kai (Sin
BCL), the former almost better than the latter, since the latter is very liable to be

PERJEA. 7
other hand, the third of the Synoptics very strikingly substitutes
for the Pereean journey a Samaritan one. According to Luke's
extremely obscure report of the journey, Jesus did not cross the
Jordan at all, but, following the custom of the Galileans, he left the
southern frontier of Galilee at the village Ginsea (now Dshenin),
and traversed entirely or in part the Samaritan territory. And
indeed there is much to support the former, and much more to sup
port the latter, supposition.1 According to the former supposition,
we must think of Jesus as making a day's journey in Samaria as
far as Sichem, and then, instead of pressing forward in a southerly
direction, at once taking the south-easterly road, a seven leagues'
walk along which would bring him to the Jordan valley, where —
as in Matthew's account — he would find a less frequented route.
misunderstood. Equivalent to that in Matthew is the reading in Mark, Cod. Bez.,
St. Gall., It., Vulg., and other versions. Weisse, p. 432 (comp. Scholt. Joh. p. 73),
dreams of a mutilation of Mark by Matthew, and then doubts (p. 433) — as Paulus
dreamt of a brief journey to the temple dedication — whether this Peraaan route ended
at Jerusalem, and not again in Galilee. Caspari, pp. 77, 143, 153, 159 sq., is in
favour of restoring the " Judsea beyond Jordan " (after Kuin., Gratz ; comp. Ptol.
5, 16, 9), and understands thereby Golan (!). He says there was no road there at all
(but comp. Jos. Ant. 14, 3, 4 ; B. J. 4, 8, 1 ; and Van de Velde) ; and nothing is said
of crossing the Jordan ! Even Hilgenfeld, Zeitschrift, 1868, p. 22, influenced by
De Wette's untenable linguistic objections, thinks that at least the original text of
Matthew might have reckoned Persea as belonging to Judsea !
1 Luke ix. 52, xiii. 22, xvii. 11. The expression in xvii. 11, dia fiioov 2. k. V.,
may mean either "through the midst," or "through the boundaries between Samaria
and Galilee." The former explanation would (against Fr. and De Wette, who thought
of the journey from north to south) be possible only if Jesus had travelled northwards
instead of southwards, for then Galilee would have come after Samaria; thus also, in
effect, Paulus and Olsh. admit. The second explanation is altogether untenable, at
least in the form hitherto given it (Grot., Wetst., Schl., Meyer, BI., Hofm.), viz., that
Jesus travelled between the boundaries of Samaria and Galilee from west to east
towards the Jordan (Wetst., towards Scythopolis) ; for, after a previous visit to
Samaria in ix. 52, he could not with any reason in xvii. 11 appear afresh upon the
northern frontier, or regard the little excursion of four or five leagues from Ginsea
(Jos. Ant. 20, 6, 1) to the Jordan valley as a great journey, indeed as a journey towards
Jerusalem. On the other hand, unless we prefer to believe in Luke's perfect innocence
of geography, the boundaries between Samaria and Galilee from north to south in the
Jordan valley may be thought of, if it be but admitted that Luke included Persea in
Galilee, as in point of fact the whole principality of Antipas, including Persea, is often
called simply Galilee : comp. only Luke himself, iii. 1, and Jos. Ant. 18, 5, 4 (against
17, 8, 1 ; 17, 11, 4; 18, 7, 1. See above, IV. p. 218, note 1. Vespasian's march
from Neapolis past Kuriut (near Shiloh) to Jericho, B.J. 4, 8, 1, was analogous.

8 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
He would then press towards Archelais and Jericho in the south,
but without crossing the Jordan, remaining on the west bank,
and passing first through the desert valley district between Sa
maria and Galilee, more correctly Perasa, then through the more
cultivated Judasan country. But this route, although the most
rational expedient we can find for Luke, is altogether unworthy
of acceptance, quite apart from the unhistorical object aimed at
by the Pauline Luke of showing us Jesus in the " way of the Gen
tiles," and from the mythical and unskilful distribution of the
material among the stages of the journey. Indeed, it is in the
highest degree improbable that Jesus, in the situation in which
he was, should so openly traverse the populous region of south
Galilee, that he should enter Samaria at all, towards which he felt
a personal antipathy, and where at any rate he could do nothing
to further his pressing Jewish aims ; moreover, if he had entered
Samaria, it is highly improbable he should pay but a hurried
visit, and then forsake the Samaritan highway in order to with
draw to the remote Jordan valley.1 The whole of this represen
tation can be explained only from the unhappy crossing of two
views. On the one side, it was sought to show that Jesus, instead
of avoiding Samaria, made a solemn progress through it ; on the
other, that he remained as near as possible to the route of histo
rical tradition, not through Samaria, but through Persea. Hence
arose the representation that he entered Samaria but did not
traverse the whole of it ; that he visited the Jordan, and reached
Jerusalem by way of Jericho, and not of Sichem, Sophna, Bethel,
and Ramah. There is no need here to speak of the historical
errors in the fourth Gospel, which knows nothing at all of the
1 Even Weisse, pp. 433 sq., Strauss, New Life of Jesus, Eng. trans., I. p. 301,
Scholten, Joh. p. 272, Hausr. p. 385 (above, III. p. 136), do not know how to handle
critically the Samaritan journey in Luke. Schenkel, in his Charakterbild, pp. 151 sqq.,
still more in the article Jesus in Bibcl-Lexlhon, has been the most strongly influenced
by the description of Luke and John. He holds that in Matthew and Mark there is
here a great gap which Luke's zealous investigation has filled in ; and that there was
a ministry of several months in Samaria, Peraa, and Judasa, with visits to Jerusalem,
whilst at the same time it is admitted that Jesus had been already indicted in Galilee
for not paying the temple tribute. But that was only just before Easter.

PERAHA. 9
historical Easter journey of Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem,
because it has already long since established Jesus at Jerusalem.
This subject can be deferred till we come to the entry into Jeru
salem; but we may here mention that Jesus' brief sojourn in
Persea, which in the fourth Gospel precedes the resurrection of
Lazarus, bears a similar relation to the narratives of Matthew and
Mark as does the brief residence in the city of Ephraim, which
follows that resurrection, to the Samaritan journey in Luke, since
Ephraim lay in the neighbourhood of Bethel, a little nearer to
Jerusalem, on the highway between Sichem and the Holy City.1
Herein, however, John makes the mistake of thinking that Luke's
Samaritan journey went southwards from Sichem. The main
point is, that we take note how one account ever stands in con
nection with the other, and how every fresh unhistorical deviation
seeks to establish its probability by a correct or incorrect attach
ment to earlier accounts.
With the Samaritan journey there is intimately connected, in
Luke, a very unhistorical view of the whole character of this
expedition to Jerusalem. The narrative of a Samaritan journey
is, namely, the immediate consequence of the erroneous notion
that Jesus took a missionary journey, in his old manner, from
Galilee to Jerusalem ; and more exactly still, it is the conse-
1 John x. 40, and xi. 54. As to the position of Ephraim (Sin., L., It., Vulg., Ephrem)
there may be a doubt (Eus. 8 Roman miles, Jerome 20, from Jerusalem, but Larsow
and Parthey, p. 196, now read 20 also in Eusebius) ; yet not only does Eusebius know
most distinctly that Jerusalem is near (h-w/*»; fi^yiarr] irepi rd opia Aikiag ; Jerome :
villa prsagrandis Ephraea), but Josephus also, B. J. 4, 9, 9 (comp. 2 Chron. xiii. 19,
where, instead of Ephron, there is Ephrain in the Keri), makes it quite certain that
the little town (ttoXixvlov) lay south of Akrabe, Gophna, and Bethel, in the neigh
bourhood of the last town which was three or four leagues from Jerusalem, and on the
highway to Jerusalem. Ewald renounces the attempt to fix the locality, p. 502 ;
Furrer, Bedeut. der bibl. Geogr. p. 21, looks for the place in Wady Farah, two leagues
and a half from Jerusalem, and is at least much more nearly correct than Caspari, who
thinks (p. 158) of the place El Fariah, two leagues north-east of Sichem, about fifteen
leagues from Jerusalem. But even "Wady Farah lies much too far to the east. Spath,
in Hilg.'s Zeitschrift, 1868, p. 339, explains the presence of the name in John as
having reference to the earliest prophecies, particularly Hosea's. In fact, it is but a
step to regard it as representative of the rejected and ultimately won (Hosea i. 11)
country of the Ten Tribes and of the Samaritans ; comp. above, II. p. 349 ; Messias
filius Ephraim.

10 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
quence of the desire — as pious as it was ardent — to represent him
as the director, indeed as the first pioneer, of the Pauline mission
to the Gentiles.
The very plan of Jesus naturally excluded any missionary acti
vity by the way. His one goal was Judasa and Jerusalem ; his
means to his end was a quiet journey ; his time was limited.
Easter was at the door, and the country between middle Galilee
and Jerusalem was so great, the towns and villages, even those
merely which were close to the highway, were so many, that an
Easter journey could not suffice for even the most superficial mis
sion.1 Thus the very way which he took, the route along the
plain of the Jordan — as solitary as had been, a little before, the
route to the sources of the Jordan — showed a renunciation of
missionary work on the journey. Finally, the more faithful
sources, Matthew yet more plainly than Mark, prove that every
thing was quiet in Persea ; that even in the immediate neigh
bourhood of Jerusalem, in Jericho and Bethany, Jesus did not
by any means volunteer to preach ; that it was simply the flock
ing together of the people from the time of his approach to the
Judsean frontier at Jericho which led to several works of healing,
speeches, and replies, as he went.2 But in Luke, though Jesus
has his face directed towards Jerusalem, and it is several times
remarked that he passed through towns and villages on his way
to Jerusalem, yet the preaching and healing in the presence of
1 Even Weizsacker (as Neander, p. 440 ; Schenkel, Bilel-Lexikon, III. p. 288 ;
Hausrath, pp. 433 sq.) finds, p. 513, that in Mark x. 1, not a journey, but a sojourn
in Judsea and Persea, is referred to. How many are the ways of harmonistics !
2 In Matt. xix. 1, 2, the flocking of the multitudes to Jesus is evidently placed on
the frontier of Judssa reached from Peraa (see above, p. 2, u. 5). The chief definition
of locality contained in the expression "there," used concerning the people, has refer
ence to the entry into Judsea, and to that Persea was only the route and the means.
This distinction between Persea and Judsea is perfectly intelligible. Hence Ewald,
p. 504 (comp. Gess, p. 112), has completely misunderstood the narrative when he
places the subsequent incidents, including that of the rich young man, in the period
of the departure from Galilee. Even Mark here proves him to be in error. Mark
x. 1 agrees with Matt., if we drop the Kai. If we retain it, then the flocking of the
people to Jesus is transferred to Persea. And at any rate the report of a teaching by
Jesus "as he was wont," is an unhistorical generalization.

PERA^A. 11
multitudes of people so far predominates, that the Galilean
ministry is completely outdone in both extent and character,
particularly in the copiousness of the doctrinal utterances. The
movement of the journey is altogether stopped, and the narrator
endeavours to remove the impression of a complete standstill by
introducing artificially and violently, yet without any convincing
force, repeated scattered notes in which he asserts that the
journey was resumed and continued.1 Indeed, Luke not only
gives a copiousness of detailed facts which stay the journey and
show the mission to be in full activity, but he expressly repre
sents Jesus as intending to carry on the mission work, for he
shows a fresh and extensive selection of seventy disciples, who
were to preach the gospel at the various stages of the journeys
as Jesus' forerunners, and were to confirm their preaching by
healings.2 Hence we must infer that this Evangelist aimed not
only at creating in this journey to Jerusalem a quiet place for
the great mass of material of the sayings and doings of Jesus
which he possessed over and above his predecessors in this
history-writing, and which in truth belonged either to Galilee
or to Jerusalem ; but that he intended to give to this travelling
ministry the importance of a new great mission, penetrating the
whole land and complementing what had gone before, the com
pleting and the crowning of the work of the seventy forerunners.3
But the special object of introducing this travelling mission
was its Samaritan, its Gentile-favouring, its Pauline character.
Hence, in the first place, the passage through a part of the
1 Allusions to the journey, Luke ix. 51, xiii. 22, xvii. 11. Comp. above, I. p. 102.
According to Schleiermacher, LuJc. p. 161, he has mixed up several journeys (comp.
even Strauss, New Life of J, Eng. trans., I. p. 301) ; according to the artificial
interpretation of Meyer and others, Jesus, after the experience in ix. 52, postponed
his entry into Samaria until xvii. 11.
2 Luke x. 1.
3 That the fragments in question belong to the Galilean or Jerusalemite ministry of
Jesus, is seen, not only in the parallel passages of the other Gospels, particularly of
Matthew, but also in the contents of so many of the fragments, as Luke xiii. 1, 31, 34,
or even ix. 57, x. 25, xi. 14, 29, 37—53, xii. 1, xiii. 10, 23, xiv. 1, 7, xv. 2, xvi. 14,
xvii. 20, xviii. 9.

12 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
Samaritan territory. Hence the revelation of the spirit of
forbearance and of unconquerable human love to the very
first Samaritan village, to the village which, with a narrowness
equal to that of the Jewish fanaticism of the Twelve, refused
hospitality to the pilgrims to Jerusalem. The sons of thunder,
James and John, who in the angry spirit of Elijah would have
called down fire from heaven upon the godless — doing, but in a
religious way, very much like the people of Galilee, who were
accustomed to set fire to the villages of the Samaritans — are
said to have been put to shame by the reproof: "Know ye not
what spirit ye are of?"1 In the same connection falls ano
ther toleration-utterance of Jesus, spoken to the second son of
thunder, John, with reference to his zeal against an exorcist,
who indeed used the name of Jesus, but did not follow him :
"Hinder it not, for he who is not against us is for us !"2 Hence
again, together with toleration, we have a profound and loving
recognition of the moral, nay, of the religious, equality of those
despised Samaritans. A parable holds up as a model of neigh
bourly love the Samaritan who binds up the wounds of his
Jewish brother, the victim of robbers between Jerusalem and
Jericho, passed by with indifference by priest and Levite ; and
a narrative of fact shows, out of ten lepers cleansed, nine un
grateful Jews and one grateful Samaritan.3 Hence, on the
other side, the combating and rejecting the Scribes and Phari
sees, the Jewish people, Jerusalem : another sign that the king
dom of God, in fulfilment of Jesus' menace in his initial sermon
at Nazara, is, from the commencement of the fatal journey,
seriously, and as much as in the apostolic time after Stephen's
1 Luke ix. 52—56. The best established reading of the oldest codices wants the
addition, ovk old. o'lov Trvtv/i. ; this is therefore a good gloss out of 1 Kings xix. 11
sqq. (comp. Numb. xiv. 24) : owe iv t$ Trvtip. b Kvpiog. Just so it is no injury to
the MS. to strike out in verse 54 the appeal of the Zebedeans to Elijah (after 2 Kin^s
i. 10, 12), and in verse 56 the addition about saving (from xix. 10). The incendiarism
of the Galileans, Jos. Ant. 20, 6, 1, comp. 12, 4, 1,
5 Lukeix. 49; Mark ix. 38.
3 Luke x. 25, 30. Comp. also the Prodigal Son, xv. 11 sqq. See above, IV. p. 7.

PER.EA. 13
death, offered to the Gentiles.1 When we review the whole of
this representation, there can remain no doubt that the solemn
and so fully reported sending forth of the seventy disciples at
the beginning of the Samaritan journey, signifies not merely the
extension and intensifying of the mission, but essentially a
mission to the Gentiles, as moreover the number seventy is best
explained from the number of the seventy nations reckoned by
the Jews : thus, twelve Apostles for the twelve tribes of Israel,
and seventy for the nations of the earth, their first fruit being
the Samaritan people on the way to Jerusalem.2 The addresses
of Jesus himself, which he is said to have delivered on this
occasion, are quite full of this sense. To the Seventy, and not
to the Twelve, Jesus commits, according to Luke, the great
harvest of the world ; them he bids — without respect to Jewish
prohibitions of food, particularly in relation to the Gentiles— to
eat and drink what was offered them in the houses they entered
1 Luke x. 13, 21, 25, xi. 14 sqq., 37 — 54, xii. 54, xiii. 1 sqq., 10 sqq., 23 sqq., &c.
Comp. the Synopsis at end of Vol. I. In the Acts, the hitherto completely overlooked
turning-point is not immediately Stephen (Lekebusch), but Acts ix. 31.
2 The number seventy is overwhelmingly attested against seventy-two (Recogn. 1, 40,
BD, It., Vulg. ). (These various readings also in the number of the Mosaic elders, see
Lightfoot, p. 518, hence also of the seventy translators and the seventy Synedrists. )
Prototypical of this favourite number of the Hebrews, seventy (comp. Gen. xlvi. 27 ;
Ex. xv. 27; Judges i. 7, ix. 2; 2 Kings x. 6; Jer. xxv. 11, &c. ; also Jos. B.J. 2,
20, 5, Vita, 11, 14; and Wetst.), are partly the seventy elders of Moses, Ex. xxiv.
1, 9, Numbers xi. 16, to which the seventy Synedrists have reference ; partly, the
nations of the earth (Japhetites 14, Hamites 30, Semites 26) in the lists of the nations
in Gen. x., and of whom Jewish tradition counted seventy, Jon. Gen. xi. 7, xxviii. 3 ;
Gem. Samh. 17, 1 ; Clem. Horn. 18, 4, Recogn, 2, 42 ; Epiph. Haer. 51, 7. Compare
the seventy Gentile shepherds (chiefly representative of seventy periods), Book of
Enoch 80, and Dillm. p. 265. See also Eisenmeng. II. p. 736; Bertholdt, pp. 162,
186; Winer, Erde and Synedrium. Theophyl. and others thought of Ex. xv. 27.
The Jewish mixed tradition is remarkable, that the seventy Synedrists understood the
seventy languages of the nations, Sanh. I.e. Jesus' seventy disciples might remind us
(thus Recogn. 1, 40, comp. Neander, Meyer, Gess) of the elders of Moses (comp. Ex.
xviii. 17 sqq.), because of Luke x. 2; but evidently the preponderant thought — as not
only Strauss, Baur, De Wette, Bleek, Hilg., Volkm., but even Olsh. and Pressens6, find
— is, according to the whole context, that of the extra-Israelitish nations. Formerly
Strauss (L.J., 4th ed., I. pp. 594 sqq.) left both explanations open; but he now (New
Life of J., Eng. trans., I. p. 379) admits that Luke's source might have thought of
the elders, Luke of the nations. Similarly Bleek, II. p. 150. Neander, p. 405, un
decided.

14 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
on their mission; and in allusion to their field of labour, he
utters the "Woe" concerning the former Jewish fields of labour,
Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum.1 Their success also far out
does that of the Twelve. Even the demons, over which the
Twelve had so little power, are subject to the Seventy; they
overthrow in a decisive manner Satan, the prince of the heathen
gods, and whom Jesus sees powerless under their ministry, fall
ing dethroned from heaven.2 In recompence, he gives them
power and authority over serpents and scorpions, to tread victo
riously under foot the whole brood of the heathen devil- world ;
and, what is more, he gives them the assurance that their names
are written in the Book of Life. For himself, he now for the
first time experienced the ecstatic feeling which prompted him
to magnify the Father's mode of revelation, his own personal
exaltation with the Father, and the glory of those who had lived
to see that time and him.3 There then follows a new address to
the disciples, whom Luke at any rate misunderstands to be the
Seventy. He therein points beyond their work to one greater
than they are, to the great Paul, who was to utter yet more
openly and more widely what they had here and there spoken
in darkness and in the ear and in the room, and even before
magistrates and authorities, and before Boman governors.4
1 Luke x. 1 sqq.
2 Luke x. 17 sqq. Comp. Is. xiv. 12 ; Book of Enoch 90, &c. ; Rev. xii. 9. Also
Bertholdt, p. 186 : Scias, esse 70 principes atque unicuique populo unum princ. ex his
70 contigisse. (Quite similarly, Recogn. 2, 42.) Sunt autem sub potestate Sammaelis.
Comp. above, II. pp. 312 uote 2, 317 note 1. See the commentaries for the fanciful
dreams of seeing the fall of Satan in the circumstances mentioned in Matt. xii. 29
(Gess), in the temptation (Lange), or indeed in the incarnation, nay, the pre-existence
of Jesus (from the Fathers down to Hofmann and Stier). Vision, Weisse, II. p. 146.
The correct meaning also in Neander, p. 408 (seeing in spirit, without a vision), and
Weiss, N. T. Theol. p. 78. Ewald, p. 436, and others represent the passage as ad
dressed to the Twelve.
3 Luke x. 19 sqq. Comp. Is. xliii. 2; Ezek. ii. 6 ; Dan. iii. 27, vi. 22 ; Rev. ii. 11 ¦
Mark xvi. 18. Miraculous passing of the Israelites over serpents and scorpions which
are compelled to'make themselves into a bridge, told by the Rabbis ; see "Wetst. p. 721.
Names in the Book of Life, Ex. xxxii. 32 ; Dan. xii. 1 ; Book of Enoch 104 ; Rev. iii. 5
xiii. 8, xvii. 8, xx. 12, xxi. 27 ; Phil. iv. 3.
4 Luke xii. 1 sqq.

PERJEA. 15
It only remains to be asked whether all this is credible?
This question must be met by an unqualified negation. Jesus
did not pass through Samaria ; he passed through Persea. Jesus
did not pronounce any definite sentence concerning the admission
of the Samaritans and the Gentiles : he was then on his way to
Jerusalem, there to decide solemnly the Jewish question. And his
Apostles afterwards remembered merely that they were to go to the
people, to Israel ; they knew nothing about a previous mission by
Jesus to either the Gentiles or the Samaritans, otherwise they
would not have been obliged to obtain authority for such a mission
direct from heaven.1 Not one of these incidents is trustworthy in
detail.2 Instead of the sentence, " He that is not against us is for
us," the opposite is better attested, "He that is not for me is against
me."3 The demand of the sons of Zebedee for fire to come down
upon a Samaritan village was never made, and it exhibits a vain
glorious sense of power which none of the disciples ever possessed.
It is purposely ascribed to the " sons of thunder," in order to
give prominence to the antipathy to the Gentiles felt by the
first Apostles, and also to emphasize the difference between Elijah
and Jesus, the Old Testament and the New.4 The beautiful
parable of the Good Samaritan — doubly beautiful because it
exhibits the neighbour not merely externally, but also internally
in the man — is artificially tacked on to a notoriously simpler con
troversy of Jesus at Jerusalem.6 The incident of the ten lepers
is an artificial imitation, here of the incident of the one leper,
there of that of Naaman the Syrian, which also occurred in the
1 Acts x. 10 sqq., 36, 42.
2 Against Strauss, New Life of J, Eng. trans., I. pp. 301 sq., 355.
3 Against Luke ix. 50 and Mark ix. 40, see Matt. xii. 30, but also Luke xi. 23.
The incident also reminds us of Numb. xi. 28 sq. ; and those who cast out devils in
the name of Jesus belong for the most part to the apostolic and a later period, Acts
xix. 13.
4 On the other hand, Weisse, II. p. 144.
5 Luke x. 25, comp. Matt. xix. 16, specially xxii. 35 (Mark xii. 28), which latter
conversation is wanting in the parallel passage in Luke. It is at once noticed that
Jesus never elsewhere spoke against priests and Levites, but against Scribes. The turn
given to the word "neighbour" in x. 29 and 36 is wonderfully fine. Some suspicion
also in Neander, p. 492 ; Weisse, I. p. 147.

16 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
neighbourhood of Jericho.1 The sending forth of the seventy
disciples has no historical attestation whatever ; not one of the
other Gospels, not even Mark, nor John, nor even the Acts of
the Apostles— which in its Pentecost miracle makes the Twelve
speak the languages of all nations — contains a trace of it. Eccle
siastical tradition is perplexed about it, and can do no more
than invent fables.2 Looked at more closely, the incident resolves
itself into impossibilities. How could these seventy— in reality
the precursors of the messengers of the journey and death of
Ignatius and Peregrinus — have been as mechanically as super
fluously sent, two and two, to different stations as far as
Jerusalem ? How could they have returned all together at
the same time from the most remote stations ? How could
they, in such a brief span of time, have done so many works ?
How could Jesus have ascribed to them an importance far beyond
that of the Twelve, whilst they afterwards sank back into
obscurity, and even the laudatory reporter could not give the
name of one of the seventy, who were in fact the vague symbols
of the seventy nations ? Even the utterances to the seventy
sink back into nothingness. The only novelty in these utterances
is Jesus' words of greeting to the returning men ; and the whole
address bears the stamp of the apocryphal and fanciful exagge-
1 Luke xvii. 12 and v. 12 (Matt. viii. 2). Then also 2 Kings v. 1 sqq., where we
must remember that Elijah was in Gilgal (iv. 38), i.e. between Jordan and Jericho,
just as now Jesus was before Jericho. Of parabolical origin, Strauss, L.J., 4th ed.,
II. p. 53; Weisse, II. p. 173 ; Hase, p. 167. On the other hand, Neander, p. 436.
2 See the fables out of Clem. Hypotyp. V. in Eusebius 1, 12, concerning the names
of the seventy,— Barnabas, Sosthenes, Kephas in Antioch (Gal. ii. 11), Matthias, and
Joseph Barsabba, Thaddseus, and James (1 Cor. xv. 7). Then the great list in Chron.
Pasch., ed. Dind., I. pp. 400 sqq. Whilst in the beginning of the agitation against
Matthew, Schulz and Schneck. accused Matthew of ignorance of the seventy, the posi
tion of the seventy is now rather almost entirely overthrown by criticism. Strauss
De Wette, Theile, Baur, Hilg., Volkmar, Br. Bauer, have rejected them. Ewald
(pp. 392, 428) and Weiss, (p. 211) adopt this standpoint. The seventy are defended
by Ebr., Olsh., Tholuk, Krabbe, Meyer, Neander, Bleek, Gess, and others; even by
Hase, Weisse, Scbenkel. But comp. only Neander (p. 405), Bleek (p. 149), Weisse
(I. p. 405), to see how weak is the defence which does not seriously defend either the
number, the special mission, or the addresses. Schleiermacher had already found n
permanent organization (pp. 373, 379) ; and Hase allowed them to sink back int
nothingness on account of absence of significance.

PERASA. 17
ration of a later time. Or is any one disposed to believe that
Jesus found the conqueror of Satan in the seventy and not in
himself, and that he seriously said he saw Satan fall from heaven,
where he never looked for him, and where he was sought by, at
most, the Jews and the Eevelation of John ?x All the other
passages are artificially and inappropriately dragged in from the
mission address to the Twelve or from other places, and the
prophecy about Paul is an arbitrary application of an utterance
addressed to the Twelve and concerning the Twelve.2 Thus
nothing is left of the whole mission ; and the only question that
can remain open is, whether Luke fabricated these incidents for
himself, or whether — as is more probable — he found them already
existing disconnectedly in his later sources of Ebionite and Sa
maritan-Christian origin.3
As is wont to happen, this unhistorical and late report has
had superimposed upon it a still later, more exaggerated, and
more comprehensive one. According to the fourth Gospel, it
was not at the close of his ministry, but in the very beginning
of it, that Jesus "must needs" make a journey through Samaria,
1 And even Mark xvi. 18 is apocryphal. Jesus himself the conqueror over Satan,
Matt. xii. 29. Satan not in heaven, Matt. xii. 29, xvi. 18. Comp. above, p. 14,
note 2. In Rev. xii. 9, the fall of Satan from heaven is joined on to the entry of the
Messiah into heaven. Then begins his fury upon earth through the agency of the
Roman domination. Homiletically we can derive a meaning from this fall of Satan by
means of the disciples, so far as the kingdom of God appears guaranteed by the exten
sion of the single personality of Jesus into an actual human community ; even histo
rically, so far as the apostolic period completed the fall of the evil one ; but this
narrative is not historically a part of the life of Jesus.
2 Comp. above, I. pp. 112 sq., and what is said on the missionary addresses in
Vol. III. The reference to Paul, Luke xii. 2 sq. ; Matt. x. 26 sq.
3 Luke's style of representation, from ix. 51 onwards, favours the assumption of
Hebraistic sources ; but the question remains open whether these were simply Jewish-
Ebionite with reference to the Twelve (as already concerning x. 17 — 20 the reference
to the Twelve has been often supposed to be), or specially Gentile-favouring Samaritan,
which the number of the seventy would in particular lead us to assume. Schleierm.,
Bleek, Ewald, had already shown themselves indisposed to recognize the seventy (see
above, p. 16, note 2) ; the criticism in Baur's Ev. pp. 498 sqq., has disposed of them.
A hitch in this criticism is the feeble opinion of Strauss (New Life of J, Eng. trans.,
I. p. 301) that the Samaritan ministry according to Luke may possibly be as well
founded as the purely Israelitish one of Matthew.
VOL. V. C

18 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
only in the reverse direction, from Judsea to his Galilean father
land.1 It is the famous conversation with the Samaritan woman
of which we are thinking, beginning with Jesus' request for a
drink of water, and rising to its climax in the revelation of the
prophet and finally of the Messiah, who declared to the woman
her sins, and to Samaria, as to Israel, the temporary duration of
its religion, the substitution of the religion of spirit and truth
for the material temple-service ; and leading up to conversions
on a large scale, brought about — unlike those of Jerusalem and
Galilee — without miracles, in the town of Sychar, the neighbour
and in reality the representative of Sichem, the old and renowned
metropolis of the country where formerly the patriarchs, later
the kings of the northern secession kingdom, dwelt, and where
later still the spurious Samaritan temple had stood.2 This dis
trict — according to Furrer's expression, " a pearl of scenery" — is
correctly and finely described. There is Jacob's Well, a hundred
feet deep, the water still occasionally springing forth, scarcely
1 John iv. 4 sqq.
2 Sychar, John iv. 5 (Jerome reads Sichem), is generally regarded as a satirical
allusion to Sichem, with a suggestion of shikkor (drunken), Isaiah xxviii. 1 sqq., or of
sheker (lie), Hab. ii. 18. Thus already Reland (shikkor) and Light! (sheker), and
many recent critics, not merely Hilg., Scholt., Spath, Furrer, but also Hengst., Olsh.,
Wies., Credner, Liicke. Let the reader remember the easy interchange of the liquids
m and r. But it is remarkable that this transformation, in the word Sichem at least,
does not occur elsewhere (Sux*/*, Si^Ef*, 'Sikiuo). On the other hand, Hug., Luther,
Licht., Ewald, Meyer, Del., Casp., assume a Sychar, a different town from Sichem. In
fact, the Talmud has a Suchar and a well of Suchar (Wies. Syn. p. 256, after Lightf.
p. 586) ; and Walcott, Bibl. S. 1843, I. p. 74, and Rosen. Zeitschr. deutschmorg Ges.
1860, II. pp. 334 sqq. (comp. Casp. pp. 106 sq.), point to the village El-Askar, which
lies a short quarter of a league north of Jacob's Well and Joseph's tomb, and a league
from Sichem eastwardly (at the southern foot of Ebal). Eus., Onom., already indicates
that : Sychar irpb rrjg viag tto\wq, although he also again says of Sichem, iv irpoaa-
nioig viag ttoAewc (p. 346). These notices are not to be overlooked, and the similarity
of Sychar, Suchar, Askar, is striking. We must assume either that Sychar (differently
from Neapolis, Nablus) received and perpetuated the name of the ancient Sichem, or
that it had previously been an independent place separated from Sichem. But 'the
Evangelist seems to have mentioned this place and not Sichem, since (1) he found the
meaning of the word (sheker, comp. iv. 18, 22) specially striking; (2) he did not wish
to assert the conversion of the chief city itself by Jesus (comp. Acts viii. 5) ; and (3) he
nevertheless reminded every one acquainted with the Old Testament of Sichem, by the
name, by Jacob's Well, and by Joseph's tomb.

PER.EA. 19
more than half a league to the south-east of the well-watered
valley of Sichem, and to the right of the highway that runs from
south to north. There is the rocky head of Gerizim, distant
about 800 feet up a steep ascent to the left of the highway and
well, from the latter of which is visible the site of the temple
that was destroyed by the Jewish king John Hyrcanus ; and on
the east is the smiling and waving corn country of Mokhnah.
But correctly and grandly as the district is depicted, and, still
more, instructively and triumphantly as the new religion of
Jesus and of the children of God is described, this incident is
nevertheless not literally true ; and it is not the intention of the
author himself to convince us of the literal character of the
narrative, but only to excite a strong belief in the founder of the
spiritual, eternal and world -dominating faith.1 Otherwise he
would not have taken the liberty of satirically giving the name of
the obscure little town of Sychar as representative of Sichem and
of the Samaritan spurious religion, of transforming the five gods
of the ancestors of the Samaritans allegorically into five husbands,
the present god — half Jehovah, half Zeus — into the sixth husband
or lover of the Samaritan woman, i.e. of the district, and of
depicting the Samaritan woman herself — who in this as in other
respects is completely fictitious — as both wanton and pious,
superficial and profound, as a convicted sinner, and yet as one to
whom the loftiest and most spiritual utterances are addressed.
Finally, he would not have made the Samaritan harvest — which
is expressly placed in the future, in the apostolic period, and did
not now come to pass — appear in a vivid manner as already
present, as a personal work of Jesus, nay, as a quenching the
thirst of the land with living water at the very hour in which,
later, the life of the word streamed from the Crucified One.2 If
1 Comp. Robinson, III.; Ritter, XVI. pp. 654 sqq.; Furrer, Wand. pp. 230 sqq.;
Bedentung bibl. Geogr. p. 22; Casp. pp. 105 sqq. See also above, II. p. 259.
2 Sychar = Sheker, Hab. ii. 18; comp. Ecclus. 1. 26. The five men, above, I. p. 159.
Weak objection by Gess, p. 11. The Rabbis also complain of the idola Cuthseorum,
Lightf. p. 314. Similarly Hilg., Scholt., and even (retaining the fact) Hengst. The
harvest, future, iv. 35 ; comp. Acts viii. 5 sqq. Present, iv. 39 sqq. The hour of
C 2

20 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
to the above we add all the other palpable difficulties, great and
small, of the literal narrative — of which difficulties the lofty
and exaggerated revelation of Jesus to the unintelligent, sinful,
sensual woman of Samaria is by no means the least — and the
evident connection of this new exaltation of Jesus' career with
the Luke-exaltation, it is really not necessary to spend many
words to show that Jesus did missionary work in Samaria neither
at the beginning nor at the end of his ministry, that he never
represented the Samaritan and the Jewish worship as of equal
worth, and that — Stephen and Mark notwithstanding — he never,
either in public utterances or in the presence of his disciples
only, announced the definitive end of the national worship.1 Let
him who will find fault when history frees itself of this narra
tive ; in truth, only those can escape the stumbling-block of the
narrative and accept it heartily who dissever it from the life of
the Lord and give up its literal accuracy, and who conceive it
as a later and impressive description of the conquest of the world
by Christianity, under the figure of the Master himself, who was
the leader and procurer of that victory.2
watering (comp. above, II. pp. 334 sq.), the sixth, iv. 6 sqq.; comp. xix. 14, 34, and
xii. 20 sqq.
1 To the difficulties in detail belong also (1) the improbability of fetching water
from Jacob's Well, since Sichem is full of springs (eighteen wells, Furrer, Bed. p. 23),
and Askar (Sychar) has the spring Askar in close proximity on the north (Casp.
p. 107) ; (2) the improbability of thirst in the winter instead of in the summer, about
January (iv. 35), as also Furrer (Meyer, Sevin, mention December) remarks, whilst
Casp., p. 108, thinks of the end of May (harvest time) ! (3) the pretended request of
Jesus for water (iv. 7 ; comp. verses 31 sq.) ; (4) the superiority of not only Jesus but
also his disciples to the prevailing prejudice against the Samaritans (iv. 9 ; comp.
Lightf. p. 614), iv. 8, 31.— The occurrence of Luke (Gospel, and Acts viii. 5) is
brought to mind not only by the Samaritan journey generally, but also by the picture
of the harvest, Luke x. 2 ; John iv. 35. The fall of the temple, after Acts vii. 4S and
(itself after the passage in the Acts) Mark xiv. 58. The drawing of water and the
request for water remind us of Gen. xxiv. 11 sqq.; 1 Sam. ix. 11 ; 1 Kings xvii. 10.
2 Contrary to these certain results of criticism, Schenkel (p. 174) stiH fin(js the seal
of credibility in the incident. Renan knows that Jesus possessed divers disciples in
Sichem, and indeed that Josephus has spoken of Hellenist ones !

JUDAEA AND JERICHO. 21

B. — Judaea and Jericho.
The uniformity of the quiet pilgrimage of Jesus to Jerusalem
was first broken in upon at the lower Jordan, when he entered
the frontiers of Judsea, on Thursday, the 7th of April. At a
point not far to the south-west of the ancient town of the Gadites,
Beth Nimrah (Talmudic, Nimrin), in the neighbourhood of the
Jordan, the Persean route joins at a sharp angle the route from
Gilead, which reaches the Jordan from the north-east, from
Bamoth Gilead and Gerasa, traversing the hilly district by the
valley of Wady Shaib. The route then crosses the Jordan, which
is here ninety feet from bank to bank, goes through Wady
Nawaimeh into the Judsean territory, and in two or three leagues
brings the traveller to the fine old city of Jericho, the capital of
the tribe of Benjamin. The splendour of the river banks, with
the lush young green of spring and the jubilant songs of the
nightingales, soon disappears ; but after a fresh brief experience
of desert sandy country, the perpetual paradise of the western
Jordan pastures is reached. Jericho, by the Greeks called Jeriktis
['lepixovs], at present the insignificant little village of Eriha, with
its dozen round huts, its ruins, and thorn hedges, still has its
green, well-watered, mildly warm oasis, more than a league
broad, in the midst of the sand and the heat, and close under
the lofty protecting wall of the western bare and jagged and
awe-inspiring limestone hills, which, "theatrically" arranged in
a moon-like crescent, seem to guard the approach to the strong
hold of Israel, Jerusalem.1 Gardens, and woods of fig-sycamores
1 The region between the Jordan and Jericho desert, Jos. B.J. 4, 8, 3 ; comp. Furrer,
Wand. pp. 153 sqq. ; also Dixon. The distance from the Jordan, see above, II. p. 234
(in Van de Velde, the above measurements). Extent of the oasis : 70 stadia long,
20 broad, Jos. B.J. 4, 8, 3. 100 long, Strabo, 16, 2. 200 jugera, Just. 36, 3. A
league and more in circumference at present, Furrer, p. 151. Description of the
springs, Josephus, I. c. ; Furrer, p. 150. The mildness of the temperature mentioned by
others besides Josephus, particularly Just. 36, 3 : tepidi seris natur. qusedam et perpetua
apricitas. The theatre of hills, Jos. B.J. 4, 8, 2; comp. Strabo and Just. Ruins,
see below, p. 23, note 5.

22 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
and tall palm-trees of every kind, and a lower growth of odorous
roses and of valuable but now vanished balsam, spice, and cotton
plants, surrounded the " city of palms," along with the luxuriant,
early-ripening corn-fields that supplied to the house of God the
first fruits for Easter, and the moist, rich meadows bedecked with
flowers, a land of booty for the bees and a treasure-house of the
most famous honey.1 This fortunate, incomparable, "divine"
landscape, with its miraculous blessing of the well of Elisha, and
with its prodigious return even for the smallest amount of tillage,
Josephus has praised almost more than the charms of Gennesar ;
and after Moab, Ammon, and Amalek had left off suing for its
favours, the Syrians, then Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt, and
later Greek and Boman historiographers, geographers, and poets,
cast envious glances at this pearl of the Jews and of king Herod.2
Moreover, Jericho was the key of the whole land, from south to
north, from west to east, a highway of commerce, a rendezvous of
Israel ; and was therefore guarded by castles and camps in the
periods of the Syrians, of the Hasmonseans, of the Herods and the
Bomans.3 The last princes had also vied with each other in costly
buildings, since they were fond of transferring the official residence
hither, in spring and autumn, from the harsh and barren Jerusa
lem. The Hasmonseans had here their palace, which was last in
habited by Alexandra, the mother-in-law of Herod the Great.4
Splendid large ponds surrounded the castle, in which the terrible
Idumasan, in the midst of sport, took the life of his young
1 See the fine descriptions in Jos. B.J. 4, 8, 3; 1, 6, 6; 1, 18, 5; Ant. 14 4 1 •
15, 4, 2. Strabo ; Just. ; Pliny, H.N. 5, 15, briefly : Hiericuntem palmetis con'sitam,'
fontibus irriquam. The roses, Ecclus. xxiv. 14. City of palms, Deut. xxxiv. 3 ¦
Judges i. 16, iii. 13. The name Jericho, either City of the Moon or City of Fragrance!
2 The most highly favoured and most divinely fruitful region, Jos. B.J.i 8 3.
Comp. Horace. Ep. II. 2, 184. Comp. my article Herodes in Bibel-Lex. III. p. 30.
Moab, Judges iii. 13. The fertility was dependent not only on the Elisha spring
(2 Kings ii. 18 sqq.), but also on the more northerly Duk-spring, and on Wady Kelt.

3 Place of meeting, comp. Jos. Ant. 17, 6, 3, 5 ; B.J. 4, 8, 1. Castles, camps,
1 Mace. xvi. 15, ix. 50 ; Jos. Ant. 14, 15, 3 ; B. J. 1, 21, 4 ; 4, 9 1-5 % 3
3i-abo, 16, 2 (castles Thrax and Taurus) ; comp. Winer, and'Furrer (Bibel-Lex.) on
icho. Jos. A M. 15, 3, 3 ; B. J. 1, 21, 4. Comp. 1 Mace. ix. 50.

23
brother-in-law, the high -priest Aristobulus, Alexandra's son.1
This crime did not frighten him away; he merely built at a
distance from the now haunted castle a new one that was still
more beautiful and commodious. He also built a splendid theatre,
and an enormous hippodrome, in which, on the eve of his death,
he was able to keep confined the nobility of the whole country.
He himself died in the palace at Jericho.2 Archelaus rebuilt the
palace yet more beautifully after it had been plundered and
burnt in the disturbances which followed the death of Herod ;
he enlarged the gardens and the palm groves, to which he
conducted fresh water-courses.3 Thanks to nature, situation, and
the kings, Jericho shook off the curse of Joshua — who, at the
taking possession of the country, had strictly forbidden the re
building of this city — and became great and rich, so that from
the time of Herod the Great the whole neighbourhood, from the
fortress Kypros, south of Jericho, to Phasaelis and Archelais on
the north, and even the wilderness, became full of villages and
cultivated fields.4 This prosperity continued even under the
Bomans. Already under Gabinius temporarily the fourth among
the five chief cities of the land, under the emperors Jericho
became the central point of a toparchy to which, after the fall of
Jerusalem — which also had a third revival — belonged the first
position in the Judsean south.6
There is no doubt that Jesus's little caravan took breath again
in the neighbourhood of Jericho, after the toils of the inhospi-
1 Jos. Ant. 15, 3, 3. Above, I. p. 250,
2 Jos. B.J. 1, 21, 4 ; Ant. 17, 6, 3, 5; 17, 8, 2. Above, I. p. 253.
3 Jos. Ant. 17, 10, 6; 17, 13, 1.
* Large and rich city, Jos. Ant. 14, 15, 3; B. J. 4, 8, 2. Strabo, 16, 2. Just. 36, 3.
The curse, Joshua vi. 26; comp. Judges iii. 13. Cultivation of the whole district,
Jos. Ant. 16, 5, 2.
5 Jos. Ant. 14, 5, 4. Toparchy, B. J. 3, 3, 5. Prosperity at the time of Pliny, the
first toparchy, Pliny, 5, 15. Eus. Onom. 234: KarajSKrid. avTrjg im r. rcoXiopK. lep.
(comp. B. J. 4, 8, 2) krkpa ix rpirov avviorr) iroKic. It was still standing at the time
of Eusebius and Jerome. By the side of it, ruins of two older cities. At the present
time are to be seen a number of ruins, notably a rectangular tower (Dixon), which is
said to be the house of Zacchasus.

24 THE JOURNEY TO TH^ *•.
table journey, and under the infkr ice of a landscape which bore
such a conspicuous resemblance to the Gennesar district. More
over, they now found not only hospitality, but also sympathy
and appreciation. The reputation of the Prophet of Galilee had
long since reached even here. Indeed, individuals had sought
him out in Galilee itself; and though most of the people did not
know him, they were anxious to see him ; and his companions
were not reticent, but told of his works and whispered his inten
tions. Silent as death about the Persean journey, the Gospels
become eloquent from this point onwards ; and the minutiae as
well as the general contents of their communications lend to
their narration the impress of truth. They show us the multi
tudes of men that flocked to Jesus from the Judsean frontiers,
would-be followers and controversial Pharisees who addressed
him. They mention in a general way healings or doctrinal
addresses, but particularly vivacious conversations with the dis-
ciivjgs. And they do this in such a way that we can plainly see
how, among the springs, the palms, and men, in proximity to the
place where John baptized, and in proximity to Jerusalem, there
again sprang up in him and in his disciples the elasticity and
joyousness of spirit which had been lost.
Jesus certainly did not here utter any popular addresses like
those he delivered in Galilee, although Mark relates that he
taught according to his wont.1 Conversational intercourse, brief
occasional thoughtful remarks, would naturally be called forth by
the sympathetic attitude of the population; but a missionary
preaching, properly so called, is altogether excluded, although we
may surmise that, at least in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem,
Jesus, either by way of prudent initiative, or in consequence of
the support which he now began to receive from the crowds of
people that flocked to him, as well as with a retrospective
reference to the associations of the place where he was baptized,
organized, improvised a Messianic movement by introducing the
old watchword. And if we recognize this passage, why not the
1 Mark x. 1 (Matt. xix. 1 sq.).

."' " 1&A AND JERICHO. 25
whole, — the great rnission of -Luke between Galilee and Jeru
salem ? But as the mission is an empty phantom as far as
Jericho, so is it also between Jericho and Jerusalem. No
Matthew, no Mark, knows anything whatever of the popular
addresses, or indeed is able to report any detail ; and everything
harmonizes with the report that Jesus passed through the mag
nificent Jericho almost without any halt, therefore certainly
without any great missionary work, in order to find his mission
in Jerusalem, and there alone.1
It would be a useless labour to challenge in detail the order
of sequence of the occurrences from the Jordan to Jerusalem.
We might, for example, find that a disputation with the Phari
sees makes its appearance at the entrance-gate of Judsea, placed
there by the writer almost intentionally in order that it might
stand as border- watcher of the holy region, and as forerunner of
the approaching life-and-death struggle.2 Yet we should notr-over-
look that the sympathetic thronging of the people around hi —
which itself, again, explains the Pharisaic opposition — is perhaps
only prematurely stated and in too strong language, that the
order of sequence is not artificial, and that on the whole one's
doubts are satisfactorily met by the close unanimity of the three
earlier Gospels, which commences just at this point, as well as
by the undeniable simplicity and naturalness of their miracle-
less narratives, — both evidences of a fixed, unhesitating, early
tradition, closely connected with Jesus' fate at Jerusalem and
his exhibition of the fullest resignation.3
1 Matt. xix. 2 mentions only healings, no addresses to the people; Mark x. 1, the
addresses to the people, but indefinitely. Weizs. p. 513 (see above, p. 10, note 1)
would, with others, gather from Mark x. 1 a protracted sojourn in Judaea and Persea.
2 Matt. xix. 3 (Mark x. 2).
3 Thronging of the people in Matt. xix. 2, yet more strongly than Mark. x. 1.
Recently Volkmar has found in the narratives which precede the entry into Jerusalem
nothing but more or less unhistorical doctrinal pictures of the true religion : (1) honour
paid to woman (by a no longer barbarian marriage law), (2) believing disposition (the
child), (3) all-surrendering love (the youth), (4) true hope, which does not seek for
everything in the future (Peter), (5) ministering love and its greatness (the sons of
Zebedee). The arbitrary character of this purely factual series of divisions is at once
seen, since the respective details are loosely connected, and there does not exist a

26 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
Thus we begin the entrance into the Jewish land, the crossing
the Jordan, with the innocent and lovely picture of the Jewish
parents who bring their infants to Jesus that he — as did the
Scribes and synagogue-rulers — might lay his hands upon them
and pray over them.1 In Luke, where the Pharisees are wanting,
this incident is placed in the first position; in Matthew and
Mark, at least in the second, and is so narrated that in Matthew
it happens on the highway, and in Mark in the first hospitable
house of the Jewish district. And it is quite characteristic that
in Judsea, as in Galilee, the wives, the mothers, although not
expressly mentioned, chiefly and first apply to the man of
religion, the new prophet, encouraged by the crowd of women
in his retinue, and still more by the loving spirit which they
discover in the countenance and in the words of Jesus. It is
characteristic also that these mothers, indifferent to the great
questions which are about to be opened for them and the whole
nation at Jerusalem, content themselves with a blessing for the
darlings of their hearts and homes; and that Jesus himself
begins his ministry in the south with an exhibition of the profound
affectionateness which he had not even yet lost, and with an act
of blessing. We must not fear that this incident is merely a
duplicate tradition of that of the Galilean child whom Jesus
placed in the midst of the jealous disciples, introduced here with
the view of representing Jesus, on his entrance into the holy
country, as the bringer of blessing to the nation, or — since the
nation rejected him — to the coming generation.2 For the account
rational ground for treating of the axioms of the true religion outside of the gates of
Jerusalem. Particularly is No. 1 no leading proposition of Jesus', which could come
in the series before No. 2 ; No. 3 shows at first the very opposite, and would therefore
be a very poor example ; 3 and 5 coincide in idea, and ought not to be separated
by 4 ; and who can find in 4 the hope that is partly withdrawn from the future life ?
Hilg., 1868, p. 24, also schematizes : (1) sanctity of marriage, (2) children born to
married persons, (3) possession ! Strauss, 4th ed., I. p. 645, intimates that one detail
(the marriage controversy) points rather to Jerusalem.
1 Matt. xix. 13 ; Luke xviii. 15 ; Mark x. 13. The benedictions in the synagogue,
Buxt. Synag. p. 138.
2 Matt, xviii. 2.

JUDAEA AND JERICHO. 27
is too ingenuous, the event is too probable, the words of Jesus
are too profoundly significant and new. As formerly Gehazi,
the servant of Elisha, wished to repulse the Shunammite woman
when she seized the feet of the prophet and strove for help for
the dead child, so the disciples, partly in order to guard the rest
of their Master, and partly in the haughty elevation of feeling
excited by their kingly projects at Jerusalem, chid the bringers
of the infants, who, as well as those whom they protected in their
arms, were of little importance to the disciples.1 But mildly as
Elisha, and not merely, like him, out of compassion for the
petitioners, but also out of love for the children both in their
own persons and as symbols, Jesus uttered the noble words :
" Let the little children come to me, and prevent them not, for
of such" — that is, of persons with such dispositions — "is the
kingdom of heaven." And laying his hands upon them, nay,
according to Mark taking them in his arms and blessing them,
he at one and the same time made the parents happy, and put to
shame the disciples who had once more forgotten the child-way
to the kingdom of heaven.2
But the gentle could be harsh, the pliant unbending, when
principle and not the heart had to speak. On the very threshold
of the Jewish territory the Pharisees met him. They could
hardly have been intentionally placed in his way as advanced
posts, as guards to cover Jericho and Jerusalem. It might
indeed have been already known in Jerusalem that he was coming
to the feast; but his route no one could have known, particularly if
he went through Persea. Either these Pharisees were themselves
1 2 Kings iv. 27. As the persons chidden, Mark points to the (ol) bearers of the
infants, Luke leaves it indefinite, Matt, favours the chiding of the children.
2 Luke and Mark (according to Weisse, I. p. 564, better) have here the addition
which is wanting to them in the passage corresponding to Matt, xviii. 3 (comp. above,
III. p. 105, IV. p. 335), although it is more needful there than here, where it is
wanting in Matthew. The likeness of condition (Matt. xix. 14) does not refer (Bengel,
De Wette ; comp. above, IV. p. 336, note 2) to physical age, but, as in Matt, xviii. 3
sqq., to the mental habitus (Wetstein). Laying on of hands effective benediction,
comp. Gen. xxvii. 4, 12 sqq., xlviii. 14. For the genuineness of the passage, Strauss,
I. p. 725.

28 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
pilgrims to the feast on the much-frequented road, perhaps in
the direction from Persea, or they were dwellers in the district,
perhaps of Jericho, since there was no part of the country where
Pharisees were not. They longed to engage in conflict with the
man who broke the ordinances, as all the country knew, who was
nevertheless a favourite with the people, and who was now in a
conspicuous manner enthusiastically greeted even in Judsea, — they
longed to engage in a conflict with this man which should either
destroy or unmask him. It had been remarked that in Galilee
Jesus had rejected legal divorce when referring to Antipas' second
marriage, though the question of divorce had not then been dis
cussed with any particular earnestness.1 What he had said in
the Sermon on the Mount against the Pharisaic legalism had thus,
at least in fragments, escaped from the smaUer circle of the
disciples to the knowledge of the general public ; or he had not
withheld from the people his dislike to an ordinance that
ploughed such deep furrows in the whole civil and domestic life,
and undermined all sincerity and all modesty and all love.2 Thus
with this one discovery, which had luckily rewarded their pains
taking whilst there was so much else to find out and to censure,
they accosted him, and temptingly asked, as if they wished now
first to hear or indeed to learn, and with the genuinely Pharisaic
trifling : " Is it permitted to a man to put away his wife ? "3
1 Ewald (p. 504) thinks of the marriage of Antipas as giving rise to the controversy.
But that was not, properly speaking, a divorce (Jos. Ant. 18, 5, 1), and the scandal
lay not in the separation, but in the fresh marriage. Among the Jews divorces were
frequent. Finally, we cannot speak of a contemporaneousness of the Antipas incident
and the last preaching of Jesus (comp. Matt. xiv. 3 sqq. ).
2 Comp. above, III. p. 308 sq.
3 Matt. xix. 3 ; Mark x. 2. Mark gives the original form of the question, since he
has not the addition of Matthew, divorce for every cause, or on every ground. In
itself this brutal extension of the freedom of divorce would be quite possible, quite
Jewish (comp. Jos. Ant. 4, 8, 23 : Kaff &g SVttot' ovv alriag. TroWal 6" &v roic
dvBpAiroig roiavrai yivoivro). But since the concession by Jesus of divorce in case of
fornication (Matt. xix. 9, opp. Mark x. 11 sq.) is not probable (above, III. p. 309),
but that general postulate of the Jews stands in evident relation to this limited con
cession of Jesus, the former falls with the latter. Comp. Weisse, I. p. 562. Moreover
Pharisaic Judaism was factually united against Jesus only in this, that it permitted
divorce at all, by no means that it permitted every kind of divorce. By the latter

JUDAEA AND JERICHO. 29
Jesus, as quickly self-possessed and mentally strong as he ever
was and must be against such sudden attacks, turned to the
decisive and impartial testimony of Scripture ; though not to the
commands of Moses, which here as nowhere else failed to support
him, but to the venerable introduction of the books of Moses, the
history of the creation, which proclaimed the divine and eternal
law of marriage, and to the commentary which that history
found in the words of the first man, really in the words of God<
" Have you not read," said he to the Scribes, in a manner which
put them to the blush, " that the Creator from the beginning
created them male and female ? And that he said, For this
cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shaU cleave
unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh ?x Wherefore they
are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined
together, let not a man part asunder." In point of fact, this grasp
of the ABC of the natural creation, this most convincing apology
of marriage, is here equally fine with the passing from nature to
Scripture by a simple quotation concerning the things of the
primitive age, and, in the other place, with the acute reflection
on the nature of marriage, and finally with the concise, nervous
conclusion concerning divine will and human caprice. And this
humanity of Jesus overcomes with victorious weapons the im
press of the profound and controversial spirit by the recognition
of an earthly ordinance with which his personal life, nay, his
inclinations and his principles, had nothing to do.
But his citations had not convinced, had not even touched,
the Pharisees. They had Moses on their side; with an easy
triumph they adduced the name about which he had been silent,
since he had appealed against the ancient to what was more
ancient. " Why then did Moses command to give a writing of
question, therefore, with reference to which the teachers themselves were divided, Jesus
could not have been tempted. This "temptation" (Matt.) Neander has groundlessly
denied (p. 440).
1 Gen. i. 27. The words of Adam, Gen. ii. 23 sq. " The two" does not stand in
the Hebrew, but only (in the interest of monogamy) in the LXX., which Paul also
follows, 1 Cor. vi. 16.

30 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
divorcement and to put her away V'1 Now Moses stood against
Jesus ; and Jesus for the first time was placed in the dilemma
which compelled him — perhaps not merely externally by word
and explanation, but also mentally in his reflection, in his judg
ment, in his principle — either to sacrifice Moses, or to hold him
fast as he had always held him fast, and had designated his teach
ing the indissoluble word of God, in opposition to the ordinances
which he — Jesus — tore in pieces. Vigorous controversy was of
a like service to him as disputation to Luther ; he was necessi
tated either to stand still with his principles, or distinctly and
boldly at the most dangerous moment, under the eyes of Jeru
salem, to go further, even to the denial of what he had hitherto,
without severe consistency but piously, held fast and wished to
hold fast, although, when more closely looked at, it contradicted
his principle. Thus did Jesus, for the first time, arrive at the
point of repudiating Moses, — he found it necessary and he yielded
reluctantly. He might have broken off the point of the contra
diction, if he, with the letter itself of Moses in his hand — which
permitted divorce on account of only infamous acts — had branded
the frivolity of his opponents who permitted divorce " for every
cause ;" and had he thus answered, as Matthew gives it, that he
recognized divorce in a qualified manner, namely divorce on
account of adultery, then he must have adopted this plan of
procedure.2 But he, stricter than his successors in the Church,
1 Deut. xxiv. 1. Form of bill of divorce, see above, III. p. 310, note 1 ; Jos. Ant.
4, 8, 23.
2 Matt. xix. 9 : /t>) im iropvuq. should be struck out, after Mark x. 11, and agreeably
with the remarks in Vol. III. I. c, and above, p. 28. This erasure appears here the
more necessary because Jesus' entire answer insists on the law of marriage absolutely and
without any exceptions, as definitely (verses 6 —8) as it does universally (verse 9), and
would be fundamentally weakened by the admission of exceptions ; because the great
alarm of the disciples (Matt. xix. 10)— who were deprived of every loophole of possibility
of divorce only by Shamma;an views— can be only thus explained ; because, finally, Paul,
in 1 Cor. vii. 11, is not acquainted with this qualification. Textually, the addition is
open to no suspicion ; it is only the connection which shows plainly that it is a correction
of the later Church with its allowance of divorce, an allowance which certainly gradually
became too lax, though justified on the ground of concrete conditions. Hug., Gratz,
Weisse, and others, recognized the doubtful character of the addition, which Meyer
defended.

JUDAEA AND JERICHO. 31
would have no divorce of any kind ; and since he would have
none, he was compelled to give a direct contradiction to Moses.
The Scriptures made his task the easier because here Scripture
stood against Scripture — nay, Moses against Moses, to whom,
according to Jewish opinion, the first book belonged as much as
the second ; and because he believed himself able to show that
Moses' bill of divorcement in the last of the books of Moses was
the fruit of that yielding to the stubbornness of the national
character which he could prove in so manifold a manner from
the rest of the history of Moses. "Because Moses" — he said,
courageously and without long deliberation — " having regard to
your hardness of heart, suffered you to put away your wives ! But
from the beginning it was not so ! But I say unto you, whoso
ever puts away his wife and marries another, commits adultery ;
and he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery."1
Doubtless the Pharisees regarded their cause as won by this solu
tion of his difficulty ; Jesus had declared himself against Moses ;
he had cut himself loose from the national institutions and from
the nation by setting up his "I" against the "You." Here was
a point discovered on which he could in fact be indicted before
the Sanhedrim.2 We are able to see that the bearing of this
sentence was certainly infinite ; that having made this one breach
in the Law, it was easy to widen the breach in every direction,
and to refer the whole of the ceremonial and sacrificial worship
of Moses to compliance with the materialistic longings of the
people ; and that not only Jesus' opponents, but also his Church,
which renounced the Law of Moses, might rejoice in the brave
act of the Master, who both overthrew the edifice of Pharisaism
and also began the work of loosening and even of tearing away
the stones with which Moses built.3 Only we should not forget
1 Comp. Matt. v. 32 ; Luke xvi. 18. Hardness of heart, comp. Deut. x. 16 ;
Is. xlviii. 4; Ez. iii. 7; Zech. vii. 12. In the Rabbis of ten, jezer hara. air dpxriQ=
rishonah. 2 Here is the only point where the Johannine expression, " your Law,'' finds support.
3 Montanus based his theory upon this sentence, Tert. Mon. 14. Comp. Acts
vii. 48 sqq.

32 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
that even here he was actuated by a fervent piety, and that he,
compelled thus to act in this one point, did not complete the
overthrow of the whole either in avowal or in deed ; that, in the
historical limitation of his task, he remained a preacher of Moses
to the end. He was a destroyer of Moses in the way of prin
ciple and its destructive consequences, only as Socrates was a
destroyer of the worship of his fatherland; and those Gospel
Scriptures which, like Mark and John, and Mark in particular,
in this very incident loudly and for a purpose announce the
absolute and radical breach of Jesus with the prescribed ordi
nances, have recorded rather the belief of their time than that of
Jesus.1 The conversation of Jesus with the Pharisees was recalled in
the circle of the disciples, after the former had left the place.
" If the case of the man be so with his wife " — said they to him
on the way, and not exactly in a house, as Mark, according to his
wont, describes it — "then it is not advisable to marry."2 We see
from this expression that these disciples themselves still strongly
sympathized with the Pharisaic and general Jewish view of the
easy separability of married persons ; and that, they themselves
being for the most part married, it fell heavily upon their hearts
to be tied up to the existing marriage under all circumstances, —
an anxiety which more plainly than all shows that Jesus softened
his vigorous statement by no exception, not even by the most
conciliating exception of the wife's adultery, which the later
1 The secondary character of Mark, as to this narration, which is naturaUy not
admitted by Volkmar, has been made prominent by Bleek (II. p. 261). What is most
important is, that Mark makes Jesus provoke the conflict with Moses (x. 3), which is
quite unhistorical, nay, is impossible ; for Jesus did not intentionally create the critical
situation ; he was in reality driven into contradiction against Moses, in the course of
discussion, by the objection of his opponents (Matt. xix. 7). Who does not further
perceive the secondary character of Mark, in the mixing up by Mark of the two utter
ances in Matt. xix. 4 sqq. and 7 sqq., in the introduction of the passage of Scripture
as a saying of Jesus (Mark x. 7), in the introduction of the conversation in the house
(x. 10), in the divorce of the woman from the man, which is quite un-Jewish (Greco-
Roman, see Wetst. on 1 Cor. vii. 13), and is without any justification from Jos. Ant.
15, 7, 10 (Salome's bill of divorce against Costobarus), and 1 Cor. vii. 10, 13 ? The
historical inappropriateness in Mark x. 12, even Volkmar is compelled to admit.
2 The house, in Mark ii. 1, 15, iii. 19, vii. 17, 24, ix. 28, a. 10.

JUDAEA AND JERICHO. 33
Church, and first of all our Matthew, introduced.1 This anxious
appeal of the disciples does not at all give us a right to ask why
it did not make itself heard earlier, when similar propositions
were enounced in the Sermon on the Mount, and whether
perhaps those propositions of the Sermon on the Mount are not
to be regarded, on this very ground, as mere duplicates of the
current events which were so full of life. Without that Sermon
on the Mount, to the nucleus of which these propositions belong,
our present incident, this disputation, could not well have
occurred. The objection of the disciples was not, however, uttered
on that former occasion, and it was now uttered the rather
because the question was now for the first time thoroughly
canvassed on its own merits, so as to produce a strong and
permanent impression.2 Jesus answered the objection in a note
worthy manner — in Matthew at least, whilst Mark prudently
avoids the difficult words. He confirms not only, as in Mark,
the indissolubility of marriage — where Mark, with his western
marriage law, used an altogether unhistorical formula — but also
in a surprising manner the conclusion of the disciples concerning
the unadvisability of marriage.3 The surprise is double : first he
appears to give an unqualified sanction to this carnally anxious
conclusion, and then suddenly gives another turn to the subject ;
and secondly, in this fresh turn, he seems to overthrow his own
carefully considered and correct view of the natuse of the crea
tion and of the sanctity of marriage. " Not all men," answered
Jesus, " receive the proposition ; but they to whom it is given.
1 Divorce after adulterium, Pastor of Hernias, 2, 4. Further help, with many con
sequences, given in 1 Cor. vii. 15.
2 Matt. v. 32 and xix. 3 sqq. are seen to be independently original, notwithstanding
all their relationship. See above, III. p. 310.
* Mark x. 11 sq., and above, p. 32, n. 1. Matt. xix. 12 sq. The words here, "not
all give room to (accept or understand) this saying," has no reference whatever to the
saying in verse 9 about the indissolubility of marriage (Hofm. ), but to that of the
disciples in verse 10 about abstinence from marriage (thus moBt critics) ; for what
follows does not treat of non-dissolubility or dissolubility, but only of abstinence;
wherefore Bengel, De Wette, Bleek, have referred "this saying" even less to the words
of the disciples than to the following abstinence doctrine of Jesus himself, which, how
ever, is not correct.
VOL. V. D

34 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
For there are" — said he, in a genuinely Jewish mode of speaking
— " eunuchs who were so born from their mothers' womb ; and
there are eunuchs who were made such by men ; and there are
eunuchs who have made themselves such for the sake of the
kingdom of heaven. Let him receive it who is able to receive
it."1 Thus, in a bold paradox, he gave assent to the proposition of
the disciples, that marriage was not advisable. But that which
they, apparently with his approval, had ingeniously arrived at
with a view of adapting the difficult moral command to their
sensual needs, was for him the stepping-stone to a demand
which represented the renunciation, and indeed the unqualified
renunciation, of marriage as a moral sacrifice and not as a sensual
alleviation. From the natural and the artificial suppression of
the sexual function, he distinguished that of moral purpose ; he
spoke of the renunciation of marriage for the kingdom of heaven's
sake, which one and another — he did not mean any Essene, but
most probably particular prophets, the Baptist and himself — had
already made.2 We do not see here plainly what he understood
by renunciation "for the kingdom of heaven's sake;" and we
still less plainly see how he was able to harmonize such an abso
lute renunciation of marriage with his emphatic assertion of the
law of marriage. Did he contradict himself ? or did he, like his
Apostle Paul, hold that marriage was good, but celibacy better,
purer, more perfect ? Did he connect this latter idea with his say
ing at Jerusalem, that at the resurrection, at the consummation of
the creation and of the kingdom of heaven, men would not many,
1 The Rabbis also distinguish seris (eunuchus) chammah (solis, natura;), serfs adam
(per homines) ; and the former is also called saris bide shamaim (eunuch of God).
Self-eunuchization is spoken of in B. Sohar with reference to Isaiah lvi. 3, and it
is said of the Scribes : qui semet ipsos castrant per integros sex dies hebdomadis legi-
que incumbunt, nocte vero sabb. demum rei uxorise operam dant, Schottgen, p. 159.
2 He was not thinking of the Essenes, since they had nothing to do with the king
dom of heaven. The prophets were at least the preparers of the kingdom. John might
for his part remain unmarried for reasons of purification (Matt, xi.) ; but Jesus credited
him with his higher conception, particularly here where he treats him as the ideal of
Israel.

JUDAEA AND JERICHO. 35
but would lead a life like that of the angels l1 But this obscure,
easily misunderstood passage, which the great Church teacher
Origen, in the days of his first youthful love to the Lord, is said
to have interpreted and acted upon literally, gains clearness as
soon as we look at it in its own context.2 The energetic defender
of the will of God in the creation could not have supplementarily
cast upon Him the shadow of physical impurity, as if God, like
Moses, had for a long time shown indulgence to the sensuousnesa
which, however, He had himself created. The lively, joyous,
unquestioning usufructuary of the gifts of nature and of God
could cast a stone at none of these gifts. The preacher of the
virtues of the spirit and the will could build a virtue upon no
act or omission of nature. But when he calls John and himself
patterns of those who had made themselves eunuchs for the king
dom of heaven's sake, and when he requires his disciples to
forsake houses and wives for the kingdom of heaven's sake, it
becomes to us positively intelligible what he means by the severe
solitary sentence in which expositors have thought to detect an
Essene view of the universe or an obscure utterance of Jesus
against himself.3 The moral zeal for the kingdom of heaven, for
the undivided life in God and in the cause, in the great task, of
God, demands first of all the possessing what one has as if one
had it not; and he imposes the actual not-having upon indi
viduals in isolated cases. But this not-having is no command,
and it is not even commended except to the most intimate circle
of disciples ; it is the voluntary act, nay the divine gift, of indi
viduals who derive from themselves the impulse thus to be, or
who are conscious of the power to imitate the life of the Master
1 Matt. xx. 30 ; 1 Cor. vii. 1 sqq. Neander (p. 442), Weisse (II. p. 104), and
naturally Volkmar (p. 483), actually contest the connection with the former speech.
2 Redepenning, Origen, I. p. 144. An evil-disposed opponent might appeal to the
Gospel of the Egyptians (see above, I. p. 44).
3 Matt. xix. 27 sqq. Not only Gfrorer, but even Strauss (4th ed., I. p. 646) and
Hilgenfeld (1868, p. 24), have thought of Essenism. Weisse (II. p. 104) : sacerdotal
tone of mind. More correctly, with emphasis on the practical task, Neander, p. 443 ;
Witt. p. 187.
D 2

36 THE. JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
at his slightest hint, and to be free of the world in their spiritual
activity.1 Thus he remained in harmony with himself. He
proclaimed marriage to be the ordinance of the race, and celibacy
for the kingdom's sake to be an exceptional gift and achievement
of few. The strict but wise Master led his disciples as far as to
the dispensing with earthly good, but not a line further towards
the renouncing of it ; for he imposed no new unnatural yoke like
that of the Pharisees. Hence a very few, and perhaps even those
not without misunderstanding, have followed him in the virtue
which he proclaimed as an exception and not as the rule.2
The scene of conflict with the Pharisees was soon after
followed by a more friendly encounter. The contradicted sign
in Israel repelled Pharisees, and by it Pharisees were attracted.
A young man educated in Pharisaic principles, attracted both by
the gentle personal character of Jesus and by his theory and
advocacy of the kingdom, approached him with one of those
questions such as the Baptist in that very region had heard out
of so many mouths and hearts — with the question of confidence
in the new Teacher in Israel and of distrust of the way of right
eousness which he had hitherto trodden: "Teacher, what good
thing shall I do that I may have eternal life ? " or, according to
the later and once more ingeniously contrived report of Luke and
Mark, more flatteringly : " Good Teacher, what shall I do that I
may have eternal life ?"3 According to all these authors, Jesus
1 Since Jesus by no means made celibacy a rule, and yet (Matt. xix. 10) adopted
the proposition, "it is not profitable to marry," this proposition therefore plainly
carries with it the sense of that which is of special moral advantage, and not of that
which is necessary to moral health.
2 The myth of John the virgin, see above, III. p. 262, note 4, based chiefly on the
Essene view of Rev. xiv. 4. Montanism in error, Tert. Monog. 3 : Dominus spadonibus
aperit regna coelorum ut et ipse spado. Origen, see above, p. 35.
2 Matt. xix. 16; Luke xviii. 18; Mark x. 17. Similar questions (Luke iii. 10)
among the Rabbis. Berach. Wetstein, p. 449 : Rabbi, doce nos viam ad vitam arter-
nam. Ib. p. 450 : quid debeo facere et faciam ? The designation of the questioner
as young man in Matt. xix. 22 (in Luke apx<ov, in Mark only dg) is quite correct
although Weisse and Holtzmann explain it as a transposition from verse 20 and
Neander introduces an elderly synagogue overseer (p. 446); not only is the whole
impression that of an eager and immature young man, but in all the Gospels the com-

JUDAEA AND JERICHO. 37
objected that the claim to be the " Good," in the more correct
construction of Matthew, the oracle of the Good, was an inva
sion of the sovereign right of God. "One is the Good, God;"
but goodness in life was the long since fixed command of that
One. In harmony with himself, and, one might almost say,
with a certain intentional reference to previous events, he here
pointed again to those moral commands of Moses, which he
never attacked, even though he attacked the bill of divorce :
" Thou knowest the commands, Thou shalt not kill, nor commit
adultery, nor steal, nor bear false witness; thou shalt honour
father and mother, love thy neighbour as thyself."1 In this
straightforward answer he again revealed the great Teacher who
mandment to obey parents is placed before the person in question. As here Matthew
is censured, but unjustly, so in the yet much weightier point of the young man's ques
tion and Jesus' answer. There are here two distinct conceptions, one represented by
Matthew, the other by Luke and Mark ; whilst the Gospel of the Hebrews seeks to
connect the two by the aid of the weak invention of two rich men. On Marcion, comp.
Zeller, in Theol. Jahrb. 1851, p. 334. In Matthew the attested reading, often amal
gamated with Luke and Mark, is : SiSarrK., ri ay., &c. Tt fie. ipbira'g irepl roil dya-
Bov ; tig £. o ay. The conception in Luke and Mark, see in Tischendorf. Even Bleek
(comp. Neander, Weisse, Schenkel, Holtzm.) and Hilgenfeld are inclined to prefer
Luke and Mark here, since at any rate Matt, can be better explained from Luke and
Mark, than vice versa. Gess (p. 113) is for both answers ! The general opinion is,
that Matthew did not wish to allow Jesus' goodness to be denied. This is the reverse
of fact, for this denial exists in the form given by Matt. xix. 17, and the construction
in Luke and Mark is explicable out of this very form. But what is decisive is : (1)
the title " Good Rabbi" was absolutely unknown among the Jews. See Lightfoot,
p. 554, who did not find it anywhere in the whole Talmud. It is a Greco-Roman, not
a Jewish, style of title. (2) The Matthew form is more difficult and more vigorous,
the other is smoother and more characterless, as every one can see. In the second
century, certainly, this reading was generally preferred ; comp. Volkmar, Marcion,
p. 86. Besides, the secondary character of the two later writers is otherwise easily
discovered ; comp. only xix. 17, 19, 21, 23 — 26. The representation in the text above,
that Jesus is treated as oracle of what is good, is exposed to the objection of Meyer,
that the emphasis falls only on the good and not on Jesus (p.e, not iuk). But dg !
1 Jesus refers mainly to the two tables of the Law, Laws 6 — 9 and 5. Luke and
Mark place adultery before murder = LXX., Vat. Ex. xx. 13 sqq. Comp. Vat. Deut.
V. 17; Romans xiii. 9; Anger, I. p. 18; Hilgenfeld, p. 25. Mark adds fir) airoore-
pr\oyg, probably after Ex. xx. 17 (tenth commandment), not (Meyer) from Deut. xxiv.
14 (ovk diraSiicrioug uia&bv). The concluding injunction to love our neighbours,
Levit. xix. 18 (also Matt. xxii. 39), only in Matthew and the Gospel of the Hebrews
(comp. Hilg. 1868, p. 25), but scarcely (as Origen already thought) a mere addition,
since it forms the appropriate transition to the injunction to give away goods to our
fellow-men.

38 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
needed not to build his religion either upon the overthrow of
Moses or upon the setting aside of the most elementary rules of
morality by what was high-sounding and out of the way. On
the contrary, the simplest, the most self-evident, but by the
Pharisees most abused rule, the love of parents, the love of man
kind, what in fact was most generally current, nearest, most
natural, — that was the virtue which he preached and insisted
upon, and proclaimed to be the inheritor of the loftiest promises
and blessings. But to the young Pharisee this virtue seemed too
conventional, too insignificant ; with self-gratulation and self-
righteousness, but also with a high-soaring belief in the necessity
of a loftier performance, he answered : " All this I observed. In
what am I still lacking V'1
Jesus was, doubtless, not inclined to endorse this strong belief
in the factual fulfilment of the so-called ordinary duties, when
he had just before insisted upon that fulfilment as something
great, eternal, and never completed ; and he was doubtless in a
position, by a few questions, to make experience the means of
moderating the feeling of self-satisfaction in this respect. But
since the young man preferred extraordinary virtue to ordi
nary, Jesus, with a quick, pedagogic mastery of the situation,
offered him what was extraordinary, a means of incontrovertibly
proving his asserted unbounded love of his fellows, in order
thereby to sober his impetuous nature, and to humble the feeling
of strength which was not sufficient to accomplish the great and
therefore also not the small: "If thou wilt be perfect" — spoke
he, half in earnest, but half also by way of accommodating himself
to the questioner — "go, sell what thou hast, give to the poor,
1 ek vaor. fiov, from youth onwards, well established only in Luke and Mark, want
ing in Matthew in Sin. B D L. Hilgenfeld retains it. Luke and Mark may have
introduced it from Matt. xix. 22. The belief in the complete fulfilment of the Law
(above, III. p. 97, note 3) often in the Talmud : Abraham, Moses, Aaron, integram
legem observarunt. Among the Rabbis also : R. Chanina and others boast totam legem
observasse ab Aleph usque ad Tau. Schbttgen, p. 160. The question, ti m varzpS),
only in Matthew ; on the other hand, Luke and Mark interweave it into Jesus' answer.
Comp. Aruch, f. 127, 4: num reliquum est mihi aliquod officium ! Schottgen, p. 161.
Also Wetstein, p. 450.

JUD&A AND JERICHO. 39
and thou shalt have a treasure in the heavens ; and come, follow
me I"1 Upon this superabundantly zealous young man he
imposed an obligation such as he had never imposed upon his
adherents, upon his Apostles. Of them he had indeed demanded
the following and the forsaking, but by no means the selling all
and giving it away. And upon the young man he imposed an
obligation, the extraordinary character of which seemed to be in
direct contradiction to the ordinary duties which he had previ
ously named, and chiefly with that of obedience to parents. It
may be doubted whether Jesus was in earnest in the imposition
of this obligation and in insisting upon compliance with his
command, or whether it was not rather his intention to humble
the young man, who might become his disciple on confessing his
weakness. But since the requirement of Jesus is much too
definitely expressed to allow of such a doubt ; since, moreover,
he afterwards loudly complained of the lack of the spirit of self-
sacrifice on the part of the rich ; since, also, he elsewhere com
mends the renunciation of the earthly for the kingdom of God's
sake, as an ideal which, though he imposed it upon no one, he
held up before all ; on these accounts, we must hold that he was
in earnest in his requirement, and we must admit that this was
his right when met by a feeling of self-satisfaction which must
either be shattered or, by an actual sacrifice unto blood, must at
once gain justification and purification and reach the longed-for
perfection.2 To the young man, however, the test which he
1 According to Matt. xix. 21 (comp. Luke xviii. 22, Mark x. 21 : one thing more
remains to thee). In Mark x. 21, indeed, it is said : Follow, bearing the cross. The
treasures in heaven are similarly acquired according to the Rabbis and Luke xii. 33.
Acquired by striving after righteousness, Matt. vi. 19, 33. See above, III. pp. 30 sq.
Alms to the poor is often enjoined by the Jews. Soh. Gen. in Schottgen, p. 162 :
divitias homini dat ideo, ut pauperes alat. Avod. Sar. f. 64, 1 : vendite omnia, quse
habetis (and then become a proselyte), Wetstein, p. 451.
2 Hilgenfeld (1868, pp. 25 sqq.) makes an attack that is altogether out of date
against the canonical Matthew, commending in its place the Gospel of the Hebrews
(comp. Hilg. N. T. 16, 25), which Neander (p. 449) had already justly rejected, and
which knows nothing of a perfection by way of the opus operatum and of the thereby
acquired treasures in heaven, a representation worthy of the Shepherd. He pays as
little regard to the singularity of the case (Weisse, I. p. 565) as to the related passages,

40 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
himself had challenged proved too severe. On the one hand, he
was powerfully drawn by the good and great Teacher and by an
innate leaning towards the ideal ; on the other hand, he was
attracted by the realism of his actual riches. And the riches
conquered ; he went away, though, it is true, with the conscience-
wound of a heart perturbed by the sense of bann and of weakness,
perturbed by the loss of the Master and of the ideal.
This conversation had its reverberations in the circle of the
disciples. And Jesus himself — even though he did not, as Mark
represents, conceive an affection for the young man at the first
glance, and on his bold assertion of his self-satisfaction and self-
confidence — was much too strongly moved by this tragedy of a
human history, unlike any he had before witnessed, by this
descent from high to low, from noble to ignoble, not to have
allowed his sympathy and his thoughts to accompany the sorrow
ful retreat of the sorrowing man.1 " Verily, I say unto you" —
spoke he to the desciples — " that a rich man shall enter into the
kingdom of heaven with bitter pains.2 Again I say unto you, it is
less difficult for a camel to go through a needle's eye than a rich
man into the kingdom of God."3 This strong and, in its form,
genuinely Oriental expression of Jesus shocked the disciples, in
Matt. r. 48, v. 12, vi. 1 sqq., 20. He also thinks that Peter's question, xix. 27, was
not possible if Jesus had previously spoken of a heavenly treasure !
1 Mark x. 21.
2 According to Matt. xix. 23 (comp. Luke xviii. 24 ; Mark x. 23). Luke, the man
of the kingdom of the present, has " enter into," instead of " shall enter into."
3 Difference of expression in the three. In Matt. xix. 24, /3. ovp., Or., Patr. ; 0eoij,
Sin. BCD (more difficult, see above, Vol. III. p. 48, note 3). Comp. Rabbis : camelus
saltat in cabo (smallest corn -measure). Non ostendunt elephamtem incedentem per
foramen acus. Introducere eleph. per for. a. = impossibilia. Lightfoot, p. 347 ¦
Schottgen, p. 163; Wetstein, p. 451. Celsus (6, 16), in fact, charges Jesus with
having borrowed this speech (as well as others, c. g. that about smiting the cheek 7
58) from Plato. For similar sentiment, comp. Matt. vii. 13; thus already Orieen
15, 20. Erroneous explanation, which makes a thick rope (rcayuiAoc) out of " camel "
or a small gate out of the " needle's eye." The saying of Jesus repeated in the Koran
chap. vii. 38 : non ingredientur paradisum, donee transeat camelus foramen acus. The
Gospel of the Hebrews represents the figurative speech as solemnly addressed to Peter ¦
Simon fili Johanne (sitting next to Jesus), facilius est, ha. (Hilg. Hebr.-Ev. 17) •
plainly because Peter then (Matt. xix. 27) takes up the word.

JUDAEA AND JERICHO. 41
Mark, where Jesus is represented as repeating and, by his
imagery, intensifying even doubly and trebly his proposition,
which he accompanied by a significant glance around him. The
disciples themselves were naturally out of well-to-do houses ;
and at one blow they saw themselves and half Galilee — as pre
viously on the question of marriage — now cut off from entrance
into the long-coveted kingdom.1 "Who then can be saved?"
cried they to Jesus, not unbelievingly, but half despairingly, in a
way which sets at rest every doubt whether they themselves and
the most important of Jesus' adherents belonged to the beggars
or to the possessors of property in Galilee.2 With a look that
was appropriate to the personal reference of the question, Jesus
answered out of the depth of his infinite faith in God, and in the
words of God himself once heard by Abraham and Sarah : " With
men this is impossible, but with God all is possible."3 Thus he,
after his own manner, as the strong one whose strength was
rooted in God alone, took away all human self-confidence, by
sealing with his assenting testimony the factual impotence of the
young man and the desponding anxiety of the disciples, while
he set the minds of the disciples at rest without making them
self-secure, by permitting them to believe in the gift of God
which had hitherto broken in them the ban of possession, and
would do it in them and others even to the great deciding point
of all things.
The appeasement of their anxiety and the recognition of Jesus
did them more than sufficient service. The dejected were again
encouraged ; the saved of God recalled, with something of petty
jealousy, their human contributions towards their salvation.
Most of all it became clear to them, when they had overcome the
1 Mark x. 23 — 26. On the other hand, there falls upon Mark the gravamen that
he, in x. 24, speaks not of the rich, but of those that trust in what they possess (above,
Vol. I. p. 123); but, according to Sin. B A It., these words fall away altogether, and
there stands only, How hard it is to enter into the kingdom of God !
2 Similar question, Numbers xxiv. 23.
3 Gen. xviii. 14; Luke i. 37. The Platonist Celsus adds (5, 24), that to God the
natural and the rational alone are possible.

42 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
first alarm caused by Jesus' utterance about the rich, that their
contributions could be regarded as the right, sound, and gratifying
antithesis to the non-following of the rich ; although they did
not reflect that they had merely left their goods, and had neither
sold nor given them away. With this faith grew their claims ;
and with the nearer approach of the kingdom of heaven, of which
Jesus had again reminded them, grew their selfish longings. The
conjecture that the claim made by Peter — narrated by the three
Evangelists immediately after the incident of the young man —
could not in reality have followed the deep humiliation of the
young man and of the disciples, is overborne by the perception
that the mental revulsion of the disciples from dismay to bold
importunity is thoroughly psychological, although it is anything
but noble religiously.1 " Behold," Peter briskly began, " we have
left all and foUowed thee !" This was spoken in a tone which
showed that at any rate he wished to say what Matthew makes
him say: "What, then, shall we have?"2 Jesus received him in
a marvellous manner. Upon the man who had so suddenly
grown again self-satisfied, nay exacting, he might appropriately
have enforced the lost moral of the occurrence of the day, just as
on one occasion, according to Luke, he corrected the mistaken
wish of the disciples, who, as the wages of their ploughing and
pasturing, longed to sit at meat as well-deserving, though in truth
unprofitable, servants.3 But no. He, who insisted upon human
weakness and the divine gift, nevertheless knew how to respect
human achievements, and was ready to prize them doubly, since
the case of the young man showed him the significance of the sin
cere and faithful adherence of his disciples, and the journey to
1 Matt. xix. 27; Luke xviii. 28; Markx. 28. Hilgenfeld (1868, pp. 25 sqq.) thinks
that, particularly after the mention of treasure in heaven (Matt. xix. 21), Peter's
question was impossible. But the disciples' giving away was differently conceived from
that of the young man ; and Peter, if he appropriated the treasure in heaven to him
self, was interested in knowing of what it consisted. Indeed, the treasure must come
upon earth, see above, III. p. 53, note 1.
a Weisse, I. p. 567 : Peter was concerned rather about his soul !
3 Luke xvii. 7.

JUDJEA AND JERICHO. 43
Jerusalem demanded the steeling of its persistence. He there
fore took the course of first encouraging, not humbling, and of
then aHowing the admonition to modesty to follow the promises.
"Verily, I say unto you" — thus he began, in words that would
comfort, elevate, and inspirit — " that ye, my followers, in the
renovation of things, when the Son of Man sits down on the
throne of his glory, shall yourselves also sit upon twelve thrones
as judges of the twelve tribes of Israel.1 And every one that has
left brothers or sisters, or father or mother, or children, or land or
houses, for myname's sake, shall receive manifold, and shall inherit
eternal life." For this is the genuine utterance, which has been
preserved in its purity by Matthew alone ; whilst Luke and Mark,
at a later period which had almost given up an expectation of
Jesus' coming again, have consoled the faithful with the mediocre
gains of the present time, afterwards crowned by eternal life.2
1 This passage only in Matt. xix. 28, and indeed (against Neander, p. 451) quite
correctly, since even the following shows a distinction between the Apostles and the
wider circle of disciples. Luke and Mark have only the general promise of Jesus,
which follows. We might find the reason in antipathy to the anticipation of mate
rial presence, which antipathy is to be found in Luke xviii. 29, and Mark x. 30. Yet
Luke has the passage in question, in his sources, inappropriately at the Last Supper,
xxii. 28 sqq. ; but Mark lets it go entirely, for the above reason (comp. Mark ix. 1).
The renovation of things (palingenesis) only here (comp. Matt. xvii. 11 ; Acts i. 6,
iii. 21), except in the Epistle of Titus, iii. 5 (bath of the second-birth) ; it corresponds
to the Old Testament shub, heshib, chiddesh (subst., besides chadashot, Is. xiii. 9,
preferably shubab. or teshubah), comp. Ezekiel xvi. 55 ; Nahum ii. 3 ; Mai. iv. 6 ;
Dan. ix. 25. In Ezekiel, shub lekadmato (to its origin). The idea is, theocratic
renovation of the world, Matt. v. 5 (in Eng. version), not exactly by a new heaven
and a new earth (Is. Ixv. 17, Ixvi. 22 ; Book of Enoch 45, 91 ; Rev. xxi. 1 ; Rom.
viii. 19 ; 2 Peter iii. 13), or by resurrection, of which there is no trace in the Gospels.
See above, IV. pp. 294 sq. Among the Greeks, also by Philo and Josephus, mention
often made of restoration of possessions, fatherland, life, the world ; irdk. irarpi&og,
Jos. Ant. 11, 3, 9 ; comp. Wetst. and Grimm. Thrones of the Apostles sitting in
judgment (who also rule, Grot., Kuinol, Neander, p. 451 ; Colani, p. 63 ; Gess, p. 149),
comp. Daniel vii. 22 ; Wisdom, iii. 8 ; Book of Enoch 61 sqq., 108 ; 1 Cor. vi. 2 ;
Rev. xx. 4. Shem. rabb. s. 5 : sedere faciet sanctus seniores Israelis sicut in semi-
circulo, ipse iis prsesidens sicut pater synedrii et judicabunt nationes mundi. Light
foot, p. 611. Later, there was shown at least the episcopal throne of James, Eus. 7, 19.
Throne of glory particularly often in the interpolated Book of Enoch, 45 sqq., 55, 60.
Rationalistic treatment of the throne, Neander, p. 451 ; Weisse, II. p. 106 ; Schenkel,
p. 215 ; Gess, p. 115, obscure until the fulfilment.
2 The same lost seven objects stand in Matthew and Mark, only Mark, with Luke,
unskilfully places house first and land last. Luke has only five objects, yet factually

44 THE JOURNEY TO THE .FEAST.
After Jesus had promised to the Twelve participation in the
Messianic judgment of Israel and of the twelve tribes who were
to be again restored by this judgment, — and after he had promised
to those other followers by whom he was surrounded, the copious
— although not, in the sense of Mark, materially literal— resti
tution of all temporal losses, with the addition of the eternal,
i. e. the endless, blissful life of the resurrection, he then added to
the royal gift the sobering warning, and in a masterly manner,
in one address — preserved in its entirety only by Matthew — he
suppressed the sense of security, the. sense of merit acquired by
works, and the feeling of jealousy.1 "But," he said, "there will
be many first last, and last first."2 He had recourse to parable,
more, since he condenses parent and family from four into two, and adds wife. More
important, however, is the difference that Luke and Mark place the manifold recom
pence (Mark, hundred-fold) in this world, and distinguish therefrom the future world
with eternal life. But the present is not yet to them the Messianic period proper, which
stood to them in the obscure distance, whilst Matthew (also their own sources) means
this ; but to Luke and Mark it is the current pre-Messianic time ; wherefore Mark, in
an arbitrary addition, introduces persecutions, by which he points to Nero, Domitian,
and indeed also Trajan. Comp. above, IV. p. 295. According to Schenkel (Bibel-Lex.
III. p. 299), the sentences in Mark are genuine. Volkmar, also, does not see in Mark
and Luke the juvenility of this teaching about the present world ; Matthew is the stiff
Jewish man of the transcendental. On the rich compensation, comp. Is. Ixi. 7 (two
fold). Similarly, Targ. Cant. viii. 7 : duplum in sec. fut.
1 In a repulsive manner, Mark (he alone) represents that the literal, sensibly indi
vidual restoration of what was lost was placed in prospect, certainly not in an escha-
tological relation, but — in the immanent development of the kingdom which, as that
which is certain, Jesus himself shall enjoy and give — in antithesis to what is obscure
and uncertain (x. 30). Volkmar derives this from Paul, 1 Cor. iii. 22 ; 2 Cor. vi. 10 !
But Paul is more ideal in his immanence doctrine.
2 This addition is in Matt. xix. 30 (explained xx. 16); Mark x. 31 ; Luke, not here,
but xiii. 30 (with reference to the Gentiles). Naturally there is also lacking in Luke
the parable, which is altogether unsuitable for Paul (1 Cor. xv. 10; Luke xii. 3) • and
Mark readily follows him, although the short passage (x. 31) then remains essentially
obscure. Volkmar would derive the parable from Mark xii. 1. Weisse II. p. 107
is nearer the truth. Yet he (I. p. 567), like De Wette, Neander, Strauss, questions
the connection of the sentence with the following parable. The proposition itself has
many parallels, though that does not give us the right to make Matthew or Mark
dependent upon them. Book of Enoch 103, 11 (Is. ix. 14) : we hoped to be the head
and we were the tail. 4 Esdras v. 42 : sicut non novissimorum tarditas, sic nee
priorum velocitas. Barnabas 6 : rd tax- wg rd TrpSira (Matt. xii. 45). Talmud ¦
superiores inferius et inf. superius. Tauch. f. 3, 1 : Deus ultimos ponit in loco pri-
morum. Schbttgen, p. 164. Wetst. p. 453. Hilgenfeld, p. 32.

JUDJSA AND JERICHO. 45
to the kingdom-parable of the householder, or God, who, from
early morning onwards, hires workmen for his vineyard, and
agrees with them for the good wages of a denarius or franc a
day. At the first, the third, the sixth, the ninth, and the eleventh
hours, from six in the morning till five in the evening — we may
say, to the ringing in of the evening rest — he seeks day labourers,
whom, from nine o'clock onwards, he finds in numbers in the
market-place, and sends the unoccupied into his vineyard. The
payment begins at six in the evening. The steward, the Messiah,
is expressly charged to pay the last first, the first last. The first
murmur, not merely because the workmen of an hour are paid
first, but also because they receive equally high wages, whilst
they — the first — have borne the burden of the day and the heat.
But as to the first, the householder appeals to the contract ; and
as to the work of the last and the unamiable ill-feeling of the
first, he appeals to his right and to his goodness. This parable —
which, with most striking resemblances, occurs also among the
Jews — must not be misunderstood.1 Without doubt, the pay
ment does not appear simply as a gratuitous reward, but also as
a wage for work ; and the reward to those that began first appears
literally as not a gratuitous one, but altogether as a wage for
work. But since actually a very small minority of the labourers
bear the whole burden of the day, and a large majority only a
part of that burden, and yet are equally rewarded and rewarded
first of all, the meaning of the whole parable, corresponding to
the general view of Jesus and the necessary rejection of the
Jewish claim of the disciple, is that of reward above merit, with
out merit, the reward of God by grace.2 It would be a mistake
to suppose that, in the calls to labour extending through the
1 Exactly similar parables, Lightfoot, p. 347; Schottgen, pp. 164 sqq. ; Wetstein,
p. 455. Day's wage a denarius among Jews and Gentiles, Wetst. p. 453. Soldiers
had less, Tac. Ann. 1, 17. Hillel, only half a denarius, above, I. p. 349. Idle, Ex.
v. 17. Heat, Gen. xviii. 1, xxxi. 40. At the eleventh hour it was customary to
prepare for rest, without thinking any more of labour or fighting, Jos. B. J. 6, 2, 8.
2 Matt. xx. 16, the words, "many called, few chosen," are a later interpolation.
Tischendorf, after Sin. B L Z sah. copt. Nevertheless, retained by Hilg. p. 31.

46 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
hours of a day, Jesus was looking towards a great and extensive
future development of his Church, in which the Apostles and the
first followers only represented the sixth hour, in contrast to the
later Apostle Paul, or indeed to the Gentiles.1 This application
is to-day possible and useful ; but in point of fact, Jesus referred
primarily altogether to the past, to the hitherto gradual gathering
of his circle of disciples, and to the claims of those disciples.
Thus understood, the utterance of Jesus throws a new light upon
Peter's question as well as upon the claims of the Twelve gene
rally, and, finally, upon Jesus' promise of thrones. Since Peter —
in Matthew significantly called tlie first — gave prominence to the
fact that he and others had followed Jesus from the beginning,
he asked for, not only a reward, but a title of precedence before
the mass of adherents, before the later followers, both in and
out of the circle of Apostles. It was an ambition similar to that
exhibited before the departure from Galilee, and just after that
departure on the route to Jerusalem. Again, since Jesus placed
the followers on an equality in importance and reward, he
plainly proved that, in the face of the preferences to which he
had given expression in Galilee, and even now in the promise of
thrones to the Twelve, he firmly regarded at the same time all
his adherents as essentially equal. They were to be equal in
their gains, equal also — as was taught a moment later in the
words to the sons of Zebedee — in the rights and claims of the
1 The temporal succession which is represented in the first and the last (but as such
does not exclude a difference of rank, of which De Wette and Hilgenfeld think) does
not refer primarily to the Jews and Gentiles (Jerome, Theophyl., Grot., Strauss, Hilg.,
Volkmar), which is simply not indicated by the connection and subject (we need only
recal the similar Jewish sayings), but— as Weizs. in particular sees— to the earlier and
later disciples of Jesus. For the Gentile-favouring reference of the section, Hilgenfeld
urges that a work wage is given to the first called merely (xx. 2) ; but to the later ones
(verses 4 and 5) only an indefinite assurance ; to the last called (according to the latest
reading of Tischendorf, verse 7, where the clause corresponding to verse 4 is left out),
no assurance at all (comp. among the Jews : pretium laboris non indicavit. Schottgen'
pp. 167 sq.). It may be the Jews who work according to contract and wage and the
Gentiles who work for favour (Hilg. 1868, pp. 30 sqq.). This is mere refinement, for
verses 4, 5, 7, essentially correspond to the standpoint of the contract in verse 2
Hilgenfeld would withdraw this section from the "original manuscript," and give it to
the Gentile-favouring Evangelist.

A DAY AT JERICHO. 47
life of fellowship. These views were not altogether harmonious ;
but it is very finely seen how he repeatedly sought to combine
the equilibrium of essential equality with the pre-eminence
which individuals naturally acquired by their achievements and
their mental superiority. He did this, indeed, not merely for
the purpose of suppressing accidentally present sentiments of
pride, but in the exercise of the authority inherent in the dignity
and lofty position of his human personality, an authority which
he necessarily derived from his conception of God and of man.

C. — A Day at Jericho.

Passing through the first localities on the western bank of the
Jordan, they gradually drew near to Jericho. The ascent of the
road, the approach to the populous city, vividly suggested to
Jesus the last end of the last station, the speedy entry into
Jerusalem. Mark has exhibited some artistic skill in so grouping
the individual scenes that he places the conversation with the
Pharisees at the crossing of the Jordan into Judsea, the children
in the first hostel, the rich young man at the moment of
departure from the house, the thoughts about Jerusalem when
Jesus had again set forth on the highway.1 Only the artificiality
of the drawing has been already detected ; and there is an entire
absence of probability in the description of the further progress,
in which Jesus is made to go on in advance, with the pomp of
a hero, just like a Boman, while the disciples followed with
astonishment and fear.2 This is ingenious fiction which excel
lently well accords with the heroic and mysterious Mark-picture,
but with no reality ; for the disciples, on the contrary, had no
1 Mark x. 2, 10, 13, 17, 32.
2 Mark x. 32. According to Volkmar (p. 468), some had even remained behind
(comp. John vi. 66). But nothing of this stands in the passage ; prominence is given
to the fear of those who were following only in order to introduce the taking to himself
of the anxious Twelve (verse 32).

48 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
presentiment of anything dreadful as to Jesus, but only of good.
All three Evangelists agree that, on the way, Jesus, in conformity
with a well-known Jewish fondness for certain numbers, uttered
his last and third anticipation of death prior to the entry into
Jerusalem. " Behold, we go up to Jerusalem," spake he to the
Twelve, taking them aside as his confidants and commissaries,
" and the Son of Man will be delivered to the high-priests and
Scribes ; and they will condemn him to death and deliver him to
the Gentiles, to mock, to scourge, and to crucify ; and on the
third day he will rise again."2 The announcement of his passion
which he here gave was the most detailed of all.3 He now
prospectively recognized that he should die after a trial, and
after being delivered by the Sanhedrim to the Bomans. In point
of fact, however, he had already thus pictured his destiny in
Galilee, when he thought of the Sanhedrists and of crucifixion.
Nothing remains to be said here concerning the historical cha
racter of these utterances in general ; and the conversation with
the sons of Zebedee, immediately afterwards, may be taken to
prove, by its undoubted genuineness, that Jesus was silently
thinking of the cross, even though, in his blessing of the children,
in parable, conversation, and controversy, he confirmed the
mental quiet and mental peace of Galilee. But exception can
be taken to the details, and an extension of the standpoint of
fulfilment can be admitted ; and thus one may — to say nothing
more of the announcement of the resurrection — be inclined to

1 The non-understanding of the disciples is certainly omitted by Mark at the third
announcement of death, x. 34 (comp. Luke xviii. 34) ; whereon Volkmar (p. 499) lays
special stress, saying that here is an advance upon ix. 32. Whence should this come ?
and how strongly do x. 28, 35, xi. 9, &c, speak against this advance ! The mysterious
Christ, above, I. p. 124.
2 Matt. xx. 17; Luke xviii. 31 ; Mark x. 32.
3 Hilgenfeld (1868, p. 33) finds in this third announcement nothing new, and regards
it as an addition by the Evangelist, like the second. See above, IV. p. 307. On the
other hand, Renan thought that Jesus, after the preceding presentiments, now for the
first time definitely announced his death. Again, Steinmeyer (Leidensgesch. 1868
pp. 61 sq.) consistently asserted, in disposing of the climax depicted above, IV. p. 298
note 1, that the resolve was involved in the incarnation.

A DAY AT JERICHO. 49
question or to erase all the minutiae of the description of Eoman
maltreatment, including the mocking and scourging, particularly
the unaccountable spitting in Luke and Mark.1
To how small an extent were his disciples able to accommo
date themselves to these gloomy prospects, even allowing for
exaggeration in the assertion which Luke makes, with a triple
reference, that they understood nothing of all he said, nothing of
the fulfilments of the prophets' predictions, to which Jesus,
according to Luke's statement, appealed like a dogmatist.2 They
understood that he spoke of dying, as is plainly shown by the
subsequent conversation with the sons of Zebedee ; but they
failed to realize the horrible thought of death, because their ear
and heart were almost exclusively fixed upon the ideas of life
and glory which had now for a long time occupied their fancy
and fired their enthusiasm, and which had been revived by Jesus
again and again, as previously in the promise to the Twelve, so
now again at the close of the announcement of the passion.3
Even now Jesus had placed before their eyes as something final
and near, not his resurrection, but his Messianic glorification ;
and consequently, against the will of Jesus and certainly not
through any fault of his, the enthusiastic fancies of the disciples
acquired fresh strength. Nay, what Jesus said about the thrones
of the Apostles, dissociated from its solemn and warning con
text, became the frame-work which was clothed with the foliage
and gorgeous blossoms of a materially ambitious expectation.
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, the sons of thunder, and,
with Peter, favourites of Jesus, at once communicated to their
1 Similarly Weisse, I. p. 568. The simplest account in Matthew. Peculiar to Luke
is (1) the initial pointing to the fulfilment of Scripture, comp. Luke xxii. 37 ; (2) the
silence about the Sanhedrim, the immediate delivery to the Gentiles ; (3) the intensi
fying of the maltreatment (four details, spitting in addition) ; (4) the non-understand
ing of the disciples. Peculiar to Matthew is the crucifying instead of the slaying.
Mark follows Matthew chiefly ; but he has spitting and slaying, like Luke. Comp.
above, IV. pp. 273 sq., 306 sqq.
2 Luke xviii. 31, 34. Matthew and Mark are silent about the impression.
3 Similarly also Volkmar, p. 500 : they thought to be able to leap into glory without
suffering. VOL. V. E

50 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
mother Jesus' renewed utterance about the future, the near and
rapidly approaching fulfilment. What they themselves longed
for, their mother longed for still more ardently ; and what they
had not the courage to ask, especially after the recent exhibition
of jealousy by the disciples and Jesus' words of reprimand, the
mother undertook to ask, as one who stood more removed, who
was older, and yet was also an adherent and friend of Jesus.1
So, like Bathsheba of old going to David on Solomon's behalf,
Salome went to Jesus with her two sons. There was no time to
be wasted, and timid reticence was brought to an end by the
march of events. Salome bowed herself before Jesus, and her
bearing or her words showed that she wished to make a request.2
" What wilt thou ? " spoke Jesus. She answered, " Say that
these my two sons may sit, one on thy right, and the other on
thy left, in thy kingdom."3 Her faith in the Messiah, therefore,
1 Matt. xx. 20 ; Mark x. 35. Luke, following his sources, gives a similar contro
versy at the Last Supper, where, however, it does not fit (Strauss, Neander), xxii. 24.
According to Volkmar (p. 501), he wished to screen the pillars, in order the better to
introduce his Paulinism, just as in ix. 21. But he was not really so careful to screen
them, comp. only ix. 49, 54, xii. 3. And why Luke more careful to screen them than
Matthew ? According to Mark, the two Apostles appealed directly to Jesus, without
their mother ; and Schulz, Schenkel, and Volkmar, consider this the original form of
the narrative, confirmed by the direct censure of the two sons of Zebedee by Jesus and
by the other Apostles. But Mark could have fabricated his altered representation
directly out of the latter circumstance (as Meyer and Bleek also see). Matthew's repre
sentation is psychologically much more likely to be true (also Neander, Strauss, Weisse) ;
such a request the two could not venture upon themselves, — they would be prevented
by a feeling of shame before Jesus and their fellow-apostles ; but an interceding mother
could present it. But Mark allowed the mother to disappear so much the more readily
because he would not accept any guardianship over the Apostles, and wished to give
emphasis to their correction. There is certainly a striking similarity between the scene
in Matt, and that in 1 Kings i. 15 (Greek text). But even if there were an external
imitation here, Matthew is factually independent. Strauss is sceptical as to the posi
tion of the incident, 4th ed., I. p. 724.
a On Salome, see above, III. p. 262. Mark has not a bowing down, on the other
hand a distorted form of the request (x. 35), in which he wished perhaps to depict the
perplexity of the sons of Zebedee.
3 The places of honour, comp. 1 Sam. xxiii. 17. Jos. Ant. 6, 11, 9 : Jonathan at
Saul's table, on the right, Abner on the left. The Rabbis place the Messiah on'the
right hand of God, Abraham on the left, Aaron on the right of Moses, Gamaliel the
elder on the right of his son, the Sanhedrists on the left, the queen on the right of the
throne of Pharaoh, the daughter on the left, Wetstein, p. 456.

A DAY AT JERICHO. 51
was strong, firm as a rock ; a word by the man whom she revered,
loved, and the two thrones, or rather seats of honour, of her
darlings were secured. And how appropriate, how readily self-
suggesting was the distribution : two throne companions, two
firstlings, two bosom friends, two vigilant spirits of fire, two
children of one womb ! Peter himself, the only rival, must have
acknowledged that this arrangement was very seemly, and that
the exclusion of one of the brothers would be unseemly and
cruel. It is true, Salome asked a great deal, and much more
than the John of the Bevelation, sharing the kingdom fraternally
with the others, claimed for himself.1 The mental sobriety and
moral strictness of Jesus quickly overthrew the well-arranged
plan. Turning from the mother, he at once addressed himself to
her sons, because to him the disciples were more intimate, more
responsible, and more important, and because he could perceive,
as did afterwards the ten, that they were the silent authors of
the thought expressed by their mother. The fact that Jesus
thus directly addressed himself to the sons, explains the inferior
reading of Mark, who makes the sons appeal to Jesus themselves,
and without their mother's support. "Ye know not what ye
ask," said Jesus, pointing out to them at the same time, as the
way to the throne of God, holy sacrifices of which they had not
thought. It was his way, his Messiah-way, to which he looked
forward and in which he believed, the way through suffering,
but which also led to the throne. He saw plainly that whoever
wished to sit near him on the throne must participate in his
sufferings ; and he could not doubt that the wish was coloured
by gay tints of childish fancy that would fade before the stern
severity of what was required. " Can ye drink of the cup, the
cup of suffering, of which I am about to drink? Can ye" — at
least thus runs the later Christian formula — " be baptized with
the baptism with which I shall be baptized?"2 A unanimous
1 Rev. i. 6, 9, iii. 21. According to Volkmar (p. 500), just this longing for supre
macy was here symbolized.
2 Matthew has only the cup ; Mark has the baptism as well. The latter is most
probably taken from the address in Luke xii. 50, and has given occasion to the late
E 2

52 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
" We can," was the answer of the sons of thunder, an answer
which Jesus probably so much the less expected because the
brothers' anticipation of the throne had betrayed no serious
reflection upon the dark point in the future. But these choleric
men were prepared, in their longing for the crowns and also out
of love to their Master, to decide with a sudden resolve to tread
even the path of suffering of which until then they had scarcely
heard, and in which they had not hitherto believed. Now would
Jesus not be compelled to award them the thrones ? Certainly,
to judge from the introduction to his answer; but an inner
scruple restrained him from going further than he had already
gone in this province of hopes and expectations, from crowning
uncertain and actually unfulfilled promises with the highest
gifts, and still more from anticipating by human thoughts or
arrangements, future events which were still secrets in the mind
of God. In this connection, the difference between the judicial
thrones of the Twelve and the thrones of supremacy of the two,
as well as between prospective enjoyment and actual donation,
must not be overlooked. Thus he promised to them what the
immediate future must certainly bring ; what he was ever anew
requiring of his followers ; what they themselves had so solemnly
accepted and applauded, certainly not as end but simply as means,
as the thoroughfare, as the way to the throne, whilst the stern
and reproving Master seemed to give prominence to the harsh
means as an end in itself, to the bitter transition as the final
issue— for he on his own part promised nothing beyond. But he
placed the thrones in the hand of God, as he owed it to God to
do, and also to the beloved disciples whom he was anxious to
lead on and up to the highest aims, not by encouraging in them
conception of martyrdom, lavacrum sanguinis (comp. Tert. Scorp. 12). In Matthew
the baptism has forced its way into late codices (against Sin. BDLZ). Baptism as
such, first became a most important element in the consciousness of the apostolic
times; comp. Rom. vi. 3, Rev. vii. 14 ; yet the John-baptism had importance enough
for Jesus and his adherents. On the chalice (Kos), comp. Is. Ii. 17 ; Jer. xxv 15
xlix. 12; Ps. Ixxv. 8; Rev. xiv. 10, &c. ; Matt, x.xvi. 39, 42. Even in the classics'
Tib. 1, 6, 14 : tristia cum multo pocula felle bibit. Wetst. p. 457.

A DAY AT JERICHO. 53
a comfortable and indolent sense of security, but by awakening
their hope and inciting them to action. " My cup shall ye
indeed drink ; but to sit down on my right and my left — it is not
mine to give this, but — for whom it is prepared."1 Undoubtedly
Jesus had not in view — as the Church at times has supposed — a
later and much later martyrdom of the two brothers, which, as to
James, is with certainty historically attested, and which occurred
tolerably early, nine years after the departure of Jesus. His
whole perspective was just at this time a very near, a very narrow
one. He thought chiefly of a participation by the sons of thunder
in his sufferings or even in his death at Jerusalem, a participa
tion which perhaps, as in the case of Peter, occurred only in
words, and the non-occurrence of which Jesus himself, a few
days later, could take account of in Jerusalem.2
1 Matthew adds : by my Father. Similarly, Matt. xxv. 34. Perplexity of Weisse,
I. p. 570, Gess. p. 117, on account of the reticence of Jesus, opp. xvi. 27, xix. 28,
xxv. 34.
2 Comp. Matt. xxvi. 31 ; Luke xxii. 31 sq. The martyrdom of James, Acts xii. 2.
The martyrdom of John is first mentioned, by Georg. Hamartolos, in the ninth century,
with a reference to our passage, but also on the ground of the second book of Papias.
See Nolte, Rath. Quartalschrift, 1862, p. 466, and Hilgenfeld's Zeitschrift, 1865,
p. 78, 1868, p. 34 ; also Holtzmann's article Johannes in Bibel-Lexileon, III. p. 333.
On the other hand, Polycrates, Irenams, and Tertullian, assume his natural death
(Polycrates ap. Eus. 3, 31; 5, 24. Irenaeus, 2, 22, 5, &c. Tertullian, Anini. 50);
and Origen (In Matth. t. XVI. 6) is reminded by our passage simply of the Roman
banishment to Patmos. The belief in the oil-martyrdom of John (Tert. Prase. 36)
was at the same time developed on the basis of our passage and of Rev. i. 9 ; and yet
more literally does the belief in drinking poison without harm (irpaZ,. Iw. 10 sq. ; comp.
Fabric. C. A. N. T. I. p. 576) remind us of our passage (comp. Mark xvi. 18) ; the
earlier tradition represents others as thus drinking (Barsabbas, Pap. ap. Eus. 3, 39).
Comp. Hilg. 1. c. The account of Georgius Hamartolos (IIa7r. 6 'lepaw. imaK. avro-Trrng
rovrov yevofievog iv r<$ SEvrkpto \6y<o t. KvpiaK. \oyio)V (pdffKei, on imb lovdaiwv
avqpidr), &c. ) I would, for my part, with Holtzmann, apply to the historical John,
not only because it evidently puts an end to the Ephesian illusions and unpleasantly
fulfils Steitzen's hope (Stud. 1868, pp. 487 sqq.) of fresh documents for the Ephesian
Zebedean, but because of the exact citation and title of book (Holtzm.), because of the
inconceivability of a confounding of the Apostle with John Presbyter, since Georgius
confounds the teacher of Papias with the Apostle (Tlamag avToirTng tovtov yivouivog),
while on the other hand the sources leave no doubt about the natural death of the
Presbyter (above, I. p. 222) ; finally, because of the tangible fact that the martyrdom
of John had, from the time of Irenseus and Polycrates, been suppressed by confounding
the Apostle with the living Presbyter. And a noteworthy ancient support is given to
the report of Papias by Heracleon, who is able to reckon as Apostles that did not suffer

54 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
The ambition of the two brothers excited a commotion which
must have broken the calm of the sacred journey of the Lord, if
he had not in the midst of it taken his stand against those who
began it, and if he had not, by the glorious words of his cordially
tender and intellectually conclusive rejoinder, in a conciliatory
manner, quieted the billows which agitated the circle of the
disciples as well as our minds. The ten other disciples sub
sequently learnt something of this secret transaction of the
sons of Zebedee with Jesus. Not only Peter, but the rest also
were sorely hurt by the vaingloriousness of the two ; and they
seemed to be fully justified in this by the equality they derived
from Jesus, by the promise of the twelve thrones, and by the para
ble of the twelve day-labourers ; whilst the old childish jealousy,
bursting forth afresh at every provocation, showed that in truth
they were not defending the principle of equality so much as
the passion of personal ambition which they shared with the
sons of Zebedee. Hence, in Jesus' absence, there passed from
one to another reproaches, justifications, and refutations.1 Then
Jesus, inwardly sorrowing over the perversity of his followers,
as well as over the profanation of the profoundest principles that
underlay his life and his death, caUed them to him. In the face
of the endless repetition of the inconsistent conflicts which
threatened the character and the future of his cause, he found
the words which, in severity yet in love, described the true
nature of his community, and the peculiar character of the new
kingdom as distinguished from the earthly kingdoms, and with
an incontrovertible logic based the character of his kingdom upon
martyrdom only Matthew, Philip, and Thomas (Clem. Strom. 4, 9, 73). The historical
situation of this death is to be found in the persecutions before the destruction of
Jerusalem, Eus. 3, 5. An invention by Papias, on the basis of our passage, Matt. xx.
is altogether excluded by the traditional standpoint of the man. Hilgenfeld abides by
his scepticism (as might be expected, since he still does not see the confounding of the
two Johns). With equal arbitrariness, Hilgenfeld asserts that Matt. xx. 23 must have
been written before the death of John, as Volkmar (p. 500) after that death. Wittichen
(Idee des Menschen, p. 149) speaks of a self-deception of Jesus concerning the martyr
dom of John.
1 Matt. xx. 24; Mark x. 41 ; comp. Luke xxii. 24.

A DAY AT JERICHO. 55
his personal vocation and ministry. " Ye know that the rulers
of the nations use force against them, and that the great exercise
authority over them.1 Not so shall it be among you ; but he
who will be great among you, let him be your minister, and he
who will be first among you, let him be your servant ; even as
the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister
and to give up his life a ransom in the place of many."2 This
was an utterance out of the fulness of his life, out of the heart
of his principles. And by overthrowing, as pagan in character,
the ludicrous and cheap fancy-thrones of the Twelve, and sup
plying their place by a demand for a ministering self-sacrifice on
behalf of the brethren, of humanity, he struck a firm, sharp,
penetrating blow with the lance of truth, and toppled over even
those thrones which, in an Old Testament spirit and with an
Oriental symbolism, he was still inconsistently wishful to retain
for the Messiah and the Messiah's associates. The latest criticism
has raised not many objections to the whole of this narrative, a
narrative the genuineness of which is most evident in its lowly
and lofty human features. Only the memorable reference to the
death of atonement for many — this "dogmatic atonement theory"
— is vigorously attacked by Baur and his followers. For the
present, let it suffice to answer that Jesus a moment later,
namely at the Last Supper, exhibited the same new conception
of his death, and that the word " ransom '' was suggested to him
by the very general designation of the just then paid and much
talked-of temple-tax.3
1 Mark, ol SoKovvrtq apxuv= they who are accounted to rule (Gal. ii. 9). Thus
also Bleek and Winer.
2 Comp. Juchas. 36, 1 : mortuus est magn. discip. numerus ob non exhibitum inter
se mutuum officium. Lightfoot, p. 319. Kidcl. f. 32, 2 : R. Elieser, R. Joshua,
R. Zadok, were ministered to by R. Gamaliel, for he stood ; they lay and received their
drink from him : invenimus majorem, qui ministri officio functus est, Wetst. p. 458.
3 Baur, N. T. Theol. p. 100 ; comp. Volkmar, p. 501 (the vicarious idea post-
Pauline !), and Hilg. p. 34, who is more conservative, not questioning the essential
originality of the passage. Baur even thought that the word did not harmonize at all
with this otherwise so simple exhortation to humility and the spirit of self-sacrifice.
Schenkel (pp. 217 sq.) thinks of a freeing from the bondage of the letter and of the
hierarchy. On the \irpov dvrl iroWdv (kopher, comp. Book of Enoch, 98 ; Wiinsche,

56 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
They now entered Jericho, where Jesus wished to take up his
quarters for the day.1 The distance to Jerusalem was too great
and required too much exertion to be completed at once ; more
over, two Gospels speak expressly of a departure from Jericho
with the accompaniment of a great multitude. The latter fact
itself suggests a sojourn and a becoming known. Finally, Luke
specially refers to Jesus' quarters for the night.2 Unfortunately
Matthew and Mark give nothing concerning this sojourn ; they
content themselves with describing the departure. On the other
hand, Luke's description of the entry, though in a high degree
vivid, graphic, and indeed instructive, is nevertheless imperfectly
attested.3 According to Luke, the progress of Jesus through this
great city was beset by dense masses of people, by whom the
streets through which he passed were in particular crowded, and
among whom the cry ran from mouth to mouth, " Jesus the
Nazarene !"4 Even the chief publican Zacchseus (a name frequent
among the Jews) was driven into the streets by his strong desire
to see Jesus.6 Jericho was naturally, on account of its size and
p. 17), see not only Matt. xvi. 26 and xxvi. 28, but also the designation of the temple-
tax in Exodus xxx. 12 (Matt. xvii. 27), \vrpa rrjg ijjvxns; and Philo, De Mon. 2, 2,
224 (Wetst. p. 439), at doipopai Xitrpa Trpooovoud^ovrai.
1 According to Schenkel (Bibel-Lex. III. p. 291), Jesus, during his sojourn of several
months in Judsaa, took up his station chiefly in Jericho. In the Charakterbild (p. 179),
Bethany was the central point. Weizs. (pp. 512 sqq.) makes the sojourn in Jerusalem
between the Feast of Tabernacles and the last Easter to be only a transitory one ;
Jesus was in Judsea and Persea (Mark x. 1), and a series of passages in the Synoptics
themselves point to the south (pp. 307 sqq. ). Consequently also Holtzmann (II.
p. 371), Sevin (pp. 7 sq.), postulate a longer ministry in Judaea, or (according to
Weisse, I. pp. 299, 429), in Jerusalem, without which everything would stand in the air.
Rather these opinions stand in the air, because there is no space for such a sojourn !
2 Matt. xx. 29; Mark x. 46; Luke xviii. 35, xix. 5. 3 Luke xix. 1 sqq.
* Not, as Ewald says (p. 507), on entering, outside the gate; and quite as little at
the other end, Bleek, II. p. 286.
6 S(z)akkai, Ezra ii. 9; Neh. vii. 14; Jos. Vita, 46. The Rabbis thus name the
father of R. Jochanan, and Lightfoot (p. 555) is almost inclined to identify this man
who had grown old in piety with our Zacchseus. 'ApxiT&uvnq, that is the man placed
immediately over the tax-gatherers, one of those that were next to the Roman tax-
farmer, publicanus (Meyer, Bleek). Wetstein thinks groundlessly of a Roman knight,
after Jos. B.J. 2, 14, 9. In Clem. Horn. 2, 1, &c, Rec. 1, 72 sq., 2, 19, Zacchajus
appears later at Csesarea. The Zacchseus Tower, on the north of the existing village
(200 inhabitants), not until the twelfth century. See Arnold on Jericho.

A DAY AT JERICHO. 57
its position, on the highway of Lower Jordan ; it was on the
frontier of Boman Judsea, on the side of the tetrarchy of Persea ;
and for these reasons, as well as because of its valuable and quite
unique productions, it was a main centre for the publicans.
Thus it could not be wanting even in chief publicans.1 But
Zacchseus was too small of stature to see over the crowds. His
zeal led him to get ahead of the crowd, and to climb a fig-mul
berry tree, a tree which still forms fine shady avenues in Oriental
cities.2 Jesus approached, saw the man in the tree, and not
only measuring his faith by his deed, but immediately looking
through him even to the discerning of his name, bespoke, with
out further introduction — a Csesar in knowledge and conquest —
Zacchseus as his host, crying out to him, " Zacchseus, come down
quickly, for to-day must I abide at thy house." Zacchseus has
tened down and gladly received Jesus under his roof, whilst a
murmur of discontent spread among the people : " He is gone to
dwell with a man that is a sinner."3 So much the more did
Zacchseus — a worthy rival of his father, Babbi Zeira, and of
other publicans who had become famous through their works
and their piety — zealously strive, as the unworthy host of the
Prophet of Galilee, to be justified ; his great guest and the
mortifying popular mistrust called for a great penitential sacri
fice. Placing himself before the Lord, he said solemnly and
earnestly : " Behold, the half of my goods, Lord, give I to the
poor ; and if I have taken anything from any one fraudulently, I
restore it (according to the Law itself) four- fold."4 The publican's
1 Strabo, 16, 2. Just. 36, 3 : quod (opobals.) in his tantum region, gignitur.
2 Furrer, Wand. p. 151. "He went before" will best bear the above meaning.
It might also mean, "he went up a tree standing just opposite." The sycamore can
hardly have reference to the sycophancy of the publicans, comp. Luke iii. 13 sq. It is
at home in the lowlands, and Palestine was full of the splendid, lofty, wide-spreading
tree, Winer. It is comical that Ewald (p. 507) thinks of a low tree.
" On account of Luke xix. 11, 28, Olsh. and Schl. would postpone these aspersions
and sayings to the next day, that of the departure. This is evidently contrary to the
author; rather is the passage, verses 11 sqq., too closely connected with what precedes
it (Bleek, p. 288).
4 Zeira, Lightfoot; p. 296 ; compare the publican John in Csesarea, Jos. B. J.
2, 14, 4. The four-fold, Ex. xxii. 1 (four- fold), 4 (two-fold); Numbers v. 7 (the

58 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
gift was followed by the Lord's reward, an announcement of
salvation for the house, an announcement which included an
honourable recognition of the publican and a vindication of
himself on account of his— thus evidently blessed — entry into
the publican's house : " To-day is salvation come to this house,
inasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham ; for the Son of Man
came to seek and to save the lost."1 Notwithstanding aU its
probableness and the absence of the miraculous, and notwith
standing the germ-utterance which seems to form the original
close of the original whole, many doubts rise up against this
incident. The silence of the other Gospels, the extravagance of
the concourse of people, the improbability that a man of wealth
and position should climb a tree, the inconsiderateness, the
imprudence of deliberately entering the house of a publican in
opposition to the sentiments of the uncultured people who are
represented as being thereby much offended and yet holding fast
to their enthusiastic faith in the Messiah, — these are some of the
suspicious circumstances. Others are, the glimmer of miracle
in Jesus' inexplicable, or only in Luke intelligible, knowledge
of the name and character of the publican, who until that hour
had been a perfect stranger to him ; and finally, though not the
last, the easy explicability of a later origin of the whole narrative,
which Luke evidently derived from his Ebionite Gospel.2 The
thronging into the city is, even to the trees that adorned the way,
a copy partly of the exit from the same place, partly of the entry
whole and a fifth). Rabbis, a fifth of what is gained to the poor. Lightfoot, p. 556 ;
comp. p. 296. Formula of giving to the poor, ib. Severe judgment : gravis est poenit.'
exactorum, foeneratorum ; restituere tenentur. Schottgen, p. 308 ; comp. Hosea xii. 9.
Punishment in Roman law, see Wetstein, p. 784.
1 Son of Abraham, as Luke xiii. 16, not only in the sense of national descent, but
also of moral worth (Bleek), which, however, is not far removed from the Pauline
Abrahamism (paganism, Rom. iv.) of which Tertullian, Cyprian, Chrysostom, and
recently Volkmar, think. Comp. below.
2 According to Paulus, some one named the man to Jesus (and certainly described
him as well) ; according to Meyer, Jesus was in some way personally known ; according
to Neander and Bleek, one or the other of these suppositions is the true explanation ¦
Weisse, II. p. 176, is vague; Olshausen and Strauss are more correct in thinking of
miraculous knowledge.

A DAY AT JERICHO. 59
into Jerusalem ; the obnoxious visit to the publican, together
with Jesus' germ-utterance, is a repetition of the historical meal
at a publican's house, and of Jesus' justification on that occasion.
The man who was " short of stature," however, is scarcely Paul the
Apostle, at the same time the representative of heathenism, but he
is one of the believing little ones who could not be lost and were
not to be despised ; and Zacchseus, the host and giver of alms,
is — even to the name Zakkai, i.e. the pure — the practical example
of the sentiment ascribed to Jesus by the Ebionites, " Give the
contents of your dishes, full of plunder, as alms ; behold ! then
all is pure to you."1 Finally, we can plainly detect the inten
tional antithesis of the despised publican and haughty Jerusalem:
the former has recognized the day of his visitation, the latter has
not. Certainly both are artificial, for the words which Jesus
utters weeping, and by which he declares to Jerusalem the
futility of his visit, betray their own unhistorical character as
readily as does the address to Zacchseus.2
Better attested than Jesus' entry into Jericho is his departure
thence on the morning of Friday, the 8th of April. But we must
not here be influenced by Luke, who reverses the order of events
and converts the solemn departure into an entry, so that the
remarkable occurrence which marked the departure, the healing
of the blind of Jericho, is transferred to the entry. And he does
this, not on the ground of any deviation of ancient tradition, but
1 The crowd, Matt. xx. 29 ; comp. xxi. 8. Publicans' meal, Matt. ix. 10. The lost,
xviii. 12 sqq. (xviii. 11 in the received text = Luke xix. 10). Zacchseus (Strauss, New
Life of Jesus, Eng. trans., II. p. 137; Volkmar, p. 505) did not represent heathenism
any more than did the woman in Luke xiii. 16 ; on the contrary, he was a Jew, as his
name shows, and he made Jewish satisfaction (Kostlin, p. 228). The Ebionite Gospel
does not concern itself at all with heathens. It has long since been shown (above,
III. p. 268) that it is a mistake to think the publicans were heathens. It is very
remarkable that even Volkmar has not thought of Paul (1 Cor. xv. 9). S(z)akkai
means the pure ; comp. Luke xi. 41 (Matt, xxiii. 26). Thus Zacchseus purified him
self firBt by giving the unrighteous mammon to the poor, and then by restitution to the
defrauded. '' One must be blind not to recognize the parallelism between xix. 5 sqq. and
xix. 41 — 44. Doubt against Zacchseus, not even in Strauss, I. c. (comp. Haus. p. 435) ;
faintly expressed in Weisse, II. p. 176.

60 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
simply for a reason which partly existed already for his late
source, viz., in order to introduce the taking up quarters with
Zacchseus by an indispensable concourse of people, and the con
course of people by an indispensable miracle, and finally the
further progress to Jerusalem by a parable of greater importance
than the healing of the blind.1 The rest of the journey from
Jericho is in the highest degree remarkable. It was marked
throughout by the popular sympathy and the popular ovation
which Luke has drawn somewhat prematurely, and has not quite
happily prefaced by Jesus' visit to the house of the publican. A
great crowd of people accompanied Jesus from Jericho ; and the
entry into Jerusalem at the head of a numerous company suffi
ciently proves that at Jericho we have to do, not with merely an
honourable escort for a short distance, but with a formal acces
sion to the festival caravan to Jerusalem. But since Jesus did
not join the Jerichotic festival caravan — to do which would have
been repulsive to him — but the multitude followed him and after
wards took part in the Messianic festival rejoicings of the Gali
leans, we here suddenly gain an unexpected occupation for the
day of repose at Jericho, and a great light upon the significant
turn which matters began to take on this 7th of April. Jesus'
brief sojourn in Jericho sufficed, in the space of one day, to call
forth that sympathetic interest in the Messiah which the quiet
preparatory work of Jesus in Galilee had not succeeded in evok
ing in a year. And his one day's sojourn did this through the
fame which had preceded him, by the impression produced by
his person and words, most of all by the assertions of his Gali
lean adherents, who were less disposed than ever to conceal their
glowing anticipations here among the people of the hot plain, a
people warm-blooded, ever longing for excitement, and now agi
tated and inspired by the kindling festival gladness, a people,
moreover, dwelling where there lingered the strongest vibrations
of the recent Johannine watchword. The general excitement
1 Luke xviii. 35 — xix. 11. Grotius perverts the approach to Jericho (xviii. 35) to
proximity while departing from that city (Bleek, II. p. 284).

A DAY AT JERICHO. 61
would further be increased by the festival pilgrims who flocked
thither from without.1 The strongest evidence for this unantici
pated mighty movement of the people is the healing of the blind,
which is transferred to this point by three Gospels.2 Two blind
men, beggars according to Luke and Mark, sat by the wayside,
and with a loud voice appealed to the passer-by, who they were
told was Jesus of Nazara : " Jesus, Son of David, have mercy
upon us !" The people bade them be silent, but they cried the
louder ; upon which Jesus called to them and asked what their
petition was. " Babbuni, to see !" was the answer. Then Jesus
said to them, " Go ; your faith has saved you !" The blind saw
and — the most eloquent proofs of Jesus' Messiahship — joined the
train. This occurrence at once gives rise to many doubts by the
numerous differences between the three Gospels. Here there are
two blind ; in Luke and Mark, only one, and he a beggar. Here
the cure is effected by a command, there by a comforting address,
and there again by touching. The descriptive Mark knows the
name of the blind man, Bartimseus, that is, the son of the blind —
forsooth, a double miracle; and he can teU of his joyful casting
away his garment and springing up as soon as he learns from the
people the sweet news of Jesus' concession.3 In fact, the reflec-
1 The Jerichotes fond of change and commotion, Jos. Ant. 17, 10, 2 ; 20, 5, 1 ;
20, 8, 10. The distinction between them and the Jews recognized by Strabo, 16, 2,
who refers to mixed races that inhabited Galilee, Jericho, Philadelphia and Samaria.
He speaks here of an Egyptian-Arabian-Phoenician mixture. Dixon testifies to a
striking distinctiveness even in the present inhabitants of Eriha, and speaks of people
of small stature with moon-faces, mild and cheerful women. Neander (p. 467) repre
sents Jesus as going with the common caravan.
2 Matt. xx. 29 ; Luke xviii. 35 ; Mark x. 46. See also the parallel passage in
Matt. ix. 27, with the remarkable difference of secrecy there enjoined and publicity
here (Paulus).
3 The most important difference lies in the number, and the singular charge against
Matthew has become stereotyped, viz., that he doubles the number of the sick, which
is in general not capable of proof, and in the incident of the Gadarenes is disposed of
in his favour. And here the duality (which is nothing wonderful in itself) is resolved
into unity by the later Gospels, notably by Luke, who has shaped out of the two his
torical figures of the sojourn in Jericho two new ones, a blind man and an unclean-clean
man (Zacchseus). Mark followed Luke, but, without adopting Zacchseus, gave expres
sion to the duality, in so far as he introduced in a certain sense two blind men, father

62 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
tion readily suggests itself that the solemn moment itself is
exceptionally favourable to the introduction of a mythical narra
tive. We may simply fix our attention upon the necessity that
Jesus, since from the time of his reaching Jericho he is the osten
sible Messiah, must fulfil in a material manner the words of
Isaiah, "the blind see." Or (with Origen) we may take a sub-
limer flight, and call in the aid of the explanation that, on his
departure from Jericho, Jesus went, not directly and with a
spring to the heathen, as Volkmar supposes, but to the blind and
to the leaders of the blind at Jerusalem, whom he was able and
wishful to make to see, as his deed shows, and whom he could
make not to see until they, blind with reference to his first entry,
should recognize him when he came again.1 On these grounds,
a full certainty as to this narrative is not to be attained. And in
order to become still further reconciled to such a conception, it
is only necessary, when following Jesus from Jericho, to think of
the blind and lame in the temple at Jerusalem, whom Jesus is
said to have healed ; since this miraculous ministry at Jerusalem,
reported by Matthew alone in untenable generality, remains
and son. Formerly help was foolishly sought (even by Neander, pp. 466 sq.) in the
assumption that Jesus had healed a man both at his entry and at his departure, and
that Matthew had placed the two together ; Strauss, 4th ed. , II. p. 56 ; Bleek, II.
p. 284. Compare the trifling of Orig. in Matt. XVI. 12. Healing by contact in
Matthew; by command, "Lookup!" in Luke; by words of comfort, " Go, thy faith, "
&c, in Mark. For the rest, Matthew has, for those that can see, the simplest
account ; Mark the most picturesque (on the prophetic springing up, see Acts iii. 8) ;
and here, as elsewhere, it must be permitted to Volkmar to find in this poetry the
hand of a master. Volkmar's attempt to explain Luke out of Mark is quite impossible,
since he is obliged to dissect the spiritually blind man of Mark first into one physically
blind, and then into one who is essentially a heathen (Zacchseus). In point of fact,
the heathen is not to be unearthed. Hitzig, Zur Kritik Paulin-Briefe, 1870, p. 9,
well explains the name Timai and Bartimseus from the Syriac and Arabic (to be blind) ;
but Buxtorf, p. 1494 (comp. Lightfoot, p. 450), gives from the Targum, same, samia,
i. e. caecus ; thence Greek Timaeos ; on the other hand, Volkmar (p. 503) is inclined to
think of t(h)ame, t(h)ima (but seeBuxt. p. 882, timmaja, impuri) = impure (!), there
fore heathen, and to read Bartimeas (according to the It. against the Codd.). Origen,
I. c, thinks of the Israelitish nobility (riuiov) of the blind man ; Strauss, indeed, thinks
of imriuuiv, New Life of Jesus, Eng. trans., II. p. 154.
1 Comp. Matt. xi. 5, xv. 14, xxiii. 16 sqq.; Isaiah xxxv. 5; 2 Kings vi. 15 sqq.
Orig. in Matt. XVI. 10. Volkmar, Rel. p. 250 (Jews) ; Ev. p. 503 (Heathens) !

A DAY AT JERICHO. 63
altogether unattested elsewhere.1 But just that which is said to
have occurred at Jerusalem comes in aid of what is reported at
Jericho. The former is only singly, the latter trebly, represented
by tradition ; the former is colourless, the latter fresh and vivid ;
the former betrays a tendency, the latter appears to be ten-
denceless, in so far as the artificial location of the Messianic
miracles, the miracles of healing the blind, is more appropriate
to Jerusalem, or to the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem,
than to the city of Jericho, which is a considerable distance from
Jerusalem. Finally, such healings — and other credible ones are
not related — themselves again explain in a new way the still
swelling tide of popular enthusiasm, which lies before us as a
fact.2 So far do the grounds for the historical character of this
circumstance preponderate ; and notably is it storm-proof against
objections in one respect, namely, that here again it becomes
distinctly evident how in this enthusiastic elevation of the minds
of the people — with which the impression produced by the im
perial worker of miracles in Alexandria, Vespasian, cannot be
compared — in this swelling and surging of the religious spirit
of the nation that believed the incredible but happy time of
Israel was come with the Prophet of Galilee, a confidence might
be created which, according to the distinct confession of Jesus
himself (" Thy faith has saved thee !"), might by its stormy im
pulse directly increase even the bodily vital and nervous forces,
and for a time or for ever restore the diseased or lost power of
the eye.3 At any rate, this healing is by far the best attested
among aU the accounts of the blind in the Gospels. We have
concerning such, on the one hand, only general notices, in Mat-
1 Matt. xxi. 14. 2 There only remains Matt. xix. 2 to be mentioned.
3 For the genuineness, Ewald, p. 507 ; Weisse, I. p. 571, particularly, as already
Schleiermacher, relying upon the name Bartimseus ! On the other hand, Strauss, 4th
ed., II. p. 60 ; New Life of Jesus, Eng. trans., II. p. 149. He finds the caustic eye
water of Venturini ridiculous; with Paulus he explained the miraculous healing by
Vespasian (comp. above, III. pp. 195 sq.) by referring it to the deception of priests,
but now he refers it to the sycophancy of the Egyptian governor (Tiber. Alex, the
Renegade, who first recognized Vesp.). For other examples, see Paulus, Handb. I.
p. 543. Frequency of eye diseases, see Winer, Blindheit.

64 THE JOURNEY TO THE FEAST.
thew during the closing Galilean period and at Jerusalem; in
Luke, unhistorically, at the time of the answer of Jesus to the
Baptist—" the blind see ;" and, on the other hand, three further
isolated narratives upon which little reliance is to be placed.1 One
is located by Matthew in Jesus' house at Capernaum, but appears
to be almost entirely a dependent counterpart of the Jericho inci
dent ; the second is given by Mark in Bethsaida- Julias, shorn of
the corroboration of the other sources and furnished with all the
indications of a later origin, spittle-manipulations and the pro
gressive healing of an operation, with the twilight of supernatural
naturalness ; the third and most exaggerated, John, the latest
sources, furnishes in the Sabbath healing at Jerusalem of the man
born blind, in which it is quite evident that the basis is supplied
partly by the Jericho healing, partly by that at Bethsaida, both
according to Mark's report, whilst the higher point of view —
which as ever dominates this very free moulding of the external,
material occurrence — is the spiritual blindness of the people and
their leaders, removed and yet not removed by Jesus.2
1 Matt. xv. 30, xxi. 14 ; Luke vii. 21. For details, comp. Strauss, 4th ed., II.
pp. 54 sqq.
2 (a) Matt. ix. 27 (comp. also xii. 22). (b) Mark viii. 22 sq. ; above, III. pp. 156
sqq., 184, IV. p. 251. That Matthew took offence at the spittle, &c, will never be
forgiven him by Volkmar. A similar rational healing-mystery also in Philostratus,
Vita Apoll. 8, 26. (c) John ix. 1, where the man born blind and the spittle (with
earth) upon the eyes, corresponds to Mark.

FROM JERICHO TO BETHPHAGE. 65

Division II.— THE ENTEY INTO JERUSALEM.

A. — From Jericho to Bethphage.
The rest of the journey of Jesus, from Jericho to Jerusalem,
had a strikingly different character from the preceding pilgrimage
of several days. The number and the mood of those who accom
panied him, of his old and new adherents, now lent to his
progress the character of a festival train, and even the lips of
Jesus gave utterance to no more of those announcements of
disaster which he had repeated from Galilee to the neighbour
hood of Jericho.
This remakable fact is very patent, and yet it also had very
early become obscured. Whilst the peculiar turn things took
is clearly reflected in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, it
has been by Luke, or more correctly by an earlier source of that
Gospel, in a very deliberate way deranged, broken in upon, and
thus in a certain measure toned down and weakened, by the
introduction of traces of that earlier mood of Jesus, as if of a
genuine, persistent, unwavering prediction of the actual fatal
destiny. Wnen Jesus started forth from the house of Zacchseus,
he took up at once — so hastily indeed that the night's sojourn
in Jericho loses all claim to credence — a parable which was to
scatter and as it were destroy at the birth the prejudice of those
who surrounded him, that the entry into Jerusalem was to be
the prelude to the immediate appearance of the kingdom of God.
But the entry itself, and afterwards the strangely repeated expec
tation and its correction just previous to the ascension, show that
the object of the parable was far from being gained. Jesus
spoke of a nobleman who went into a far country to receive
a kingdom for himself. Meanwhile he committed to his ten
servants ten silver pounds, ten minse, a thousand francs, with
vol. v. F

66 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
which to trade.1 But his fellow-citizens hated him, and sent
after him an embassy deprecating his sovereignty, just as the
Jews, after the sanguinary Pentecost, B.C. 4, had complained to
the emperor of Borne against Archelaus, the lord of the palace at
Jericho.2 The absent man, however, received the regal throne,
came back, reckoned with his servants, and commanded his foes,
who objected to his rule, to be slain before his eyes.3 This para
ble very plainly told that Jesus would not at once assume his
Messiahship in Jerusalem, that he would fetch his diploma from
heaven, and then at his coming again he would with might,
nay with violence, carry out his purpose in the nation. Thus
his entry into Jerusalem was but a provisional one, the predic
tion of his future entry on his second advent. And the ground
of this postponement was evidently not so much the necessity
of divine dispensation, as the hate of the citizens, which became
so strong as to lead them to rebellion against the king and to
murder, and which Jesus already foresaw with certainty, and,
palliating beforehand — -if any are disposed to believe the words
to be genuine — meant to describe as an immediate or subsequent
protestation, not exactly as a deed of violence.4 And this pre
caution against a false interpretation of his entry into Jerusalem,
1 Luke xix. 11 sqq. Comp. Matt. xxv. 14. The Attic mna (Roman mina) is 100
drachmas (Roman denarii). The Hebrew manah certainly much greater = 100 shekels
= 400 drachmas. At any rate, Luke thought (perhaps differently from his source) of
the Greek mnai.
2 Jos. Ant. 17, 10, 1 and 2 (sedition against Archelaus) ; 17, 11, 1 (fifty envoys sent
against him to Rome) ; 17, 11, 4 (his installation, which nevertheless took place, first
as ethnareh, by the emperor Augustus) ; 17, 13, 2 (complaint of the Jews against
Archelaus, and his deposition by Augustus). Comp. above, I. p. 257. Similarly
Meyer, Bleek, Holtzmann. Sevin has A.D. 7, instead of B.C. 4. The Archelaus pic
ture is at any rate such, that no one can suppose Jesus himself, living so near to the
time, would have selected this very unfavourable parallel. But it is in harmony with
the spirit of the Ebionite source; see above, I. p. 100, note. Seviu's (p. 33) introduc
tion of Antipas and his situation in the year 33 is unfortunate.
3 Of the vengeance of Archelaus against those that were refractory we read nothing
that is explicit; yet comp. Augustus' futile injunction to exercise mildness, Jos. Ant.
17, 13, 2. Also concerning the detestation of Herod the Great (Ant. 15, 1, 1), we
are now in part more exactly informed by the Ascension of Moses than by Josephus.
4 Comp. Acts ii. 36, iii. 20 sqq. This was, after the catastrophe, the doctrinal
point of view.

FROM JERICHO TO BETHPHAGE. 67
an entry in itself very striking, was not the only one. This elo
quent explanation at the beginning of the journey to Jerusalem
was followed, according to Luke, by one yet more eloquent,
indeed by an exceedingly touching utterance, in the immediate
neighbourhood of Jerusalem, at the descent from the Mount
of Olives, where a generation later the tenth Eoman legion
were to take part, by camp and entrenchment, in the work of
beleaguering and destruction.1 As Jesus beheld the city lying
before him, he wept over it, as David and Jeremiah had done,
and complained, like Moses of old, that she did not know in the
day of her visitation what would contribute to her peace ; and
in words borrowed from the prophets he foretold to her as her
punishment dreadful days of siege and a devastation which
would leave no stone upon another.2 His Messianic entry was
therefore a renunciation of the entry ; he came, in accord with
his earlier prediction and yet more with the harsh fate of the
following days, not as one who hoped, but as one who was
resigned — nay, as the seer who recognized beforehand the signifi
cance of his entry as well as its fruitlessness, and who foresaw
with certainty, to the very days and decades, his own fall, as
well as the fall of the city that resisted her King.
But this picture is not historical, fine as it is. Its non-histo
rical character is betrayed not only by the too exact description
of the future and the strikingly numerous imitations of the Old
Testament, but chiefly by the silence and the sayings of the
other Gospels. These have no gloomy outlook, but they have
an entry amid Messianic songs of jubilee. Luke himself, how
ever, has the songs of jubilee, and he alone has the intimation
1 Luke xix. 41. The tenth legion, Jos. B. J. 5, 2, 3. The chain of posts on the
Mount of Olives, ib. 6, 2, 8. The investment on the Mount of Olives and at Kidron,
ib. 5, 12, 2.
2 The tears of David (going up the Mount of Olives), 2 Sam. xv. 30; Jeremiah
xiii. 17, xiv. 17; Lament, i. 16. Moses, because Israel did not understand, Deut.
xxxii. 29. The words of the prophets on the investment of the city, Isaiah xxix. 3 ;
Micah iii. 12, v. 1 ; Ez. iv. 2. Visitation, Imcr/com), ImoKi-KTouai (comp. pakad and
pekuddot (iKSixnmg) hair, Ez. ix. 1), Vulg. visitatio, is here the friendly visit which
gives a blessing ; comp sod Jahve (LXX. in.), Job xxix. 4.
E 2

68 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
that Jesus expressly sanctioned them.1 In this remarkable life
it is possible to bring together many great antitheses, particularly
in this last time the conflict between hope of life and gloomy
apprehension of death ; but it is not possible to admit that Jesus
at one and the same time entered Jerusalem with the pageantry
of the Messiah yet utterly dispelled the Messianic dream of his
adherents, that at one and the same time he allured Jerusalem
to himself, yet thrust it from him as irretrievably lost. It would
be an evasion to say that he solemnly set up his Messianic
claim, although and just because he knew for certain that he
should not then obtain recognition. He could have done that
without this entry ; but with this entry he would have simply
misled both the disciples and the people. Or is it thought that
he sought his death in this striking way, because he found his
cause was lost upon earth, or because he looked for the salvation
of the world in his death ? To caU the thing by its right name,
either of these courses would have been but a circuitous way to
self-murder. Nay, this verdict would cover the whole journey
from Galilee, undertaken with a certain knowledge of its futility
and of death, a knowledge full and certain before any action had
been taken, such a knowledge as Luke represents Jesus to have
expressed from Jericho to the very gates of Jerusalem ; whilst
the journey is intelligible, humanly possible, a reasonable course
of action, a brave deed, only if, beyond all gloomy presentiments,
there stood a veiled future, an uncertainty as to what men would
do, and a divine omnipotence. Finally, we are released from all
solicitude as to relying upon Luke by the tangible and untrust
worthy lateness of his reports. The parable above mentioned
notably is at once seen to be not only a very unfortunate parallel
between Jesus and the detested and abominable Archelaus, but
also a later, according to other indications a systematic and vio
lently artificial, construction on the basis of an earlier speech
by Jesus; and the prophecy concerning Jerusalem too plainly
betrays the late author who transferred his own detailed know-
1 Luke xix. 37 sqq.

FROM JERICHO TO BETHPHAGE. 69
ledge of the fall of Jerusalem to Jesus, in the exact description
of the palisade works of the Eomans, the circle of investment,
the ruins in which both city and people found a grave.1
But, if Luke be given up, how are we to explain the change in
the mood of Jesus, and particularly his approach and entry at the
head of masses of the people ? Was it not the Baptist who cor
poreally in the person of Jesus had re-appeared in the plain of
Jericho with the restless multitudes that were ready for anything
and now were actually on the march ?2 In this last particular, we
shall not miss the truth if we determinedly assume that Jesus did
not intentionally collect the people, and that he did not place his
reliance or make his Messianism dependent upon either the moral
influence or the physical force of the multitudes.3 Though it is
correct that he, at his entry into Jerusalem, changed his system,
that he was unreservedly candid in his confession and his actions,
that he resolutely took the name of the Baptist upon his lips
and unconditionally recognized him as his forerunner, the idea is
nevertheless not warranted that he had thereby declined from
himself, and, in impatience, passion, or indeed despondency— as
Eenan finds it possible — or, somewhat more mildly expressed, in
compliance with the pressure of old and new adherents, had
fallen back upon the lines of the Johannine popular movement.
His change of system by no means consisted of a transition from
a spiritual to a politico-physical movement, but is to be found
only in the openness of his Messianic confession, which he had
hitherto kept in the background, and in a momentary Messianic
activity in purifying the temple. And his quiet departure from
Galilee, as well as his quiet teaching-ministry at Jerusalem after
wards, must prove that he remained true to himself in his cardi
nal point, and that he did not attempt to gain his end by placing
himself at the head of a large body of the people.4 And though
1 Archelaus, see above, p. 66, note 2. Destruction of Jerusalem, see on Matt. xxiv.
On the relation of Luke to Matt. xxv. 14 sq., see the concluding utterances at Bethany.
2 Above, II. p. 258. 3 Matt. xix. 2, 21, xx. 34?
4 Comp. Renan. Weizs. (p. 545) spoke of a yielding to the disciples and the people
at the entry into Jerusalem ; comp. my Gesch. Chr. p. 93. Equally strong is the
assertion that Jesus went to Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles without apostles

70 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
he nevertheless entered the city, not quietly, but at the head of
a multitude of the people, it must first of aU be remembered that
even in Galilee he did not drive away from him the people who
wished to accompany him, however modest an estimate he might
put upon the fickle favour of the crowd and their ephemeral attach
ment to him. Now, however, he was the less disposed to drive
the people away, because he was joyfully surprised by the unex
pected popular sympathy, which he took to be a gift from God,
and was thereby inwardly strengthened in the midst of his diffi
cult and anxious undertaking amongst strangers. Another reason
is to be found in the fact that the public character which he
intentionally gave to his ministry at Jerusalem, was powerfully
supported by the following of adherents who believed him to be
the Messiah, though he did not think of making this following
an army and rampart for himself.1 It is evident that change
in the temper of Jesus is to be spoken of only in the sense that
his dominant gloomy presentiment was at times relieved by freer
breathings, when he, who referred everything to God, felt his soul
lit up as by a sunbeam, by the possibility that it might yet be
the will of his Father, who with a strong hand and a gracious
hint gave him the people, to bring over to him the whole nation,
and, without the cup of sorrow, mightily and gloriously to set up
the longed-for kingdom of heaven as a celestial wedding gift.
Thus on the morning of the 8th of April, on the arrival-day
of the guests of the Jewish Easter festival — a day elsewhere
named and in the fourth Gospel confirmed — Jesus with his
accompanying crowds set out from Jericho and came to the
glittering sun-lit wall of hills which bounded Jericho in the
direction of Jerusalem.2 These bald and broken heights on the
and quite alone preaching the word ; that not until the journey to Bethany (Lazarus)
did the disciples again join him, and then indeed in order to impel him onwards
against his will (Weizs. pp. 517, 527).
3 We may here recall the mode of representation of the fourth Gospel : All that the
Father gives me, comes to me, vi. 37, &c.
2 Jos. B.J. 6, 5, 3: d0poi£o//. r. \aov Ttpbq r. r. dZiuuv ioprijv, 6yS6r, b" iv
SavQtmv unvbg. 8th Nisan and 8th April coincided in the year A. D. 35. Comp
John xii. 1.

FROM JERICHO TO BETHPHAGE. 71
west were the refuge of the Jerichotes in war ; and they still
separated Jesus from his theatre of war, but he scaled them with
the courage of the conqueror who sought the stronghold of the
foe and of the people of God.1 The journey of about seven
leagues to Jerusalem was a toilsome one, and if the saying of
the Greek geographer Strabo, that the bare rocky region round
Jerusalem was not " worth coveting," and was therefore left in
the hands of the Jews without a struggle, held good anywhere,
it was here in particular.2 The slightly rising road at first fol
lowed the moderately easy course which the Wady Kelt cut
through the midst of the abrupt fortress-crowned hills of Jericho.
A short league takes one from the smiling plain to the inhos
pitable hills ; the road then leaves the Wady Kelt and its western
sources to force access to Jerusalem in a south-westerly direction
over the side and partly over the summit of the hilly range.
The way leads on in the midst of a wild and dreadful solitude,
growing steeper and narrower, a veritable rocky pass, with rocky
walls right and left and rough stones scattered confusedly under
foot.3 This was the district where the wanderer between Jeru
salem and Jericho was most helplessly exposed to the attacks of
robbers and murderers ; and if the priest and the Levite of the
Gospel parable here passed by the bleeding victim upon whom
the Samaritan was the first to have mercy, verily it was the
extreme of hardheartedness which could come upon a neigh
bour without condescending to touch him with a friendly and
skilful hand.4 After about two leagues, the worst would be got
over. At nearly half-way, one might rest at the inn of the
parable, to which the Samaritan brought his charge ; and at
present there stand right and left of the road in this district the
remains of former inns, Khan Chadhur.5 The way then struck
1 Comp. Jos. Ant. 14, 15, 3; B.J. 4, 8, 2 : bpuvr) dvriKpvg 'lep. Jerusalem 3000
feet higher than the Jordan valley. Furrer, Jericho in Bibel-Lexikon.
2 The distance, see above, II. p. 234. Strabo, 16, 2.
3 Jos. B.J. 4, 8, 3 (above, II. p. 235, note 2). Furrer, Wand. pp. 145 sqq.
4 Luke x. 30.
B Khan Hadhur (Furrer, Chadhrur), according to Kiepert and Van de Velde, to the
right of the road ; a khan immediately upon the road, left, a little further on.

72 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
again among the highlands, for the most part in the narrow
valley of Wady-el-Hodh, shut in by high desert hills covered
with loose stones and thorn-bushes. Finally, after going two or
three more toilsome leagues up and down, it reaches the villages
of Bethany and Bethphage, charmingly hidden among mountains
and hills, trees and corn-fields, not far from the melancholy,
rugged, lava-like wilderness. Thence, after a short and pleasant
journey of three quarters of a league, the traveller is in Jerusalem.1

B. — The Johannine Christ at Bethany.
At Bethany the career of the Johannine Christ at last joins
the common course of the Gospels, to which Luke on his part
has already at Jericho returned. This career of the Johannine
Christ certainly lies infinitely wide of the well-beaten path of
this life so well known to us ; and the impression of this differ
ence of character, of this strangeness, of this reversed world,
remains even after the ways seem to coincide at Bethany. At
this point of junction we must not fail to take at least a slight
retrospect of the Johannine path. We cannot, in fact, do more
than this, if we would avoid retarding the course of the actual
history of Jesus at this moment of highest and intensest interest,
and coming again into contact with questions the solution of
which has been already attempted in the Introduction, and the
detailed examination of which later will belong, not to the life
of Jesus, but simply to the illustration of this book.
That, according to this Gospel, Jesus was thrice in Galilee and
thrice at Jerusalem, is as well known as is the decisive prepon
derance which the mission in Jerusalem and Judsea — in truth,
according to this source, the first and last task of the life of Jesus
— constantly usurps.2 When we review this Judsean activity,
1 Matt. xxi. 1, and parallel passages. Furrer, I.e. Plitt, Skizzen aus einer Reise
in's h. Land, p. 56. More in detail below.
2 Above, I. pp. 157, 168, 177, III. p. 134. Gesch. Chr. p. 19.

THE JOHANNINE CHRIST AT BETHANY. 73
we find that, if we will and can strictly and accurately reckon,
the first year of Jesus, after the appearance of John in the wilder
ness, and after the brief Galilean Cana-excursion at Easter, is
devoted to Jerusalem and the country of Judsea until December
or January.1 The new visit to Samaria and Galilee is followed
first by the briefer ministry at the Purim festival, four weeks
before Easter; next, after a forced last sojourn of six months in
Galilee, comes the ministry of three months at Jerusalem, from
the Feast of Tabernacles to that of the Dedication of the Temple,
from harvest until winter.2 It is simply the Judsean persecution
which compels Jesus to seek asylum. He goes in mid-winter, in
December, over the Jordan to Persea, the old baptizing place of
John; and on account of the fresh offence which he gives in
1 Easter, John ii. 13, 23 ; December, January, iv. 35. Comp. above on the Samari
tan journey.
2 Samaria, Galilee, in winter, John iv. 1, 35. Purim festival, xiv. xv. Adar
(Esther ix. 21) exactly four weeks before Easter, v. 1. Expositors, from the Church
Fathers downward, strongly support the assumption of an Easter festival here, while
a minority also speak of the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Atonement (Caspari,
p. 112), or indeed of the Dedication of the Temple. The chronologists, in particular
Kepler, Anger, Wies., but also Hug, Meyer, Mai, and others, uphold Purim, which is
the most appropriate if we can only rely upon the author giving a connected repre
sentation and preserving a chronological exactness, so far as winter appears in iv. 35,
Easter in vi. 4, while v. 1 lies between the two. We can, however, place no great
reliance upon this, because the author does not attach much importance to externals,
for he does not give a detailed description of the feast in v. 1 ; because, further,
iv. 1, 2, 6, 7, do not harmonize with winter, the passage, iv. 35, on which the chrono
logical argument is based, was not written with any chronological motive ; and finally
because in vi. 1 (4) the Galilean activity just before Easter is so abruptly joined on to
the activity at Jerusalem, that the loss of a section has already been surmised. The
six months' Galilean activity, vi. 1, 4, to vii. 2. New activity at Jerusalem, vii. 2, to
x. 22, 39 sq. The Dedication of the Temple from 25th Kislev [Chislen] (middle of
December), in commemoration of the purifying after the desecration by the Syrians.
Jesus' activity at Jerusalem gives ns occasion to take exception to Weizsacker's two
fold representation, (1) that Jesus was alone from the Feast of Tabernacles until the
death of Lazarus (contrary to John ix. 1, &c), (2) that he was at Jerusalem only at
intervals (e.g. afresh at the Festival of the Dedication) (pp. 512, 515), while John
represents him as abiding at Jerusalem. The point of these subjective representations,
however, is the assertion that, on account of the resultlessness of Jesus' activity at
Jerusalem, and on account of its broken character, there was constructed in the Synop
tical Gospels the schematism which made Jesus work in Galilee and end in Jerusalem,
without distinguishing the different periods of his stay in the latter place (p. 513).
A restoration of Gabler's favourite Galilee hypothesis (Strauss, 4th ed. II. p. 157),
after the manner of Neander (p. 487), Ewald (p. 522), and others.

74 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
Bethany before Easter by the resurrection of Lazarus, he flees
out of the neighbourhood of Jerusalem three or four leagues
northward to the hill town Ephraim, and there remains until six
days before Easter, when he re-appears in Bethany preparatory
to making a public visit to the festival at Jerusalem.1 Of the
more than two years of his total ministrations, he thus devotes
at least one whole year to Jerusalem and Judsea, scarcely more
than half a year, and that on compulsion, to his native Galilee.2
Jesus' ministry at Jerusalem was certainly, on the whole, in
every way unfruitfuL If we credit this account, Jesus did not
to any extent stoop to the poor people, as the earlier Gospels
would lead us to suppose. He violently lifted them to himself
in order by that means totally and completely to cast them
from him. Hence at the very beginning the putting to shame
of Nicodemus, the best among the people ; hence the endless,
colourless, notional addresses; hence the animosities and the
scornings directed against the prevalent belief, tolerated only as
prophetic of a better one ; hence the rejection of the people and
of the men " from beneath," and, on the other hand, the exclusive,
wearisome, and defiant self-glorification, from the first Easter to
the famous utterance at the Feast of the Dedication : " I and the
Father are one."3 No wonder that, under such circumstances,
the ministry of Jesus, despite the divine Sonship, ended in utter
failure. His first Easter at Jerusalem is still the richest in hope ;
many come to the faith although he himself gives his faith to
no one, and his baptizing place in Judaea, which he thereupon
opens, is so numerously visited, that disciples of John and Phari
sees become jealous, and Jesus goes to Galilee to get out of the
way of the Pharisees.4 Then the Feast before the second Easter,
according to all appearance the Purim Feast, lays the perma-
1 John x. 40, xi. 1, 6 sq., 17, 54 sq., xii. 1.
2 The compulsion, particularly in iv. 1 sqq. But also compare vi. 1 with v 16
vii. 19—25. '
3 John iii. 1 sqq. Animosity against the belief, v. 37, 39, 45, viii. 17, x. 7, &c.
Rejection, ii. 23, vi. 26 sqq., viii. 19, 23, 37 sqq. Oneness with the Father, x. 30.
4 John ii. 23 sq., iv, 1—3.

THE JOHANNINE CHRIST AT BETHANY. 75
nent foundation of enmity and of plotting to compass his death,
because on the Sabbath he heals the sick man at the pool of
Bethzatha, and declares himself to be the active Son of the inces
santly active Father.1 On account of those plots he remains
from Easter tiH the Feast of Tabernacles in Galilee. At the
latter Feast, the people expect him with longing in the Holy
City ; at last he comes, delivers his longest addresses, but — just
as previously in Galilee — he now, by the reproach of terrestrial,
nay of diabolical, sonship, and by claiming to be older than
Abraham, forces even the willing and thoughtful hearers, even
those who had begun to believe, including servants of the Phari
sees, into unbelief, indeed to repeated and furious attempts to
slay him, from which he escapes, either because the influence of
his presence, and God who appoints the times, keep back their
hands, or because he conceals himself in some mysterious manner.2
Three months later, the Feast of the Dedication brings the last
resolve. His situation has grown worse, for immediately after
the Feast of Tabernacles the excommunication of the believers
in the Messiah had been determined upon; even this menace
does not prevent the Jews from wishing him to make a direct
confession of his Messiahship.3 He makes that confession : " I
and the Father are one." Then they take up stones afresh, seek
to lay hold of him, but he, escaping from them, withdraws into
Persea.4 There is now wanting nothing but the formal and
1 John v. 1 sqq., 16, 18 (above, III. pp. 215 sq.) ; comp. vii. 19 — 25, viii. 40.
2 Expectation, John vii. 11 — 13. Belief, vii. 31, 40, 45 sqq., viii. 81. Reproaches,
particularly viii. 23, 37 sqq. Older than Abraham, viii. 58. Attacks, vii. 30, 32, 44
sqq., viii. 20, 59.
3 John ix. 22 (xii. 42), x. 24. This representation is presupposed by Celsus, Origen,
Con. C. 2, 9. The ban (Heb. cherem, Rabb. niddui, Greek dfopiofibg, dvdOiua,
comp. Ezra x. 8 ; 1 Cor. v. 5, 11, xvi. 22 ; Rom. ix. 3 ; Matt, xviii. 17 ; John xvi. 2 ;
also Buxt., Lightfoot, &c.) is believed by Weisse, I. p. 435, Ewald, p. 452, though the
Synoptics show no trace of it, and the public appearance of Jesus in Galilee and at
Jerusalem, even in John, refutes the assumption. A poor support of the reality of the
ban is the Jewish source, according to which Joshua ben Perachiah, the teacher of
Jesus, excommunicated him in the midst of the blowing of 400 rams' horns ; comp.
above, I. p. 22. Delitzsch, Hillel, p. 14.
4 John x. 24, 31, 39.

76 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
solemn determination to put him to death. Jesus brings this on
by his arrival at Bethany and by his raising of Lazarus, which
he does at the entreaty of the sisters Mary and Martha. The
Pharisees are at once informed of the matter, a meeting of the
Sanhedrim is held, and in harmony with the advice of the high-
priest Caiaphas it is resolved to put him to death. It is also
made the duty of every one to denounce him ; and soon after,
when Jesus, who in the mean time had fled to Ephraim, comes
again to Bethany, and the sensation caused by the miracle is
revived, the death of Lazarus also is determined upon.1
It will be thought cruel and violent when we determinedly reject
the whole of this extensive enrichment of the life of Jesus by
the Johannine account. This enrichment is no history, but the
destruction of history. These journeys, these deeds and miracles,
these addresses, these murderous attacks, are unhistorical. We
ask for no accumulation of evidence if a clear conviction can be
arrived at by a few indications. These eternal wanderings about
the country distort the carefully-planned ministry of Jesus into
the superficiality — the reader must pardon the expression — of an
adventurous and restless spirit. To take one example : in De
cember Jesus is in Judsea, in January in Galilee, in March at
Jerusalem, in April in Galilee. This systematic interchange
between Judsea, Samaria, and Galilee, is simply the work of the
author ; and even Persea and Ephraim, at the close, do not rest
upon any better tradition. If Jerusalem was lost, an asylum
must be found ; Matthew and Mark had recourse to that Persea
through which lay the route of Jesus' actual festival journey ;
Luke appeared to open the route from Samaria to Jerusalem, in
the midst of which — certainly rather too near to Jerusalem — the
little town of Ephraim was to be discovered.2 We have learnt
to regard the deeds and miracles as arbitrary transformations of
the Galilean miracles ; and the purification of the temple at the
1 John xi. 47 sqq., 57, xii. 10. Thus also Ewald, p. 512. On the calling together
of the Sanhedrim by Caiaphas, more in detail further on.
2 Since this Ephraim could afford no protection on account of its proximity, Caspari
(p. 158) places it in the north.

THE JOHANNINE CHRIST AT BETHANY. 77
first Easter is rendered ridiculous by the synoptic report which
exhibits it at the last Easter. The addresses of Jesus are impos
sibilities, even when rich in intellectual vigour. It is only the
author, not Jesus, who can aim at destroying his own work by
contempt of men, of the law, and by inflexible arrogant dogma
tism, and at compeUing the belief, which must in a comfortless
manner again and again reveal itself as a gross belief in miracle
or as a cowardly servile faith of fear, to resolve itself into unbelief.
That the murderous attacks are monstrosities will appear when
it is remembered that they are said to have been continued
more than a year without any result, that Jesus escaped most
mysteriously half-a-dozen times and more, and that he always
re-appeared upon the scene as boldly as if nothing had happened.1
If in the winter of the first year he passed completely out of the
sight of the Pharisees, how could he in March be again at the
feast at Jerusalem ? If, after this Purim festival, he again with
drew to Galilee under the conviction that his opponents restlessly
cherished murderous plans against him, how could he at the
next Feast of Tabernacles be working more publicly than ever
at Jerusalem ? If, at the Feast of Tabernacles, attempts to appre
hend him were made again and again, how could he maintain
his position for a whole quarter of a year, from the Feast of
Tabernacles until that of the Dedication of the Temple ? If he
was condemned at the Feast of the Dedication, how was it
possible for him to come again first from Persea and then from
Ephraim, and at last, in spite of the sentences of death against
him and Lazarus, to make a pompous entry into Jerusalem from
Bethany ? After all, this last entry might be the most intel
ligible, since, according to the Johannine report, Jesus was
resolved to go to meet his death, as indeed in Luke he went to
1 His escapes, (a) John vii. 30, (b) vii. 44, (c) viii. 20, (d) viii. 59, (e) x. 31,
(/) x. 39. Comp. also v. 16, 18, vii. 45, xi. 54, 57, xii. 36. The best explanation of
these incomprehensible escapes is given, in spite of the Johannine Antignosis, by the
Gnosis, particularly by Basilidianism : transfiguratum quemadmodum vellet sic ascen-
disse ad eum, qui miserat eum, deridentem eos, quum teneri non posset et invisibilis
esset omnibus. Irenseus, 1, 24, 4.

78 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
his death with the clearest consciousness of what awaited him.1
But we have already found, against Luke, that such an entry
was impossible. In John the impossibility is doubled, trebled.
Here, Jesus goes in not merely in expectation of death, but
with an exact knowledge of the state of things, of the accumu
lated sentences of the authorities against himself, against Lazarus,
against his adherents, he nevertheless persists in entering, though
it was unnecessary for him to bear fresh testimony. Truly, after
the conclusion of the preaching at Jerusalem and after the pre
ceding journeys of flight, this direct and conscious seeking his
own fall is quite unintelligible on the part of Jesus, who could
neither seek death nor — as the most reliable evidence shows —
could connect with it the salvation of the world ; but it is per
fectly intelligible on the part of the author, who did not shrink
from the idea that Jesus with deliberate intention prepared a
sacrifice which actually appeared to the times that followed as
the single fruit of this Messianic journey.2
Moreover, how could he, as John says, have made a pom
pous entry into Jerusalem, even if we put out of sight the
definitive resolves of his opponents, as well as the completion of
his testimony, which is characteristically mirrored in the fact
that Jesus here, after his entry — in striking distinction from the
account of the Synoptics — no longer in effect works among the
people from whom he at once hides himself again, but preferably
among the Hellenes to whom he explains the fruit of his death,
in the main, however, only in the intimate circle of his disciples,
— how could he have made a pompous entry, when, after the
frequent private earlier entries, a pompous one at this time,
particularly after his breach with the people, had been in no
wise indicated?3 The author has brought a new event to the
1 John xi. 8, 16, xii. 24. On the Synoptics generally, see above, IV. pp. 272 sqq.
» See above, p. 67. Schleiermacher (p. 387) says that Jesus could not take steps
to procure his death. Schenkel (p. 223) says that the character of Jesus is injured by
the Johannine representation.
3 Ministry of Jesus, John xii. 20—36, so that Jesus immediately after his entry
hid himself (verse 36), wherefore the additional short address (verses 44—50) is an

THE JOHANNINE CHRIST AT BETHANY. 79
relief of this difficulty.1 The resurrection of Lazarus must give
renewed life to a history that in truth has in all its parts reached
its end ; it must at the same time explain the fresh resolves of
Jesus' opponents to put him to death, as well as the fresh sym
pathy of the people and the extraordinary ovation they accorded
to him at his entry into the city. While Jesus tarried in his
first asylum, the Persean Bethany, there came a messenger from
the friendly house of Lazarus in the Judsean Bethany near Jeru
salem, a messenger sent by the sisters Martha and Mary to
announce the illness of their brother, the friend of Jesus.2 Jesus
delayed going, not from indifference, but with the view of using
the illness, nay the death, of Lazarus as a means to a higher
end. "This iUness," he said, "is not unto death, but for the
glory of God, in order that the Son of Man may thereby be glori-
impossibility, in truth only the reflection of the Evangelist continued in a pretended
utterance of Jesus. The principal speech is addressed to the Hellenes (verse 23).
Then come merely addresses to the disciples, xiii. — xvii. Bunsen is correct in L. J.
p. 396. Gess is sophistical (retreat merely for this day), p. 125.
1 Comp. Baur, Kanon. Ev. pp. 190, 283 sqq. Strauss, New Life of Jesus, Eng.
trans., I. p. 344.
2 John x. 40, xi. 1. The name of the place, Bethany of Persea, is jot repeated,
but it is the same locality as in i. 28. On this Persean Bethany (Origen upon John, ed.
Lomm. I. p. 238 : Bethabara; hence also Chrys., Epiph.), see above, II. p. 232. Caspari
(p. 79) has foolishly placed it in the Gaulonitis, north-east of Capernaum at et-Tell
(Bethsaida-Julias, in Seetzen Tellanijeh), and has taken this to be identical with Bet-
anijeh. From this he would explain how Jesus could reach Cana in one day (ii. 1),
and would indeed explain the journey also in xi. 1 sqq. ! I am totally unable, con
sistently with what I have said in Vol. II. p. 232, as well on the ground of the fact
that John led men out of the towns and villages, to believe in the — already doubted by
Baur — historical character of the sojourn of John and Jesus in the village of Bethany
in Persea. According to Origen, I. c, this village has never existed, on which account,
as is plain from Origen, Bethabara (in the fourth century, Eus., Jerome, Onom. 109,
and perhaps as early as Origen's time, a renowned baptizing place) was substituted for
it. It is quite possible that the fourth Evangelist found in the word Bethany (see
below, p. 90) the certainly incorrect meaning, house of mourning (anijah, Greek dvia,
domus afflictionis, Jerome), and thought this appropriate for the place of repentance,
and also for the place of Lazarus' death, — whence, moreover, the striking transition
from the one Bethany to the other. Also Wichelhaus, Leidensgeschichte, p. 69, and
Furrer's article, Bethanien : house of poverty. The Peruean Bethany cannot well be
derived from onijah=ship house (Bethabara = ford house), thus Possin, Winer, Lange,
Furrer. Then it would be called Bethony, and we should have — with Furrer — to
find a fresh derivation for the Judsean Bethany. Origen, I. c, makes Bethab. = oik*
KaTaoKturjg (Joh.), Bethany = o. tnraKoJjg. On the name Lazarus, see below, p. 86.

80 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
fled." He therefore remained quietly at the same place for two
days. Not until the third day did he announce to his disciples
that he was going to Judsea.1 They reminded him anxiously of
the attempt to stone him ; he reminded them of the twelve hours
of the day, and of the privilege of him who walks by day over
him who walks by night, viz., that he neither stumbles nor falls.
Then he spoke openly, " Lazarus, our friend, has fallen asleep,
but I go that I may awake him," — an utterance which his
disciples as usual childishly and more than childishly misunder
stood, until he spoke out literally, when Thomas, the melancholy
realist, appealed to the others and said, " Then will we also go
and die with him !"
When they reached Bethany, Lazarus had already been in the
grave four days.2 Apparently the narrator has fixed the date of
death on the day when the report of the illness was sent, and
has reckoned two days for the delay of Jesus, and two days for
his journey ; otherwise we must suppose death to have occurred
on the day of Jesus' mention of it and of the commencement
of the journey, and reckon four — far too long a time — for the
journey itself.3 However that may be, before Jesus reached
Bethany, the " House of Mourning," Martha, who had, we know
not how, been informed of his approach, came to meet him, com
plained, exhibited first only a half belief and then unbelief, until
finally she learned to have faith in the Son of God who called
himself the Besurrection and the Life. She then hastened, in
the name of Jesus, but in reality at the prompting of her own
heart, to call Mary, who appeared before Jesus with a whole
company of condoling visitors from Jerusalem, and fell at his
feet, complaining, weeping, without faith and without hope :
1 John xi. 4—7. 2 John xi. 8—17.
3 The former assumption also in De Wette, Neander, Tholuck, Ebr., Lange, Licht.,
Luther. The other in Bengel, Paulus, Ewald, Meyer ; comp. above, II. p. 232. Start
ing from the district of Jericho, from Bethany to Jericho would be from two to three
leagues ; from Jericho to the Judsean Bethany, six leagues. Van de Velde, Reise, II.
p. 245, also fixes the distance at about ten leagues. That could be travelled in from
one to two days. The objections of Meyer — who on his part reduces the four at least
to three days — to the above explanation have no force.

THE JOHANNINE CHRIST AT BETHANY. 81
"Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died!"
Every one wept ; Jesus was staggered by the doubt and by the
facts, and was moved to anger.1 "Where have ye laid him?"
Jesus was conducted to the grave, outside of the village, near
the place where Martha had met him.2 He then wept himself.
Among the Jews the emotion caused by his tears was tempered
with dissatisfaction because he was not there before Lazarus
died. Afresh provoked, Jesus went to the stone-closed sepul
chre. "Move away the stone!" Martha said to him: "Lord,
he stinks already, for he has been dead four days." This fact,
which was discouraging in quite a different way from the Job's
message from the house of Jairus, would change the most firmly
established belief into unbelief.3 "Did I not say unto thee,"
replied Jesus, " that if thou believest, thou shalt behold the glory
of God?" Then the stone was taken away. Jesus, looking
up to heaven, thanked the Father that he heard him. He was
always certain, he said, that the Father heard him, but because
of the people he thanked and appealed to the Father, in order
that they might believe in his own divine mission. Thereupon
he cried with a loud voice, " Lazarus, come forth !" and the dead
man came forth, bound, hands and feet and head, with grave-
clothes.4 Jesus caused him to be unbound, and sent him home.
1 eujSpia. (xi. 33, 38), out of Mark i. 43, xiv. 5 (Matt. ix. 30). The angry feeling
(not groaning, Tholuck; sighing, Ewald) is occasioned, partly by the unbelief (see
verses 33, 37), partly by the mournful fact (verse 35). Hilgenfeld, Ev. Joh. p. 259,
and Ev. p. 296, is quite incorrect in saying that Jesus is angry with himself on account
of his human emotion.
2 Gloss. Kidd. 80, 2 : ccemet. non erant prope urbem. Massech. Semac. 8 : pro-
deunt ad sepulcra atque invisunt niortuos tribus diebus (with reference to an apparent
death). Lightfoot, pp. 514, 649.
3 Critics are so much addicted to rationalism, that not only Paulus (L. J. I. ii.
p. 60), the upholder of an apparent death, speaks of the absence of smell ; but also
Flatt, Olsh., Hase, Krabbe, Meyer, Strauss, speak of a mere conclusion of Martha's ;
and Steinmeyer (p. 201), with Schleier. (p. 233), of a mere preconceived notion.
4 Schleier. (p. 233) remarks, in connection with the prayer here mentioned, that
Jesus was not concerned in the miracle, since not he, but God, was acting, and Jesus
only asked with firm conviction ; whereby Schleier. naturally wishes to establish an
accommodated view, preferably an apparent death. Neander (p. 462) rejects this help.
On the binding, Irenseus, 5, 13, 1 : symbolum hominis illigati in peccatis.
VOL. V. G

82 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
The astonishment was immense, and faith returned. The next
results were the determination arrived at by the Pharisees to
put Jesus to death, and the streaming forth of the people of
Jerusalem to Bethany, as soon as the wonder-worker returned
once more from his temporary retreat at Ephraim, and for the
last time entered Bethany and reclined at table with Lazarus
the dead-living.1
This narrative is impressive and fine, particularly to those
who can believe not merely the letter of it, but the essential
nucleus, Christ the prince of life for the living and the dead.
The miracle wrought upon Lazarus is without doubt the most
effective among all Jesus' miracles, and the greatest of all his
recorded raisings from the dead.2 At the very first glance it is
seen that the work is a mightier one at the sepulchre than in
the chamber of death or at the bier, on the fourth day than on
the first ; and the advances made upon the earlier instances are
tangible. Looked at more closely, we find there is here not only
a bringing back of the scarcely extinct life, but the subjugation
of death which had already been at work with all the horrors of
decay, the subjugation indeed, one might say, of Paradise into
which the soul had already entered as a guest.3 This masterpiece
of miracle, therefore, at which Paulus and Venturini tried their
hands poorly with trance and life-balsam, and Eenan with
juggling arts ; in the face of which even Pliny the Elder was
compelled to withdraw his bitter taunt of the impotence of the
1 John xi. 19—53, xii. 9 — 11. According to Epiph. 66, 34, Lazarus was thirty
years old and lived thirty more, Hofm. L. J. p. 357. According to Bunsen (p. 390),
he died soon.
2 Steinmeyer writes zealously (p. 204) against the climax, the superlative character
of the miracle (Baur, Theol. Jahr. 1844, p. 408, and Strauss, 4th ed. p. 143). But
Irenseus, 5, 13, 1, already has the same progressive order, (1) Jair, (2) Nain, (3) Lazarus.
3 This last objection (comp. Luke xvi. 22, xxiii. 43) has already troubled many. It
is true that, according to the popular belief even of the Jews, anima per triduum cir-
cumvolat animo revertendi ; post hsec conspiciens immutatum vultum, avolat. Hier.
Moed. Kat. 82, 2 ; in Lightfoot, pp. 43, 649. Krabbe (p. 344), following Schubert and
Fichte, assumes something similar, a gradual setting free of the soul, bringing in for
Lazarus the kiDgdom of God. Fancies of the ancients about the delivery of Lazarus
from Hades, Hofm, p. 444 (comp. Rev. xx. 13 ; Gospel of Nicodemus, ii.).

THE JOHANNINE CHRIST AT BETHANY. 83
gods, or with Pilate (in the pretended report to the emperor
Tiberius) to recognize the weakness of the heathen gods against
the God of the Christians; in the presence of which, finally,
Spinoza was willing — in the event of finding proof — to throw up
his system and to become a convert to the ordinary Christian faith,
— this miracle is in every point admirably calculated to form a
brilliant close to the career of Jesus.1 To sober exposition it is,
however, altogether untenable. The earlier Gospels, the faithful
narrators of the life of Jesus, the exclusively faithful and copious
narrators of his festival journey, know — notwithstanding the
vigorous assurances of Meyer — not a syllable about this miracle
and the decisive movement which it called forth. Not only
do they not know of it, they disprove it, for they write of the
festive meal at Bethany without giving the slightest thought to
the man of the miracle, Lazarus. To them the crisis of Jesus'
destiny is brought about by very different and much more
convincing occurrences.2 These Evangelists know nothing of a
1 Paulus, II. p. 60; Venturing HI. pp. 310 sqq.; Ammon, II. p. 112; Renan, 15th
ed. pp. 372 sqq. According to Paulus, Jesus took the condition of Lazarus to be
merely that of trance (as in the Jairus case). A transition to the jugglery of Renan —
who represents Jesus as descending from his position of moral purity when the situa
tion led him to despair, and Lazarus, who was perhaps irrecoverably ill, as helping
Jesus to ¦- public spectacle (justly disapproved by Hase, Steinmeyer, less severely by
Strauss) — is afforded by Paulus and Venturini, in so far as the former represents Jesus
as seeing, at the first glance, the movements of the man who it is pretended is dead,
and the latter introduces balsam and salve by which the colour is brought again to
Lazarus' cheeks ; then prayer and the cry to awake ! The hypothesis of apparent
death — the admissibility of which (comp. above, IV. pp. 169 sqq.) even Krabbe (p. 338)
does not absolutely deny, holding the view of a merely deadly illness with subsequent
glorification — in one way or another supported by Schleierm. p. 233; Schweizer,
p. 156; Hase, p. 204; Ewald, p. 483; Weizs. p. 528; Bunsen, p. 390. Criticism on
these views (referred to by Steinm. p. 198), in Strauss, 4th ed. II. pp. 132 sqq., New
Life of Jesus, Eng. trans., II. pp. 231 sqq. Pliny, H. Nat. 2, 5 ; Pilat. ad Tib.,
Anaph. A. 1. Spinoza, see Bayle, Spinoze; comp. Krabbe, p. 333.
2 In order to explain the silence of the Synoptics— whom Schneck. Urspr. d. 1. Ev.
p. 10, disparages as not being apostles — it has sometimes been assumed that they
passed over the fact out of regard for the safety or the feelings of the family at Bethany
(thus, after Epiph., Grot., Wetst., Herder, also Lange, III. p. 1132; comp. Press.
p. 536), and on that account spoke (Lange) of Mary herself as only "a woman"
(Matthew xxvi. 7), as if men writing in A. D. 70 — 100 and later would still be influ
enced by such considerations. Sometimes, again, it has been assumed that the writers
were influenced by the Galilean standpoint (Gabler, Neander, Krabbe, Ewald, Press.),
G 2

84 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
sojourn of Jesus in Persea, or of his dwelling at Bethany in the
house of Lazarus and his sisters ; on the other hand, they locate
him in the house of Simon the leper, out of whom it was reserved
for Ewald to create the deceased father of the brother and sisters.
Nor do they know that the woman whom Jesus anointed in
that house was the mistress of the house, an intimate, and no
other than Mary herself.1 If this objection afforded by the old
Evangelists does not suffice, nor the significant trifling with two
Bethanies, which recalls so many other artifices of this book,
then let us, without taking alarm at the miraculous, examine
this Johannine miracle. There can be no one who does not feel
very unpleasantly astonished at a whole series of features in
this narrative. Can Jesus have sought in such a way an oppor
tunity of working a great miracle, viz., by intentionally waiting,
without one serious hindrance — to which it is customary to make
such a precarious appeal — until Lazarus was dead, and until
he had reached the required stage of stinking ?2 Can he have
so restrained his natural sympathy or so neglected the duty of
friendship as coldly to sacrifice the interest of his friends to his
or they had defective knowledge of the true pragmatism in the fall of Jesus (Schleierm.,
Liicke, Hase), to which also the early death of Lazarus contributed (Bunsen, p. 390).
Sometimes, still more unfortunately, it has been assumed that, notwithstanding their
doubtless increasing knowledge of the miracle, they imposed upon themselves the limi
tation to narrate nothing beyond their schema, the passion week (Meyer). It is much
better, with Bruckner, to speak simply of an inexplicability, unless one prefers, with
Steinm. p. 203, to see in this miracle nothing special. Many apologists, moreover,
think that without this incident the key of the history would be lost (Gess, p. 120),
everything would be inexplicable— the enthusiasm, the hatred, and the resolve to put
Jesus to death (Press, p. 537 ; comp. Schleierm. and Lucke), and even the ecstatic
anointing, together with the remnant of ointment which had been saved from Lazarus
(Lange) !
1 Matt. xxvi. 6 ; Mark xiv. 3. Ewald, pp. 481, 510. Similarly already, Nic
Theophyl., in Wichelh. p. 69. According to Paulus, Martha was the widow of Simon !
2 Hindered by successful ministry in Persea, Neander, Lucke, Tholuck, and others.
On the other hand, Meyer thinks well to talk of a knowledge of a divine appointment
that it should happen just so and not otherwise; Steinmeyer, of obedience to God.
Ewald speaks of suspicion of treachery. Relatively best is Olshausen's explanation
that Jesus wished to give those at Bethany an opportunity of exercising faith. Objec
tion to this delay by all the representatives of criticism, Bretschn., Gfror., Strauss,
Baur, Weisse, Hilg., and others.

THE JOHANNINE CHRIST AT BETHANY. 85
own ? Can he have regarded the death-need of his friend, the
sorrow of the sisters, as a means of glorifying the Son of Man,
with the view of afterwards dedicating to the misfortune which
he had helped to bring about, his unnatural tears and his anger ?
Can he have declared to God that he could have dispensed with
thanks for being heard, because he was always certain of it, and
that he had made use of the words of prayer to God merely as a
means to a very different end, only in order to convince the
people of his own divine mission 1X In fact, an over- wrought
stilted narrative and a Christology that is unnaturally distorted
and that visibly confounds man with God in the miraculous
prescience and knowledge at a distance, not, it is true, of the ill
ness but — and this is the more perplexing — of the increase of
the illness and of the death of Lazarus,— all this lies before us
here in such baldness, such disregard of delicacy, of truth, nay, of
religion, that not a doubt can remain of the spuriousness of the
whole story.2
Fortunately we may say that it was the aim of the author —
who has not arranged this scene with so much skill as he has
done many others — here as elsewhere, and here still more than
elsewhere, rather to show a general characteristic of Jesus and
at the same time to lessen the difficulties of his narrative, than to
1 John xi. 41 sq. Strauss, Weisse, and Baur have spoken here of sham prayer, and
unjustly in so far as Jesus did not regard the prayer and the thanks as in themselves
unnecessary with reference to God (he prays thus also in xvii.), but justly in so far
as the words of the thanks were chosen rather for the men to hear than for God, which
is a breach of the religious adoration that man owes to God. Unsatisfactory rectifica
tion by the supposition of silent prayers, among others by Neander, Ebr., Krabbe,
Lange, Steinmeyer. Certainly in John (an evidence of the overstrained dogmatics)
such scenes as the above occur repeatedly, and God takes part in them, xii. 28 sqq.
Defective moral decorum also, iv. 7, 16, vi. 5; comp. xi. 28.
2 Schenkel and Wittichen (besides Strauss, Baur, Weisse, Hilg.) do not doubt the
spuriousness, and Schleierm. (p. 233) seeks some means of escape ; and Ewald, Hase,
Weizs., and others, admitting the glorification, come to the same conclusion. Jesus'
knowledge is explained sometimes humanly, by means of a second message (Paulus,
and in part even Neander), or by presentiment (Ewald, Hase) and confidence (Hase,
Schweizer), strengthened by psychological motives (need, Schweizer ; contradiction,
Ewald) ; and sometimes as derived from divine revelation (Neander, Pressense), divine
knowledge and purpose (Krabbe, Lange, &c).

86 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
compel faith in the incident itself.1 Tradition was strikingly
defective in great miracles for the closing period of Jesus' career ;
therefore the Evangelist wished to concentrate all the divinity,
all the life-glory of Jesus, his full power to awaken the nation,
his believers, himself out of death spiritual and physical, into
one great final picture which should crown the guilt of the nation
that rejected him, and should perfect the joyful assurance of the
Christians that in the supulchre, in the stone before the grave,
and in the death-clothes of Lazarus, they possessed a prototype
of the impending resurrection of the Lord and also of their own.
That he made use of this narrative for such a purpose is shown
by the original elements out of which it is constructed. They
lay in the earlier Gospels, chiefly in Luke. There Jesus had
introduced, in a parable, a poor sick Eleazar or Lazarus, a " God-
help " — the symbol of the Jewish people ill-treated by the powers
of the earth, by the Herods and the Eomans — who, after his
death, was borne by angelic hands to the bosom of Abraham ;
and also a man clothed in purple, who in the fire of hell
begged that Lazarus might be sent to the earth in order to
warn his royal brethren of the terrors of the future. " If one
go to them from the dead, they will repent." But Abraham had
answered : " If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither
will they be convinced though one rise from the dead."2 This
1 Comp. Weizs. p. 528, and in his manner, Ewald, p. 483. Above all Herder, and
Baur, who gives to xi. 25 the emphasis of a central point; even Irenaeus, 5, 12, 6;
5, 13, 1. On the other hand, Meyer : nowhere so distinctly the opposite of fiction as
here !
2 Luke xvi. 19 sqq. See above, I. pp. 99, 164, IV. p. 82, note 2. Already Paulus,
Hbb. II. p. 381, and Schleierm. (comp. Bleek, II. p. 235) were on the right road when
they took the rich man for Antipas. More detailed references, above, IV. p. 82. The
series is (1) Herod the Great, (2) Archelaus, (3) Philip, (4) Antipas, (5 and 6) the
two Agrippas. Sons and grandsons are spoken of as brothers, pares. The wearers of
purple (Jos. Ant. 14, 9, 4; 18, 6, 6), the men who wore garments of byssus (B.J.
2, 1, 1), the carousers (Ant. 18, 6, 2) and the rare sympathizers (above, I. pp. 242 sq.,
247), the despisers of the Law (above, I. pp. 251, 252), were the Herods. Herod the
Great took the road to hell, above, I. p. 253. And did not Archelaus, Antipas
Agrippa I., also ? With them the half-heathen Jerusalem went hand in hand (Rev.
xi. 8 ; Matt. ii. 3). In contrast to the rulers of the world, the poor pious people  their
representative finally the Messiah, Jesus (i. e. Jehovah is succour, above, II. p. 97) 

THE JOHANNINE CHRIST AT BETHANY. 87
Lazarus of the parable, already in Luke's Gospel a prototype of
Jesus even to the very name, John, conscious of the figurative
character of his language and sure that the intelligent among the
congregation would understand, represents as rising from the
dead. He intended thus to show that the stiff-necked, worldly-
minded Moses-nation, which he found depicted in the rich
brethren, had, in fact exactly according to the prediction of
Abraham, refused to believe " though Jesus did such great signs."
He intended also to show that, the glory of Jesus had achieved
that for his Christians, by his word and his work and his resur
rection, which father Abraham himself, almost like one of little
faith, had found impossible.1 The remaining features of the pic
ture are also supplied by the earlier Gospels. The house of Simon
the leper is transformed into a house of Lazarus, who also in
Luke was covered with ulcers. The brotherless pair of sisters,
Martha and Mary, in the unnamed village of Luke become, as to
name and character, the sisters of the miracle-man of Bethany.
The correct conception of the details becomes simple and com
plete as soon as we see their natural origin.2
at first succumb (Rev. xii. 4 ; comp. Matt. ii. 3), at last come to honour (Luke i. 52),
although the worldly part of the Jews do not so believe (comp. Rev. xi. 13). Another
parallel might be found in the six parties of the Jews (counting the Samaritans as
one), Heges. ap. Eus. 4, 22 ; but there would be here no wearers of purple. The
original word for Lazarus is Elas(z)ar, from which the Rabbis get the contracted Lasar
(as Mattai, at least according to Ewald and Hitzig, from Amittai, hine from ahine
[see below, p. 90, n. 4], saron from jesharon), Lightfoot, p. 646. Greek Ad^apog,
Jos. B.J. 5, 13, 7. Germanized into Lassner.
1 Comp. John xii. 67 (Ex. iv. 8 sqq.). Tooavra is sometimes translated "so great"
(De Wette, Liicke), sometimes "so many" (Meyer). For the latter or quantitative
conception, we may appeal to the use of language in John vi. 9, xiv. 9, and factually
to vii. 31, xi. 47 ; on the other hand, for the qualitative conception, not only to ravra,
iii. 2, fieiZova, xiv. 12 (comp. xv. 24), but also to the spirit of the whole Gospel, which
admits only the elite of the great miracles, and specially to the — according to Luke xvi.
— so decisively great and yet merely pretended miracle of Lazarus.
2 Thus first Zeller, Theol. Jahrb. 1843, p. 89, and Baur, Ev. p. 249 ; Strauss, New
Life of Jesus, Eng. trans., II. p. 231. Also Schenkel, Bib.-Lex. III. p. 292. Even
Steinm., p. 205, cannot deny the possibility. With the three passages — (1) Luke
xvi. 19 (the poor man Lazarus), comp. also John v. 46 ; (2) Matt. xxvi. 6, Mark xiv. 3
(Bethany meal); (3) Luke a. 38 (Martha and Mary) — is in John interwoven in an
interesting manner (4) Luke vii. 36 (the woman who was a sinner at Simon's house).
Comp. below, the anointing at Bethany. Ewald, I.e. pp. 481, 510, found in John

83 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.

C. — The Jubilant Eecognition of the Messiah.
Whilst the fourth Gospel represents Jesus as spending a night
at Bethany, and thus postpones the entry into Jerusalem until
the next day, the early sources are at one in making him pass
close by the village. This must at once be admitted to be the
more likely, since Jerusalem, and not Bethany, was the goal
which had been often announced, and which was now, especially
by the disciples and adherents, longed for almost with impatience.
Moreover, everything tends to show that the preparation of the
Sabbath was about to begin, and if that did not make the com
pletion of the journey legally obligatory before three o'clock in
the afternoon, yet the popular custom would make its completion
at that time very desirable.1 The different account given by
John is sufficiently explained by the facts that the resurrection
of Lazarus converted Bethany into an important station, and
that the joyous going forth of the festival guests from Jeru
salem to meet Jesus, which this Gospel introduces, becomes
possible only when the news of Jesus' arrival and sojourn at
Bethany had reached the metropolis, for which some time was
rather the correct emendation of the early tradition, whereby he still finds that the
sequence of age in the family was : Mary, Martha, Lazarus (Meyer also upholds this
last finding). In fact, we learn nothing about the age of Lazarus, and Martha — i.e.
the mistress, Jerome, sermone syro domine (mar, mare, not maron, Volk. p. 560 ; still
less=mirjam, Wichelh. p. 70; fem. mareta, marat beta, expression of the Babyl. Jews,
instead of baalah, Bux. p. 1247), the woman of the house (notwithstanding xi. 1, 45)
—stands first (as in Luke x. 38) in John xi. 5, 19 sq., xii. 2. In so far was Paulus,
L. J. I. 2nd part, p. 55, nearer to the truth when he called Martha the widow of
Simon the leper. In character also she harmonizes with the Martha of Luke ; she
serves, hastens to meet Jesus, has sanguine hope, and then again as a realist falls back
into natural unbelief. Mary is more profound, remains at home, falls at Jesus' feet,
weeps, is the special subject of the consolation of the Jews, is perfectly resigned, leaves
everything to Jesus, renders at last (xii. 2) the ideal homage. In opposition to the
critical explanation, Gfrorer (Urchrist. III. p. 313) has found in this event the mythical
transformation of the story of Nain (out of which Bethany has grown) ; comp. Krabbe,
p. 342 ; but Weisse (II. p. 259) recognizes the consolatory utterances about resurrec
tion as original.
1 The preparation of the Sabbath began at the ninth hour on Friday, i. e. three
o'clock in the afternoon. Comp. Jos. Ant. 16, 6, 2. Bleek, Beitr. p. 116.

THE JUBILANT RECOGNITION OF THE MESSIAH. 89
necessary.1 But to suppose there were two or more pompous
entries, one from Jericho with the festival caravan, a second
from Bethany with the disciples, one unprepared for, the other
prepared for — a distinction which Paulus makes — gives us too
much of a good thing, is in truth only the wretchedly unnatural
makeshift of such as wish to adjust differences.2
Indeed, the account of Matthew goes so far as to make it
appear that Jesus did not at this time enter Bethany at all, and
only just touched upon Bethphage. Having come by Bethphage
to the Mount of Olives, he sent to the village that lay on the
road opposite to him for an animal to ride upon. By this vil
lage we are to understand Bethphage, and by no means Bethany,
which according to all probability lay further back and had been
already passed on the journey; although since Origen it has
been customary to make the word refer to Bethany, and in
this way it has been thought possible to harmonize Matthew,
Mark who mentions only Bethany, and Luke who, without
obvious reasons, places Bethphage and Bethany together.3 Cer
tainly there prevails great confusion upon the question of the
superiority of the several Gospel reports as well as upon that of
the localities themselves ; hence it is not altogether inconvenient
1 John xii. 12. Nevertheless, the Johannine representation has been accepted not
only by Krabbe (p. 433), but also by Ewald (p. 519), even by Schenkel (Bibel-Lex.
III. p. 295), and partially by Weisse (p. 437).
5 Paulus, Handb. III. pp. 22 sqq. Schleier. Luk. p. 244; L.J. p. 406 ("perhap3
in a less degree daily"). Neander, pp. 479, 481. Bunsen, p. 395.
3 Matt. xxi. 1 should be read, r(Kdov tig Bn9(j>. eig rb opog r. A. Bethany had
been copied from Luke (Mark), irpbg rb op. is much better attested than dg, even in
Origen and Jerome (ad). But B C, It., Orig. upon Matt. t. XVI. 10 (more frequently,
certainly, irpbg = wX-noiov, ib. 14, 17; ed. Knapp. 10 ; Orig. on John, t. X. 15) have ti'c,
and irpbg is forced in from Luke, Mark. But the first dg (dg B.) does not necessarily
Bignify an entrance into Bethphage (comp. John iv. 5). If this is admitted (Meyer),
then it is not necessary to understand, with most (from Origen to Meyer), Bethany to
be the village opposite. It would have been foolish to have named the village whence
Jesus sent his messengers, but to have been silent (presumably, again, from prudential
motives !) as to the more important village whither he sent. The genuine reading of
Mark is eyyi£. dg 'I. xai dg Bjj0. Thus, besides It., emphatically Origen (ed. Lomm.),
IV. pp. 43, 52 (on the other hand, Orig. on John, ib. I. 313 = Luke). In Luke (xix. 29)
the same sources establish r)yy. dg Bn00. Kai Bn9.

90 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
to pass over the former altogether.1 More closely considered,
Matthew is found to possess the advantage of having mentioned
the unknown, while the others mention the known ; but it was
only too easy, as nothing was known of Bethphage, for men to
put in its place — with Luke and Mark — that Bethany to which
Jesus went back to take up his quarters.2 As to the relative
position of the two places, the New Testament reports, Matthew's
especially, decide that Bethphage was nearer and higher up on
the Mount of Olives, Bethany lower and farther off; and with
this harmonize not only the communications of the earliest
Fathers of the Church — who place Bethphage upon the Mount of
Olives and Bethany close to the Mount — and the intimations of
later ecclesiastical tradition, but also the declarations of subse
quent Jewish literature.3 In that literature there is incidental
mention of a Bet-hine, i. e. a date-house, with its dates and unripe
figs, a name in which we can find Bethany. But the same
literature makes more circumstantial and more exact reference
to a Bethphage, or little fig-house, which it describes as a walled,
tolerably populous place in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem,
with a prospect of the Holy City, and as being, on account of its
trifling suburban distance, virtually a part of the city and a
sharer in its religious rights.4 Two conclusions may be safely
1 Thus Ewald, p. 514 ; Volkmar, p. 506 ; and most of the critics.
a Neither can we here decide with Luke-Mark against Matthew; but we cannot
prove the priority of Mark to Luke in this doubtful passage. It may be assumed that
Luke first substituted the known Bethany for the — to him — unknown Bethphage, and
that then Mark erased Bethphage altogether. Bleek also is for Matt., II. p. 297.
3 Matth. : Bethphage, dg rb opog. Luke-Mark, irpbg rb b. Comp. Luke xxiv. 50.
Eus. On. 120, Bethphage, 7rpde rif 6. Jerome, 121 : villula in monte Oliveti.
Bethany, Jerome, 111 : in latere montis 0. The Christian tradition, see below,
pp. 91 sq. Those who would make the two places identical, might appeal to the
similarity of the names, and to the fact that, according to the Rabbis, Bet-hine (per
haps Bethany) is also a place of figs (paggim, comp. Bethphage, see next note) ; but
the early notices have clearly distinguished between the two places.
4 Bet-hine (ahina, dactylus immaturus, Buxt. p. 38. Lightfoot, p. 202, reads hene),
in Bab. Pesach. f. 53, 1 : grossi (pagge) bet-hine. Another and more readily suggested
derivation of the word Bethany, besides that supported by Lightfoot and others, would
be from bet-anja (ena), house of the well (Bronnweiler), after Targ. Jon. Ex. xv. 27;
Buxt. p. 1633; Wichelh. p. 69. Bet-phage (pag, paggim, Aran, pagin, page, ficus

THE JUBILANT RECOGNITION OF THE MESSIAH. 91
based upon these notices. In the first place, the present little
village El Azirijeh, or village of Lazarus (Lazarium, the Arabic
personal name El Azir), which with its twenty or thirty white
houses lies hidden in the green of its olive, fig and walnut-
trees, and of fields of wheat and barley, on the south-east of the
Mount of Olives, at the foot of a spur of the Mount, on the
road from Jericho to Jerusalem, and about two-thirds of a league
from the latter place, may be regarded as the village of Bethany,
not simply on account of its name or of the house and grave of
Lazarus shown by pilgrims, or of the stone upon which Jesus
is said to have sat and conversed with Martha and Mary, but
because the distance and the position strikingly agree with the
traditions of John, Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome.1 But Beth
phage, which could not have its place here, because the vil
lage of Lazarus is not on the Mount of Olives and does not
look upon the waUs of Jerusalem, lay — notwithstanding Luke's
Gospel, which places it further off — nearer to Jerusalem, either
on the road which, skirting the Mount of Olives on the south
west, led through the saddle between that Mount and the Mount
of Offence to the Holy City, whose walls here become visible ;
or, according to the early tradition, midway between the Lazarus
village and the top of the Mount of Olives, on the road which,
immat.), see Lightfoot, pp. 198, 755. Hug, Einleitung, I. pp. 16 sq. Comp. par
ticularly gloss on Gem. Bab. Swnh. 1, 3 : Bethphage locus est in conspecta moenium
urbis (makom lepanim min chomot hair), quantum ad omnia tamen utebatur jure
Hieros. Bethphage is often called ehuz lechomot (extra muros), Pesach. 63, 2 ; 91, 1,
&c. In some glosses : circuitus exterior urbis, whence then the opinion that all the
suburbs of Jerusalem were so called. Comp. Buxt. p. 1691 ; Lightfoot, p. 202 ; Wetst.
p. 459 ; and as to later critics, below, p. 91, n. 1. The Gospel notice, the earliest we
have of Bethphage, serves essentially again to correct the Rabbinical hypotheses.
Absurd derivations of the word Bethphage since Origen. According to Origen (upon
Matt. t. XVI. 17) : olsog oiayoviov, ruiv Upiwv %bipiov (maxillarum, from Syr. pake).
Comp. Paulus, Handb. III. i. 114, and the commentators.
1 Comp. Robinson ; Tobler, Topogr. Jerus. II. p. 432 ; also Plitt, Furrer. John
xi. 18 : Bethany fifteen stadia from Jerusalem. Origen gives the same (following John),
ed. Lomm. I. p. 238. Jerome, I.e. Ill : villa in secundo ab Aelia milliario. Of the
memorials of Lazarus there, Eusebius and Jerome speak. The latter says : cujus et
monumentum ecclesia nunc ibidem exstructa demonstrat. Eusebius only : ro7roc (of
Lazarus) SdKvvrat. Renan, 15th ed. p. 353 : Bethany, au sommet de la colline !

92 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
starting in a north-westerly direction from that village, climbed
the height of the Mount ; or upon the Mount of Olives itself, but
by no means on the western descent of the Mount which looks
down directly upon Jerusalem, for such a position would contradict
everything.1 We prefer the first position. That still frequented
highway was the pleasanter one, and better suited for a pompous
entry into the city. Moreover, not a single account speaks of an
ascent to the top of the Mount of Olives, and the Talmud no
where suggests an elevated hilly position for Bethphage.2 We
note here once more the haste with which Jesus presses on to
wards Jerusalem. He makes no halt in the little, friendly,
remote Bethany, nor in the larger Bethphage. It is less a reli
gious punctuality anxious to anticipate the beginning of the day
of preparation, than the holy passion of a great cause which
drives him restlessly within the walls of the City of God, to his
work, to his destiny.
Much more important than this question of places, is that of
the kind and manner of the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. All
the Gospels are agreed that he went into the Holy City in an
unusual manner, and with accompaniments that unmistakably
exhibited his Messianic claims and rights. It is true the Gospels
1 Luke xix. 29 : "as he came near Bethphage and Bethany." Hence (after Robin
son) Ewald, p. 514, and Bunsen, p. 395 (on the contrary, Wichelh. p. 70), take Beth
phage to be the more remote from Jerusalem ! More correctly, Epiph., in Paulus, III.
i. p. 167. That Jerusalem was not seen from Bethany is generally acknowledged (comp.
Furrer, Caspari) ; according to Volkmar, p. 509, however, one would catch sight of the
Holy City on going out of Bethany. The tradition of the monks, according to Rauwolf,
Pococke, and others, in Arnold, Bethphage. Recent writers have very bunglingly
looked for Bethphage in the village Abu Dis, south-east of Bethany, lying remote
among the hills (Arnold, Oelberg in Herz. X. p. 551). Lightfoot (p. 199) having
misunderstood the Talmudic notices of Bethphage so far as to sa-ppose that by that
name was designated the lowest part of the Mount of Qlives towardb the city and a
part of the city itself (house of figs), whence the place would appear Vs a part of the
maenia Jerus., Renan (15th ed. p. 386) and Caspari (p. 162) have followed him. Renan
understands by Bethphage the eastern pomserium of the city; Caspari, the district of
the Mount of Olives as far as Bethany, a supplement of the city, calle'd by the Rabbis
Bethphage. But Hug (pp. 16 sq.) and Paulus (Ev. III. i. 114) have already shown
Lightfoot's error; and it was reserved for Caspari (p. 163) to point to the Chanujot
(see Wieseler, Beitr. pp. 209 sqq.) in Jerusalem as Bet-hania=Bethany.
3 Similarly Furrer, Bethphage in Bibel-Lex. ; comp. Sepp, Jerus. I. p. 679.

THE JUBILANT RECOGNITION OF THE MESSIAH. 93
present significant differences. It is instructive that the charac
ter of the situation largely depends upon whether the demonstra
tions—which cannot be denied, though they may be toned down
— were instigated by Jesus himself, or originated with his disciples
and adherents, or finally with the festival guests at Jerusalem.1
This last is essentially the representation of the fourth Gospel,
and is stiU advocated by modern writers.2 On the very first day
of Jesus' arrival at Bethany, multitudes of the people flocked
out to the wonder-worker, though only with the result of pro
voking inimical resolutions on the part of the high- priests even
against Lazarus. But on the next day, when it was known
that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, the multitudes of festival
pilgrims met him with palm branches and Messiah shouts, upon
which Jesus, either yielding to the instigation or encouragement
of the disciples, or perhaps merely with the view of avoiding the
thronging of the crowd, mounted a young ass which accidentally
stood at his disposal3 But the earlier Gospels give the first repre
sentation; the disciples and adherents of Jesus form the jubilant
festival train, and Jesus himself is not only pleased with all this,
but himself takes the initiative by sending, before there was
any movement at all, two disciples in a striking manner to
1 Attempts to tone down are common from Paulus onwards. Not merely is Jesus
exonerated from instigating the demonstrations, but they are even converted into
something usual during the period of his teaching. According to Schleiermacher
(pp. 407 sqq.), the entry was nothing aimed at; indeed, Jesus was accustomed to enter
the city early in the morning for quiet's sake ; but day after day the people brought
him with more or less of display. He made no formal entry, but he submitted to being
escorted. According to Renan (15th ed. p. 197), Jesus in his journeys frequently rode
upon » mule (with large beautiful eyes and eyebrows), and the disciples indulged in
a rustic pomp, laying their garments on the road, marks of honour to which he was
very sensitive, and which were again paid to him on his last entry into Jerusalem
(ib. p. 387).
2 John xii. 12 sqq. Similarly Paulus (L. J. I. ii. pp. 82, 91 sq.) and Schleiermacher
(p. 407), both of whom assume a double entry, a Synoptical one and a Johannine one,
Bleek (II. p. 299), Neander (pp. 478 sqq.), Renan (I. c), who represents the Galileans
as going out of Jerusalem to meet Jesus (comp. also Langen, p. 12). Schenkel, p. 224 ;
Hausrath, p. 435 ; Bunsen, p. 393.
3 John xii. 14 should be interpreted by xii. 16.

94 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
fetch him an animal for riding from the opposite village of
Bethphage.1 Which report is the more in harmony with history can soon
be discovered. In the first place, it is easier to conceive that a
Messianic entry, marked by materially Jewish forms and ending
in the cross, was compiled or condensed from a previous writing,
than that it was invented. Supposing the idea of a Jewish
Messiah to be really antipathetic to the fourth Evangelist, whilst
the earlier account favoured the conception that Jesus of set
purpose entered Jerusalem as the Messiah of the Jews, the cor
rection would be at once made if the Messianic demonstrations
were transferred from Jesus and his adherents to the festival
guests at Jerusalem. Certainly this was not historical, and for
this reason: as we long since saw, the Messianic movement
necessarily and actually began to show itself in the circle of
Jesus, and not thus in a sudden agitation — however great might
have been the miracle that is supposed to have occasioned it—
among festival guests who for the most part had never seen
him, and had heard nothing of his Messiahship, which may be
said even of those Galileans at Jerusalem to whom Eenan has
thought weU to ascribe the triumphant reception of Jesus.2
Moreover, the Lazarus miracle altogether vanishes, together with
the sojourn of Jesus at Bethany and the flocking of Jerusalem-
1 Matt. xxi. 1, and parallel passages. As the place, Matthew mentions Bethphage
(see above), upon which Justin (Trypho, 53), Paulus, Neander, Ewald (p. 514, with
otherwise incorrect explanation), by accident agree. Hausrath (p. 435) and others,
Bethany. 2 Renan, 15th ed. p. 387. Schenkel had already, in his Charakterbild, p. 224,
made the people of Jerusalem share in the proceedings at the entry ; he has done this
still more in Bibel-Lex. III. p. 295, after having found that Jesus, during his sojourn
of several months in Judsea, repeatedly taught in Jerusalem before his entry — a minis
try which Schenkel previously denied (Char. p. 179). Moreover, he now finds that
the festival train — after the preceding marks of homage at Bethany (anointing) — had
been arranged with the leaders of it. Weisse (pp. 435 sq.) has most correctly upheld
the Synoptical account, saying that everything proceeded from Jesus and his Galileans,
and only according to the Synoptics was the entry, as result of the foregoing actions of
Jesus, of worth.

THE JUBILANT RECOGNITION OF THE MESSIAH. 95
ites to Bethany. And the enthusiasm of the Jerusalemites
as weU as that of the festival guests never existed at all,
according to the earlier Gospels, which describe the astonishment
of the Jerusalemites as contrasting violently with the jubilation
of those who accompanied Jesus.1 Finally, not only are the
other Gospels the older and the more correct, but John invo
luntarily establishes the essential correctness of their account.
John not merely admits that Jesus himself, though as a second
thought, had recourse to an animal for riding, and this unmistak
ably — as the introduction of the passage from the prophets shows
— with a Messianic meaning, if also with a higher one, but he also
points to the co-operation of the Twelve and of the "accom
panying " people ; and the intimation — so often appealed to as
an evidence that this author was an eye-witness — that it was
not until after Jesus was glorified that the disciples understood
the prophetic meaning of the riding in and of what they them
selves unconsciously did to him, is a most certain proof that the
narrator knew of that essential co-operation of the disciples at
the entry which is related by the others, but the main fact of
which he passes over in silence, allowing no more to appear than
an unconscious proceeding.2
But though it may now be assumed as established that the
festival escort of Jesus, the disciples most prominently, co-ope
rated with full consciousness in a Messianic entry, there remains,
on the other hand, the question whether Jesus himself acted with
them or gave the first impulse. This question is a difficult one,
although the early Gospels leave no doubt in the matter, and
even the fourth is not able altogether to deny his participation.
All the historical testimonies we had hitherto examined have
shown us simply the Messianic excitement of the disciples and
others who accompanied him, and have not given a trace of a
1 Thus Matt. xxi. 10 sq.
2 John xii. 14— 17. Praise of John in Neander, p. 481. Bleek, II. pp. 299 sq. It
is correct that the disciples did not think of the Old Testament, incorrect that they
did not think of the Messiah.

96 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
Messianic demeanour, agitation, or demonstration, on the part of
Jesus. On the contrary, he stood preponderantly under the
influence of his dark presentiment, and was constantly guided
by that serious and sober spirit which more than once sought
to restrain the fanciful hopes of his adherents. And when we
look towards Jerusalem and observe the actual labours of Jesus
there, he certainly stands in harmony with himself. We see no
animal for riding, no royal chariot, but the teacher and prophet
of the people who comes from Bethany afoot, walks about in
Jerusalem and in the temple, and — the act of purifying the
temple excepted — simply demonstrates with the sword of his
word, fights, and falls. The supposition readily suggests itself,
that the Messianic enthusiasm, now as hitherto, did not proceed
from Jesus, but only from those who accompanied him ; that
Jesus bestrode, no animal of his own free will, but either was
constrained to do so by his companions, to whom, according
to Paulus, he "showed himself complaisant," or that he, not
permitting himself to be constrained or commanded, altogether
refrained from riding, and that therefore the later Christian
narrative made him the author of what really never hap
pened. This last might very easily have occurred, because
the Christians wished to see the accepted actual Messiah as
Messiah and with the pretensions of Messiahship. In this pom
pous entry they would eagerly hail and realize a fulfilment of
old prophecies, and a prophecy of his future Messianic entry at
his coming again from heaven.1
The decision of this question apparently depends chiefly upon
the historical or non-historical character of the single incident of
the introduction into* the procession of the animal for riding.
In the earlier Gospels this is introduced in a very mysterious
1 Paulus, L. J. II. p. 92. That Jesus yielded to those with him is thought by De
Wette (he willingly gave way to the excitement of the disciples, and was willing to let
the people decide, comp. Theile, p. 59), Neander (p. 480), Ewald (p. 514), Gratz
(p. 236), Weizs. (p. 545). Renan (p. 387) says, Some one brought a she-ass. Neander
vacillates lamentably between not bringing and bringing. He also urges that Jesus
immediately retreated again.

THE JUBILANT RECOGNITION OF THE MESSIAH. 97
manner, whilst the fourth Gospel apparently much more natu
rally but in point of fact by no means more credibly, being in
truth dependent upon the earlier report, satisfies itself with the
assertion that Jesus, after the ovation had begun, found a young
ass and sat upon it.1 But in the earlier accounts, Jesus, after his
arrival at Bethphage, expressly sent two messengers chosen from
among the disciples to the village in front of him : they would
there at once find an ass tied, they were to loose him and bring
him back. If any objection were made, they were to say, " The
Master has need of him," and he would then be given up without
further ceremony.2 This simplest ground-form of the narrative is
nowhere absolutely retained. In Matthew, Jesus asks for a she-
ass and an ass's foal, and it is expected of Strauss and ourselves
to believe that both animals were brought, covered with gar
ments, and ridden by Jesus.3 In Luke and Mark, Jesus asks for
only one animal, though certainly also a foal upon which no
man has sat, not definitely an ass — a species which these authors,
in view of occidental ridicule, seem to have veiled — presumably
therefore a horse's foal. In Mark, Jesus indicates exactly the
place where it was to be found and where it actually stood,
just at the entrance of the village, before the door on the
highway. In both Luke and Mark, the answer to objections
which he gives is not superfluous, for the messengers are ques
tioned in the very words which he anticipates ; but, as he also
anticipates, they are despatched in peace.4 These narrations are
1 John xii. 14. 2 Matt. xxi. 1, and parallel passages.
3 Comp. Strauss, 4th ed. II. pp. 273 sqq. Even Meyer makes tVajxo aiirSiv (avrbv,
then aiirov, primitive correction, yet made use of by Paulus, Hdb. III. i. p. 143), after
Theoph., Euth., Fritzsche, refer to the garments, but the principal object is the two
animals, and Matthew attaches importance to both. Expositors sometimes imagine,
certainly not exactly that a connection between the two animals was made by the
caparison of garments, but that both were alternately ridden (Theophyl., Thorn. Aq.,
Nik. Syr., even Fritzsche) ; sometimes that the author has spoken inexactly (Olsh.,
Winer), or obscurely (Winer, De Wette), or subjectively (Krabbe, p. 435), and that
Jesus really rode only upon the humble foal (!), Justin, Ap. 1, 32, 35; thus also
Paulus, Ewald, Meyer, Krabbe, Langen.
1 Luke xix. 29; Mark xi. 1. According to Bunsen (p. 395), Mark enjoyed the
advantage of Petrine tradition. The derision of the West (comp. Terence, Bun.
VOL. V. H

98 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
to be regarded with distrust. Had Jesus acquaintances in Beth
phage or, if that be preferred, in Bethany ? Had he ordered of
them an ass ? Or if not, had he, through higher knowledge,
known of the ass and of its whereabouts ? Did he ride an ass's
foal on which no one had ridden, as if it were a kind of sacred
animal dedicated to God and to His service ? Did he, indeed —
which seemed so important to Paulus and gave so much trouble
to Strauss — attach any the least importance to an unbroken
animal V- Finally, did he ask for both the she-ass and her foal,
and did he ride them both ? But the chief objection is yet to
come. Ass and foal were mentioned in the Old Testament Mes
sianic prediction. "Exult greatly, 0 daughter of Zion !" — Zecha
riah had sung — "shout, 0 daughter of Jerusalem; behold, thy
king comes to thee, the just and the conqueror ; he is meek and
rides upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of the ass." What
the prophet expressed in picture — the pacific character and humi
lity of the coming king of Israel — was taken by the Jews lite
rally, materially, naturally. At least the Talmudic writings,
certainly independent of Christianity though much later wit
nesses, say a great deal of such an entry of the future king.
Sometimes they assume that the ass of the Messiah will be much
3, 5, 50: asinus tantus! Cicero, Att. 4, 5: as. germanus ! and the r61e which the
ass plays in Jewish history among the Greeks and Romans, Jos. Con. Ap. 2, 9 ; Diod.
34; Ph. 1; Tac. H. 5, 3, 4; Min. F., Oct. 9; Tert., Nat. 1, 11 sqq., Ap. 16; comp.
Hitzig, p. 381) was already avoided by the LXX., since they translated it, instead of
ovog, v-KoXfiyiov (comp. Zech. ix. 9), or mokog (foal, as in Luke-Mark). Josephus
also has, instead of ass, Krijvog, or indeed iWoc. The late Jews admitted : ne gentes
causam cavillandi arriperent. Yet Celsus does not deride the entry upon an ass.
Nor does the heathen scorn of the asinarii cultores, i.e. the Christians (Tert. I.e.),
spring from this. The reason for the general term foal (comp. Justin, Ap. 1, 54)
instead of ass, in Luke and Mark, had already been seen by Wetstein (p. 608) and
Paulus (Handb. III. i. p. 151), though it has been entirely overlooked by most.
Recently Weisse has seriously attempted to base upon this foundation the quite in
offensive assumption of a horse's foal (p. 573). Comp. also Rev. xix. 11 sqq.
1 Comp. in the Old Test. Numbers xix. 2 ; Deut. xxi. 3 ; 1 Sam. vi. 7. Ovid, Met.
3, 12 : nullum passa jugum. Horace, Epod. 9, 22 : intactse boves. See Wetst. p. 608 •
Paulus, III. i. p. 147. Justin makes this feature refer to heathenism, the she-ass is
Judaism, Trypho, 53. The unbroken animal, Paulus, Handb. III. i. p. 115 ; Strauss
4th ed. II. p. 276. According to Paulus, the animal would be made more tractable
by the company of its mother.

THE JUBILANT RECOGNITION OF THE MESSIAH. 99
more beautiful than the most beautiful fleet steed of the Persian
king Sapor, who wiU derisively place at his disposal a noble
horse instead of the ass. Sometimes they find that the Messiah
will come with the clouds of heaven, according to Daniel, if
Israel be good, but in the other case with the ass of Zechariah.1
This passage in Zechariah — and hardly a passage in Jacob's song
of benediction as well — the Evangelists have evidently before
their eyes, Matthew and John avowedly, Luke and Mark without
naming it.2 But they have in many ways done violence not only
to the spirit of the passage, but also to its letter. Whilst in
Zechariah the mention first of an ass and then of a young ass
is merely a variation of the expression, in Luke and Mark the
emphasis is placed upon the young ass, and in Matthew — more
correctly in the emendation of Matthew — the emphasis is placed
upon son and dam, although the latter is not mentioned by the
prophet as being actuaUy present and running with her son.3 Is
there, now, a probability that Jesus, elsewhere never pedantic in
his use of the Old Testament, laid emphasis to this extent, in
one way or another, on the letter of the Old Testament, or
concerned himself so anxiously and so mysteriously about the
1 Zech. ix. 9. Bab. Sanh. f. 98, 1 : si boni sunt Israelitse, tunc veniet in nubibus
coeli ; si vero non boni, tunc inequitans asino. Lightfoot, p. 349. On Sapor, see below,
p. 105, n. 1. Numerous passages from later writers given by Wetstein, p. 460 ;
Wunsche, pp. 51, 60 sq., 67, 70.
2 Matt. xxi. 5 ; John xii. 15 (freer). In the main, Matt, gives the text of the
LXX., only changing in the beginning the really not fulfilled xa'fl£ <s<j>bip& Bvy. 2.
(John, urj tpofiov) into an drrart. ; but at the close he evidently follows the Hebrew
(Anger, Ratio qua loci V. T. in Ev. M. &c, I. p. 35) with greater exactness (LXX. :
inzoZvyiov k. nSKov vkov), a sign of the second hand. See above, I. pp. 79 sqq.
The passage giving Jacob's benediction, Gen. xlix. 11 (where Judah bind3 the young
ass, the foal of the she-ass, to the vine), is suggested by the " tied" ass of the Gospels.
Had this passage occurred to the Evangelists (Strauss, Volkm.), we should have been
told, not of a previously bound animal, but of one that was to be bound by Jesus or
by his disciples, and also of the vine. This reference was later detected. Justin repre
sents the animal as bound to the vine at the entrance to the place, Ap. I. 32, 54 ;
Trypko, 53. Yet he at the same time gives prominence to Zechariah. Comp. Bleek,
II. p. 300 ; Wunsche, p. 70.
3 In Zechariah ix. 9 it merely says, "and upon the young ass, the foal of an ass"
(air ben atonot). Comp. the old translation in Origen, In Matt. t. XVI. 16. Hitzig,
Kl. Proph. 3rd ed. 1863, p. 362. Even Bleek sacrifices Matt., II. p. 299.
H2

100 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
ass ? Is it on the whole probable that he appeared in Jerusalem
with a public and material display of Messiahship ?
Belying upon these grounds, we may question the entry upon
the ass ; but the main fact — namely, the resolve of Jesus to enter
as the Messiah — we may nevertheless hold fast.1 It may have
been only the disciples, only those who accompanied Jesus, that
brought about the Messianic ovation; but since Jesus yielded
and was "complaisant" before the eyes of Jerusalem, he must
have thought it right, even though he did not utter the words of
approval which Luke puts into his mouth.2 Moreover, afterwards
he spontaneously protracted this Messianism, at least upon one
point, when, immediately after his entry, he violently, or with a
right derived solely from God and his Messianic dignity, purified
the temple. It must therefore be admitted that by his entry he
certainly took a bold step forwards. His first step had been to
announce himself to his disciples as the Messiah at the close of
his Galilean ministry. His second step was by turns to damp
and to give play to the Messianic excitement of the disciples and
the people. His third step was to cease preventing others from
recognizing his divine rights, and even himself to lay claim to
those rights. These progressive steps we can understand. Even
if it had certainly been his wish to bring the kingdom of heaven
near in Jerusalem quietly and gradually, and with a healthy
mental progress, as in Galilee — which in Strauss' opinion he
really thought of doing — yet all indirect and slow action was now
forbidden, not by the impatience of his adherents, but by his
clear recognition of the critical condition of affairs.3 In the face
1 The animal is half admitted by Strauss (New Life of Jesus, Eng. trans., II.
pp. 290 sq.), who is misled by Zechariah (no longer, as previously, chiefly by Gen.
xlix.) as to the whole of the festival entry; and by Volkmar (p. 507), who can admit
the acclamations of the people in the presence of the beloved Master who is to bring
in the kingdom of God, but who cannot guarantee the ass in view of (1) Zechariah
(2) Gen. xlix., (3) the Revelation, the king's horse in which (xix. 11) has been con
verted by the Evangelist into an ass.
" Luke xix. 40.
3 Strauss, New Life, Eng. trans., I. pp. 384 sq. Yielding to enthusiasm (see above,
p. 69), Neander, De Wette, Weizs.

THE JUBILANT RECOGNITION OF THE MESSIAH. 101
of the irritability of his opponents, in the face of the powerful
means at their disposal of crushing him with the speed of wind
and the force of storm, there remained to him but one chance,
but one dreadful weapon, — reckless publicity, the conquest of
the partially prepared nation by means, not of force, but of idea,
by the bold and complete unfurling of the clearly and loudly
and — to the popular mind — eloquently speaking banner of that
Messiahship the secret of which he had so long hidden within
himself, and of which he had held possession with growing cer
tainty of victory, notwithstanding all he had suffered.1 That he
was treading a dangerous path he knew, although he never
wished to become a political Messiah, a rebel, as Eeimarus
exclaimed. He knew the misunderstandings he should awaken,
the false enthusiasm he should conjure up, the sanguinary reac
tion he should call forth. Therefore he came staking his life
upon the venture, but also believing that God must finish his
work through life or death, through misunderstanding and recog
nition.2 But here we must once more emphatically assert that
there is — notwithstanding the fourth Gospel — as little proof of a
certain foreknowledge of his fate, therefore of a rushing to his
death — which Schleiermacher so earnestly deprecates — as there
1 Comp. Ewald, p. 512. Weizs. (p. 547) groundlessly rejects the idea of the con
quest of the nation.
2 Comp. Reimarus, Zweck Jesu, pp. 144 sqq. : it was ventured upon, he sat him
self upon the ass. Does not this mean to incite the people against the authorities :
Overthrow the high council! According to Venturini (pp. 412 sqq.), Jesus carried
out the public entry against the dissuasions of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus,
who promised a peaceful conquest. There was a necessity for a striking and decisive
fact, and that the people should know that he was the Messiah in the better sense of
the word. The entry itself was to show that there was no question of rebellion against
the Romans. Then Nicodemus supplied the required humble beast in one of his ass's
foals from his seat at Bethphage. According to Paulus, L. J. II. p. 82, Jesus rode
only in order that he might be visible above the crowd (similarly Neander, p. 481);
he wished moreover to show that he did not fear the hierarchy. Theile, Zur Biog. J.,
p. 59 : he wished to show the power, but not the will, to set up an earthly kingdom.
Recent writers speak freely of the impossibility of a misunderstanding of his inten
tion ; thus Ewald, p. 513 ; Pressense, pp. 553 sq. At any rate, he could easily remove
it (Ewald), nay, did at once remove it by his immediate retreat (Neander, Krabbe,
Weizs., Bunsen), and by his death (Pressense). Mainly he thought only of dying,
Langin, p. 54. Even Schenkel (p. 224) says that it happened in a, way opposed to
the theocratical expectations. Quite opposite ?

102 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
is of definitive resolves on the part of his foes to put him to
death, supposed to have been made one after another, yet before
his entry.1
Making his entry in such a spirit, he could not entirely forego
all external signs of his Messiahship. Not only had he to make
himself intelligible to the people by accommodating himself to
their material modes of conception, but the Messiahship which
he seriously and without accommodation purposed to establish
had to be made visible and recognizable in forms and signs which
were worthy of him, and which did not contradict his higher
conception of this position.2 The shouts of joy and the songs of
praise by which he was met called for no censure. But it was
necessary that he should do more than passively receive; he
must himself also confess and act. It would indeed have been
unworthy of his independence, of his leading and controlling
position, if he had simply left it to others to decide whether he
should now postpone or not the public utterance — approved or
non-approved — of his will, his design. We thus come necessarily
to the assumption of an initiative on the part of Jesus, such as
that described in the Gospels only in the definite form of the
bespeaking the animal for riding and of the riding into the city,
an incident which — and this is the best evidence of its genuine
ness — has been in every way so artificially utilized by Luke
and John. And this form itself, when carefully weighed, appears
far more characteristic of Jesus than strange and unnatural. If
he really chose this form, he most probably did it in imitation
of the prophecy of Zechariah.3 Nevertheless, it cannot on this
] John xi. 47 sqq., 54, xii. 10, 12 sqq. See above, pp. 75 sqq. Schleiermacher,
p. 387 (certainly not Johannine).
2 Even Schenkel regards the Messiahship as only an accommodation. To Volkmar
it does not exist, and the people do homage chiefly only to "the beloved Master."
Yet something is said " treacherously" about the Messiahship (comp. above, IV. p. 262,
note 1) ; and plainly already the " Son of David" is historical, even the " Son of God"
(Volk. pp. 507, 588). Hitzig also (Gesch. Isr. p. 502) has given prominence to the
Messianic idea already existing before Christ.
3 This is held also by Hase, p. 220 ; Weisse, p. 435 ; Weizs. p. 546 ; Schenkel,
pp. 223 sqq.; Hausr. p. 436; Ewald, p. 512; partially even by Neander, p. 480-
Krabbe, p. 437; Pressense, p. 553.

THE JUBILANT RECOGNITION OF THE MESSIAH. 103
account be shown that he here paid a different respect to the
letter than he did on other occasions, that he believed the pro
phecy was to be verbally understood and verbally fulfilled, or
that he felt compelled — as to which Paulus wanders very seri
ously astray — to complete the kingdom of peace of the great
Asmonsean, John Hyrcanus, in the sense of the prophets of those
days.1 But since he found himself, nay, recognized a full pre
diction of himself, in this picture of the meek king; since by
means of this very picture he could, as briefly and comprehensively
as strikingly and unmistakably to aU men of understanding, illus
trate and explain his true character as man of peace and peace-
bringer ; since, finaUy, in this picture, which had not hitherto
been generaUy incorporated into the Messianic belief of the
people, he could at one and the same time veil and reveal him
self, very much as he had previously done in the name of Son of
Man ; — on all these accounts, he appropriated the picture with
its details, he adopted the humble riding animal because it cha
racterized himself, and because, to the popular mind, more par
ticularly to his Galilean friends, who were the natural connecting
link between him and the nation, it was an easily unriddled
token of his dignity and of his claim.2
But the detailed portraiture of the finding and of the nature
of the animal belongs evidently to the myth, which seeks its
1 Hdb. III. i. pp. 119 — 142 : Hyrcanus was anti-Phar., like Jesus! Later criticism
has rather recognized the higher antiquity of the predictions of Zechariah ix. sqq.
Hitzig, Kl. Proph. 3rd ed. 1863, p. 354, places the oracle ix.— xi. in the time of
Uzziah — Jerob. II. (about 800).
2 Matt. xxi. 10 shows that the people of Jerusalem did not at once know what the
entry signified, although " to ride" and " to rule" were inseparable according to Paulus,
Handb. III. i. p. 116. In point of fact, riding upon an animal was very customary
(Shunammite woman, 2 Kings iv. 24) ; and particularly the prophets — Balaam, Num
bers xxii. 21 ; the prophet out of Judah, 1 Kings xiii. 13 — practised it. The above
sentence disposes of the common opinion that Jesus declared himself Messiah by means
of this entry (Justin, Trypko, 53 : Qavtpbv xp. hiroUi, and thus also Ewald, p. 512),
as well as the often unjustly lauded communication purposely made by the fourth
Gospel that the disciples did not recognize the Messianic significance of this entry until
later (comp. below, p. 106). Weisse (p. 435) cautiously, but with justice, says it was
a sign of his purpose to visit the metropolis either expressly with the dignity of Messiah
and king, or at least with that of a powerful and recognized prophet.

104 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
justification in the letter of the prophecies, and partly also in the
miraculous greatness of Jesus in knowledge and holiness. Jesus
did not exactly know, through higher knowledge, as did Samuel
in the Old Testament, where asses and she-asses were standing ;
and he required, for the letter's sake and his holiness' sake,
neither a she-ass nor an ass's foal upon which no man had ridden.1
At most, according to Eastern custom, he would have preferred
the she-ass as an animal of travel, and, again according to custom,
he would not have refused to allow any foal it might have to
accompany the mother.2 But either he sent his disciples out at
haphazard, since this much-used animal was easily to be met
with, and there was no cause to doubt that the loan of one might
be obtained for the space of an hour for " the Lord," the Prophet
of Galilee ; or he made application to an acquaintance at Beth
phage, one who dwelt at the entrance to this viBage, perhaps
in the first house, and who he might be sure possessed such an
animal, or of whom he might during the last days have ordered
one. Indeed, Venturini speaks in detail of a preceding instruc
tion given to his steward at Bethphage by Nicodemus.3 Such a
previous acquaintance with a household at Bethphage, formed in
Galilee or during the journey from the Jordan, is as conceivable
as friendships in the neighbouring Bethany, which are pretty
well attested, for Jesus the same evening claims the hospitality
of friendship in Bethany. The bespeaking of the animal in this
house would, however, have taken place in exactly the same
manner as did afterwards, according to the miracle-less report of
Matthew, the bespeaking of the room for the supper at the house
of a citizen of Jerusalem unknown to us, but well known to
Jesus.4 And just as he did not in the latter case previously
1 The lost and found asses of Saul, 1 Sam. ix. 3, 6, 9, 20, a. 2.
3 Numb. xxii. 21 ; 2 Kings iv. 24 ; Job i. 3 (500 she-asses). Renan, 15th ed.
p. 387.- anesse, suivie, selon l'usage, de son petit. Comp. Bleek, II. p. 299.
3 Matt. xxvi. 18. Following the Gospels, particularly Mark, Justin, Ap. 1, 32
Trypho, 53, gives prominence to the entrance of the place.
4 Neander (p. 481) also denies the miracle. Hilgenfeld (p. 35) makes Jesus, even
in Matthew, know of the ass by prophetic penetration, i. e. miracle. A loan from

THE JUBILANT RECOGNITION OF THE MESSIAH. 105
bespeak the room, but merely assumed the assignment of such
to his use by the man with whom he was familiar, so in the other
case we have less reason to think of a preceding bespeaking of
the animal than of a simple requisition sent to the well-to-do
acquaintance or stranger in Bethphage. This appears the more
dignified course, as being free from triviality ; and the answer
put into the disciples' mouths against objections, itself points
rather to an unknown man.
After this circumstantial preparation, it is time to pass on to
the actual entry and to Jerusalem. The two disciples — prcf-
bably Peter and one of the sons of Zebedee — brought back the
animal of peace, which was and stiU is very differently esteemed
in the East than in the West. It is true that in the East it has
quite another character ; it is statelier, more active, swifter, vying
with the horse in every point, of a brown-red colour, and parti
cularly valued when white marks stripe the dark colour.1 As
an animal for riding, as a beast of burden, in agriculture, in the
mill, it was equaUy prized, ridden, and driven, by women and
men ; and in contrast with the Egyptian war-horse, which had
been naturalized in Israel since the time of Solomon, it was the
eloquent national symbol of peace — nay, the divine symbol.2 The
acquaintances or from strangers (who needed only to hear the name of Jesus) is thought
of by Paulus, Handb. III. i. 18, L. J. I. ii. 83. The offer of Nicodemus, who instructed
his steward in Bethphage, Vent. p. 415. Higher knowledge, Krabbe, p. 436. Magical
clairvoyance, Weisse, I. p. 573.
1 The name of the ass is honourable, instead of being a term of abuse, Gen. xlix. 14.
See, on the other hand, Terence, quoted above, p. 97, n. 4. Yet Homer, II. XI. 558
sqq., compares Ajax to a strong ass. Comp. Paulus, Ev. III. i. p. 118 ; Ewald, p. 516 ;
Winer, article Esel. Abdull. Denkw. Eg, c. 3, in Paulus : asini in Aeg. valdi agiles ;
cursu cum equis certant. Price, e.g. in Persia, 100 thalers [£15]. Comp. Pliny,
8, 68. The stripes, Judges v. 10. Lightfoot, p. 349 (answer to Sapor) : non est tibi
equus centimaculus, qualis est Messise asinus.
2 As. molarius, Matt, xviii. 6. Colum. 7, 2. Beast of burden, Jos. Vita, 24, 26.
Ridden by women, 1 Sam. xxv. 23 ; 2 Kings iv. 2lT Comp. the holy tradition, above,
II. p. 91. Passages in the Prophets, see above, p. 103, n. 2. Horse of Egypt,
Exodus xv. 1. Asses and mules in the time of the judges, Judges v. 10, and also of
Saul and David, 1 Sam. viii. 16, ix. 3 ; 2 Sam. xiii. 29, xvi. 2, xvii. 23, xviii. 9 ;
1 Kings i. 33, 44. On the other hand, horses after Solomon's time, 1 Kings iv. 26
(from Egypt, iii. 1 ) ; then under Ahab, Jehoshaphat, 1 Kings xviii. 5, xx. 21, xxii. 4.

106 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
book of Eevelation — which does not appeal to the tradition
of the Gospels — has not made the most fortunate hit by repre
senting Jesus as returning from heaven to earth upon a horse ;
though certainly the John of the Eevelation wrote for Greeks,
and his Jesus came not to bless, but to judge and slay his
foes.1 The disciples said nothing to the owner about the use
the Master intended to make of the animal ; therefore it came
without the cover or the cushion necessary for riding. But they
themselves quickly understood its purpose ; though they hardly
thought at once of the words of the prophet — wherein John is
correct — yet they knew that Jesus and no one else was to sit
upon the ass, and it harmonized with their exalted mood that
their Messiah should enter the streets of Jerusalem with honour
and distinction.2 They therefore quickly supplied the deficiency
by throwing off their upper garments and piling them upon the
animal, whilst they led it to Jesus, assisted him, unaccustomed
to riding, to mount it, and then started it on its way.3 And now
it happened as it usually happens when enthusiasm has begun
to ferment, and the key-note is struck according to which it can
shape and embody itself, without any pre-arrangement, in an
harmonious outburst of common emotion. The act of the two
disciples, the unusual pomp exhibited by the spectacle of Jesus
on the animal which his disciples were guiding, the Mount of
Olives, sacred from of old, waiting since Zechariah's time for the
revelation of God, together with the proximity of the holy city,
set free all the enthusiasm which had been with difficulty re
strained, and urged it to utterance, to jubilant participation, to
1 Rev. xix. 11 (after Volkmar, Quelle der Ev.).
2 Saddles not used in the East, but the ass (chamor chabush) was bridled and fur
nished with a covering (sellis instrati, Abdull. ; 1 Kings xiii. 13). On John, see above,
p. 95, n. 2.
3 Throwing down garments at the election of Jehu as king, 2 Kings ix. 13. Luke
xix. 35 has imfiifiaaav, but also in Matt. xxi. 7, Sin. and Ital., Vulg., Copt., we read
ImKaBiaav, sedere facerunt. Just so Sin. and It. Ver. in Mark xi. 7. By the side
of or behind the animal generally ran a boy or servant (naar), Rabb. ass-driver (cham-
mar, Buxt. p. 789) ; comp. 2 Kings iv. 24. This task was undertaken by the disciples.

THE JUBILANT RECOGNITION OF THE MESSIAH. 107
devoted co-operation.1 The two disciples had given up their
garments' to caparison the animal. But not one of the Twelve,
of the adherents, of the majority of the accompanying crowd, was
willing to be outdone. They threw off their garments and spread
them upon the road ; others cut off the young green branches of
palms, myrtles, citrons, and willows, bound them in bunches,
flourished them right and left and up and down, and strewed
them upon the way. There seemed to come to pass a sponta
neous fulfilment of the Psalm which the tempter had once in a
diabolical spirit commended to Jesus. The festive custom itself
belonged originally to the rejoicing at the Feast of Tabernacles ;
but it had long been extended to ceremonial processions and
pompous escorts of all kinds ; and even the Eoman Agrippa
had, a generation earlier, been favoured with this distinction
when he returned from Jerusalem to the sea.2
1 Mount of Olives, Zechariah xiv. 4 ; Ezekiel xi. 23 ; 2 Sam. xv. 32 ; 1 Kings xi. 7
^place of worship and revelation). Expectation of miracle on the Mount of Olives
about A.D. 58, Jos. Ant. 20, 8, 6. Comp. below, p. Ill, n. 2.
2 The garments were thrown into a heap, upon which, e. g. , the new king Jehu was
placed, 2 Kings ix. 13. Similarly Jalk. Shim, in Schottg. p. 170. At the Feast of
Tabernacles they were hung out as tokens of joy, Maim. Succ. 5, 17 : expandit ob
decorem atque ornamentum. Lightfoot, p. 349. Oriental custom of throwing myrtle-
boughs and garments in the way, Targ. Esth. 10, 15 : cum exiret Mardochai porta
regis, platese erant myrtis stratse (thus also Xerxes before crossing the Hellespont,
Herodotus, 7, 54) et atria purpura. Ketub. f. 66, 2 : de Nacdimon filio Gorion nar-
rant, quod quotiesc. in scholam ibat, vestes laneas ipsi substraverint, pauperes vero
venerint eosque a tergo ejus colvolverint. Perhaps that happened ex ambitione. Comp.
Ibn-Arabshah, Fdk. p. 26, 19, in Ewald, p. 516. The missionary Zeller found the
custom still practised at Nazara, Furrer, Wand. p. 66. Bunches (dptoiiiivn) of myrtle,
willow and palm (arv KpaSy ipoivtKog), at the daily procession to the altar during the
Feast of Tabernacles, Jos. Ant. 3, 10, 4. Thyrsus staves of palm and citron leaves,
Ant. 13, 13, 5. Palm branches, myrtles and willows, on the authority of Maim., I.e.
The tender palm branches were called lulabin or lablebin = surculi ; comp. Buxt.
p. 1117; Lightfoot, p. 349. From the Feast of Tabernacles — the specific feast of
rejoicings — the custom was extended (2 Mace. x. 6) also to the Feast of the Dedication
of the Temple of the Asmonaeans (x. 7), and to every feast day, 1 Mace. xiii. 51 (palm
leaves) ; compare the crowds that greeted Agrippa, above, I. p. 242, and Rev. vii. 9.
Matthew has only branches from trees generally ; Mark, straw (ori/3do"£c), perhaps
grass, green stalks from the fields, not exactly for smoothing the road (Paulus) ; John
xii. 13, definitely palm branches. Swinging the branches at the altar, Bab. Succ. 27:
agitatio vel quassatio fasciculorum fuit dextrorsum sinistrorsum, sursum deorsum.
Lightfoot, p. 350. Comp. also Delitzsch, Luth. Zeitschr. 1855, pp. 653 sqq. ; and then
Riggenbach's commendation of the fourth Gospel, above, I. p. 184, note. Langen,

108 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
To these external signs there must have been added words ;
and Luke is perhaps not quite correct when he makes these words
to be first heard at the descent from the Mount of Olives into
the city. Words must have accompanied the deeds, for hearts
must speak and minds must give expression to the reverent
homage which they feel. This homage, though elsewhere offered
only to the greatest or to God, pointed to the approaching king
dom of heaven, and had for its object the bringer-in of the king
dom, the anointed of Israel, who publicly confessed himself by
making a conspicuous entry into the city of God in the midst of
the people. Even these words which were to be uttered found
their precedent in the Feast of Tabernacles. At that Feast the
so-called Great Hallelujah, i.e. Psalms cxiii. — cxviii., was sung, as
well as, every day at the solemn procession to the altar, with the
flourishing of the bunches of leaves, the words from Psalm cxviii. :
" 0 Lord, help, 0 Lord ! Give prosperity I"1 Many of these words
and songs, however, would have become the medium of express
ing the festive emotions of the pilgrims to aU the feasts, when
they drew near to the waUs of the holy city. Those very words
in particular, and the immediately foUowing, " Blessed be he that
comes in the name of the Lord ! We bless you, ye who are from
the house of the Lord!" would often have accompanied those
entries.2 These verses were now taken up by those who accom
panied Jesus ; but they were freely and with new meaning altered
and broadened, because it was not merely a question of blessing
the festival pilgrims, but of naming and blessing the Great, the
Unique Person who entered in their midst. That some of these
words, that the words, " Blessed be he that comes in the name of
Letzte Lebenstage Jesu, 1864, p. 11. The majority (not the mass) of the people (thus
also Paulus, Bleek, Meyer), Matt. xxi. 8. The Psalm, xci. 12 ; Matt. iv. 6.
1 The shouts for Saul, Absalom, Jehu, 1 Sam. x. 24 ; 2 Sam. xvi. 16 ; 1 Kings
i. 39 ; 2 Kings ix. 13. The present shout after Psalm cxviii. 25 sq. It was disputed
whether the branches should be flourished at " Lord, help !" (Hillel) or at " Give pros
perity!" (Shammai). R. Akiba claims to have seen R. Gamaliel and R. Joshua swing
only at the first word, after Hillel, in distinction from the people. Lightfoot, p. 350
2 On the original meaning of these words, comp, Hitzig, Ps. II. pp. 345 Sq.

THE JUBILANT RECOGNITION OF THE MESSIAH. 109
the Lord !" had already, before the time of Jesus, been applied in
a higher sense to the coming Messiah, is very possible, but cannot
now be established with certainty. For if Jesus himself hence
forth used these words in a Messianic sense, and the Christian
" Primitive Hymn" was afterwards re-echoed in the congregation,
the question arises whether all this is not simply the reverbera
tion — converted into a Christian watchword — of the memorable
Messianic entry which the adherents of Jesus prepared for him.1
Hosamia (Help !) to the Son of David !
Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord !
Hosamia in the (heavenly) heights !
Thus did the crowds that preceded and followed cry aloud, half
speaking, half singing, according to Eastern custom, with brief
rhythmic repetitions — correctly preserved by Matthew — as of old
Saul and Absalom had been foUowed with the shout, " Let the
1 Matt. xxi. 9, xxiii. 39 ; Acts i. 11. Comp. the Maranatha of 1 Cor. xvi. 22.
The note on ipxbu., above, IV. p. 29, note 3. Of Hallel, Vajikr. Rabb. 30, says :
dixit R. Abin : in Hallel est aliquid, quod respicit tempus prset., est quod respicit
futurum, est quod respicit generationes has, est quod respicit dies Messise (Ps. cxviii.),
Wetst. p. 461. The Christian Primitive Hymn, Ewald, p. 516.
2 The three-membered cry in Matthew most readily and most simply connects itself
with Psalm cxviii. 25 sq. (a) From verse 25 is taken simply the supplicatory word
Hoshianna, enlarged by the decisively important reference to the Son of David (hosh.
with dative, against Meyer). (6) Then follows the first member of verse 26, coming
in the name, in fellowship with, not exactly commissioned by. (c) Finally, the song
returns with fervour to the first supplicatory cry with a glance (and lifting of the
branches) "back to heaven (bammarom, bammeromim). Mark xi. 9, with its four
members, has evidently introduced the third member with its greater particularity.
John xii. 13, with its two members, has the second enlarged and. expounded by
the addition, "and the king of Israel." The paraphrase of Luke xix. 38, in three
members, strongly suggests Luke ii. 14. In Matt, and Mark it is not Hoshia-nna,
but (as also by the Rabbis) Hosha-nna (Hosanna). Comp. Gospel of the Hebrews in
Jerome, Ep. 20, ad Damasum : osanna bar(r)ama. A. Merx, and after him Hilgen
feld, N. T. IV. p. 26, also Zeitschrift, 1868, p. 36, explain this from the Aram, oshana,
serva nos. Similarly, Volkmar, p. 507. De Wette, Meyer, and Grimm, pass it over.
But the former agrees neither with the Psalm nor with the following dative. And
Dagesh ? Therefore an Aramaic abbreviation of the Hebrew word in the Psalm (comp.
1 Sam. xxv. 26, hoshea) must be assumed, comp. Buxt. p. 992. Buxt. makes the
interesting remark that the Feast of Tabernacles and the Lulab were eventually called
by the name Hoshana which stood in connection with the former. The cry, see above,
p. 108, n. 1.

110 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
king live !"2 Luke ascribes the shout to the disciples, the others
to the people. Luke is correct, inasmuch as the shout was com
menced by the disciples, perhaps by Peter or the sons of Zebedee,
who were the most certain of their Messiah and of their Son of
David. But as at the Feast of Tabernacles the words of the pre
centor were crowned by a " Hallelujah" of the multitude and by
a repetition of the closing strophe, so the multitude would take up
and repeat the shout of the disciples.1 At the same time the people
would busily relate one to another aU those deeds of the Master
in Israel — with exception of the Lazarus miracle — which justified
his public appearance and the shout of praise itself with which
these hundreds, perhaps thousands, were now greeting him.2
Thus they drew near to Jerusalem. If it may with some pro
bability be assumed that the road then followed the same course
as at present, the last part of the way led in a westerly direction
round the Mount of Olives, and then turned at a right-angle to
the north.3 They crossed the last high ground outside of Jeru
salem. In the saddle between the middle and the southern
Mount of Olives, whose summit, according to Tobler, lies like a
head between two shoulders — that is, between the Mount of Olives
proper, the Har Ha-Setim, still known as Dshebel Saitun, and
the so-called Mount of Offence — they left behind the meagre vege
tation of the eastern Mount of Olives, and reached the cheerful.
plantations of the western Mount of Olives, as well as obtained
a broader view of Jerusalem. How grandly it lay there before
them, the stronghold of God towering high among the hills !
What a bold foreground was made by the white glistening
temple, with its ascending courts, its doors, its porches, the steep
rocks crowned with walls, and the strong towers ! But the
temple itself scarcely surpassed the royal palaces with their mag
nificent green parks. And inseparably connected with all the
visible details — so many of which were reminders only of He-
1 Lightfoot, p. 349. 2 Luke xix. 37; John xii. 17.
8 According to Epiph. on Luke xix. 29 (against Marc, Hatr. 42), the old road ran
through Bethany, Bethphage, and Mount of Olives. Paulus, III. i. p. 167.

THE JUBILANT RECOGNITION OF THE MESSIAH. Ill
rodian and Eoman domination — were the history of a thousand
years with its glories and its sighs, a present which groaned for
redemption, and a throned God who now or never was to break
His silence and to give the solution of His enigma.1 We can
understand that at sight of the holy city and of the temple, the
wonder of the world, which in its marble splendour appeared in
the distance to the astonished eye, now like a celestial palace,
now like a snow-capped hiU, and now, especially under the
morning beams of the sun, like a sea of fire, — we can understand
that at such a sight the voices of the extolling multitude would
— as Luke intimates — sweB louder, because the people not only
looked upon the city and the temple, but were bringing, by the
sacred road of the Mount of Olives, the Messiah to the city and
to themselves.2 The mood of Jesus himself cannot be described ;
it has not been handed down with certainty, and who can sound
its depths ? But it was not quite the same — clear and untroubled
or indeed joyous — as that of the disciples and of the people. He
felt satisfaction, and yet was anxious ; he yearned towards Jeru
salem, and yet had the feeling of strangeness, of antagonism, the
choleric excitement of the hero who with the most adventurous
daring breaks into the great full camp of his foes.3 Was there
floating before his mind's eye the picture of David when he left
the city barefoot and weeping, fleeing from treachery and revolt,
with his faithful adherents, over the Mount of Olives to the
1 On Jerusalem, comp. Strabo, 16, 2 : a stronghold built upon rocks and well pro
tected. On the temple and the impression it produced, comp. especially Jos. B. J.
5, 5, 6; 6, 4, 6 and 8; Ant. 15, 11, 3. It was held to be the wonder of the world
(comp., besides Jos., Tacitus, Hist. 5, 8, 12) : " he who has not seen the building of
Herod, has seen nothing splendid," qui non vidit templum, eum ad hue exstaret, non
vidit aliquid splendidum. Schottgen, p. 327.
2 Luke xix. 37. The Mount of Olives road sacred, see above, p. 107, n. 1. Targum
on Ez. xi. 23 expressly mentions the Mount of Olives ; and the Rabbis lay stress on
the Ezekiel passage. Echa R. prcsf. : profecta est maj. div. ab urbe in m. oliveti.
Dixit R. Jonath., earn sedisse tres ann. cum dimidio super m. o. et cogitasse, Isr.
poenit. facturum, sed non fecisse. Schev. f. 16, 1 : superioris fossae m. o. sanctitas
non erat perfecta (sed inferioris), Wetst. p. 459.
3 Reimarus has coarsely expressed this thus ^grnong well-known assumptions) : in
this undertaking he may not have been in. the best of spirits (p. 144).

112 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
Jordan I1 The words of Jesus given by the later Gospels, in
which this mood of Jesus seems to find expression, are untenable,
as notably the tearful utterances in Luke upon the obduracy and
upon the Eoman destruction of the peaceless "city of peace."2
But the preceding rejoinder to the Pharisees' censure of the
songs of praise is also unhistorical. "Teacher!" — thus they
appealed to him, apart from the people — " forbid thy disciples I"
He is said to have answered, "I say unto you, that if these
should be silent, the stones would cry out !"3 This utterance,
borrowed from the prophet Habakkuk, seems fuB of force and
genuine ; there seems condensed into it the whole Messianic self-
consciousness of Jesus, but also the whole of his bitterness con
sequent upon his non-recognition among the ruling circles of the
Jews.4 Therefore he expressly approves, justifies, his adherents'
songs of praise : if men would not exclaim, the stones, the rocks
by the way, dead nature, would be compelled to cry out in the
name of God, as it did eventuaUy, according to the Gospel tra
dition. Without doubt there is consistency between Luke's two
notices of Jesus' emotion, the winged answer and the tears, for
the pang produced by non-recognition might weU overflow in
tears. But it evidently foBows therefrom that with the tearful
utterance the prompt answer faBs also. If Jesus, at his entry
into the city, was by no means so certain of either success or
failure, as Luke in his utterly unhistorical tearful speech now
represents, he needed not so bitterly and with such strong emo
tion — in truth in a mood that was impossible in the midst of
these accumulated, exaggerated honours, a mood which might
weB be described as an overflowing of his self-consciousness —
have appealed to the stones by the way against Jerusalem, which
had simply not yet expressed itself at aU, and had so far had no
1 2 Sam. xv. 30. Jos. Ant. 7, 9, 2.
2 See above, p. 67. It may be added that Paulus, III. i. p. 150, thought the
genuineness to be proved by the non-fulfilment of individual predictions.
3 Luke xix. 39 sq.
4 Hab. ii. 11 ; comp. Jer. v. 3, and after Hab. Taan. f. 11, 1. Parallels in the
classics, Wetst. p. 788. Paulus, III. i. p. 148.

THE LORD OF THE TEMPLE. 113
occasion to express itself concerning a Messiahship beginning
with the still unfinished day and not at all seriously affected by
the subsequent silence of the metropolis.1 The stony witnesses
therefore plainly do not belong to the Messianic journey of Jesus,
but to the reflection of a later time when it could be said the
stones would have cried out and would have wept if Jerusalem
had been thus silent to its Messiah, and had honoured him in
the way in which it did.

D. — The Lord of the Temple.
Leaving behind the last spurs of the Mount of Olives, they
came to the bridge over the narrow ravine of the Kidron at the
foot of Mount Moriah, or the hill of the temple. This rose up
bold and rocky over against the Mount of Olives, 150 feet above
the vaBey bottom. At present the road from the Mount of
OBves to the northern part of the city passes, a few hundred
feet from the site of the temple, over a bridge that spans the
brook-bed at a height of seventeen feet, and then leads to the
lion-bedecked Stephen's Gate, so caBed after the well-known
first Martyr of the Church. Formerly, perhaps, it ran a little
more to the south over the bridge leading to the now walled-up
Golden Gate with its pair of round arches and its Corinthian
capitals, belonging to the Boman time, probably to the reign of
Adrian.2 Ascending the hill, they entered Jerusalem and went
1 Plainly it is not to be thought that the prompt answer referred only to the disci
ples and not also to the people, as if Jesus would say, " If these witnesses of my deeds
did not thus (extravagantly !) honour me, the stones must do it." Plainly also it is not
to be thought it was spoken in Jerusalem itself in view of the dumbness of the city
and in censure of that dumbness. Thus Schenkel, p. 227. Not only does Luke make
the saying, xix. 39, precede the coming nigh to the city (verse 41) ; even against the
silent Jerusalem, which did not know the Galilean prophet, Jesus could not, though
deeply affected, pronounce such a sentence.
2 Comp. Furrer, Wand, p . 60. Arnold, articles Kidron and Zion, in Herzog, VII.
p. 548, XVIII. p. 603.
VOL. V. I

114 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
directly southwards, according to custom, towards the temple.
Jerusalem, the whole city— certainly an exaggeration— is reported
by Matthew to have been set in motion. The people were asto
nished at the strange procession, at the peaceable rider m the
midst of the crowd, at the excited behaviour and the songs and
the acclamations. Surprised at a movement hitherto unknown,
and uncertain about the man who was seen there for the first
time, the inhabitants raised the question, "Who is this ?" And
with joy and pride, with the assurance that the name would
express everything, the answer was given : " This is Jesus, the
Prophet of Nazara of Galilee !"2 Then, as if in confirmation of
the answer, there sounded forth afresh the songs of praise which
ascribed the most exalted greatness to the Prophet of Galilee,
announcing him as the found Messiah. It is not reported that
the Jerusalemites and the festival guests already in the city were
led by what they saw to think of the Messiah, of the prophet, or
that they took any part in the rejoicing. Of course, notwith
standing all the excitability of the Oriental character and aB the
fame which had preceded Jesus, and which the Galileans evi
dently took for granted, the people at Jerusalem were still strange
to the Galilean movement. They were imperfectly informed
about it, and but feebly influenced by it ; they were inquisitive
but sober-minded, or indeed, as on other occasions, they were
surfeited with the excitements of a metropolis, if they were not
Pharisaically prejudiced against the poor provincials ; hence Mat
thew himself does not venture to teB of hosanna cries in the
courts of the temple from adults, but only from children.3 The
interest of the metropolis had yet to be excited : the first disiBu-
1 It was expressly forbidden to go to the temple with staff and bag and dusty shoes
from -a, journey, Misch. Berach. 9, 5; Lightfoot, p. 314. Comp. the purification of
the temple, below, p. 112, n. 2.
2 Matt. xxi. 10 sq.
3 According to Jos. B. J. 2, 13, 5 (differently Ant. 20, 8, 6), the population of
Jerusalem supported Felix against the Egyptian- Jewish Messiah who threatened the
city from the Mount of Olives. Contempt for Galileans, see above, II. p. 5. Only
children cry, Matt. xxi. 15.

THE LORD OF THE TEMPLE. 115
sion for Jesus, who in taking his farewell of the people a few
days after, spoke sorrowfully of the lacking Messianic cry ; and
certainly it was stiB more a disillusion for his adherents, who
had cherished an exalted anticipation of the immediate homage
of the city, with the heads of the spiritual and temporal authori
ties.1 The fourth Gospel goes too far when — following in the
track of Luke, who tells of objections by the Pharisees outside of
the city — it represents the Pharisees as despairing when they
witness the entry. " You see," they said among themselves in
their confusion, " that you can effect nothing ! Behold, the world
is gone after him !"2 They might shake their heads at the hosts
of Jesus, at the popular excitement ; but so long as Jerusalem
with its festival guests — who did not even go to meet him —
looked on in silence, and so long as they themselves gave no
token of assent, there was nothing lost.3
It was afternoon, perhaps an hour before the commencement
of the preparation day of the Sabbath, when Jesus appeared at
the gate of the temple court, of the " Mountain of the House."4
He probably dismounted at the eastern principal gate of the
" outer holy place," at the so-called gate of Susa [Shushan], said
to be a votive offering of the Jews of Susa.6 According to the
strict theory of the Jews, no one should be permitted upon the
temple hiB with shoes on, with dusty feet, or with a stick, and it
was the business of the temple poBce to watch the place ; but at
the time of the Passover festival, with its immense concourse of
people, and just now with this stream of men pouring in, such
1 Comp. Matt, xxiii. 37 sq.
2 John xii. 19. Perhaps, in the meaning of the author, this is to point out that
without the will of Jesus (x. 18, xviii. 6) his vanquishment was impossible. But he
is fond of the effect of caprice.
* Naturally John xii. 19 is connected with xii. 12. Jesus himself missed the sign
of the Scribes for the people, Matt, xxiii. 13.
1 Day of preparation, ninth hour = 3 p.m. The temple site = har ha-bait, after
Is. ii. 2.
6 According to Paulus, III. i. p. 155, Jesus alighted at the foot of the Mount of
Olives and went on foot to the temple.
I 2

116 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
rules could scarcely be punctually observed.1 He entered the
outermost and lowest court, which Christian archseologists speak
of as the Court of the Gentiles, because others than Jews might
walk here. This court extended to the stone balustrade with the
warning pillars which, in Greek and Latin words, bade the intruder
into the higher " Holy Place" to halt, and threatened him with
death.2 This court was splendid to look upon, even though it
was necessarily wanting in painting and sculpture.3 On three
sides ran a double, and on the fourth a triple, colonnade of bril
liantly white monolithal marble columns, twenty-five cubits high,
with ornate cedar roofs, while variously coloured stone slabs
covered the broad level floor. Here, in these spaces, was the
temple market ; here were the Chanujot, the taverns or booths
with the tables of the money-changers, the benches of the traders
in objects for sacrifice, of whom the sacrificial cattle and offerings,
wine and oil, corn and salt and incense, were bought. Nay, the
provisions themselves, particularly the animals for slaughter, the
oxen, the lambs, and the doves — the poor man's sacrifice — were
here exhibited ; and it contributed to the splendour of the fes
tival that, e.g., the lambs were to be counted by thousands.4
There was a noise and a crying of beasts and men, of seBers
and buyers, and a rolling and clinking of money ; and even in
these sacred spaces men could not keep pure from the hanker
ing after speculation and profitable bargaining. The very sellers
of doves screwed up their price to a gold denarius. The brokers,
who exchanged the moneys of the festival guests from three
quarters of the globe, current Greek, Eoman, or old Jewish
coins, for the half-shekel, the indispensable temple tribute of two
francs, were legally entitled to the agio of the twelfth of a franc
1 See below, p. 118, n. 2. Jos. B. J. 5, 5. Winer, article Tempel. Comp. also
H. Merz. in Herzog, XV.
2 Jos. B. J. 5,' 5, 2.
3 See Vol. I. pp. 251, 305 sqq.
4 Otherwise was it desolata doraus, Bier. Jom. t. 61, 3, in Lightfoot, p. 350. On
the Chanujot (from chanah), Buxt. p. 793. Wieseler, Beitr. pp. 209 sqq. There were
places for sale of things also outside, e.g. on the Mount of Olives, Lightfoot, p. 410.

THE LORD OF THE TEMPLE. 117
for every half-shekel they exchanged, even when they gave two
half-shekels for one shekel. The priests who had oversight of the
temple were themselves not quite innocent of this trading.1 This
chaffering in the holy place at once roused the indignation of
Jesus, though the obtuser feelings of the Pharisees were as little
scandalized by it as are those priests of Christian churches who
aBow their cathedrals and their mass altars to be surrounded by
fair booths. It seemed to be no hindrance, but rather an aid, to
the pure, blameless, meritorious service of God. The secret
indignation, which Jesus had probably felt on former visits to the
temple, was now supplemented by the impulse at once to assert
his Messianic rights and duties, solemnly and without any consi
deration for the dilatory people or his watchful enemies, but in the
sight of God, who had given over to him the temple along with his
office. A different temple inspector from the Eoman Herodian of
the lofty couch of the palace ! In a spirit of zeal, in a spirit of
stormy excitement such as we never saw him exhibit on any other
occasion, and which reminds the fourth Evangelist of a prophecy
of Psalm lxix., he began to drive out from the court buyers and
sellers, he overturned the tables of the brokers and the benches of
the dealers, and cried, " It stands written, My house shall be called
a house of prayer, but ye make it a den of thieves !"2 In his
happy extemporizing manner he had here brought together two
brief and apposite passages from Isaiah and Jeremiah ; and with
a mental reference to Hosea, his favourite prophet, he had in one
strong utterance distinguished between and defined true and
false religion, the religion of the heart and of prayer, and the
1 Lightfoot, pp. 350 sq. ; Wetst. pp. 462 sq. It is certain that the temple money
was paid in the older Jewish coin, which was still current from the time of the Asmo-
naeans (comp. also the expression shekel ha-kodesh), not in the Gentile double drachma?
or denarii. Comp. Paulus, III. i. p. 162 ; also Lightfoot, Wetst., Winer. On the
KoWvfSoQ, properly "a small coin," and the temple tribute generally, see above, IV.
p. 326, u. 3. On the participation of the priests, see below, p. 118, n. 1.
2 Matt. xxi. 12 sq. and parallel passages ; John ii. 14, 17. The latter verse after
Ps. lxix. 9 (kinat betecha achalatni). Luke and Mark : "ye have made," from the
standpoint of the destruction of this cult. The temple administrator of the Romans
(impjiknriig IfpoS, Ant. 20, 9, 7), Agrippa, II. Ant. 20, 8, 11 ; Bibel-Lex. III. p. 59.

118 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
religion of the market.1 According to John, he prepared a scourge
of rushes, and drove out not only the men but also the cattle,
and poured the small coin of the money-changers upon the
ground ; whilst Mark is content with adding that he would not
allow any one to carry vessels, baskets, and provisions through
the temple, a practice which, though forbidden, was indulged in
for the sake of shortening the distance from one part of the city
to another.2 It may here be remarked that it is not the most
fuBy developed naturalistic treatment which best accords with
the character of Jesus. In this so striking transaction it must
have been necessary for Jesus, for the Messiah, to preserve a
certain degree of dignity, and he could not descend to a display
of uncurbed anger and to such a clearing out and guardianship
of the temple courts as would have become a poBceman.3
The extraordinary sensation which this first appearance of Jesus
must have made, even though it were limited to the acts reported
by Matthew and Luke, is at once seen in the stupefied and unre
sisting retreat of the sellers and money-changers ; but as much
also in the reverent quietness of the people, and in the speech-
1 The passage is compounded from Is. lvi. 7 and Jer. vii. 11. Mark adds, after
Isaiah, " for all nations" (xi. 17), in a universalist sense, of which Jesus at this time
was not thinking at all. According to Volkmar (pp. 512 sq.), the prosaic Evangelists
have excluded this fine phrase. One is at any rate also reminded of Hosea vi. 9, comp.
vi. 6. The milder utterance of Jesus in the fourth Gospel, respecting the sellers of
doves, may recall Zech. xiv. 21 (Canaanite=merchant). Paulus (Hdb. III. i. p. 161)
would explain the strong expression, "den of thieves," from the participation of the
priests and Levites in the gains of the sellers. This view can find support in Jerome
and Maimonides; see Wetst. p. 463. But one would be less inclined to think, with
Paulus (p. 164), of the many robbers in Israel.
2 Bab. Jevam. f. 6, 2 (just like Berac. 9, 5, Lightfoot, p. 314) : quaenam est reve-
rentia templi ? Ne quis eat in montem domus cum baculo suo et calceis suis, crumena
sua et pulvere in pedibus suis. Non per illam faciat viam suam transitivam nee faciat
locum sputationis. Also of the synagogue, Megill. f. 27, 2 : nunquam feci (says R.
Eleazar) syn. viam transitionis. Lightfoot, pp. 450, 500. Comp. also Josua Ap. 1, 7:
ne vas quidem aliquod portari licet in templum. — Nulla re, quse ad cibum aut potum
attineat, in templum delata. Nothing but ignorance of the facts can explain the
exposition that no sacrificial implements in kettles and pans were any further to
profane the true spiritual temple (Volkmar, p. 512).
3 Just here Liicke found in John the true eye-witness, whilst he adversely criticised
the quite as highly coloured additions of Mark ; comp. Strauss, 4th ed. I. p. 728 On
the other hand, Bretschneider, Probab. p. 43, vigorously opposes the scourge-swinger.

THE LORD OF THE TEMPLE. 119
lessness and inactivity of the priestly temple guard. It must
here be remembered that in fact in these courts only the temple
guard, with the temple captain at their head, and in the last
resort the high-priest himself, had any authority ; and that the
sellers and money-changers sat here not merely according to
ancient usage, but with the sanction of the legal ordinance itself.
The seBers supplied the indispensable materials for sacrifice ; the
money-changers- both negociated the payment of the old and
legal temple tribute, and were evidently also its receivers. In
so far Jesus, according to Jewish sentiment, laid hold not only
of what was profane, but of what was sacred ; and ancient and
modern criticism teaches us that such an encroachment by Jesus
was both ethically and physically impossible.1 And yet the uni
versal popular sentiment, notwithstanding all conventionalism and
Pharisiac superstition, perceived that he had given expression to
his zeal only against the profane in the holy place, in the name of
the Holy One. On that account, neither hand nor tongue moved
against him ; and it is to be assumed that during the immediately
following days, out of respect to the man of Galilee, the market
remained wholly outside the temple spaces, since the continuance
of the market inside would only afresh have exasperated Jesus,
who went daily to the temple, or, if he subsequently winked at
the abuse, would have completely discredited him in the eyes of
the people.2 Thus was this scene in Jerusalem the correct com-
1 Already Origen on John, t. X. 16, points out how difficult it is to conceive of such
a course of conduct, extending to the use of the scourge (Weisse also would abstract
something even from the Synoptics) on the part of the carpenter's son. On that
account he is inclined to a symbolic interpretation ; he thinks that belief in the letter
of the account can be retained only if we think of Jesus' diia diva/iig banning the
enemies, which in fine, as later Jerome and even Mosheim confirm (Paulus, III. i.
p. 156), would be the greatest of the miracles, greater than that at Cana. See, recently,
Strauss, 4th ed. I. pp. 729, 731 ; more recently, Volkmar, p. 514.
5 Paulus speaks of support received by Jesus from other earnest men, wherein
Strauss finds the most questionable sedition. On the psychological explanation by Olsh.
and Liicke, comp. Strauss, 4th ed. I. p. 731 sq. Strauss speaks also against such an
explanation, thinking, with Paulus, that an attempt to make a moral impression upon
such "animal-men" would miscarry. But that objections of this kind have little
weight, is seen in the victory of the ancient prophets over people and kings.

120 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
plement of the Messianic entry, a novelty in dignity, power, and
action, so that the Galilean Prophet, who in very deed testified
and acted like an ancient prophet even to staking his life against
abuse, was no longer ridiculed by any individual in Jerusalem.
It was, to all external appearance, the most brilliant day of his
life ; he the strong servant of God, the people half enthusiastic,
half respectful, the enemies paralyzed and scattered, — one would
think that on this day after the first success in the temple, it
would have been easiest for him to succeed in the urging forward
his bloodless victory even to the possession of the sanctuary and
to the homage of the masses.1
When looked at more closely, this victory is seen to be only
the precursor of a lost battle. The purger of the temple, the dis-
perser of the temple market, was not the complete, the true
Jesus. That this mode of acting looks so strikingly simBar to
that of the ancient prophets, particularly of Elijah, is in itself
an evidence that Jesus in the most decisive point of his new
career represented only the Jew, the zealot like that Judas
Maccabseus who purged the temple of the heathen abomination
of Antiochus, or like Mattathias, Judas Sariphseus, Matthias ben
Margalot, and Judas Galilseus. At most he represented the
epigone of the prophets, not the man of the new religion.2 The
fundamental ground of objection here is not the interest exhibited
in that external temple cultwhich the conversation with the Sama
ritan woman in particular seems to deride, an interest apparently
so retrogade, so old- Jewish, so foreign to Jesus' teaching concerning
the worship of the heart ; for we can nevertheless understand this,
since Jesus had not yet thought of an abolition of the material
places of worship, and even if he had, he might have been indignant
at the flagrant connectionbetween theprofane and the symbolically
holy. But the ground of objection is found chiefly in the coarse-
1 The Fragmentist (p. 149) thinks of an "overthrow" of the Sanhedrim by the
people, and a setting up of Jesus with his seventy disciples.
2 Comp. the temple purifying of the Asmonaeans (basis of the Feast of Dedication
of the Chanukkah, Greek ivKaivia, John x. 22), 1 Mace. iv. 42 sqq. See also above
I. pp. 251, 261.

THE LORD OF THE TEMPLE. 121
ness and harshness of a scene in which the Son of Man of Galilee
is so much missed.1 The impression produced is severe, gloomy,
alarming ; the religion of the soul's joy in God the Father, the
Galilean reBgion of love to our neighbours, nay, the personality
full of the sorrow and the ardour of love, — these find no expres
sion here. It is another than himself; and we cannot suppose
that in such a way he won the success which so spontaneously
greeted the proclaimer of the children of God, the consoler of the
poor people, the healing benefactor of the sick. In fact, we see
that in Jerusalem he has become far more respected and feared
than loved, and that very strikingly he has performed no recorded
miracle of healing.2
The cause of this was not merely that in Jerusalem he stood
upon new ground, where there was not the Galilean sympathetic
atmosphere from which the miracles of faith took their rise ; the
cause was in himself, since he was above all the fighting zealot,
and it was in the people who were unable to forge a bond of love.
1 Doubts against the literal historical truth already in Origen upon John, t. X. 16.
Woolston, in Strauss, 4th ed. I. p. 732, the latter of whom, however, finds even the
Old-Testament prototypes (as Mai. iii. 1 sq.) insufficient, and supposes as the basis
of the account an actual opposition of Jesus to the abuse. Weisse also (p. 437) is not
inclined to admit a zeal for the temple, as Jesus would thus be the most zealous sup
porter of the ceremonial law. He therefore seeks, like Origen (SidXvoig vouov), a
symbolical meaning : it was a token of the power lent for the purification of the sanc
tuary in a higher sense. Schenkel also (p. 229) supposed that Jesus intended to show
the temporary character of the whole temple service, and to inaugurate the new temple
of aU nations. But all this does not agree with the positive, conservative sense of the
passage in Matt. xxi. 13, while it harmonizes with unhistorical views of Jesus' attitude
to the Old Testament. Moreover, such a conception leads ultimately to the annihilation
of the fact itself, for, according to Volkmar (pp. 511 — 514), Jesus was the reformer of
the temple system only in his historical influence and initially (fiftZaro ! as Mark vi. 7,
but also xiv. 33, &c., often), and the getting rid of the moral and physical contradiction
is the veritable purification of the life of Jesus. Every one sees that the above was not
the aim of the transaction, not even in Mark, and that this exposition leaves the real
life of Jesus empty, and leaves it impossible to understand why the entry — standing
upon a kindred basis — is not to be denied, and why Jesus was put to death at all as
an insurgent (pp. 588, 590).
2 Ewald certainly speaks (p. 518) of his having, according to Matt. xxi. 14, again
healed all kinds of sick ! The Wolfenbuttel Fragmentist had already more correctly
given prominence to the absence of miracles, pp. 149 sqq., 216, 249 sq. Instead of
healing, he had only scolded.

122 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
But why was he here other than he had been in Galilee ? In
the first place, because he came as a stranger and because he
came inspired with the consciousness — increased by the eloquent
silence of the Jerusalemites— of antagonism to that gross worship
and its masters, and of a struggle for life and death ; and in the
next place, because he came as the openly declared and manifest
Messiah. As the unproclaimed Messiah in GaBlee he could obey
the promptings of his own innermost nature, and bless with the
charms of his loving words, with the fullness of his heart's sym
pathy. As the avowed Messiah at Jerusalem he was compelled
publicly to concern himself with the general condition of the
people, with the prevailing circumstances as a whole, the corrup
tion of which he could at first do no other than oppose, attack
with bitterness, and destroy with energy. This modification of
the character of his ministry was for him an historical tragical
necessity, because he was the Messiah, and because he could not
at Jerusalem preface this Messiahship by his Galilean prepara
tion or indeed re-mould it into higher spiritual forms. But
it not only indirectly prejudiced the revelation of his inner
most character, of the religion most peculiar to himself, it also
directly clouded and destroyed his success.1 He stood forth with
outward acts, with catastrophes, with reformations, with organ
izations ; but his nature, his gifts, his strength, his incBnation,
did not lie in this sphere. Hence there lacked also consistency
and tact ; he himself broke off when he had only begun. Instead
of dethroning the reigning spiritual powers and pressing forwards
to a reconstitution of the theocracy and its organs, and of the
worship of God — things which he touched only in their outworks
— he at once reverted to the Galilean system, to his own proper
nature, to teaching and discussing, although both space and time
for this were here evidently wanting. He left everything beyond
to God, and factuaBy ceased to be the Messiah who had been
1 The Fragmentist (pp. 144 sqq., comp. above, p. 101, u. 2) says, in his usual
manner, that Jesus lays his mildness by, and becomes violent and restless as one who
is already measuring his strength with the temporal power.

THE LORD OF THE TEMPLE. 123
yesterday proclaimed and who he yesterday reaBy was. By this
inconsistency — which was his consistency — he made his faB
doubly certain. He undeceived the people whom he had enticed
into a recognition of his Messiahship, but who afterwards — very
imperfectly understanding his doctrinal addresses themselves —
could see the Messiah neither in such theocratic deeds of power
as the purging of the temple, nor in such divine signs and mira
cles as were looked for from the Messiah, nor in miracles of
healing; and he irritated and encouraged the hierarchy who,
when listening to the more innocent doctrinal addresses and dis
putations, never forgot the Messiah of the entry, and the temple
purifier with his passion for rule and revolution, but were no
longer much afraid of the Eabbi who had become quieter, and
who was again decBning in the estimation of even the people.1
What the popular opinion, based upon so many hints of the
Old Testament, expected of the Messiah, is to be found expressed
in a series of Messianic experiments, and principally in a striking
parallel of the sixth decade. About the year A.D. 58, an Egyp
tian Jew, called by his believers Prophet, by those in power
Deceiver, led nearly 30,000 adherents from the Jordan deserts
to the Mount of Olives. He promised miracles and signs from
the hand of Divine Providence ; the first and weightiest " sign
of freedom, of salvation," was to be the falling down of the walls
of Jerusalem at his word of command ; and this was to be fol
lowed up by the overpowering of the Eoman garrison by his
armed body-guard, and the domination of the people.2 But when
the procurator Felix treated the matter seriously, and stormed
the Mount of Olives with cavalry and foot, not only did the
30,000 flee with such haste that only 400 were killed and 200
taken prisoners, but the people of Jerusalem turned away from
the ideal dream to co-operate with the real power, and exhibited
as much zeal in persecuting the Messiah as if they had never
asked and longed for him. It would be an odious injustice to
1 Ewald (p. 530) also says the movement did not grow.
2 Jos. B. J. 2, 13, 4 sq., comp. 6, 5, 2 ; Ant. 20, 8, 6.

124 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
do as the Eoman tribune Claudius Lysias did in the case of Paul
at Pentecost, A.D. 59, viz. to compare Jesus with the Egyptian
who defended his cause with phantasies and with arms, for
Jesus — and in truth Paul also— fell using as his weapon the
most genuine religion ; but we may compare the popular expect
ations and the popular disappointment.1 Whoever lifted up the
standard of Messiahship, excited hopes of deeds, decisions, mira
cles, redemptions, liberties ; whoever failed to satisfy those hopes,
or retreated from the cause once begun, was trodden under foot
not only by the armed opponents, but by the people themselves.
The prelude of this tragedy came on the same evening. Mat
thew and Mark are agreed in reporting that the high-priests and
scribes met together to consult against him immediately after the
purifying of the temple.2 But Matthew inserts here a narrative
which is wanting to the other sources. After the temple purifying,
blind and lame — according to Volkmar again, they were heathens
— went to him and were healed.3 Children and youths cried in the
outer court, " Hosanna to the Son of David !" Astonished at his
miracles and vexed at the exclamations, Jesus' opponents went
to him : " Dost thou hear what these say ?" But the disavowal
which they wished for, he did not utter. "Yes," answered he
to their question ; " did ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes
and sucklings thou hast ordained praise ?"4 These narrations are
unusuaBy characteristic ; the circumstances are soberly told, the
plaudits of the more ardent youths are characteristic, whilst older
men are silent ; Jesus' answer has the spirit and colour of his
answers, and is particularly apposite when we see the point of
the Psalm from which he quoted : an ascription of praise, a
1 Comp. Acts xxi. 38, also v. 36. 2 Matt. xxi. 15; Mark xi. 18.
3 Matt. xxi. 14. Volkmar (pp. 142, 513) says that Matthew has thus in a new
way introduced the temple of all peoples (Mark). He might also only have thought
of 2 Sam. v. 6, 8.
4 Matt. xxi. 15 sq. Hosanna, as above, p. 109. So the received text ; Osanna,
Tisch. ; Hos' anna, Reg. Petr., and others. Jesus referred to Ps. viii. 2, from which
Psalm he may also have drawn his title of Son of Man; see above, III. p. 81. That
the passage refers primarily to God (Strauss, 4th ed; II. p. 282) is no ground for
objection.

THE LORD OF THE TEMPLE. 125
defence against thine adversaries ! Moreover, the harshness and
the negation-character of his appearance in the temple would be
admirably moderated and complemented by the deeds of com
passion, by the exclamations of the children, signs that even in
his storm at Jerusalem he did not repudiate his innate sympathy
with misery and his Galilean friendship for children.1 But a
decisive evidence against the miracles is afforded by the silence
of the other sources, by the indefiniteness of the so thoroughly
picturesque signs, and finally by the fact that the sick would
have been scared away by the harsh severity of his appearance in
the temple, a severity which could be toned down only by placing
the heaBngs at an earlier stage in the entry.2 Similar reasons
may puzzle us as to the children. Jubilation and confiding
famiBarity must have been prevented by such intimidating occur
rences ; and why did the opponents seize upon the shouts of the
children, if Jesus at this moment had committed his capital crime
of lordship over the temple ? Moreover, we understand the
author's fondness for Messianic quotation. If, however, any
one objects to renounce this scene — and there is room for objec
tion because it stands in no intimate connection with the colour
less narrative of the healed, and it shows not only colour, but
also the genuine, spirited, fully-equipped Jesus in the use of
his favourite passage — he must do what the author himself does
not really hinder him from doing, viz. he must place the scene
before the temple purifying, and transfer it to the moment of the
entry into the temple, when the Jerusalemite youths sympathize
more quickly than their elders with the Galilean jubilant train,
and have recourse to the palm-branches that would in any case
have been swung, and to the Messianic shouts, whose contagious
1 Comp. Stolz in Paulus, Handb. III. i. p. 165, who says, "I always thought it
very fine that Jesus could pass so easily from an exhibition of fiery zeal to the per
formance of deeds of humane helpfulness." Hence also Ewald's (p. 518) belief in these
miracles. The children are unconditionally admitted by Neander, p. 482 ; Ewald,
p. 517; Hausrath, p. 437.
2 Comp. Matt. xi. 5 ; 2 Sam. v. 6, 8. This Davidic incident might have been
present in the writer's mind.

126 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
influence would be suspected by the hierarchy even in this harm
less form.1 In their perplexity and excitement, the opponents
open the struggle by seizing upon the second best, upon what
came first, upon the Messiah cries of the Galileans and the chil
dren, and not upon the temple purifying, the inquiry into which
they reserved. From aB these grounds Jesus escaped his oppo
nents, whose astonishment, vexation, and suspicious alertness,
particularly described by Mark, he must have seen. " They sought
how they might destroy him."2 The attempt against him was not
yet, however, arranged. The people were stBl in a state of asto
nished admiration, and the opponents were afraid of the people ;
under their protection, thinks Mark, who dreams of doctrinal
addresses, Jesus remained untB the evening.3 But he went away
earlier, according to Matthew's more probable account.4 He
retired for the first time from the attack which he saw coming,
and which he was not willing to crush in its first stages by a still
more decisive assault with the aid of the people. Under the
consciousness that the struggle for life and death had begun, and
with the feeling, which he showed as early as the next day, that
he with his non-material weapons must succumb, he departed
out of the city, — itseB a proof that he knew he was not safe
and had exposed himself to danger. The exit was different
from the entry. He separated himself from the masses of
the people, and, accompanied only by his adherents, went out
1 Comp. Succ. c. 3 : parvulus, quam primum agitare fasciculum novit, tenetur ad
gestandum fasciculum. Lightfoot, p. 351. Above assumption also in Langen's Last
Days of Jesus (p. 14) : at the entry into the temple ; comp. Hausrath, p. 437. Ac
cording to Ewald (p. 517), the boys continued to sing the challenging song through the
streets. Those who derive everything from Old-Testament parallels can refer to—
besides Ps. viii. — Joel ii. 16; Susanna 45 ; Jos. Ant. 4, 8, 48 (weeping of the children
at the death of Moses). Comp. Hier. Sot. f. 2, 3 : ad mare rubrum etiam infantes
cantarunt (Luke i. 41) in utero matrum (Lightfoot, p. 493). Bav. Bathr. f. 12 2 :
sapientia ablata est a prophetis et data est stultis et pueris; comp. Syn. Soh. and
Soh. Ex., in Schottgen, p. 115.
2 Mark xi. 18.
3.Mark xi. 18 sq. Weisse, I. p. 436, defends Mark. The other Gospels, he says
have abbreviated, I. p. 574.
4 Matt. xxi. 17.

THE LORD OF THE TEMPLE. 127
of the gate, doubtless by the footway leading to the Mount of
Olives, over whose summit he went to the quiet Bethany. Ac
cording to Matthew and Mark, he here took up his quarters for
the next few days, while Luke seems to think of his spending
the night in the open air upon the Mount of Olives, as he did in
the last Gethsemane night.1 The house into which he entered
was probably that of Simon the leper, into which we are led by
the events of one of the last evenings.2
We must not omit to mention expressly that two Gospels do
not fix this act of purifying the temple on the day of Jesus' entry
into Jerusalem. It is true that these Gospels themselves differ
much one from the other. According to Mark, the temple puri
fying was on the second day ; according to John, instead of being
at the close, it was at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus, at
the first Passover feast.3 The divergence of Mark is in itself
unimportant, but it says very little for the fidelity of this author.4
It is best explained by the author's wish to exhibit a series of
tangible daBy works at Jerusalem and two judgments in one day,
and particularly to create room for Jesus to pass twice by the
celebrated unfruitful fig-tree between Bethany and Jerusalem,

1 Matt. xxi. 17 ; Mark xi. 11 sq. ; Luke xxi. 37. Strauss (New Life of Jesus,
Eng. trans., I. pp. 385 sq. ) makes a good harmony of the accounts by saying that Jesus
spent the night sometimes at Bethany and sometimes in a lodge on the Mount of Olives.
For the rest, even Luke would confirm the assumption of the spending the night in a
house, since avki£. means this also (comp, Matt. I.e.), if it were not for Luke ii. 8,
and if the village Bethany were mentioned as well as the "Mount of Olives." Wetst.
(p. 464) and others thought — quite apart from Luke — of a spending the night in the
open air, as it was the custom to do at the Feast (in tents and booths) on account of the
overcrowding of the city. Renan thinks not only of Bethany, but also of the farms
on the Mount of Olives, where Jesus had many friends. According to Venturini,
Gethsemane belonged to Lazarus, and an estate in Bethphage to Nicodemus ! Bethany
is regarded by Gratz (III. p. 240, comp. also Furrer), though without any ground beyond
that of the very questionable etymology, " House of Poverty" (Furrer, art. Bethanien
in Bibel-Lex.), as a place of lepers ; by Dixon, as a place of poor people ; and therefore
also by Hausrath (p. 436) as the resort of the less wealthy guests.
2 Matt. xxvi. 6.
3 Mark xi. 11 sq., 15 ; John ii. 13 sq.
4 Bleek is here also correct, II. p. 307, against the defenders of Mark. Weizs., p. 91,
is sceptical.

128 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
which on the second day was distinctly seen to be withered.1
Against Mark stands the double testimony of MaO£ and Luke ;
and there is no doubt that the Messianic act is much more
appropriate to the entry day, with its exaltation of feeBng and
its popular expectations, than to the second day, which would
naturally inaugurate rest, sobriety, and the ebb of excitement.
Moreover, nothing exceeds the tameness of the close of the first
and even of the second day in Mark, except that barren place
after the choice of the disciples, where Mark arbitrarily omits the
Sermon on the Mount, which gives pith and force to that choice.
Jesus, going to the sanctuary, "looked upon" everything, and,
as it was evening, immediately went back to Bethany. Could
the Messiah, entering the city with honour and pomp, escorted
by the people, have confined himself, like a tourist or a private
person on his travels, to an inspection of what was interesting
and antique ? Could he have calmly witnessed the disorder and
deliberately postponed untB the morrow the exhibition of a pas
sionate zeal ? Could he have left the city to go to Bethany when
he had but just come to the city, and when he was driven out
by no such animosity as that which he, in a marvellous way, is
said to have braved the next day until evening ?2 Much more
daring is the divergence of the fourth Gospel. Lukewarm criti
cism has, indeed, been able down to the present day to find it
possible that Jesus should have twice — at the beginning and at
the end — undertaken that Augean work which was needed to be
done twice on account of the persistent repetition of the abuse.
But this criticism is disarmed by the facts that circumstances
could not have repeated themselves with scarcely the difference
1 The two judgments: the fig-tree and the temple purifying, xi. 12 — 15. With
respect to Jesus' visits to Jerusalem, Mark, in order to procure two days for the fig-tree,
inserts a third day, dividing the first (with entry and temple purifying) into two days :
(1 ) Entry day ; (2) cursing and purifying ; (3) withering and disputation. Comp.
below, p. 145.
2 With barrenness and the impossible the second day also closes, xi. 15, 18 sq.
The rrcpipXnip, xi. 11, is a mere mannerism, iii. 5, 34, v. 32, ix. 8, x. 23. According
to Hausrath (p. 436), already on the first day the clamour makes a bad impression
upon Jesus ; hence the purifying on the second day !

THE LORD OF THE TEMPLE. 129
of a hair — the money-changers, the oxen, the doves, the repri
mand of Jesus, which however is toned down, and the opponents'
demand for his authority ; that the transaction was great only
once, the second time it would have been a merely mechanical
repetition ; and that the sources themselves are discreet enough
to narrate it only once and not twice.1 But if it be one and the
same incident, then the question forces itself upon us, which of
the Gospels has related it correctly and at the right place ?2 In
the face of the fixed tradition of the older Gospels, the younger
source is at once discredited ; and the point of the great objection,
that Jesus opened his ministry in the world without any tact at
aB, is taken away only by representing that the violence of this
transaction excited the Jews to a veiy moderate degree. But as
this detaB is itself unhistorical, so are also the other details. The
zealotism of Jesus is exaggerated, his censure toned down, the
objection of the Jews is transferred to the same, i.e. the false,
day, the answer of Jesus converted into a morbid mystery the
basis of which, moreover, could and did belong only to the last
days of Jesus.3 FinaBy, it is clearly to be discerned how com-
1 Luthardt, following Hofm., subtly argues out a distinction : in the Synoptics,
Prophet; in John, Son of God, &c. Meyer would show the difference in John ii. 19 !
In favour of two similar transactions, Chrys. and others, particularly many moderns,
including Paulus and Venturini, Tholuk and Meyer, Lange and Langen, Caspari,
Hengstenb., Rigg., not to forget the latest defender, Gess. Sieffert was inclined to
find possible an assimilation of two original more dissimilar accounts. For one trans
action, Origen and his contemporaries (upon John, t. X. p. 15), Luther and the entire
recent criticism. Weisse (I. p. 438) justly reckons the repetition as sheer pedantry.
2 For John, Wetst., Ammon, Sieffert, Neander, Liicke, De Wette, Bruckner, Krabbe,
Bleek, Bunsen, Ewald, Renan, WeizsScker. For the Synoptics, Luther ("it seems to
me that John here hops over the first three years"), Ziegl., Theile, Strauss, Weisse,
Baur, Hilg., Schenkel, and others. In Neander (p. 211), the famous explanation of
the Synoptical mode of narration is still commended to the adherents of John : since
to the Synoptics there existed only one festival journey to Jerusalem, and the question,
Matt. xxi. 23, appeared to point to a severe conflict, the purifying of the temple has
been introduced at the end.
3 The exaggeration, John ii. 15 ; the toning down, verse 16; the premature objec
tion, verse 18 ; the reference to the destruction of the temple, verse 19, according to
the Synoptics (Matt. xxvi. 61), an item of evidence in the trial at Jerusalem, in John
ii. 21, moreover, unhistorically interpreted, and if historically interpreted belonging at
any rate to the period immediately preceding his death. See below. In an article
upon three Christian chronologists, in the Protest. Kirchenzeitimg, 1869, pp. 49, 51,
VOL. V. K

130 THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.
pletely this deed of purification is of one spirit and mould with
that public avowal of Messianism which Jesus made only at the
close ; and this history ceases to be intelligible when we find
reticence in the finish at Jerusalem and open avowal in the be
ginning.1 In truth, it is therefore only the author who found it
necessary that Ms Gospel should leave no doubt about the deci
sive breach of Jesus with the dominant Judaism at the very
beginning, and at the same time to disencumber by this transpo
sition the end of Jesus from any the slightest reproach of a self-
earned fall through a material Messianism.2
But while John violently tore the incident of the temple puri
fying — which he made use of much too soon — from the last
ministry of Jesus in Jerusalem, he was compeBed to crown the
last entry of Jesus with unhistorical, though intellectually re
markable, novelties, just as he had introduced it with such.3
Here we see the significant approach of Hellenes, as previ
ously the procession of Jewish festival guests, — an edifying
fulfilment of conscious and unconscious, of his own and of Jewish
maliciously spoken, prediction, a fulfilment greeted by Jesus in
wise self-restraint as an earnest of the apostolic time which
must grow out of his death, must spring from the decay of the
re-germinating seed. And next we see an elsewhere quite un
known divine sign from heaven, which changes the mood of
I have afresh explained the forty-six years' duration of the building of the temple
(comp. above, II. pp. 379 sq.). See also Gutsehmid (who explains it from Luke iii. 1)
in Wieseler's review, Lit. Centralblatt, autumn, 1869. Sevin, p. 3. English exposi
tors have already shown Jesus' want of tact in John : Liicke, I. pp. 435 sq. ; Strauss,
4th ed. I. p. 730.
1 Weizs. p. 325 (similarly Neander, p. 211) says the transaction does not harmonize
at all with the generally circumspect and reserved (!) behaviour of Jesus in those days,
but it has the character of an appearance for the first time, of a bold act opening a
new course; and moreover, in the Synoptics, the event stands isolated, no correspond
ing effect follows it. As if the question in Matt. xxi. 23 could better refer to anything
else, and as if John ii. 18, 23, would be a more appropriate and more powerful result !
Ewald (p. 520) recognizes, much more correctly than W., that the temple purifying
would have had a much more significant sense at the end than at the beginning, 
but John had good grounds, and it is in place even there !
3 The first is illustrated by John iv. 21, the second by xii. 12, xviii. 20, 36.
3 See John xii. 20 sqq.

THE LORD OF THE TEMPLE. 131
Jesus, depressed by the sudden thought of death, into one of
triumph, glorifies and transfigures him, and gives him a certainty
of overcoming the princes of the world.1 That these are pure
fictions is so much the more readily seen because the transfi
guration, with the voice from heaven, as weB as the sadness of
Jesus, belong, according to the older Gospels, to quite different
periods in his career, and especially because the historically so
well-attested scene of lamentation in Gethsemane — which actu-
aBy occurred immediately before the apprehension of Jesus,
therefore in the course of the following days — is here transferred
to the entry, certainly in a most diluted and weakened form ; in
the form, indeed, of a momentary cloud, out of which there broke
victoriously the heavenly voice and Jesus' most exalted self-
consciousness.2 In a few words of reminder and of warning,
hurried in every respect, the last testimony of Jesus was uttered
before the people, from whom Jesus hid himself by withdrawing
entirely into the narrow circle of his twelve disciples. In the
older Gospels, however, the great — in John long since exhausted
— teaching ministry of Jesus in Jerusalem now first begins.3
1 John xii. 12, 20. Prediction of Jesus, iv. 23, x. 16. Scorn of the Jews, vii. 35.
It is disputed whether the Hellenes were Hellenistic Jews or pure heathens or Gentile-
Jewish proselytes. Comp. Acts viii. 27. According to the context, the last. Thus
Neander, p. 509 ; Weizs. p. 546. According to Goldhorn's curious opinion, the pro
posal of the Hellenes to come to Jesus brought on his conflict.
2 Certain Hellenes as unhistorical as the multitude of Jewish festival guests, xii. 12.
Transfiguration and voice from heaven, Matt. xvii. 1, Hour of sadness, Matt. xxvi. 36.
How arbitrarily it is arranged is seen from the introduction of the words of Matt.
xvi. 25, x. 24, in John xii. 25 sqq. Comp. particularly Baur, Kanon. Ev. pp. 197
sqq. Even Ewald is able to speak only of a glorification of the earlier account (p. 528).
Neander (p. 512) sees here difficulties which cannot be altogether solved, but holds fast
to the account. Bleek is more certain, Beitr. p. 272. Gess perfectly, pp. 125 sqq.
Comp. also Weizs. p. 546.
3 See above, p. 78. The last utterance of Jesus, John xii. 44, quite isolated, and
introduced without locality, without one new idea, is a cross to all expositors. Most
— Ewald included (p. 530) — take refuge in the explanation, which contradicts the text,
that Jesus had spoken this earlier, and the Evangelist subjectively brings everything
together at once.

K 2

132 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.

Division III.— THE DECISIVE STEUGGLE.

The struggle for supremacy which was occasioned by the entry
of Jesus and his pubBc act in the temple, was, during the foBow-
ing days, not only continued, but brought to a decisive issue.
While Jesus, on his side, retreated from acts to words, not out
of fear, nor through indecision, but in obedience to the spirit of
his ministry, the opponents on their side were not inclined to
long disputations after Jesus' first acts had revealed his views ;
and even the words of the Galilean gave the impression that they
must be dangerous to the hitherto so well-tested spirit of subjec
tion which characterized the people. Every power which, while
indulging in a stubborn belief in its monopoly of authority and
its unlimited supremacy, is disagreeably surprised by a sudden
popular movement, is only too ready to have recourse to a sudden
and harsh exercise of force. In this case, Oriental passion, reli
gious conceit, hierarchical pride, and — perhaps the most jus
tifiable motive — the recollection of the unhappy political and
religious popular commotions of thirty or forty years before,
led to prompt resolves.1 But much in this struggle remains
obscure. The Gospels are fond of bringing upon the stage from
the very beginning the whole Sanhedrim, high-priests, scribes,
and elders, or at least the representatives of that supreme spi
ritual Council which afterwards condemned Jesus. And then
they give the encounters in such a close array as to make it
appear that all these conflicts developed themselves in unwearied
succession in the course of one day. With reference to the first
point, however, it can be seen to be tolerably certain that the
earlier attacks proceeded almost entirely from the old foes of
Jesus, from the Pharisees, the leaders of the modern popular
1 See above, I. pp. 254 sqq., 261.

THE ASSAILANTS. 133
piety ; and that then the struggle was continued by the hierarchs
of office, the high-priests with the harsh party of the Sadducees,
to be finally taken up by the Sanhedrim. And with reference
to the second point, there are several significant interruptions
of the struggle perceptible, which, as the chronology of the death-
year of Jesus must show more in detail, make possible the resto
ration of a terminus of these conflicts lasting at least three days.1

A. — The Assailants.

Like a dauntless hero, Jesus was already on the way from
Bethany to Jerusalem early on the morning of the 9th of April.2
This day was probably a Sabbath, and we might suppose, since
Jesus went a distance of fifteen, and not merely six, Greek stadia,
that he broke the Jewish Sabbatic law, the law of the " Sabbath
day's journey."3 But we nowhere find this charge made against
him ; and since it was impossible for the holy city to contain the
thousands or indeed miBions of the Passover guests, and since it
was necessary for many to find their night-quarters in the villages
1 Schenkel having recently introduced a ministration of Jesus at Jerusalem before
the entry, there happen to him after the entry immediately betrayal, the Last Supper,
and Gethsemane. Bibel-Lex. III. p. 295. Again, Weizs. (p. 532) found "several days"
too few for the conflicts that followed ; but these fell earlier, since, according to John's
more correct account, Jesus hid himself ! Where, again, are the sometimes lauded and
sometimes despised Synoptics ?
2 Matt. xxi. 18. Here at the commencement Strauss's words (4th ed. I. p. 646)
may be recalled : the controversies, after the entry, are certainly in a superior degree
genuine, because they are carried on so entirely in the spirit and tone of the Rabbinic
dialectics (only this?) of the time. On the other hand, the hyper- criticism of Volkmar
has recently unceremoniously explained away everything.
3 The Sabbath-day's journey, Talm. techum ha-shabbat (on the ground of Exodus
xvi. 29), is the longest distance which the Jew should go, on account of the rest of the
day. According to the Rabbis, 2000 cubits ; according to Epiph. Hcer. 66, 82, six
stadia, about a Roman mile. Comp. also Acts i. 12, and Jos. B. J. 5, 2, 3, according
to which authorities the Mount of Olives was a Sabbath-day's journey (Acts), or six
stadia (Jos.), from Jerusalem, On the other hand, Bethany was fifteen stadia, John
xi. 18.

134 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
of the neighbourhood or in the open air, it is inteBigible that
approach to the temple must have been made easier, and that
this was effected partly by a relaxation of the Sabbatic limita
tions, and partly by artificial theories of the distances and of the
relations of different places.1 A surprising light is thrown upon
this by the Talmudic intimation that Bethphage, the neighbour
of Bethany, was regarded as undivided from Jerusalem, inso
much that the Passover lamb could be eaten at Bethphage as at
Jerusalem.2 Like Jesus, the people — and they for Jesus' sake — were early
present in the outer courts of the temple.3 But the foes also
made their appearance betimes, in order to suppress or at least
to moderate the popular agitation. As Jesus, according to Mat
thew and Luke, was teaching the people, or, according to Mark,
was walking about in the holy courts, there came to him priests,
elders of the people, and Pharisaic scribes, but not — as the Gospels
exaggerate — the whole Sanhedrim, with the great question which
was left unsolved on the previous evening : " By what authority
doest thou these things, and who gave thee this authority?"4
What things they meant they did not say. Their brevity was
not that of bashfulness, but of displeasure at unheard-of, un
speakable things, things which one would not like to mention
and could not even briefly recapitulate ; for they certainly meant
everything together— the entry, the purifying, and the teaching
1 Comp. Geiger, Sadd. und Phar. 1863, p. 18 : artificial ideal connection of local
ities (erubin, mixture, Bux. p. 1657, comp. Herzog, XV. p. 624). But not only was
the conservatio vitse dispensatory, but also the urgens necessitas (Wetst. p. 499).
2 See above, p. 90. 3 Luke xxi. 38.
4 Matt. xxi. 23 ; Luke xx. 1 ; Mark xi. 27 ; comp. John ii. 18. Luke says inde
finitely "one day" (iv ai®. The three Gospels represent more or less the whole
Council, the Sanhedrim, as going to him ; Matt, the high-priests and elders (generally
irpeoS., Luke xix. 47, rrpwroi Xaoi) ; Luke and Mark the scribes also, evidently the
whole Sanhedrim. Luke and Mark introduce the scribes because Matt. xxi. 45 assumes
their presence. Of the action here of the whole Sanhedrim, it is plain that we must
not think, as all that follows shows. There are, therefore, as the limitation in
Matthew at the beginning and the hint at the close best indicate, several hierarchs
certainly not yet the Sadducean high-priest Caiaphas, but individual high-priests elders
of the people, and scribes of the Pharisaic party.

THE ASSAILANTS. 135
in the temple.1 They now asked — not, as some have said, in the
character of a judicial commission of inquiry, but yet as members
of the hierarchy — with magisterial emphasis, for his legitimation,
for a complete statement of the authority itself and for the giver
of that authority.2 They might think that he could not escape,
that he would be compelled either to show the authority of the
high-priests and of the Sanhedrim, or to give himself into custody
as a human self-wiBed author of disturbance and promoter of
sedition. For these dead guardians of dead ordinances had hardly
thought of a third resource, of the Divine authority. But they
found their match: if the zealot of yesterday was no longer
before them to drive out of the sanctuary the audacious and
unclean questioners, as unworthy as the money-changers and the
dealers, the dreaded, ready-tongued, acute disputant of Galilee
was there, scorning the fetters with which little men would bind
him. And bolder, more determined than ever were his words.
But while those words were open, their meaning was hidden ;
and though they were an answer, they rather challenged from
his opponents an answer, from the embarrassment of which
they were fain to escape. Here we have a most splendid en
counter of the great and the self-conscious with the puny ones
who dared to challenge him. He disdained to canvass at once
their right to put the question; perhaps they had the right,
perhaps there were among them official persons, priests in charge
of the temple, and heads of the school whose teaching was influ-
1 Similarly Bleek, Ewald, Weizs. ; Meyer is inclined to think only of the temple
purifying and the healings (!). Ewald (pp. 520 sq. ) naturally omits the temple puri
fying — which is nevertheless the most important — since he does not accept it ; and
Neander (p. 211) has the fanciful notion that this question in the Synoptical narrative
first called forth the temple purifying. On the other hand, Weisse (I. p. 438) much
more correctly recognizes how appropriately the attack follows the temple purifying.
Neander (p. 487), in his Johannine prejudice, has fallen into scepticism regarding the
whole of this incident. There is a noteworthy similarity between this proceeding and
that in Acts iv. 7 ; comp. also iv. 11 with Matt. xxi. 42, iv. 16 with Matt. xxi. 25 sq.
If a dependence can possibly exist here, it must be on the side of the later Acts.
2 The commission, in Schenkel, Bib. -Lex. III. p. 293. An embassy from the San
hedrim, Neander, p. 487.

136 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
ential even in the Sanhedrim. He proposed to them a higher
counter-question, which cut to the very core of the subject : " So
will I also ask you a question ; if ye answer me, then I will also
tell you by what authority I do this. The baptism of John,
whence was it ? From heaven or of men ?"1 Here was a whole
world in a word. More openly than ever before did Jesus here
appeal to John. He named, or indicated as his predecessor and
his legitimation, the terror of the Pharisees and of the hierarchy,
but also their victim, the man of the people, the popular agitator.
His baptism, the rejected, proscribed Jordan baptism, the sign
of conspirators, he spoke of as sent from heaven, as a gift of God ;
and in the same sense and spirit, in one and the same connection,
he would derive from heaven his entry, his temple purifying, his
preaching of the kingdom of heaven, his Messianic preaching, as
John did his baptism.2 He might have said this at once ; but
his terrible weapon was to compel them to say it, to compel them
to confess or deny it in the face of the clear truth which had
dawned upon every unprejudiced man in Israel with exception
of the Pharisees, and in the presence of the multitudes of people
who, according to both the Gospels and Josephus, would not
permit any attack to be made upon the great dead.3 The Gospels
reveal the consultations of the perplexed hierarchs, who are quite
correctly represented, even though not a word that could be
written down came out of their mouths. "If we say, From
heaven, he wiB say to us, Then why did ye not believe in him ?
But if we say, Of men, we fear the people, for all hold John as a
prophet." The answer, therefore, was that of children, of women :
" We do not know." Jesus also has now done with the matter ;
1 From heaven=from God, usual mode of expression, Schottgen, p. 172. Wetst.
p. 465. Comp. above, III. p. 44, u. 1.
2 Volkmar, p. 521 : it is possible that Jesus had already attached a value to the
precedence of the Baptist ! Thus can only he speak who no longer believes in anything
historical. 3 Matt. xxi. 26 ; Luke xx. 6 ; Mark xi. 32. Comp. above, II. pp. 339 Sq. IV
p. 224.

THE ASSAILANTS. 137
with the proud calm of a victor who has repulsed an arrogant
and vigorous onset, he retorts, " Neither do I say to you by what
authority I do this."1
But if he had done with his answer, he had not done with his
attack. The sins of the hierarchy were his theme. The severity
of his criticism was moderated by the parabolical form to which
he had recourse, and which he used with admirable mental calm
ness and with the most perfect art of his best Galilean times, as
weB as by the subtle intention of extorting from his taciturn
opponents themselves a voluntary or reluctant but just confession.
In a first parable, handed down by Matthew alone and unques
tionably genuine, he exposed the sins of the last time. Following
up what he had just said, he placed in contrast the attitude of
the Pharisees and of the people respectively towards John, and
compeBed the former to utter a "No" against themselves, and a
"Yes" for John and the people.2 "What think ye? A man
had two sons. Going to the first he said, Son, go work to-day in
the vineyard. I will not, said the son ; but afterwards he re
pented and went. The man went to the second son with the
same command. Yes, sir, said the second, but did not go. Which
of the two did the wiB of his father ?" The opponents answered
at once, " The first."3 Here he had them. " Verity I say unto
1 In Luke xx. 6 : all the people will stone us ! Comp. Donatus on Terence, Eun.
V. 5, 11 (Wetst. p. 466): perturbatur; nee negare potuit nee consentire volebat, et
ideo quasi def ensionis loco dixit : nescio.
2 Matt. xxi. 28. Weisse's partiality for Mark (II. p. 109) leads him to regard the
story of the two sons as inappropriately introduced. Volkmar's criticism (pp. 164,
520) finds that Matt, here gives a mutilated version of Luke's parable of the Piodigal
Son, which parable has in fact grown out of Matthew ; and that all these parables,
especially in Luke, are only variations upon Mark ii. 17.
3 Comp. Rabb. : impii promittunt multa et servant pauca. Schottgen, p. 173. The
"reading here varies. Particularly, according to B in verse 29, the elder son at first
promises, while in verse 30 the younger at first refuses, wherefore the Scribes in verse
31 praise the second (vorepog, Sevr., noviss.). But the preponderance of authority is
for the above reading (Tisch.), and the variation is sufficiently explained (Meyer) from
the usual relation of two to Judaism and heathenism among the Fathers, a relation
which was specially supported by the kindred but evidently later parable of the Prodigal
Son (Luke xv.), but a relation which is unhistorically introduced into Matthew, and
even in Luke is not the original sense of the parable.

138 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
you, that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of
God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteous
ness, and ye believed him. not. But the publicans and harlots
believed him. And ye, when ye saw it, repented not afterwards
so as to believe him."1 He here very finely depicted the positive
and negative attitude of the people and of the Pharisees towards
God. The people as a whole are the elder son. They had im
perfectly fulfiBed their call to work in the service of God ; they
had roundly refused, and yet at last they, even to the very
grossest of them, to those who had gone the furthest in the
direction of moral ruin, learnt to repent and to long for the king
dom of God under the preaching of John. The Pharisees and
Scribes — the younger son, who was to compensate for the dege
neracy of the elder one, the representative of aB piety, of aB
holiness — had amid much show of respect honoured his " Sir,"
had promised everything that was good, every good and righteous
work, and yet had not performed what was promised, had least
of aB performed it in the decisive days of the preacher of righ
teousness, and even had learnt no shame, no penitence, no faith,
from the penitence and reformation of the most depraved.2
While Jesus placed in the foreground the divine caB of the
most recent past, the divine mission of John and its diverse
results, he also, implicitly at least, threw a light upon the whole
past of the people and of the Pharisees, as well as upon the
present in which he was the continuer of the work and of the
experiences of the Baptist. Now, however, in a second and
detailed parable, communicated by all three Gospels, he displays
upon the foundation of the first a still grander tableau of the
1 "In the way of righteousness" does not mean, "as an upright man" (Meyer), but
as " teacher of uprightness" (Bleek) ; comp. above, II. pp. 238 sq.
' 2 An apparent incongruity between the parable and its interpretation is caused bv
the fact that the first assenting — or refusing — answer does not belong to the ministry
of the Baptist (against Schenkel, p. 234), but precedes it ; the second answer the cor
rection, belongs to this ministry. Yet there is nothing in the way of the assumption
that the bringing in of John was intended to illustrate only the second, and not the
first, answer, which rather lay in the whole previous national history.

THE ASSAILANTS. 139
general history of divine revelation of the kingdom and of hierar
chical sin. He enumerates the whole series of ill-treated servants
of God from the first to the last. The last is now no longer
John, but the Greater than John, namely, the one now first
openly caBed Son of God, who was in Jerusalem, who was
speaking, and who in truth himself was already awaiting the
fate of the messengers of God.1 "A man, a householder," he
said, taking up a weB-known parable of Isaiah's, "planted a
vineyard, put a hedge about it, dug a wine-trough in it, and built
a tower. He then let the vineyard to husbandmen and went into
a far country.2 When the time of fruit drew near, he sent his
servants to levy from the husbandmen the tax in kind."3 But
he sent them in vain. According to one account, there were
three servants, who one after another were maltreated worse and
worse, even to wounding and death. According to the other and
evidently more appropriate form of the parable, there were two
groups of servants, the second stronger than the first, each mal
treated by blows, the husbandmen proceeding even to the length
of murdering and stoning them.4 Finally, the lord resolved to
send his son, as the third or the fourth. " They will be awed by
1 Matt. xxi. 33 ; Luke xx. 9 ; Mark xii. 1. Luke erroneously says Jesus addressed
himself to the people, contrary to what he himself tells us in xx. 19.
2 Isaiah v. 1 sqq., comp. iii. 14, ix. 10. Similarly the Rabbis, Schottgen, p. 173.
Hedge or wall against beasts ; wine-trough, into which through a latticed opening the
must flows ; tower= watch-tower, Isaiah i. 8, Song of Sol. i. 6. Rabbis, in Schottgen,
p. 173 : aedificavit turrem in medio in eaque custodem constituit. Comp. Winer, Kelter
and Wein.
3 Matt. : his fruits. Luke and Mark, more exactly : of the fruits. This refers to
the Old- Testament tenth, not to the Syrian or Roman land-tax (1 Mace. x. 30 ; Jos.
Ant. 14, 10, 6) of one-third or one-fourth.
4 Matt, has two groups, Luke and Mark three single servants. A further difference
is, that in Luke the first is beaten, the second is beaten and also shamefully treated,
the third is wounded as well ; in Mark the second is wounded in the head (iKeipaXiuiaav
d. X.), the third slain. Mark also, to tally with Matthew, adds that a number of
others sent were beaten or slain. We can here but choose between Matthew and
Luke ; and the duality in Matt., with the Messiah making the triplet, is simpler and
better conceived ; the groups of servants (comp. Jer. xxv. 4) justly diminishes the
authority of the Individuals in proportion as it shows the determined urgency of the
lord.

140 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
my son I1 But the husbandmen, when they saw him, spoke among
themselves, This is the heir ; come, let us kiB him and seize on
his inheritance.2 They said it, seized him, cast him out of the
vineyard, and slew him. Now, when the lord of the vineyard
comes, what will he do to those husbandmen ? Miserable men,
he will miserably destroy them, and give the vineyard to others.3
Have ye not read in the Scriptures" — and here he referred to
those verses of Psalm cxviii. which immediately precede the
words sung when he made his entry into the city — " The stone
which the builders rejected, that is become the corner-stone ;
this has been done by the Lord, and it is marvellous in our eyes !
And he who falls upon this stone" — he added, in holy passion,
quoting Isaiah and Daniel — " wiB be bruised and broken ; but
he upon whom it falls, it will crush him to pieces."4
He had intelligibly and solemnly spoken from the judgment-
seat of higher history concerning the history of Israel and of the
rulers of Israel. The whole of this long history, with aB its
complicated paths and windings, presented itself before his keen
eye as one connected process of divine gifts and chaBenges, and
of human refusals to do what was right. This plantation of God,
separated from the wBderness of heathenism, adorned with the
1 Luke xx. 13 : my beloved Son. Mark xii. 6 : only beloved Son, — assumed by
Gess (p. 124) to be important, although this is only dogmatic development.
2 Heir, with a reference to Messiah, after Ps. ii. 8 ; Gen. xv. 2 sqq. ; Gal. iii. 29,
iv. 1. Hebraic joresh and ben meshek.
3 According to Luke and Mark. The play upon the word in Matt. xxi. 41. On
Matthew's text, see below, p. 143, n. 2.
4 Ps. cxviii. 22 sq. Comp. Isaiah xxviii. 16. According to the Greek avrn, the
translation must be "this (corner-stone)" (Meyer). But possibly the LXX. translated
only slavishly; in the Hebrew stands sot (Gr. avrn), but it signifies "this" (neuter),
Ps. vii. 3. Comp. Bleek, II. p. 322; Hilgenfeld, 1868, p. 39. The word of the
Psalm has reference to the despised nation lifted up again by God. Hitzig, II. p. 345
Asmonsean Jonathan. Messianic application by the Rabbis. Schottgen, p. 174. The
second passage in Matt. xxi. 44 and Luke xx. 18 (see Isaiah viii. 14; Jer. vi. 21 ¦
Dan. ii. 34, 44, sq. ; comp. also above, I. p. 324, upon Messianic stone that broke to
pieces the kingdoms of the earth) is not quite established in Matt. Tischendorf has
struck out the passage on the authority of Origen, Eus., D., It., but — as Hilgenfeld
also mentions (p. 39)— against the strongest attestation, Sin., Vat*, Ephr., It., Syr.,
Chrys., Aug.

THE ASSAILANTS. 141
noble vine of the divine ordinances in human nationality, pro
tected by the tower of the sacred citadel, the temple of God, was
Israel. The husbandmen were the successors of Moses, the
priests, Scribes and Pharisees, the representatives of the God who
had withdrawn himself after the Sinaitic revelation, and, with a
reservation of ownership and of fruits, had handed over to them
the cultivation and use of his property. The servants were the
prophets early and late to the time of the exile and of John, the
unsuccessful, scorned, beaten, slain tithe-coBectors of God.1 Only
one can succeed them, the last and highest representative of God,
commanding respect even from the rebellious, the Son, the Mes
siah; and his mission was not directly the prosperity of the nation,
but the genuinely Johannine restoration of the down-trodden rights
of God, the collection of the fruits which had been refused to God,
and which God cannot allow to be refused to Him throughout
the centuries.2 But the Messiah himself foresees his own destiny ;
he has long anticipated it, since yesterday he has seen it with
his own eyes ; the rightful heir of the vineyard is, like Joseph
by his brethren, received by the husbandmen with looks of jea
lousy and murderous intent. The rebellion, which he is to quell,
is already complete : it has passed from the refusal of the fruits
to the repudiation of vassalage, to the audacious, cold, definite
choice of self-government instead of the government of God and
of the king, to the deposition of God in the deposition of his
messenger cast out of Israel with insult.3 Having reached this
height, Jesus, in the excitement of the moment, is no longer able
to preserve the calm of the parable ; he not only changes the
figures and casts the crushing stone at the lords of the temple,
but he passes from factual representation to personal application,
1 The tower= temple, comp. Book of Enoch, 89 sq. Also many of the Fathers since
Chrys. explain tower = temple (hedge = land, winepress = altar). The husbandmen are
not, as is generally assumed, the people, but the custodes (see above, p. 139, n. 2) ;
comp. also Matt, xxiii. 2, 13.
2 Comp. Matt. iii. 8.
3 Aristocracy of the priesthood had been introduced in the place of kings, Jos. Ant.
20, 10. See above, I. p. 257.

142 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
from exposition to plain, direct, severe condemnation. The ven
geance of God cannot tarry : struck by divine wrath, the rebels
must faB, the vineyard must pass into other and fresh hands.
"The others" who receive the vineyard are the other one; it
can only be the Messiah, the heir ; it can only be himself, with
his disciples and adherents. The stone, rejected by the builders,
chosen by God as the corner-stone, as the support and middle
point of his terrestrial edifice, every one would understand to be
that person who then, within the walls of the temple, ran the
risk of being shamefuBy cast out and slain by the keepers of the
temple.1 Agreed as the Gospels are in general concerning tins grand
self-revelation of Jesus — in which destructive criticism again
miserably fails to see anything but an invention of the dogmatic
artist — yet they exhibit many differences in detail, of some of
which mention has already been made.2 Two important points,
however, remain to be considered. In a very interesting way,
Matthew makes the Scribes themselves give the verdict upon
the husbandmen. Jesus imposes it upon them to be — as in the
former parable — their own impartial judges, to utter their own
crushing condemnation, which he needs afterwards only to certify,
only to Blustrate.3 But this account is contradicted by Luke
and Mark, who do not represent the verdict as being repeated,
but put it in the mouth of Jesus alone. Moreover, Matthew's
account does not harmonize with the fact that the opponents
immediately afterwards, madly falling upon the parable-speaker
who depicted them, very clearly pointed out the author of the
words, while they themselves must have been too shrewd to
pronounce such an emphatic condemnation of the husbandmen,
1 The direct application in Matt. xxi. 43 was not made (according to Luke and Mark,
and also Matt. xxi. 45).
2 Volkmar (p. 521) simply says that as the temple purifying did not take place,
there was no occasion given to a conflict. Weizs. (p. 126) thinks of a construction of
the parable, which at any rate shows a diversity of elements, out of Jewish apocalyp
tical books. On the similarity between Matt. xxi. 42 and Acts iv. 11, see above
p. 131, n. 1.
3 Matt. xxi. 41, 43. This repetition of xxi. 31 at once speaks against verse 41.

THE ASSAILANTS. 143
particularly after the preceding example.1 More important stiB
is another point. The " others" who receive the vineyard are,
according to Matthew, such as will render up the fruits in their
season ; nay, according to the subsequent explanation of Jesus,
which was probably introduced by the Gentile-favouring editor,
quite a different people, to whom the kingdom of God, taken
away from the hierarchs and the Jews, is to be given with the
prospect of a fruit-rendering in the sense of the kingdom of God.2
Evidently there is here an allusion to the transference of the
kingdom of God from the Jews to the Gentiles ; and thus also
has Luke understood it, who, without speaking of "another
nation," makes the assembled Jewish people cry, " God forbid !"
Most of the expositors have also thus understood it.3 But this
passage of Matthew and this exposition of Matthew and Luke
must be regarded as interpolations, however much we might
wish to retain one of the few passages which would establish the
decisively important turning of Jesus' gaze from the Jews to the
Gentiles. Here the silence of Mark, and even of Luke, speaks
loudly enough, especially as their advanced standpoint would at
once have welcomed and adopted such an utterance of Jesus had
it been a reliable tradition. But even Jesus' words themselves
1 An argument against Matthew is afforded by the very unskilful interpolation of
verse 43 between 42 and 44, assuming the genuineness of these ; and, finally, by the
close, verse 45, which points to the party, and not to the whole nation. It may be
surmised that verse 43 belongs to the editor, as well as the variation in verse 41.
2 Matt. xxi. 41, 43, opp. Luke xx. 15 sq., Mark xii. 9. Meyer sides with Matthew ;
Bleek, more correctly, takes the other side. The hand of the editor in Matthew is
suggested by the repetition and exegesis of verse 41 in verse 43, and by the application
— out of harmony even with Matthew— in this verse; see previous note. And why
have not Luke and Mark repeated out of Matthew the welcome eQvog ? Comp. Kostlin,
p. 44.
3 As early as the Fathers (Eus., Theophan., Nova Patrum Bib. IV. p. 124, in Hilg.
1868, p. 39), the Gentiles were here thought of. Thus Neander still, p. 504. Of
recent writers, Fritzsche and Hilgenfeld (I.e.) make even the corner-stone refer to the
Gentiles. Of the critical school, Baur, Hilg. , Volkmar, assume the former reference to
be self-evident, Volkmar even in the form of Mark, who, however, correctly speaks
only of "others." Schenkel (pp. 234 sq.) also makes the vineyard mean the nation,
"the others" the Japhetites. More cautiously Meyer and Bleek, Jews and Gentiles.
Against the reference to the Gentiles, Pfleiderer, Jahrb. deutsch. Theol. 1868, p. 149.
Isaiah v. 1 sqq. was seductive ; but Jesus' parable is different.

144 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
speak to the contrary. The husbandmen from whom the vine
yard is to be taken are not the Jews who render no fruits, but
only the keepers, the builders, the spiritual heads of the Jews,
who refuse the tribute of fruits to the lord. If the vineyard
were taken from them, it would evidently neither be taken from
the people, who in truth were themselves the vineyard of God,
nor be given to the Gentiles. And if it were taken away, certainly
the Gentiles could not step into possession of the rights of the
hierarchs. Moreover, the context plainly shows that by the
" others," who were to receive the vineyard, Jesus understood,
not the Jews, not the GentBes, but the Messiah, or the adherents
of the Messiah. If any one still fosters a doubt respecting these
Gentile utterances, that doubt must be dispelled by the consider
ation that Jesus was in conflict simply with the hierarchs and
not at all with the people, and that he would therefore have
shown little fairness and little wisdom had he rejected the people
along with the hierarchs, and, by announcing the transference of
their sacred rights to the heathen, had fundamentally exasperated
the people whose decision he must still await, whose belief in
John he had only just been applauding, and whose zealous
thronging round him was his own special protection against the
hierarchs. The parable, therefore, would be understood in such
a sense as it is shown to have been by the close. That close
reveals, in Matthew as well as in Luke, no popular exasperation
on account of the parable, but simply the rage of the hierarchs,
who noted that everything had been pointed at them, and at
them exclusively.1
Upon this misunderstanding of Matthew's depends yet another.
In the order of events on this day, in Matthew, in a somewhat
different way in Mark, the cursing of the unfruitful fig-tree is
placed first.2 This opening of the day is, however, intelligible
only when we see its close. On the morning-return from Bethany
to Jerusalem, Jesus felt hungry. He saw by the way, probably
1 How obscure and perverted is here again the address of Luke xx. 9 16 19!
2 Matt. xxi. 18; Mark xi. 12; on Mark, see below, pp. 145 150.

THE ASSAILANTS. 145
on the fruitful western side of the Mount of Olives and in sight
of Jerusalem, a fig-tree. He went up to it, but was disappointed,
finding on it nothing but leaves. Then he cursed the tree : "Let
no fruit grow on thee henceforth for ever!"1 And immediately
the fig-tree dried up. But according to Mark, who depicts the
commencement and progress of the miracle rationaBy and with
profundity and dignity, the effect of the curse was not apparent
until the following morning, when it was visible to the very
roots.2 It has long been understood that the deeper meaning of
this transaction was a spiritual symbolism in the manner of the
ancient prophets, namely, the material representation of judgment
upon Israel, who had been unfruitful towards their God, a re
presentation more forcible than very many prophetic symbols,
because the miraculous destruction of an organic life by a word,
in truth a divine word, guaranteed in an alarmingly convincing
manner the certain and mighty advent of the judgment of the
nation.3 Without any assistance from Matthew and Mark,
expositors have been compelled to seek beneath the external
miracle^- which it has been attempted to retain — this deeper
sense, because the punishment of an unfruitful tree at the
prompting of temporary hunger must necessarily appear to be a
1 Return, Matthew. On the other hand, Mark speaks very vaguely, — it happened
after leaving Bethany. In the neighbourhood of Bethany, Jerusalem could not be seen
(notwithstanding Volkmar, p. 509), though the sense of the narrative points to the
visibility of the city (see below). Tree by the road : it was a makom muphkar, loc.
communis, not privatus (Lightfoot, p. 351). Figs, moreover, flourish ubi multus pulvis,
max. frequenti via apposita. Pliny, 15, 21. Fruit-gathering not forbidden, Deut.
xxiii. 25 ; Matt. xii. 1. Jesus came upon it ; he had not to go up to it (Fritzsche).
2 Mark xi. 20. According to Strauss (4th ed. II. p. 230), no more words are to
be wasted as to the preference. Sieffert, Neander, Meyer : Mark more exact and more
original ! But Steinmeyer (p. 249) will retain Matt, and Mark ; he does not admit
that the result was not instantaneous, only the perception of it by the disciples (de
scribed in Mark) followed afterwards.
3 The Fathers, and Neander, Bleek, Krabbe, Gess, Meyer, and Steinmeyer, although
these all retain the miracle. The more recent criticism completely repudiates (Strauss,
De Wette, Hase, Weisse, Schenkel, and others) the external miracle. Also Ewald,
p. 523, and Weizs., p. 548, are among the number. Prophetic symbolics, e.g. 1 Sam.
xv. 27 ; 1 Kings xi. 30, xxii. 11 ; Jer. xiii. 1, xviii. 2, xix, 1, 10, xxvii. 2. But Matt.
and Mark make no allusion to symbolic meaning ; see next page.
VOL. V. L

146 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
blind and sensual deed of anger and revenge against an innocent
tree and an unfree nature, therefore — really in the sense of the
temptation narrative — an abuse of miraculous power.1
Whilst this conception is doubtless correct, there is much light
to be gathered from the relation in which this miraculous sign
stands to the events of the same day. The incident of the fig-tree
is only an illustration of the parable of the husbandmen in the
vineyard, a conversion of word into fact. Hence it is at once
plain that only Matthew, and not Mark, gives it in the right
place.2 The fig-tree is the representative of the vineyard. In
point of fact, the fig was planted in vineyards. Next to the vine,
it was the noblest, most productive plant in the vineyard ; and
in antithesis to the slender, tender vine-stock, it best represented
the strength and elevation of a nationaBty, — it was the symbol
of Israel.3 The fruit of the fig-tree corresponded to the fruit of
the vineyard : in the parable, the tribute of fruit was not given ;
here the fruit did not grow. But the husbandmen who culti
vated the vineyard, the fig-tree, have disappeared, because the
Evangelist had already, in the parable, confounded them with
the vineyard itself, with the people of Israel, and their fruit-
tribute with the fruit-bearing of the popular life. Thus it is not
the husbandmen who perish; but the vine itself, the fig-tree,
the nation of Israel withers, and "others" come instead. It is
1 Comp. Matt. iv. 3 sq. The innocence of the tree mentioned by Augustine, De verb.
dom. in Joh. 44 : quid arbor fecerat? quae culpa arboris? 'Avainov bv, Euth. The
expositors seek help in the supposition that the tree was previously rotten, therefore
not so innocent (Paulus, even Neander and Bleek).
2 In Matthew, on the same day are the fig-tree and the parable of the vineyard ; in
Mark, the fig-tree and the temple purifying, which latter contains no rejection of the
Jews at all, but rather a reformation (against Volkmar). Those who would follow the
faintest traces might appeal to Mark xi. 17, or (with Steinm.) might compare the
looking round in xi. 11 and in verse 13. Here is seen afresh that Mark arbitrarily
re-arranged the events, and brought the fig-tree primarily into connection with the
temple purifying instead of with the vineyard parable. Would Jesus have purified the
temple on the Sabbath !
3 In the Old Testament, the vine and the fig quite commonly stand together, the
fig-tree in the vineyard. Comp. the parable in Luke xiii. 6, here doubly important.
Israel compared to fig-tree and figs, e.g. Hosea ix. 10 ; Micah vii. 1 ; Jer. viii. 13
xxiv. 1.

THE ASSAILANTS. 147
therefore evident that the early incident of this day precedes the
morning conversation in the temple only as being both prediction
and fulfilment, the words in the temple being, symbolically at
least, by anticipation reaBzed in fact. But it is also evident that
the early incident was either not historical at aB, or at least did
not fall upon this day, because it was simply only the misunder
standing of the Evangelist that found in the parable a rejection
of the Jews, a calling of the Gentiles in the place of Jews ; whilst
the sense of the parable had nothing whatever to do with a re
jection of the Jews. This misunderstanding belonged primarily,
however, to another than our EvangeBst, since the latter appa
rently came into possession of it only by inheritance. For this
EvangeBst, like Mark, has certainly no suspicion of the sym-
boBcal significance of the withered fig-tree. Both perceive
simply a punitive miracle of the most restricted character : the
tree, deceiving the eye and disappointing hunger, is condemned
as such without any reference to Israel. Hence the miracle is
followed by no word of earnest admonition, but merely by an
excursus upon miraculous power in the weB-known sentences of
Jesus. Briefly, the material single miracle is itself its own end,
and not the means to a higher one.1 This already obscure re
presentation must necessarily have been preceded by another, in
which the higher meaning of the miracle was more conspicuously
shown. If, however — as we must infer — in this earlier source
the symbolic miracle of the fig-tree was ascribed to the day of
1 Matt. xxi. 20 sqq. ; Mark xi. 20. Here Volkmar's opinion that Mark voluntarily
and consciously produced this symbolism fundamentally contradicts itself. His daring
exposition of Mark's Mosaic passage about forgiveness must also be quoted (p. 515) :
Christ can curse, but the Christian — must forgive. Better still in Paulus, III. i.
p. 159 : Trust, but no fanatical enthusiasm ! The poor plight of the Mark-hypo
thesis upon this point has been already mentioned by Krabbe (p. 443) against Weisse
(Petrin. Tradit. des Markus). In the form given it by Volkmar, that hypothesis is
in a still worse plight. Let the reader also refer to the monstrous expositions of Lange
and Steinmeyer, according to which the words in Matt. xxi. 21 and Mark xi. 23 stand
in the closest connection with the punitive miracle. According to Lange (II. p. 323),
the mountain that falls into the sea is Zion, Israel scattered among the Gentiles. But
according to Steinm. (p. 253), Jesus says rather : " Ye shall not ouly actually execute
the judgment upon Israel, but ye shall also overthrow the mountain of heathenism."
L 2

148 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
the sentence against the husbandmen of the vineyard, then this
earlier source, as Matthew afterwards, must have made that sen
tence apply to the people of Israel. Therefore the error as to
the parable belonged to the earlier source, the error as to the
symbolic punishment to the later one.
But if Jesus certainly did not inflict the symbolic punishment
upon the fig-tree on this day, did he perhaps inflict it on another
day ?x This assumption is at once rendered questionable by the
fact that on none of the following days did Jesus absolutely
reject Israel. And if he did not reject, or indeed curse, Israel,
then he did not curse the tree, which as a mere tree he could
not curse. Here also comes in the silence of Luke concerning
this miracle. There may be very different opinions as to the
possibility of the miracle itself; but without falling back upon
the desperate resource of rationalism — according to which Jesus,
with the connoisseur's eye of the tree cultivator, detected the
diseased condition of the tree, prognosticaBy foresaw its speedy
catastrophe, and then the disciples attached too much meaning
to his words — doubt of this miracle of severest style is at once
aroused by the fact that human finiteness and divine omnipotence
do not easily co-exist so naively as here in Jesus' Bmited know
ledge of the fruitfulness of the tree and his unlimited power over
the tree.2 Moreover, it has been abundantly shown that the
1 Bleek offers the new hypothesis that the incident took place about the time of the
Feast of Tabernacles (John vii.); his chief reason is the difficulty about the figs, which
remains to be considered.
2 Paulus, L. J. I. ii. p. 98 : Jesus had noticed the decay of the tree (naturally a
tender plant, Pliny, 15, 19 sqq., 16, 46, &c); its weakness increased with the heat.
Then follows the verification of the death of the tree, according to Mark. Venturini
(II. i. p. 429) brings in the simoom. Neander (p. 484) makes Jesus only hasten the crisis
of the tree ! Bleek, on his part, for the purpose of giving, not a physical, but a moral
explanation of the miracle, postulates a diseased tree to which there happened only
what was right. Hase thought of natural magic (p. 221), though without adhering to
that view; According to Lange (p. 322), God, combining his aeonian ministry with
that of his Son, caused the tree to wither as a prognostic for Israel. The words of
Christ killed the tree, since they, called forth by the operation of God, appealed to
the operation of God, and thus, together with that operation, they pierced through the
nature-sphere of the tree with annihilating effect. A mountain of phrases that of itself
topples over into the sea !

THE ASSAILANTS. 149
mission and work of this Messiah was not malediction, and
especiaBy malediction that took effect, whether upon trees or
men or nations, or even his own nation, the nation which Jesus
loved to the end, and which on its own part had not hitherto
challenged the final judgment of Jesus, more correctly of God.
But the mission and work of this Messiah was blessing instead
of cursing, and only apocryphal Gospels have taken delight in
the punitive miracles of Jesus. How naive, even to excess, is
the painstaking of recent authors to prove a fault of the tree,
whilst they were rather compelled to establish the consummated
guilt of the nation and the justice of the severest punishment I1
Neither can we see any purpose in this great spectacular miracle,
which, had it happened, must have taken place, not in the narrow
circle of the disciples, but before the people whom it concerned,
or at least must have been explained to the disciples themselves, —
nothing of which, but the opposite, occurred.2 Again, the miracle
dissolves in our hands when we examine its details. A hungering
Jesus, a serious search after figs, cannot be thought if the aim of
the miracle was altogether different, if it was comprehensive,
universal, spiritual, in contrast to the temporary sensuous prompt
ing and wrath of hunger.3 There could have been no expecta
tion of finding ripe figs in the beginning of spring, for the
early figs — as Jesus himself knew and indeed said shortly after
1 Blessing, not curse, Strauss, 4th ed. II. p. 225 ; Hase, p. 221 ; Neander, p. 484 ;
Bleek, II. p. 313 (the last two make Jesus give the tree the last blow). Against the
questioning of Jesus' right over the tree and its possessor, Lange (II. p. 320) has spoken
of the "field-keeper demeanour" of criticism.
2 Paulus, III. i. p. 170 ; Hase, p. 221 ; Strauss, 4th ed. II. p. 232. According to
Sieffert (pp. 115 sqq.) Jesus had previously explained the matter to the disciples;
according to Meyer, all the succeeding utterances allow of no doubt ; according to Krabbe
(p. 442), sagacious Orientals easily understood the reference of Jesus. Therefore only
the Gospels did not ! On the other hand, others, on account of the one-sided utili
tarian application of Jesus, have had recourse to the gross conception that Jesus simply
wished to give a proof of Messianic miraculous power, Euthym., Ullm., Fritzsche;
comp. Strauss, 4th ed. II. p. 233.
3 Paulus (p. 97): because nothing could be prepared on the Sabbath, Jesus went to
Bethany without his breakfast. It could still better be said : on the Sabbath nothing
was eaten until the close of the synagogue. See above, III. pp. 202 sq.

150 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
in an address at Jerusalem— passed through a slow process of
delicate development of fruit buds and of modest unfolding of
leaves, until they ripened for the June harvest ; the summer figs
ripened yet later, while the trees on which the late autumn figs
remained hanging until some time in the spring would then be
without leaves.1 Therefore there was no foliage, there were no
figs, to be sought or found either here or there, as Mark says
quite correctly but very unskilfully in his narration of the puni
tive miracle : " For it was not the time of figs."2 If it was not
the season for figs, how was it he looked for them ?3 And if it
was an abnormal spurt of nature — a miracle upon a miracle —
that a single fig-tree stood prematurely fuB of leaves, why
should he curse the tree, since what he wished for could be pro
duced only by the same unnatural growth which forced forth
the leaves — nay, which quite consistently corrected itself by
1 Winer, Feigenbaum. Paulus, Handb. III. i. p. 168. Tobler, Denkbl. aus Jesus,
pp. 101 — 103. Ewald, p. 523. Bleek, p. 312. The summer figs do not ripen until
August; the late, dark-coloured, violet figs, which ripen in the autumn, and often
remain hanging through the winter, hang upon leafless trees. And though they often
remain when the tree in the spring is putting forth fresh leaves (Pliny, 16, 27; Colum.
De arb. 21, in Paulus, p. 169), the foliage — in contradistinction to the text — is still
weak. We should do best to think of quickly-grown early figs (Paulus), and such
Jesus might have met with in Gennesar, where figs ripened (Jos. B. J. 3, 10, 8)
through ten months in the year (that is, with exception of Jan. and Feb.). But, on
the other hand, Matt. xxiv. 32 shows that Jesus still looked forward to the fig harvest.
2 Matt. xi. 13. Paulus (p. 98) : it had not been a good season for figs ! Also Cler.,
Olsh., Lange, Steinm. (assenting). Other instances of wrong treatment of the text in
Strauss, 4th ed. II. pp. 227 sqq., and Meyer. The awkwardness of Mark's remark is
(in fact, since Origen on Matt. t. XVI. 29) almost universally admitted, even by Neander
and Bleek. Holtzmann and Scholten consider it, as did the ancients, to be a later
addition. Volkmar (p. 510) knows what to say even here : at Easter there were no
figs ; just when the fulfilment of all the promises came, Israel had no time to bring forth
the Messianic faith, for mere worldly care and thought. What a play of contradictory
notions ! And the explanation of Steinm. (pp. 249 sq. ; see Lightfoot, next note),
which does not wander so far from the text, is a failure : it was at this season of the
year quite unusual ; but as the fruit usually came before the leaves, Jesus might expect
fruit. In point of fact, the Gospel says the contrary.
3 Woolston, Disc. 4 : what would be said if a husbandman in the spring looked for
fruit on a tree and hewed it down as a punishment? Lightfoot (p. 353) says that just
because it was not the proper season Jesus sought fruit, and went — according to the
Mark addition, xi. 13 — to the tree that was seen afar off, which nevertheless promised
fruit. But the Evangelist does not make his pragmatic remark to explain the action
of Jesus, but to explain the barrenness of the tree.

THE ASSAILANTS. 151
producing no fruit?1 It may therefore be certainly concluded
that the incident is not historical, and that for the sake of the
idea there was introduced into Jesus' last Easter time a myth
which did not whoBy harmonize with the reaBty, with the
Easter time as it actually was.
It stiB remains credible that what Jesus did not do in deed,
he at least spoke in words, and that what he said was through
misunderstanding or with a shrewd intention clothed in the
garment of fact. And this assumption is correct, when correctly
placed. By no means did Jesus utter such words at Jerusalem,
words which would in every way contradict his attitude towards
the people ; and by no means did he ever say that Israel must
wither or be suddenly dried up under the hands of God.2 If he
spoke in a parable of Israel as a fig-tree that bore fruit to its
divine gardener, he could at any rate have mentioned a withering
or a being dug up only by way of warning. Now, we have such
words of his, and we have them in the same Luke that knows
nothing of the incident of cursing the fig-tree.3 In Galilee, Jesus
— as we saw — spoke of the fig-tree in the vineyard, upon which
the owner sought fruit and found none. He commanded the
overseer of the vineyard to dig up the tree, but the overseer
1 To the above interpretation — punishment of the deceptive sport of nature in the
tree — Meyer and Steinmeyer have taken a fancy, following Neander and Bleek.
Tholuk (Glaubwurd. p. 426) refers to the miracle of Mohamed, who called a tree to
him because it was too much trouble to go to the tree. Similarly he compares the
feeding of the 5000 with the few dates for a hungry army.
2 Yet Weisse (I. p. 576), on the strength of the Petrine tradition of Mark, finds it
probable that the words of Jesus (without miracle) were spoken at that time in Jeru
salem and concerning the same. Weizs. (p. 548) also believes in an actual malediction
which was afterwards converted into a myth.
3 Luke xiii. 6 ; see above, IV. p. 121 ; comp. Matt. iii. 10, vii. 19 ; John xv. 6 ; Micah
vii. 1; Isaiah xxxiv. 4. Thus the whole of the recent criticism. Only in Volkmar
(p. 510) is to be found the self-condemning assumption that the original picture is in
Mark, but Luke has correctly understood it and transformed it into parable ! The
ancients (Ambrose on Luke), as Neander and Steinmeyer still, prefer to assume that
Jesus himself executed at last the threat then given. Volkmar thus expounds Mark :
Israel has (thus, essentially, the early writers, down to Neander) the show of external
honour (leaves), but not faith (fruit). When the fulfilment of all promises came, when
Jesus came to the fig-tree, Israel had no time. Hence malediction : Let no one hence
forth find fruit, that is, no Messiah come again (p. 509).

152 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
interceded and obtained for it a respite. Out of this parable the
mythical incident of the fig-tree on the Mount of Olives has been
ingeniously developed. As Jesus failed, even at the end, even
at Jerusalem, to caB forth the fruit of the repentance of Israel,
the gracious respite which he himself had granted seemed to
have come to an end. Since he himself felled, nay, with
out hand or handicraft annihilated, the fig-tree by a mighty
divine word, he satisfied the Old Testament prophecy, the Divine
majesty, and his own dignity.1 He was the conqueror and the
judge of Israel whilst Israel judged him; and his judgment,
executed by symbol on the tree, looked into the future, seeing
Israel wither and die under the visible anger of God and of the
despised Messiah. So thought an after age, whBe he thought
differently. For he is correctly drawn, drawn as Christian, and
not as Jewish, when he is represented as being to the end what
he was at the beginning, viz., in view of the severity of God,
what he called himself — not the destroying but the interceding
overseer of the vineyard.
The first attempt at apprehending him crowned the events of
this day. The hierarchs noticed more and more distinctly that
the parables pointed only at them, menaced only them ; and that
the man who menaced them had the audacity to caB himself
the corner-stone of the future. Furiously enraged, they therefore
prepared to throw themselves upon him. " They sought to take
him" — say the Gospels — " but they feared the multitudes of the
people, who looked upon Jesus as a prophet." Therefore either
by their behaviour, by the signs and words that passed from one
to the other, their plot was betrayed and then again given up
because of the multitude, or Jesus was actually taken hold of
and then let loose again, because the threatening multitude, by
eye and hand and voice, forbad his apprehension. Thus the
result of the day was a divided one. In the popular opinion,
Jesus had won. It is true the Messiahship had declined to the
office of Prophet ; but even his adherents had not, at the entry
1 Predictions of an exactly similar kind, Jer. viii. 13 ; Ez. xvii. 9 24.

THE ASSAILANTS. 153
sharply distinguished between Messiah and Prophet. And now
it was not merely the adherents, but the whole Jewish people as
then represented in the temple, that had recognized his right to
the honoured name of Prophet, and were earnestly resolved not
to expose him to the vengeance of the hierarchs.1 And as things
were going, what name now fitted better than that of Prophet,
the repetition of the title which the people of Galilee, obeying
their presentiment, had already found for him ? The exhibition
of Messiahship was at a standstiB ; on the contrary, the temple
purifying showed first, and next the controversy of this day still
more, the zealous, judicial Prophet ; and the pubBc recognition
of the prophet of Jericho and Machserus showed the genuine,
bold successor of that prophet. But on the other side, the violent
attempt of the Scribes showed a resisting body quite as resolute,
smaller in number but stronger in position and unitedness ; and
the daring to take a step against Jesus sufficiently evinced the
self-reBance, the determination, and the growing determination,
of that corporation. For the moment, the one stream might
keep the other in check and compel it to make a quiet retreat.
But under the same popular protection, the forerunner had
nevertheless finally fallen. Moreover, the successor did not
stand in the wBderness, but in the midst of the city of priests,
face to face with the energetic leaders and with their willing
accomplices ; and the prophetic character, which was believed in,
did not sufficiently cover the Messianic one, the confession of
which belonged also to that day and yet was not accepted, — a
wonderful point in this representation, a point which, while it
shows a public inquiry into the previously questioned Messiah-
ship, also fataBy drags the unquestioned prophetic character into
the pit.
The violent attack repeBed by the people could naturally issue
only in a retreat of Jesus to Bethany from the controversies and
the temple, as on the entry day ; whBst on the other side the
opposing party necessarily betook themselves to considering in
1 Matt. xxi. 45 sq. (prophet) ; Luke xx. 19 ; Mark xii. 12.

154 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
what new way the fiasco of the authorities could be repaired
and the action against the rebels introduced. Thus in the three
Gospels there is an admirable connection established between
the cessation of the opponents and their new onset, between
the renunciation of violence and the attempt at stratagem, the
result of a Pharisaic consultation.1 But the Matthew Gospel
has violently disarranged this order of things by placing an
impossibBity in the midst, namely, a new parable of Jesus to
his disciples, and which Jesus is said to have spoken immedi
ately after the attempt to take him was thwarted.2 In a certain
sense, this resumption by Jesus would have been grand. Jesus
would have looked Bke a hero, a victor, a lofty-souled man of
peace, if after the attempt he could have gone on as though
nothing had happened, without resentment, without aversion.
Whilst in the fourth Gospel he so unseasonably and with such
wearying frequency condemns the murderous attack, here he is
made to remain in his fuB parable-calm, in his striving and
his patience, endeavouring to convince and to win over by his
spiritual utterances.3 But we have already shown, in the intro
duction to the Gospels, how unhappily this interpolation —
apparently belonging to the editor — interrupts the continuity of
the narrative, and that the other Gospels exhibit no trace of it,
although its subject-matter would attract them.4 Moreover, we
now readily note that while the fresh parable slightly resembles
in idea and form the previous parables, looked at more closely it
ignores the whole situation, harshly attacking, not the hierarchs,
but the people, the protectors of Jesus just before. We note also
that it describes, too far-seeing, the future non-success of the
Apostles among the people, instead of the non-success of Jesus,
1 Matt. xxii. 15 ; Luke xx. 20 ; Mark xii. 13.
2 Matt. xxii. 1—14, just in the midst between the two contiguous natural extremi
ties of the historical thread.
3 In John, Jesus, without any provocation, before other men, and at a much later
time, recalls, to condemn it, the attempt in v. 16, 18 ; see vii. 19 sqq. viii 37 40
4 See above, I. pp. 83, 84, note. Weak objections of Gess, p. 122. It may. be
that the people compelled the hierarchs to "stifle" their anger: could Jesus calmly
withdraw ?

THE TEMPTERS. 155
who, however, at that anxious moment could alone be thought
of. FinaBy, this parable of the marriage feast of the Son of God
is not original ; it is of late origin, artificially constructed out of
two parables spoken by Jesus in an altogether different manner,
one in GaBlee, the other perhaps at Jerusalem.1 From the
parable of the feast, to which Jesus, the servant of God, vainly
invited the people of Galilee, and from the second parable of the
testing garment at the feast, is derived Matthew's marriage feast
of the Messiah, whose Apostles, from A.D. 35 — 70, were rejected,
despised, slain, like the old servants of the lord of the vineyard,
tiB God burnt Jerusalem, and, from A.D 70 — 100, assigned the
kingdom to the Gentiles, yet only to the bridal-clothed peoples
that respected the legal-moral ordinances.2

B. — The Tempters.

Jesus' third day at Jerusalem, a Sunday, the 10th of April,
had apparently a less threatening character than the two previous
1 The compilation begins in xxii. 11. But already in the first part Luke is more
original; see above, IV. pp. 118 sq. Strauss, 4th ed. p. 637; New Life of Jesus, Eng.
trans., II. p. 352. Weizs. p. 178. Volkmar, p. 170. Comp. Pfleiderer, Jahrb. d.
Theol. 1868, p. 149; on the other hand, however, Weisse, II. pp. 110 sqq. Neander,
p. 503. Gess, p. 122; and others. With xxii. 11 begins not only a new point of
view, but also one that directly contradicts the former, the unconditional calling in of
the people from the highways, of the first that can be found. And how severe is the
punishment in verse 13 (on account of the garment) in comparison with that in verse
7 (for murder), although Jesus never said a word about the punishment of the burning
of Jerusalem and the slaughter of her children. Post-apostolic horizon (Barn. 16),
an impossibility and an absurdity for the time and situation of Jesus. The glance
at Luke xiv. 16 confirms this observation. This intermixing is recognized by Strauss,
4th ed. I. p. 639 (comp. Schneck.), Gfrorer, De Wette, Ewald; denied by Neander,
p. 503 ; Weisse, II. pp. 110 sqq. ; Holtzmann, p. 199 ; Weiffenb. p. 72 ; Hilgenfeld,
1868, p. 41. Weisse and Holtzmann think of a simplification of the parable by Luke.
2 More in detail, above, IV. pp. 118 sq. (comp. with Luke, Jos. Ant. 18, 2, 3), as
well as below, Division III., A., upon the sermon to the people. The messengers in
Matthew evidently not prophets, as in xxi., but apostles ; the wedding garment=moral
or legal righteousness (Hilg., Meyer). The Sii^oSoi are understood to be the heathen,
as early as Clem. Horn. 8, 22, and the garment to be baptism. Neither Jesus, nor
even Paul or the Revelation, has connected the destruction of Jerusalem with the
calling of the Gentiles.

156 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
days. We find no brutal attack by the Pharisees ; we witness
farcical proceedings on the part of the Sadducees ; we discover
evidence of an absenoe of united action by the two great parties,
and particularly evidence of the keeping aloof of the dominant
Sadducean hierarchy ; finally, we have vigorous and yet pacific
answers of Jesus without any stormy results— nay, followed only
by the admiration of the opponents and by the astonishment of
the people. Nevertheless, the decision, the fate of Jesus, drew
nearer. The Pharisees, as well as he himself, were again upon
the spot. Yesterday's defeat before the people had not discou
raged them. Their purpose was not changed, only their strategy.
A party meeting of the Pharisees — mentioned, as plainly as cor
rectly, by Matthew alone — had resolved upon a fresh plan of
battle. Naked brutal force, which excited the people, was to be
relinquished, and guile was to be employed, so that by question
and answer they might, in a pacific and argumentative way,
arrive at the employment of force, which now meant legal appre
hension, indictment, and condemnation. With the Pharisees,
however, there was grouped another party, not the most influen
tial, but nevertheless a powerful one, the Herodians, who here
for the first time, indeed by name for the only time, appear upon
the stage of Gospel history or of history at aB.1 According to all

1 Matt. xxii. 15 sq. ; Luke xx. 20; Mark xii. 13, comp. iii. 6. See above, IV.
p. 230, note. More in detail in my article Herodianer, in Bib. -Lex. III. p. 65. The ¦
expression in Matt., ovp.fi. iXa/3ov, does not mean, "they consulted together," comp.
Matt. xxvi. 4 (Wilke-Grimm), but, corresponding to the Latin consilium capere, "they
formed the resolve" (a rendering applicable to all the passages, xii. 14, xxvii. 1, 7,
xxviii. 12 ; Mark has for it, ttoluv, iii. 6, xv. 1). What it is resolved to do can be
introduced by omag, or as elsewhere (xxvii. 1) by Hare. Luke, in distinction from
Matt., speaks (1) of the Sanhedrim as the sender out, xx. 1, 19 sq., (2) of spies gene
rally as emissaries (just as he is prone elsewhere vaguely to generalize the historical
and the geographical). Mark gives (1) with Luke, the Sanhedrim as the sender out,
xi. 27, xii. 13, (2) with Matt., the Pharisees and Herodians as the emissaries. Volk-
mar's criticism maintained (p. 522) that Mark gave the original, since Luke and
Matthew, each in his own way, found the sending out of Pharisees and Herodians by
the Sanhedrim, the natural enemy of the Herodians, of the protege's of Rome, to be
improbable. As if the Herodians were the protege's of Rome ; as if the parties could
not have made a compromise ; as if, finally, an initiative on the part of the Sanhedrim
(even in Hase, p. 223) were now already to be thought of (see above, pp. 133 sq.).

THE TEMPTERS. 157
evidences, this was not so much a religious as a political party.1
The name indicates this, as does also the controversial question
which was submitted to Jesus. It is, moreover, to be inferred
from the entire absence of any mention or of any probability of
the rise of a religious party connected with the name of Herod,
and particularly from the impossibility of identifying the Boe-
thosians, the semi-Sadducees after the time of king Herod, with
the Herodians, or of making them partizans of the Pharisees.2
They were, therefore, most Bkely the Jerusalemite adherents of
the Herodian house, perhaps of Antipas, probably of the Herodian
dynasty generally. Even in the last case, the sympathies, of the
party would find their centre in Antipas, who at that time, after
the violent clearance made by the Eomans, remained the only
stiB reigning son of Herod, and was fond of appearing as Herod
on his coins.3 They were not exactly servants or commissioners
of Antipas, Jesus' territorial ruler, for in the former case the
expression used would have been different, and in the latter a
1 They were held to be a religious party as early as by Tert. Prcescr. 45 : qui
Christum Herodem esse dixerunt. Then Epiph., Philastr. Recently Ewald in par
ticular, IV. p. 534, V. pp. 97 sqq. (people like the Essene Menahem, the courtier of
Herod, see above, I. p. 367, of whom Lightfoot thought), and Renan, 15th ed. p. 226
(Boethosians). Recently, Hitzig, Gesch. 1st: p. 559, who falls back upon a sect in
the sense of Tertullian.
2 The Boethosians of Renan would be more tangible than the party of Ewald. But
they passed as semi-Sadducees (see above, I. pp. 261, 355) and as political diplomatists,
who sided sometimes with the Herodians, sometimes with the Romans; Jos. Ant. 17,
13, 1; 18, 1, 1; 20, 1, 3; B.J. 5, 13, 1. A political party (thus already Wetst.
p. 473 ; Schl. p. 395 ; Neander, p. 488) is suggested by the name ; comp. Caesariani,
Pompejani, Vitelliani. "Adherents of Herod," Ant. 14, 13, 1; 14, 15, 10; 16, 9, 3.
"Royal," Ant. 17, 10, 3; B.J. 2, 17, 6 sq.
3 Both the conception of "Herodian" and the period forbid us to think of partizans
of Rome (De Wette, Neander, Baumg.-Crus., Winer, Wies., Ewald, Hitzig, Volkmar),
as the interests of Rome and of the Herods, since the death of the great king, and
especially since the incorporation of Judaea after the deposition of Archelaus, had been
widely separate, and the attack upon Jesus would else have been much too inconsiderate
and abrupt. Thus already Wetst. p. 473 : Her. neque Csesaris. dominationi neque
Jndseorum libertati favebat. The interests of the Herodians lay in the direction of a
restoration of the kingdom of Herod the Great in the place of provincial dependence
upon Rome, and this was for a short time achieved, not by Antipas, but by his for
tunate rival Agrippa I., at the moment when the inheritance of Archelaus, Philip, and
Antipas, seemed swallowed up by the Romans. Neander, it is true, already makes
(p. 488) Antipas to be king.

158 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
serious co-operation of Antipas in the trial of Jesus would have
been apparent. But with the party ideal of a restoration of the
kingdom of Herod the Great, perhaps in the person of Antipas,
mistrust of a popular agitation in favour of a democratic Messiah
was as intimately bound up as was repugnance to the direct
Eoman domination.1 The coalition of this party with the Pha
risees was a suspicious indication that the opposing forces were
beginning to draw together. These two previously so antagonistic
parties were bound together by no stronger interest than simply
that of a common enmity to a third, to the suddenly formi
dable pretender, the Messiah. Their coalition was facuitated by
the diminution of the favour with which the Pharisees regarded
the Eoman domination, which a few years afterwards was so
readily exchanged for Herod's nephew, Agrippa I., and his ban
quets.2 But when the Pharisees and Herodians went to Jesus
together, how long would it be before the frigid and now scoffing
Sadducees, the real masters of the temple, would become asso
ciates in the unnatural convention, the third party in the confe
deration whose first foundations had been laid by the fiery zeal
of the pious, and whose connecting bonds had swallowed up the
poBcy of the pious ? On other occasions also the Sadducees
combined with their deadly foes, the Pharisees, if it was to their
interest to do so, or if they could not withstand a popular Phari
saic movement. Here at first, indeed, they come forward harm
lessly, bringing before Jesus merely a scholastic controversy
1 Servants of Herod (thus, however, Luther, Fr.) would have been differently ex
pressed (comp. Matt. xiv. 2; Luke xxiii. 11 ; and Josephus, who always speaks only
of friends, officials, slaves, freedmen, Ant. 17, 8, 4 ; 17, 9, 3 ; 18, 6, 3 sqq. ; 19, 7, 1 ;
B. J. 2, 15, 1, &c). Add the reasons given above. The account in Luke xxiii. 7 is
not historical (see below), and would itself show that Antipas had not previously
interfered, even though he (Luke xiii. 31) had conspired against Jesus in Galilee. If
Antipas and his people had seriously acted in Jerusalem against Jesus, the proceedings
against Jesus would have taken a different form. A specific political party, distin
guished from the Roman, distinguished from one of mere allegiance to Antipas, was
thought of not only by Wetst., but also by Schleierm., Bleek, and Meyer.
2 See above, I. p. 275 ; Bib.-Lex. III. p. 52. A fraction had already under Herod
made a covenant with royalty, Jos. Ant. 17, 2, 4; Bib.-Lex. III. p. 34. Covenant
with Antipas, ib. p. 44. See also above, I. p. 307, IV. p. 344.

THE TEMPTERS. 159
which could only embroB them with the Pharisees, whilst they
at the same time, with their scorn of the resurrection, drew no
compromising speech from Jesus, and won no applause from the
people. But having once put in an appearance, they became
active organs of the opposition ; and the vigorous repulse by
Jesus, as well as the growing unrest of Jerusalem, compelled
them to take up energetically a front position which at first
they may not have sought. The vanquished parties feel dis
graced before the people, they note the threatening character of
the situation, and they calculate the consequences of the Mes
siahship, which rise as clearly before their eyes as the Messiah-
ship itself. With the instinct of self-preservation, they combine
to form one line of attack, and the decision is hastened. This is
the significance of that day — it means reconciliation, the coming
together of the old parties in the face of the new one, of the
Messiahship ; and one Gospel points out that the Sadducees were
regarded as confederates of the Pharisees from the moment when
they appeared in the field against Jesus, and that the spirit of
conspiracy, the passion of the solidarity of interests, more than
counterbalanced the Pharisees' hatred of the tenets of the Sad
ducees and their joy at the overthrow of the latter by Jesus.1
Thus Pharisees and Herodians appeared together before Jesus.
Not only the latter, but the former also, were to Jesus fresh per
sonages, as it were stiB unsoiled, not already disposed of or ren
dered obnoxious or suspected by previous controversy, personages
therefore whose inquiries after truth he could unsuspectingly
listen to and candidly answer, whose flattering address he in his
surprise and joy could be gratified with and could reciprocate
and reward with prompt trustfulness. For the Pharisees put
forward several of their disciples, obscure men whom Jesus did
not know, men that were also young zealots in the cause of God,
and whom the Galilean zealot, under the impression produced
by honest looks and intentions, would readily trust.2 " Teacher,"
1 Matt. xxii. 34. Combined action of the Pharisees and Sadducees, above, I. p. 364.
2 Matt. xxii. 15 ; Luke xx. 20 ; Mark xii. 13. According to Matt., the Pharisees
are the active party ; according to Luke, xx. 1, 19, the Sanhedrim, who, after secret

160 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE,
began the messengers, " we know, we are fully convinced, that
thou art truthful, and teachest the way of the Lord in truth—
that is, purely— and that thou carest for no one, for thou dost
not look upon the face of men. Tell us, what thinkest thou ?
Is it lawful to give census (tribute) to Csesar or not?" How
beautiful was all this,— this respectful title of Eabbi, which the
Pharisees of the previous day had never used — this final recogni
tion, even by the pious and the respectable, of the brave, upright,
fearlessly candid man of God — this secure confidence in asking so
weighty and ticklish a question, which might cost even the ques
tioners their lives.1 Candour demanded candour, the appeal to
bravery challenged bravery. Jesus knew necessarily that such
ideas were continually fermenting among the Pharisaic youth,
and that the Herodians, instead of being favourable to Eome,
ardently wished for a reversal of political relations. Therefore
why should he mistrust the new aBies ? The Pharisees had cal
culated with consummate shrewdness ; but this shrewdness had
culminated in the secure conviction that Jesus would give a
negative reply, and that he would be compelled to atone to the
Eomans with his Bfe. In supposing ne would reject the tribute,
his opponents measured him entirely by his dibut and his con
fession. His first appearance before the public was looked upon
as the beginning of a religious-political insurrection ; and the last
great insurrection had been the work of the Pharisaic fellow-
countryman of Jesus, Judas the Galilean, who, a generation
before, at the time of the valuation, had charged the people to
obey God rather than men, and to pay to the Eoman no valua
tion, no census? It is said also that GamaBel, the head of the
Pharisees, classed Jesus with Judas and Theudas, men of revo-
observation (Luke vi. 7; Mark iii. 2), send out watchers, iyKadkrovg, subornatos in-
sidiatores, yet evidently Pharisees (righteous, comp. Luke xviii. 9). Volkmar's lauda
tion of Mark is indefensible, even though the sending of Pharisees and Herodians by
the Sanhedrim is in itself possible (see above, p. 158, n. 1). Matthew is superior to
Mark also in the details of the narrative (Mark xii. 14-!).
1 Comp. the Roman severity towards Judas Gal. and his sons, Jos. Ant. 18, 1, 1 ;
20, 5, 2 ; above, I. p. 262.
2 Above, I. p. 261.

THE TEMPTERS. 161
lution.1 Jesus' public confession, however, was at one time John
the Baptist, at another the Messiahship ; and the one as weB as
the other prompted him to revolution and to the driving away
of the Eomans, and therefore to tread afresh in the footsteps of
Judas the Galilean. But with a negative answer he would not
only publicly give himself forth to be what he was, he would at
the same time irretrievably commit himself to his ruin. Eepu-
diation of the tribute was repudiation of the legality of the Eoman
rule, high treason against emperor and empire, the first principle
of revolution. And in proportion to the terribleness of the blow
which the rebeBion, under the leadership of Judas, had dealt to
the early rule of Eome at Jerusalem, in proportion to the san
guinary character of the revenge taken with sword and crucifixion
by Eome, finaBy, in proportion to the anxiety with which the
continuous fermenting of the dreams of freedom originated by
Judas was observed and watched, would be the unquestionable
certainty that the Eoman procurator would without delay punish
the new GaBlean upon the cross. In fact, Luke has most dis
tinctly referred to this as the aim of the opponents.2 A speedier
issue than this, and, what' was stiB more important, a better one,
could not have been discovered. The hatefulness of the trial
and execution of Jesus in the eyes of the people would thus lie
entirely on the side of the Eomans, and not of the Pharisees ;
whilst a religious trial was full of risk on aB sides, since it
would expose the party to the popular hatred, and presented no
certain prospect of the good-wiB and the indispensable co-opera
tion of the Eoman procurator. All these sources of anxiety —
the hatred, perhaps the rebeBion, of the people, the non-com-
pBance of the governor, and then a ludicrous issue to all their
efforts — were happily removed by the eemsws-question plan of
1 Acts v. 36 sq. We say nothing here of the unhistorical character of this passage
in its details. Gamaliel must have spoken the words after A.D. 44 — 46 instead of in
A.D. 36. It is interesting to notice that Jos. Ant. 20, 5, 1, makes the revolution of
Theudas precede that of the sons of Judas, which perhaps explains the error of Luke,
even though he was not acquainted with the Jewish historian.
2 Luke xx. 20.
VOL. V. M

162 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
attack, a plan conceived and prepared in a masterly way, and
one to which Jesus and Pilate and the people must accommodate
themselves with the necessity of the pieces upon a chess-board.
But He was himself, and he was different from what they thought
he must necessarily be. Above all was he different inasmuch
as he saw through their cards, and moreover— independently of
this— was not in his principles what they took him to be. " Why
tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?" he replied, noting the Jewish malice
in the question itself as well as in the faces of the questioners,
and taught by the position of affairs to suspect vBlany. Hence
he assumed the old, customary tone towards the new friends, the
old foes, and by talking of temptation showed that he saw, in
the precipitation to which they would compel him, a snare that
might not only be his ruin but might lead him into sin. " Show
me," he continued, " the coin of the census," the money in which
it was customary to pay it. They brought him a denarius,
a piece of ten, the common Eoman coin which represented
the popularly hated though moderate capitation-tax, the symbol
of slavery to the Gentiles. This coin bore the image and the
legend of the name of the reigning emperor, Tiberius. By acci
dent, or more probably as the result of cunning calculation, the
coin was one which bore the full expression of the Eoman domi
nation. The emperors, down to the Flavii, caused special coins
to be struck for Judsea, without an image, in deference to the
Jewish faith, and with merely the name of the emperor and the
customary Jewish symbols.1 But naturally, especiaBy at the
festivals, the very numerous image-impressed coins flowed into
1 Comp. Eckhel, Cavedoni, Saulcy, in my description of the Herods, Bibel.-Lex.
III. Ewald, p. 82. Wies. Beitr. p. 84. The census-coin itself (Matt., Mark, Krjvaog ;
Luke, 0opoc) represented the capitation-tax, the tax which was most palpable to the
people as a whole (tributum capitis, ?) Kaff iKaarinv mipaXrjv daipopd), as distinguished
from the land-tax which affected the well-to-do, and was paid in kind (Jos. Ant. 14,
10, 6) and silver (also larger money) ; hence also in Mark, in codex D, ImKEipdXiaiov,
It. Bobb. capitularium ; and this capitation -tax itself amounted to a denarius. Jos.
B. J. 2, 16, 4 ; comp. Wieseler, Beitr. pp. 109 sqq., 118, only that Wieseler, on behalf
of his erroneous exposition of Matt. xvii. 24, is disposed to assume that the Jews on
their part were compelled, by a special severity, to pay two denarii, the did/rachmon.

THE TEMPTERS. 163
the money-market at Jerusalem. It was such a genuinely and
distinctively GentBe coin which was shown to Jesus, and it was
secretly hoped that his anti-Eoman indignation would at last
burst forth against the signs of double abomination, the sign of
servitude on one side and that of idolatry on the other. But
quite the contrary. Jesus, different from the Jews, did not take
offence at the heathen image ; it was not the outside that was
unclean to him, but the inside.1 Nay, the image supplied to him
the argument, or completed the argument, which the inscription
introduced. "Whose is this image and this superscription?"
asked Jesus, examining the coin without any exhibition of abhor
rence. "Csesar's," they answered. "Then give," he now said
solemnly, " the things of Csesar to Csesar, and the things of God
to God !"2 This was an utterance worthy of Solomon, and more
than that. For this argument of Jesus was no merely apparent
argument, and his answer was no principle-less wary evasion.
The current coin was to the Jews a symbol and representative
of the recognized ruling power; and the factual ruling power
was, to the faith in Divine Providence professed both by Jesus
and the Pharisees, the ruling power ordained of God.3 When he,
like the Pharisees, in this sense acquiesced in the Eoman domi
nation as in a dispensation of God, he by no means asserted that
this dispensation of popular oppression — as he had previously
designated the GentBe kingdoms, the Eoman empire — should
1 A vod. Sar. f . 6 : a heretic sends a denarius Csesaris to Rabbi Judas. Quid faciam ?
Accipiam eum ? Dixit ei Resh Lakish : accipe et projice coram eo in puteum. Wetst.
p. 474. The scruples of the Essenes concerning coins is mentioned by Hippol. Philos.
9, 26 (above, I. p. 372).
2 Chrys. : rd ti} 0e<p Trap' r'niiv opuXoutva. Justin, Ap. 1, 17 : 69tv Btbv piv
fiovov TrpoirKwov/itv. Matt. xvi. 23. Above, IV. p. 269. Ancients and moderns
have quite mistakenly thought of the temple tribute of God, or indeed (Tert., Marc.
4, 38, even Erasmus, Neander, Lange, Hofmann in Meyer) of the human soul, the
image of God.
3 Hier. Sanh. f. 20, 2 : Abigail asks David : tu rex es ? He answers : Samuel
anointed me. She : atqui moneta domini nostri Saulis adhuc obtinet. Maim, in Gezel.
c. 5 : ubic. numisma alie. regis obtinet, illic incolae regem istum pro domino agnoscunt.
As well as the coins, the seal of the king passed current, Lightfoot, p. 330. Comp.
1 Mace. xv. 6. Lightfoot, p. 355, and Wetst. p. 474. Wieseler, Beitr. p. 84. Deter
minism of Jesus, Gesch. Chr. p. 20 ; and above, II. p. 180.
M 2

164 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
necessarily remain for ever ; and stiB less did he assert that this
terrestrial dispensation could obscure or supersede the funda
mental divine dispensation of the people, the legal subjection
to God. To this last he gave emphatic expression, not only to
prevent any misunderstanding that he was a partizan of Eome
either from principle or sycophancy, but in order to remain true
to himself; for to him the divine dispensation naturally stood high
above the Eoman; to him, the former was first and unconditioned,
the latter second, conditioned, organized, and therefore capable
of being again decomposed ; and he spoke of the latter first only
because the question had concerned it. Upon the temporary
character of the Eoman empire he was silent, again not out of
fear or craftiness, but because the counsels of God were hidden
from him, because he left it to God, even though he might hope
for and indeed expect a change from God.1 It would therefore
be quite as incorrect to find in Jesus' answer merely a subtle
Jewish evasion and withholding of his real opinion, as to find in
it an unconditional recognition of the Eoman domination, or an
unconditional renunciation of terrestrial redemption of the people
and of terrestrial rule of the Messiah.2 The first has been already
sufficiently refuted ; the incorrectness of the second is proved by
all that the fundamental principles of the kingdom of heaven
and of the Messiah idea have long since shown both in the
popular opinion and in the views of Jesus. The rejection of the
historical character of the whole, by the most recent criticism,
has no ground to rest upon.3 His foes must have felt disap-
1 Even a Josephus (B.J. 5, 9, 3 ; Ant. 10, 11, 7; 10, 10, 4) looked beyond the
Romans (above, I. p. 324) ; how much rather Jesus (Matt. xx. 25).
2 A mere evasion and refusal of the external command (comp. Luke xii. 13), thought
of by Wetstein, De Wette, Volkmar, who assumes an indefinite mean. Hase, p. 224 : a
casting back of the question upon those who recognized Rome. Schenkel, pp. 239 sq. :
separation of Church and State, tax not from the religious but the legal point of view.
Wittichen, Idee d. Menschen, 1868, p. 196 : passive obedience, as to the emperor, so
to God, i. e. the temple ! Even Meyer thinks (as already Justin, Ap. 1, 17: Xaipovreg
im-rjptTOVUEv) of a representation of the principle of a conscientious duty towards the
authorities (whence Rom. xiii. 1).
3 Volkmar (p. 521) thinks that the doctrine-shaping Mark intended to draw within
narrower limits the extravagant, marvellous, and — to the Jews (Acts xiii. 11 sqq ) 

THE TEMPTERS. 165
pointed above measure, completely overthrown, for they had
achieved nothing. They had neither, as they had wished and
expected, unmasked him as a rebel and an enemy to Eome, nor
even, as they might have afterwards wished, as a traitor to God,
to the people, to their liberty, to their future, to their longing for
Messianic salvation. On the contrary, he would be advantaged
in his relation to the Eomans by his friendly utterance, and
among the people by his law-honouring confession, his theocratic
" But" to his Eoman " Yes." Thus we can understand it when
the Gospels themselves tell us that his tempters went away
astonished at his answer, and speechless.
The sagacious conjecture of Hitzig has placed close to this
first cunning attempt to disconcert Jesus, the well-known inci
dent of the charge against the woman taken in adultery, an
incident which, with all its effectiveness and its undeniable real
grandeur, has in eighteen hundred years won a settled resting-
place, a home, in not one of our Gospels. In point of fact, this
incident stands — though its right here is very much controverted
— in the fourth Gospel, in connection with a Feast of Taber
nacles six months earlier ; and several MSS. of no authority give
it in Luke at the close of the last struggle of Jesus, immediately
before the beginning of the Eastertide.1 But though John and
highly offensive vindication of the rights of the temporal authorities of Rome by Paul,
Rom. xiii. 1 sqq., to set aside the subjection theory of his there marvellous master.
Religion and politics are not to coincide — each in its place ! Such a poet, with such
words at such an eminently suitable place, would be no mere inferior disciple of Paul ;
he would be more than the master. Who would, indeed, have looked for a correction
of Paul here, and who can find it to-day? Are not the deeper ordinances of God
reserved even in Rom. xiii. 1, 5, 8 ?
1 John vii. 53 — viii. 11. Several late codices place the incident at the" end of the
Gospel; other late ones after Luke xxi. 38. The question of the textual criticism
must be regarded as solved (comp. Lachm., Tisch., Meyer, Scholten). Though more
than 100 codices have it (in John, the important Bez. at their head), the determining
codices are without it, Sin., Vat., Al., Ephr., Reg. Most of the Fathers and most of
the ancient translations are without it (Ital. divided). In the middle ages, Euth. Zig.
knew that it was wanting rrapd rdig aKptBkoiv dvriypdipoig, or was furnished with
obeli (or asterisks). The most important vouchers, besides It., are Jerome and Augus
tine, as well as Constit. Apost. 2, 24, 4. Since the reformation, the external genuine
ness has been denied by most critics, even by Liicke, Neander, Tholuck, Olsh., Bleek,
Luther, Bruckn, Ewald, Guer., Krabbe, Hengst. It has been defended recently by
Hug, Maier, Ebr., Lange, Hilg. !

166 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
Luke have opened their doors only murmuringly and with signs
of reluctance, how courteous and friendly Mark again stood forth,
offering, according to Hitzig's divination, to the vagabond pas
sage a chamber so quiet, so habitable, and— more than all that
—no mere inn-room, but the actual old home itself I1 Among three
temptations of Jesus by the Pharisees, this was plainly the middle
one ! After the political complot of the Pharisees and the Herodians,
the religious one of the Pharisees and the Scribes ! And before
the foolish question of the Sadducees concerning the condition
of the seven wives in the resurrection, the faithlessness of the
wife on earth !2 We leave, therefore, the vagabond passage in
this asylum. Whilst Jesus, having come in early from the Mount
of Olives, was teaching in the temple, Scribes and Pharisees
brought to him a woman, a Jewish representative of the woman
of Samaria, who had been taken in the act of adultery. Placing
her in the midst, they said : " Teacher, Moses commanded
stoning; what sayest thou?"3 They sought grounds for an
accusation. Then Jesus bowed down and wrote with his finger
upon the earth, — this was, according to Jeremiah, the symbol of
forgetting, of forgiveness.4 But his opponents did not understand
him and his delay, they stood waiting and excited. " Let him
that is sinless among you be the first to cast the stone at her ! "
said he, lifting himself up, and then he stoopod down again and
1 On the internal evidences in John, see next page. In Luke xxi. 38, however,
the history of the controversial sayings is already ended ; it would be an extraordinary
appendix. Hitzig's exceedingly sagacious vindication of Mark, in his Joh. Markus,
pp. 205 sqq. Then also Holtzm. p. 92, who claims the incident for the source of the
Synoptics. 2 Partly Hitzig's, partly my own, exposition.
3 Levit. xx. 10 ; Deut. xxii. 24. Hitzig (p. 209) and Ewald (p. 480) have removed
empty objections against the stoning based on this passage and the Rabbis. Stoning
was the customary punishment under the law ; and strangling, mentioned by the
Rabbis, is not in the Old Testament. According to Sotah, 1, 5 (in Casp. p. 146), the
trial of such women (to whom therefore the exclusion of the unclean, Jos. B. J. 5, 5, 6,
did not fully apply) took place at the Nicanor gate, the eastern gate, which led from
the court of the Gentiles to that of the women.
4 Jer. xvii. 13. Others (as early as Euth. Zig.) think of a desire to ignore the cir
cumstance, on the part of Jesus. Comp. the Rabbis, in Schottgen, p. 366 where
however, the case is not exactly the same. The first is more significative.

THE TEMPTERS. 167
continued to write.1 Now there was a change; struck by the
arrow of conviction, one after another slunk away, the old masters
first and their disciples more tardily. " Woman," asked Jesus,
Bfting himself up again, " where are those thine accusers ? Has
no one condemned thee ?" " No one, Sir," said she. " Neither do
I condemn thee ; go, and sin no more !"2
This incident is among the most affecting in the Gospels, even
in John's. In its unpretentious sentences there is a wealth of
conception, of invisibly visible inteBectual movement ; in its
concise treatment there is rapid variety, to which the law of
contrast, introduced in a masterly manner, lends its tragic force.
Danger beyond deliverance, and yet deliverance; evident, foul,
freshly contracted guBt, and yet an ideal ; massive conceit and
secret pangs of sin, perfect righteousness and unmitigated harsh
ness, honourable publicity and intriguing strategy, over and
above aB, an abyss of saving love and yet holiness, overflowing
religion and yet wisdom, hottest battle for life and death and yet
moral weapons and victory of conscience. But even this incident
is not strictly historical. In the first place, it is rejected not
only by the older Gospels, even by Mark, but also by John,
whose language and context it disturbs.3 It disturbs Mark, and
1 The witnesses threw the first stones. Deut. xvii. 7; Acts vii. 58.
2 Recalls the sick man in John v. 14.
3 The non-Johannine in expression, in scenery (the Mount of Olives from the Synop
tics), in the construction of a controversy upon the Law, has been sufficiently shown by
expositors ; the linguistic side particularly by Credner, Einleitung, p. 231. Since
Baur's analysis of the Gospels, every one knows that the controversies in John vii.
viii. are fatally interrupted. Particularly, as to the person of Jesus, vii. 16, 28 sqq.,
is in conflict with viii. 13; vii. 24 with viii. 15; vii. 30 with viii. 20; vii. 33 with
viii. 21. The passage between tears the rest in two without one contribution to the
context. Only viii. 15 (yet see vii. 24) seems to point to our passage ; but why does
not vii. 51 receive its due in the interpolation ? The resolute vindicator of the genuine
ness of the passage (Hilg.'s article, John's Gospel not interpolated, in Zeitschr. 1868,
pp. 451 sqq.) continually makes unimportant objections. Only our section would
explain how Jesus came to be in the temple, viii. 20. But in vii. he is continually
in the temple. Next he thinks John viii. 12 sqq. could not take place on the last
day of the Feast of Tabernacles (vii. 37) ; there must be therefore (on account of the
interpolation itself, viii. 2) a fresh day referred to, namely, on the ground of ix. 14,
the Sabbath following the Feast of Tabernacles. But, in point of fact, everything to
viii. 20, more correctly to viii. 59, must belong to the last day of the Feast of Taber-

168 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
it disturbs the fundamental conception of the Synoptics, that
Jesus, particularly at Jerusalem, solemnly recognized, and did
not annul, the Law.1 Neither is it quite free from artificial
features, apart from the conduct of Jesus, who mysteriously—
scarcely possible in Mark and John— stooped and stooped again
and wrote upon the earth. In reaBty it is only a very trans
parent clothing of an idea. Men of the Law, with Moses in their
hand and with their ceremonial righteousness, were never so
much, affected; Jesus never went so far in forbearance as to
make. if- possible for men to suppose him capable of patronizing
adultery and of coming into contact with fresh foul sin without
a shudder, without indignation, of at once excusing, palliating,
wiping out either coarse or refined sins, an idea which gave
offence to the early Church.2 FinaBy, the decisive proof is found
in the character of exaggeration which marks the narrative as
of later construction than the simpler, eariier accounts. The
oldest Gospels know of a Jesus who received pubBcans and
sinners.3 A later source, in Luke, has already constructed there-
nacles and to no fresh day, after which ix. 1 introduces a fresh day, a Sabbath (verse
14). But would they have stoned upon a Sabbath ?
1 The arguments for Mark, though without the support of a single codex, have been
developed by Hitzig, Holtzmann, Volkmar; and Mark's fondness for the mysterious
may also be adduced. But Holtzmann has pointed out what is like Luke, and
Volkmar what is unlike Mark ; and I would further ask how could Jesus' indifference
to, his breach of, the Law be followed by the then certainly extremely naive question
as to the greatest commandment (Mark xii. 28) ? Thus the incident must be put later,
at least as late as Mark xii. 34, as a fresh and last unmasking question. But could
such a question still be thought of when Jesus had expressed himself so definitely for
the whole Law, as is stated in Mark and still more in Matthew, and when no one hence
forward ventured to ask any question, Mark xii. 34! Must we then still introduce
this silence by the putting to shame that resulted from the conflict about adultery ?
2 Already Augustine, De Conjug. adult. 2, 7, says : hoc infidelium sensus exhorret,
ita ut nonnulli modicse fidei vel pot. inimici verae fidei, credo metuentes peccati im-
punitatcm dari mulieribus suis, illud quod de adulterae indulgentia dominus fecit,
auferrent de codd. suis. Similarly, in the tenth century, the patriarch Nikon (Cotelerius,
Patr. Ap. I. p. 236 : the Armenians rejected the passage, f3Xa(3epdv dvai rr\v roiabrnv
dxpoaaiv ro'ig -TroXXolg. If this were a sufficient reason — and it has appeared plausible
to many, including Hitzig (p. 223) and Holtzmann (p. 74) — to explain the rejection,
then there should have been a campaign opened in the Gospels against publicans, sin
ners and harlots, paralytics and thieves.
3 Matt. ix. 9 sqq., xi. 19, xxi. 31.

THE TEMPTERS. 169
from the picture of a woman who on account of her sins is
decried by the Pharisee Simon and his associates, but who, by
the loving service of her anointing, gains the Lord as a defender ;
whilst real history knows indeed of an anointing by the hand
of a woman, but not of a sinful woman.1 The Gospel of the
Hebrews, in its earliest form in the second century, had a similar
narrative, which was more highly coloured than Luke's, inasmuch
as the woman was accused to the Lord of many sins.2 The latest
exaggeration is presented by the interpolation in Luke and John.
The many sins are condensed into one most heinous and fully
proved sin, the charge becomes an actual legal accusation, death
stares the accused in the face, Jesus forgives, and death flees
as weB as the accuser, who has become speechless and is put
to shame far beyond the measure to which Simon was put to
shame. Thus our narrative wiB have been formed upon the basis
of Luke and the Gospel of the Hebrews. Its author was none
of the older Evangelists, nor Mark, nor a disciple of Mark,
although a user of the ancient tradition. But he was a friend of
the fourth Gospel, one who not without success imitated the
forms, the colours, the surprises, the dramatic style of that book,
especially the Christ elevated above all that was trivial and
shortsighted, the Lord who was without sin in contrast to the
Samaritan woman, to the Pharisees, to all, the Son of God with
serenity of soul mastering the Law. And he carried his contribu
tion with a delicate subtlety to that place in the Gospel, to those
controversies of Jesus with his opponents, where it found in all
respects the most suitable lodgment, and yet did not altogether
escape question.3
1 Luke vii. 36 sqq. ; comp. Matt. xxvi. 6 ; Mark xiv. 3.
2 Papias, ap. Eus. 3, 39 : iKnQeirai de Kai dXXnv iorop. mpl yvv. irrl 7roXX. du.
SiapXnBtiong im r. Kvpiov, rjv rb Kaff "Ef3p. ev. ixtpikxu. Hilg. (1868, p. 24) finds it
possible that the Gospel of the Hebrews introduced Matt. xix. 3 with this illustration.
Very commonly is this incident identified either with that of Luke, or with that of
John (Rufinus, Liicke, Bleek), against which Meyer rightly declares himself. Hitzig
thought (p. 224) that the Ebionites changed the offensive adultery into the indefinite
sins of Papias.
3 It is very usual to speak of the Synoptical ancient tradition (comp. Hitzig, Holtz
mann), of the primitive relics of evangelical history from the apostolic time (Meyer,

170 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
We turn, then, from the spurious interpolation back to the
anciently attested sources and their description of the last struggles
of Jesus. On the same day, but without concert with the defeated
Pharisees and Herodians, Sadducees approached Jesus.1 Their
commencement of the struggle is very different from that of the
Pharisees. The latter fought at once for Bfe and death, because
they were zealous for the ordinances of the Law, because Jesus
had opposed them from the beginning, and because he had robbed
them of the people. The Sadducees, the calm, proud, socially
respectable party of the men of official dignities and of high-
priestly robes, at first took a merely contemptuous notice of the
Galilean movement. There had been many similar movements,
and in none of them had the uncultured, miserable people under
mined the foundations of their — the Sadducees' — power. Hence
the latter had never, or hardly ever, publicly met Jesus even in
GalBee.2 Neither were they as yet alarmed by the movement at
Jerusalem. As they had but little to do with the Galilean
Messiah,, they were anxious neither to make a public accusation,
nor to withdraw the people from Jesus ; they wished simply,
with their wisdom and self-conscious skiB in disputation, to
make him and his adherents, and particularly the whole of that
foolish nation with their dreams of the future, ridiculous. There
fore they chose as their theme the doctrine of the resurrection,
which it was weB known they denied.3 They were aware that
Jesus believed in and taught a resurrection, and that on account
Krabbe, p. 413 ; Neander, p. 418). But the accommodations and the Johannine type
are to be detected. Ewald (p. 480) speaks of "a later stock."
1 Matt. xxii. 23 ; Luke xx. 27 ; Mark xii. 18. Sadducees, without article (or several
of the Sadducees, Luke). On the other hand, the reading in Matt, should be oi Xey.
¦ — and not merely Xiyovreg, notwithstanding Sin., Vat., Bez. — as in the majority of
MSS. (also Sin., corrector) and translations, particularly It. The falling away of the
article is explicable from verse 24. The same day, expressly in Matt. Paulus (L.J.
I. ii. p. 199) makes the Pharisees and Sadducees allied parties after the resurrection
of Lazarus. Schenkel (Bib.-Lex. III. p. 293) quite correctly makes the Sadducees
approach Jesus only as scoffers.
2 Matt. xvi. 1. Above, IV. p. 230, note ; also I. pp. 353 sqq.
3 Above, I. pp. 360, 363. Sanh. f. 90, 1 : hi sunt, qui partem non habent in sec.
fut. : qui dicunt, legem non esse de coelo et resurr. non probari posse ex lege. Schott
gen, p. 176. Comp. Lightfoot, p. 355.

THE TEMPTERS. 171
of the close connection between the day of the Messiah and the
day of eternity, his Messiahship itself involved the claim to
introduce and bring about sooner or later the judgment of God
and the resurrection.1 They knew him to be in this respect
altogether on the side of the popular belief and the Pharisees.
They regarded and fought with him as an offshoot of Pharisaism,
though they noted the difference that whBe he connected judg
ment and resurrection more or less closely with his own person,
Pharisaism connected them with the omnipotence of God or with
the Messiah who was yet to come. They began, therefore, with
derision, only afterwards to end with force more resolutely than
the Pharisees ; they began in opposition to Pharisaism, only at
last to make aBiance with it. They had previously, however,
as carefully considered their derisive attack as had the Pharisees
their tempting question ; with genuinely Jewish casuistry, they
had prepared a special case which was to demonstrate in a
striking manner the utterly fantastical character of the human
dreams of the future, and to demonstrate therefore both the right
and the duty of modest restriction to the sphere of the present
time. Their special case is emphatically an extravagantly elaborate
fancy. " Teacher," said the aristocrats to Jesus, with carefully
measured courtesy, " Moses said, if a man die having no children,
his brother shall as brother-in-law marry his wife, and raise up
seed unto his brother.2 Now there were with us seven brothers,
1 On this connection, see above, IV. pp. 292 sqq.
2 Matt. xxii. 24 (the simplest and most original of the three accounts). According
to Deut. xxv. 5, supplemented — on the basis of the LXX. —from Gen. xxxviii. 8.
For the expression imy. Kai dvaorriau an. is from Genesis. The bridge, however,
from the one to the other passage is formed by the Hebrew jibbem, not expressed
(avvoiKr\au, LXX.) by the LXX. in the first passage. From this it follows (1) that
the author understood Hebrew ; (2) but he used mainly the Greek translation ; (3) he
is the forerunner of Luke and Mark, who bring the passages together without that
exact knowledge which, however, was requisite for the connection of the two. See
Anger, Rat. I. p. 20. See above, I. pp. 79 sqq. Hilgenfeld, 1868, p. 41, note 3, is
incorrect. The marriage here spoken of is the Old Testament leviratical marriage
(levir), or brother-in-law marriage. The Sadducees had been previously engaged in
controversy about this with the Pharisees. Hilg. I. c. Yet this has no reference here.

172 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
and the first married and died, and as he had uo seed he left his
wife to his brother ; likewise the second also, the third, to the
last of the seven.1 Last of all, the wife died. Now, in the
resurrection whose wife will she be of the seven ? For they all
had her !" Unquestionably, modern unbelief never brought into
the field a better instance against the things of the future than
did these ancient Sadducees. But one thing has always been
overlooked, namely, that sarcasm and gainsaying reckon with
impossible figures by taking as proved what has to be proved, by
superficially and pompously transferring the present, which alone
they believe in, to the future which they do not, but others do,
believe in, and by then loudly exclaiming about contradictions,
monstrosities, impossibilities. The refutation was made once for
all by the Master who repelled the carefully planned onset of the
Sadducees with two words, in his marveBously quick presence of
mind, yet very differently from the way in which Pharisaism de
nounced this folly.2 " Ye err, not understanding the Scriptures, or
the power of God." He demonstrated both to them. First, the
power of God. " In the resurrection they neither marry nor are
given in marriage, but they are as the angels in heaven."3 In
faith in the omnipotence and wisdom of his God, which had
already come before him in the various stages of the terrestrial
1 The number is a round figure, and has nothing to do with the seven so-called sects
of the Jews (Heges. ap. Eus. 2, 23; 4, 22). "With us" (Matt.) shows the concrete
character of the case that occurred, or, more correctly, was invented.
2 Comp. in an exactly similar controversy the answer of R. Johanan ben^akkai to
the Baithosians : shothim, minnain lachem ? stulti, unde hoc vobis ? Gloss, in Taan.
f. 17, 1. Lightfoot, p. 924; Buxt. pp. 1220, 2347. ,
3 Paraphrases in Luke xx. 34 — 36. Comp. Clem. Horn. 3, 50. j&e^ess to angels,
Book of Enoch, 104 : ye shall become companions of the heavenly hosts. Similar, 39 ;
comp. 41 : it shall come to pass in those days, that the elect and holy children will
descend from the high heavens, and their seed will be united with the children of men.
According to R. Nathan (Pirke Abot, 36), man has already three things in common
with the angels, and three with the beasts. According to Soh. chad. 20, 1, animse
justorum sunt in coelo septimo et fiunt angeli ministratorii Deumque celebrant. Schott
gen, p. 178. With Jesus (comp. Book of Enoch, 39) the condition descends to the
earth. According to Hegesippus (Eus. 3, 20), the successors of Jesus before Domitian
had spoken about a /3a<nX. irrovp. Kai dyyeXiici}. This is indeed the view of the later
writings in the New Testament. Above, IV. p. 284, notes.

THE TEMPTERS. 173
creature, he here announced, contrary to the grosser Jewish and
even Pharisaic view — the view readily presupposed by the Saddu
cees, and yet one which had already been broken away from by
thoughtful men — that faith in the glorification of human nature,
even to its corporeal part, which Paul later more copiously
developed ; and, going beyond Paul, he announced a belief in a
human dignity which was ultimately to rise to an equality with
angels.1 Then he expounded to them the Scriptures, and indeed
those Scriptures which they estimated most highly, and on the
authority of which especiaBy they sought to resolve the future
of the resurrection into a long life upon earth — namely, the
books of Moses. " But concerning the resurrection of the dead,
have ye not read what is spoken to you by God when he says :
I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of
Jacob ? God is not a God of dead men, but of living !"2 Eesem-
blances to this forcible argument — which in profundity certainly
goes beyond and does violence to the letter — are to be found in
the later Jewish literature, although there absurdity is never far
off.3 So much the more on this account should we guard ourselves
1 Grosser views in Soh. Gen. f. 24 : mulier, quae duobus nupsit in hoc mundo, priori
restituitur. Schottgen, p. 176. Comp. Maimon. in Wetst. p. 476. More refined views,
Bab. Berach. f. 17, 1 : Rab ilia frequenter in ore habuit: in mundo fut. non edent
neque bibent, non generabunt liberos, non exercebunt commercia ; non est ibi invidia
neque odium neque rixa, sed justi sedebunt coronis ciucti et delectabunt se splendore
majest. div. Similar examples in Schottgen, pp. 176 sq. Fine sentence in Bab. Sank.
i. 92 : sicut Sanctus (Deus) vivit in aeternum, ita et illi vivent in set. (Luke xx. 38).
Lightfoot, p. 363.
2 Exodus iii. 6, 13, 15 sq. In Matt. : God says to you ; in Luke, only : even Moses ;
Mark : in the book of Moses, how God said to him. Both : at the bush. In Luke
(xx. 38) it is finely continued : unto him all live (after Paul, Gal. ii. 19 ; Rom. vi. 10 :
to live to God, to Christ).
3 Very similarly (but late and dependent upon our passage), R. Menasse ben Isr.
De reswrr. Mort. 1, 10, 6 : Deus dixisse legitur Mosi: ego sum D. patrum tuorum,
Abrah., &c. Atqui D. non est D. mortuorum, quia mortui non sunt, sed vivorum,
quia vivi existunt (resp. animae). Schottgen, p. 180. But there are not wanting
foolish arguments based on such passages, wherefore Strauss unjustly appeals to the
great similarity (comp. Neander, p. 490). Gem. Hier. Berach. f . 5, 4 : justi in morte
dicuntur vivi. Unde probatur ? Because it is said (Exodus iii. 16) : that is the land
which I have sworn to Abraham, &c, Iemor  Quid sibi vult vox lemor ? Abi
et die patribus, quodc. promisi vobis, praestiti filiis. Taan. f. 5, 2 : Jacobus, Jer.
xxx. 10, conjungitur c. semine suo. Jam vero posteri vivunt, ergo et Jac. vivit.

174 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
against talking of the subtle Eabbinism of Jesus, or of a later base
interpolation in the case of an argument that sprang from the pure
gold and out of the fuB heart of a penetratingly searching reli
gious presentiment. Jesus' firm belief in the resurrection of the
dead came to him long before his Messianic consciousness and
before his Messianic hopes. From the beginning, it came to
him as a consequence of his conviction of the dignity of man and
of the love of God towards His highest creature. We learn from
our present passage how Jesus sought to find for this belief a firm
foundation in the Scriptures, and how, neither with painstaking
nor with art, but with the holy instinct of a soul searching the
profoundest depth and recovering there its inner presentiment
and certainty, he above all learnt to regard as weighty the title
that was frequently in the mouth of God, and was in particular
ever recurring in the calling of Moses : " I am the God of Abra
ham, of Isaac, of Jacob." He could not think that God would
be continually appealing to dead men, would connect with dead
names His holy declarations, nay, His vows of faithfulness to the
descendants of those men. He was compelled to think that the
men who lived in the heart, in the memory, in the conscience of

Schottgen, p. 182. R. Tanchum thought the very reverse : God had connected his
name only with the dead (fathers), and the exception, Gen. xxviii. 13, is explicable
quia pulverem Isaci respexit. Meyer justly avoids the error of Strauss, who, endorsing
the Fragmentist and ridiculing Olshausen's boasting and the shifts of the theologians
(4th ed. I. p. 647, New Life of Jesus, Eng. trans., I. p. 356), speaks of the Rabbinical
dialectics of Jesus. What is here called Rabbinism, is a profound appreciation of the
eternal validity of such a divine covenant with men, the A B C of Christianity, mise
rably trodden under foot by modern Pantheism. This "grandeur of view" and this
world-historical insight into the value of personality for God has been finely emphasized
by Weisse, I. p. 583; as has been by Weizs., p. 359, the "noble application" of the
words of Scripture — as free from trivial adherence to the letter as from allegorical
licence — in the light of higher faith. Similarly Neander, p. 490, and De Wette,
to whom the dry, apathetic logic of Strauss (I. c.) holds up the paltry analogy : he
who does good to the children of a friend for their father's sake, thereby expresses
no opinion whatever concerning the continued existence of that friend. Volkmar
(p. 525) finds indeed the proof to have no force ; it is rather jesting and irony of Mark
against the faith in the dead letter ! In fact, the Pauline writer concocted the whole,
for at the time of Jesus the resurrection was certainly not so much talked about.
This is knowledge and understanding ! The old heathen Tacitus (Hist. 5, 5) knew
better.

THE TEMPTERS. 175
God, also actually Bved as great ones, as friends and protege's of
God. And to him the lot of the great ones would also be shared
by the little ones, by aB men to whom now in a widened sense
the saying applied : not a God of the dead, but of the living ; no
ruler of generations that had ceased to exist, but of living, loved
beings in His own image. A worthy conclusion from his doctrine
of divine sonship, even though that doctrine still lacked the con
clusion which Christianity has carried beyond Judaism : a God
of the living not merely in the future, at the resurrection, as if
God renounced His living creatures for thousands of years, but in
that life which, thanks to the love of God and to the divine kin
ship of the human spirit, is the quick answer, the immediate
loosening, of death. It is not told what the victorious antago
nists of superstition, the Sadducees, answered Jesus. But though
the Gospels give no answers, there is as little evidence of mutila
tion in the Gospels here when Jesus is at Jerusalem as previously
when he was in Galilee. In the face of such forcible utterances,
the artificers in words, the pickers of phrases, the concocters of
stories, could remain silent. But the people, as Matthew relates,
were much astonished at such doctrine. It was, indeed, the
belief of the people themselves that he had vindicated ; it was
the province of solemn and sweet mystery that he, like one who
knew and was an eye-witness, had entered upon and opened;
and the vigour and clearness and convincing power with which he
did this, produced an indescribable impression. More illustrious
than ever, the hero from Galilee stood there, his foes his foot
stool, and the people newly enchained, roused afresh for the
Prophet, the God. Nay, even many of the neutral Scribes saw
the antagonism, the enmity, again bridged over, if we can credit
Luke. The victory over the daring denial of the Sadducees
was at the same time their victory. " Teacher, thou hast well
spoken." l
1 Matt. xxii. 33 ; Luke xx. 39. This expression in Luke would be in itself, psy
chologically, very conceivable, taken in connection with the high estimate in which the
Scribes held this doctrine, a doctrine common to Jesus and themselves (Acts xxiii. 6
sqq.), and with the standing rivalry between themselves and the Sadducees, which

176 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
The distinctive party of the Pharisees, however, by no means
aBowed themselves to rest. The splendid victory over the Sad
ducees, instead of leading to conciliation, led to renewed exertions,
as if, in the overthrow of the Sadducees, they had to mourn over
and avenge their own.1 This is, in fact, the form the matter
assumes in the decidedly most original and unusually vivid
account by Matthew ; whilst Luke has omitted the fresh conflict,
transferring its counterpart to Samaria, and Mark has introduced
a marvellously sweet-sour narration, partly an attempt at making
advances to Jesus and partly an ambush — an unhappy com
promise between Matthew and Luke.2 At the same time, Mat
thew's account is in favour of fixing the fresh disputations upon
the next day; while in Mark the conversation flows on with
the less interruption because the isolated Scribe — whose siding
with Jesus is there shown — at once, in his individual indepen
dence of party, and with a disposition favourable to the victor
of Sadducean unbelief, listens to the prompting of his heart.3
would have been sure to break up the unnatural temporary alliance. This sentence of
approval is, nevertheless, unhistorical, (1) because of the already too far advanced
hostility towards Jesus, which in Luke xx. 40 (immediately afterwards) is itself con
fessed ; (2) because of the evident free editing of the older material by Luke, who in
xx. 39 sq. passes over the controversy concerning the highest good — which in Matt.
and Mark follows the above, but which Luke connects with the story of the Good
Samaritan, x. 25 sqq. — and at once closes the controversy in a plausible manner, in
such a manner, however, that the closing formula in Luke xx. 40, taken from Matt.
xxii. 46, directly contradicts the pragmatism in verse 39.
1 Strauss, 4th ed. I. p. 650 (ignorantly, see above, I. p. 364), follows Schneck.
(Urspr. pp. 45 sqq.) in censuring this artificial juxtaposition by the writer who unites
antagonistic parties on the authority of traditional reminiscences. He says that even
Mark has here the better grouping, though he had only a subjective reason for that
grouping. 2 The temptation is established by Matt. xxii. 35 ; Luke x. 25 ; Mark xii. 34.
Even Schenkel and Volkmar admit it. Paulus thinks of a tempter "in a good sense."
Luke xx. 39 sq., but comp. in x. 25 the secondary formation of the Good Samaritan
(comp. Strauss, 4th ed. I. p. 650) ; yet this is assimilated to Matt. xix. 16. Mark
xii. 28 has combined Luke xx. 39 sq., and also Luke x. 25 (the independent mention
of the two principal commands by the lawyer), with Matt. xxii. 34 sqq., and has
naturally brought out the excellent point that the Scribe came with sympathy (Mark
xii. 28), and nevertheless — as the close gives it (xii. 34) — as opponent and tempter.
Volkmar takes no objection to this, though he thinks he has a right, on account of
the a. X. of Matt., vcuiKog, to hand that over to Luke (p. 529).
J Matt. xxii. 34; Mark xii. 28.

THE TEMPTERS. Ill
According to Matthew, the Pharisees have heard of the overthrow
of the Sadducees, and, after Jesus' fatal double victory over both
parties, have again consulted. The result of their consultation
is another tempting question, which, however, according to all
these indications, . would not be put untB the next morning
Monday, April 11.
The new temptation of that day showed a certain abatement,
a paralysis, an exhaustion of resisting force and of self-confidence.
For the question of the Law, which was now proposed to Jesus,
could not compare with the former questions in incisiveness, sig
nificance, and determinative force. But as the question of authority
was used up, and the poBtical accusation had miscarried, a definite
indictable reBgious crime must be sought and found. Naturally
the Messiahship could have been marked as such, as also Jesus'
GalBean nonconformity to the Law. But the former could not
be laid hold of since the entry, and the latter was imperfectly
attested and far to fetch. Hence some new evidence was
necessary ; and the opponents therefore hunted and groped
busily, and at the same time vaguely, after fresh grounds for
accusation. If it were sought to discover a defect concerning
the Law in Jesus, the question which was proposed to him was
not altogether inappropiate. He was asked as to the weightiest
commandment, whilst the Law itself, externally considered, was
distributed into a number of independent commandments made
almost equally weighty in their inculcation and sanctions. Among
dogmatists and systematists there had certainly shown itself a
tendency to distinguish between great and small commands, light
and heavy, weighty and unimportant. Hillelites and Shammaites
engaged in lively controversies thereupon; and in contrast to
the Shammaites, with their adherence to the letter, the great
Hillel at least, a preparer of the way for Jesus, penetrated to the
essence of the Law, to what was ultimate and essential, to the
love or indeed to the fear of God, and to the love of our neigh
bours.1 So far it might appear that there had been brought to
1 Edaj. 4 : hae res ad prsecepta leviora pertinent ex sent. Shammseanorum, ad
gravia ex mente Hillelianorum. The people were advised to follow both ! Schottgen,
VOL. V. N

178 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
Jesus rather a much discussed controversy of the day, or a nice
point disputed among the schools, or an enticing proposal to
attach himself to Hillel, than a tempting question. "But when
we look closer, we see the tempter there. The Jews as a whole,
Hillel included, were led by the ceremonial spirit which domi
nated them to look for the greatness of the Law chiefly in little
things, or, as Jesus had long since so bitterly and reproachfully
said, in the ordinances, not in the roots of religion and morality,
though these were spoken of by name. It very commonly
happened that those commandments of Moses were called great
with which the Lawgiver had associated the threat of extirpation
from among the people; but such were for the least part the
higher rules, they were the ordinances of the Sabbath, of circum
cision, of purification, of sacrifice.1 And when, as was very cus
tomary, the people were exhorted to keep the little as weB as the
great commandments, the hidden motive was not the encourage
ment of a higher degree of conscientiousness, but a miserable
patronage of trivial services.2 And when the famous Hillel
p. 186. Hillel's rule about one's neighbour, above, I. p. 337, note 4. The rule con
cerning God, Shebu. f. 39, 1 : scito, totum mundum contremuisse, quo temp. Deus
praeceptum illud promulgavit : non assumes nomen Domini Dei tui in vanum. Reliqua
omnia levia excepto illo de non profanando nomine Dei. Schottgen, p. 184. Wetst.
p. 486. Comp. Pirke Abot, 5, 17; above, I. p. 350, note 3. Small -and great com
mands mentioned in the Talmud, kal (easy), vachomer (great measure), hence mizvot
kallot (rekot) and chamurot (rabbot). Bux. p. 789 ; above, III. p. 301.
1 Very usual (Shebu. f. 39, 1), praec. gravia, quibus poena excisionis et mors a
Synedrio decreta imponitur. Schottgen, pp. 184, 189. Now this death was the
punishment not only of idolatry and the like (Lev. xx. 2, 6, 27), the cursing of parents
(xx. 9), incest (xx. 17), but also of Sabbath-breaking (Ex. xxxi. 14), uncircumcision
(Gen. xvii. 14), breaches of the laws of sacrifice (Lev. vii. 20, 25), ceremonial unclean-
ness (Numb. xix. 20), the eating of forbidden food at feasts (Ex. xii. 15, 19) and on
other occasions (Lev. xvii. 14). Independently of this norma, the prohibitions relating
to dishonouring God and slaying man, the commands relating to the Sabbath, circum
cision, and honouring parents, were called great ; the commands relating to the erection
of tabernacles, the letting parent birds escape from the nest (Deut. xxii. 6 sq.), and
the washing of hands, were called little.
2 Tanch. f. 78, 4 : observa praecepta levia eodem modo quo gravia. Debar, rabb.
f. 258, 1 : non librabis praec. legis. Called levia only because men are parum solliciti
about them. The commandments to honour parents, to let the mother bird fly away
not to kill, and to wash the hands, are equally great, and have the sanction of equal
rewards. Schottgen, pp. 185 sqq. Wetst. pp. 296, 486.

THE TEMPTERS. 179
commandment about washing of hands at certain times was
changed from a little command into a great one, and when the
haughty words were spoken of the traditions of the dealers in
triviaBties, that " in distinction from the great and the little in
the Law, the commandments of the lawyers were all great and
weighty," then, in fact, the question as to which was the greatest
commandment became an apposite strategic question for the
men of the Law to put to the repudiator of their Law.1 If they
had in view the letter and external works, and were suspicious
that Jesus depreciated or rejected just what was weightiest in
the Law, the external ordinances of ceremonial cleanness and of
the divine service, of the Sabbath and of the sacrifices, it was
not an improbable calculation that his answer to the question as
to the greatest commandment would present to them, as welcome
matter for accusation, a curtailment of the ordinances, or perhaps
a vigorous sally against the whole system of ordinances.2 And
the better to throw him off his guard, they this time made no
show of a formal deputation ; they sent, not several, but an
individual lawyer, so that Jesus might suspect nothing and
unreservedly reveal his whole heart.3
"Teacher," the tempting lawyer said to him courteously,
"which commandment is great in the Law ?"4 But no one could
ever take him by surprise, and least of aB in this province, in
his favourite province, which not long before at Jericho he had
fuBy discussed with the rich young man, and which long before
1 Tanch. f. 73, 2 : si quis manus p. cibum non lavat, est ac si horn, occideret.
Schottgen, p. 185. Then the rule in Buxt. Syn. p. 315 : manus pedesque mundissime
babeto, nam certe hoc praec. parvum non est. Ib. p. 164 : magnum est praec. de zizit,
of the fringes ! Wetst. p. 295. Hier. Berac. f. 3, 2 : amabilia sunt verba scribarum
prae verbis legis ; nam v. legis sunt gravia et levia, at v. scribarum sunt omnia gravia.
Lightfoot, p. 330.
2 Schenkel (p. 243) incorrectly : they wished to see whether he would not (as Mes
siah) put himself in the place of God. Against this, Gess (p. 127), with justice.
3 Comp. the subsequent assembling of the opponents, Matt. xxii. 41. Luke also
(x. 25) isolates this lawyer.
4 Mark, not utydXn, but rrpiiirn Trdvrwv ; brought in from Matt. xxii. 38 (Mark
xii. 31). A second commandment could not properly follow the question in Mark, but
it could that in Matthew.
N 2

180 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
he had pondered over while making his own mental analysis of
the relation between Moses and the ordinances. But with a full
consciousness of the seriousness of his position, Jesus this time
gave the fullest, the most comprehensive, the most unmistakable,
and the most unassailable answer. To the young man he had
mentioned only the one principal rule of love of one's neigh
bour; to the lawyer he presented as great two principal com
mandments, of which he refused to make either less than, or
subordinate to, the other ; and then to the two commandments
he added aB others, the host of commandments, which he did
not reject, but which he simply saw as rooted in the two
great ones that gave the key-note, and as deriving from them
force and value and light and purpose. With a sure hand
he laid hold of the fifth and of the third books of Moses, and
from the great starry heaven which was to lighten and direct the
ways of Israel, he extracted the dominant sun-stars : " Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole
soul and with thy whole mind. This is the great and first com
mandment.1 A second is like to it : Thou shalt love thy neigh
bour as thyself.2 Upon these two commandments hang the whole
law and the prophets."3 It is the old Master, separating the
kernel from the shell, discovering the kernel in the divine-human
vibrations of man's spirit, in religion and yet also in morality,
1 To be thus read according to the earliest MSS. Syr. Cur. (harmonizing with Mark),
magnum et primum.
2 Deut. vi. 5; Lev. xix. 18. In the first passage the Hebr. has: in or with thy
(whole) heart, soul, might (meod). The LXX. has i£ 6. liavoiag, ^vxng, Svvdu. (Al.
also KapS., w%., Slav.). Matthew, with iv and KapS., adheres to the Hebrew, but
adopts the Siav. from the LXX. instead of Svv. Luke and Mark, following partly
Matt, and partly the LXX., add the ioxvg (LXX. Svv.) to the three moments of Matt.,
Luke making the Slav, of Matt, the fourth, Mark the laxug. Their quartet contra
dicts the text and itself points to Matt. Comp. Anger, Ratio, I. p. 36. Interesting
explanation in Berach. f. 61, 2, why three designations, Schottgen, p. 189.
3 Beresh. R. 24 on Lev. xix. 18 : dixit R. Akiba (equal to Hillel) : haseh kelal
gadol, haec est complexio, summa regula legis. Often among the Rabbis, caput,
stomachus, res, a qua totum pendet. Greek : i£ oi rd mxvra r\prnrai, IZ Siv Kpaua-
fikvn nana ipvXv ; it,a<j>9kvrtg dnb, Trypho, 42. Comp. Rom. xiii. 9. Latin : sus-
pensum est, pendet, cardo rei est (ubi litium cardo vertitur, Quint. Inst. 12 8 2 ¦
comp. 5, 12, 3. Virgil, ASn. i. 672). Comp. Wetst. p. 478.

THE TEMPTERS. 181
in the duality which is unity because it is love to God and to
the children of God. It is the old Master, who knows how to
honour the shell as weB as the kernel ; for, seeing with his pene
trating glance not only through the Law, but through all the
documents of the Old Testament, he knows that every command
ment of Moses, every injunction of the Prophets far and near, is
supported, dominated, therefore glorified and eternalized, by the
great fundamental rule. Nothing could ever be advanced against
this noble and truly conservative exposition of the Law. That
Jesus had mentioned the greatest, no one could deny, even though
this great commandment might be forgotten both in theory and
practice ; and as to what was little, but esteemed great by the
teachers, Jesus had let faB no syllable of depreciation, for — as
with those teachers and yet differently — with him the great
made it great, the eternal made it eternal.1
It has been mentioned that Mark has treated this conversation
not as possessing a distinctively tempting character, but rather
as a friendly and — if the expression be permitted — a fraternizing
conversation. Delighted with the successful repulse of the Sad
ducees, one of the lawyers on his own account proposes the
question concerning the first commandment of all. He greets
the answer of Jesus — who names not only the first but also the
second commandment — with the loudest and most solemn assent
to the duty of loving God, or, more correctly, since the lofty
ethics of Jesus are transformed into formal dogmatics, to Jesus'
belief in God, and to the two fundamental rules the observing of
which is better than aB sacrifice and burnt-offering. Wherefore
Jesus — in a manner which reminds us of Mark's young man
whom Jesus loved at once — closes with the conciliatory, nay,
encouraging, words, " Thou art not far from the kingdom of God !"
But gratifying as such a change to peace after perpetual strife,
edifying as such a real spiritual success, a success resulting not
solely in the silencing of embittered vanquished foes, might be,
it is nevertheless not historical. Though it may remain an open
1 See footnotes on pp. 177 sq.

182 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
question whether it is probable that a Scribe, accustomed to
discipline, would have broken away from his party and acquired
through Jesus his independence, and adopted a watchword which
no one but Jesus had strongly emphasized, there is tangibly a
contradiction when this account is compared not only with Mat
thew but also with Luke, although the latter gives the incident
at another place. It is equally tangible that the whole account
is a development out of Matthew and Luke, which culminates in
the Evangelist's endeavour to exhibit to his later age the golden
rule of Jesus, monotheism and humanity as the uniting symbol
of Jews and of Jewish and Gentile Christians. As tangibly
have we here a violent interpolation, for the closing remark, " No
one after that durst question Jesus at all," on the one hand com
pletely overthrows the conciliatory character of this conversation,
and on the other hand betrays the artificial connection of this
account with the brief text-form of Luke.1
Matthew, however, shows that the Pharisees were no longer
disposed to engage with the invincible disputator, though a great
number of them had approached, curious — and speedily disap
pointed — to hear the result of the question by the individual
who had been put forward.2 They stood dumb round about, with
1 Mark xii. 29, 32 adds to Deut. vi. 5 (Matt. xxii. 37) the introduction, Deut. vi. 4,
not only, as elsewhere, for the sake of completing the details, but, as in xi. 17, for
dogmatic reasons. He wishes to exhibit the monotheism of the Jews — of which Jesus
could not here be thinking, since it would be necessarily implied — as an ecclesiastical
symbolum (in which sense also John xvii. 3 is to be understood) which was binding
also upon the Gentile Christians. We are hereby reminded that this was the Alpha
and Omega of Judaism (after Mark, Clem. Horn. 3, 57), and the Shema and the Echad,
the daily prayer, of the Jews. Wetst. p. 480. Wichelh. p. 285. The watchword
of the Scribe, with reference to sacrifice (in Mark), is for the rest that of Jesus, only
in another form, Matt. ix. 13, xii. 7, of which this passage of Mark has, however, no
trace. Mark is indebted not only to Matthew, but also to Luke, with respect to the
sympathy of the Scribe, which in Luke xx. 39 is unhistorical (comp. on the other hand
Luke x. 25), and also with respect to the Scribe's independent knowledge of the summa
legis (Luke x. 27). Whilst Neander (p. 491), Weisse (I. p. 585), and even Gess
(p. 127), have found Mark's account plausible, De Wette and Bleek have acknow
ledged his contradictions. Volkmar has thought the words ov uaKpdv d too liberal
for the Jewish-Christian Matthew ; only by faith in the Son of God could a man
become blessed, according to him ! Does that stand anywhere in the narrative of the
rich young man, &c. ?
2 Matt. xxii. 41.

THE TEMPTERS. 183
threatening looks, and yet completely helpless. Then the roles
were exchanged, as on the previous day. The assaulted became
the assailant. What he said was certainly in the spirit of his
previous conversation, in which he manifested such an extreme
moderation as might have been expected to compel a mutual
understanding and reconciliation, whence the misconception of
the second Gospel may be in part explained. But the attacking
speech belonged to a new and most important field of battle, —
it was a mild, instructive attempt to convince the opponents of
their prejudices. The theme appeared to sweep completely away
from the former one, and yet it was directly derived from that.
From his attitude towards the Law and the Prophets, authorities
which he was charged with repudiating, but which he so solemnly
upheld, the direct sequence of ideas led him to his Messiahship,
which was looked upon with equal distrust, indeed as a breach
of the Law and the Prophets, while in his own conviction it was
the very end and aim of Moses and the Prophets.1 Thus he took
up again that most important and most decisive controversial
point from which he on the second day, and from which his
opponents since the third day, had kept aloof. Certainly he did
not so take it up again as to call himself Messiah, but he took it
up in such a way as to expose the erroneous ideas of the Phari
sees concerning the Messiah, and thus to refute their thoughtless
denial of his Messiahship. A last faint hope may have inspired
the unyielding gatherer together of Israel. The conviction and
persuasion of the cultured, the learned, the guides of the people,
concerning the higher spiritual sense of his Messiahship, might
yet bring about the recognition of his Messiahship; and this
example of the leaders of the nation might yet be followed by
the adhesion of the dependent, uncultured people who were
withholding their sympathy. Or, even though he hoped for
nothing, he may have wished on his own part to do the utmost
1 According to Hase (p. 224), Je3us only intended to discourage his opponents from
continuing the wordy strife. According to Schenkel (p. 245), the hierarchs had
assiduously caused the report to be everywhere circulated that Jesus had fraudulently
claimed to be the Messiah though he lacked the necessary descent.

184 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
to explain his position and to bring about a distinct understand
ing.1 He turned sharply to those who were assembled near him,
not to the multitudes of the people, as Mark says, but to the
Pharisees: "What think ye concerning the Messiah? Whose
son is he ?"2 "David's," answered they, in accordance with the
universal belief of the people, and also with the words of the Old
Testament ; but a prudent reticence and a timid anxiety com
bined to prevent them from adding a word of amplification or of
polemic against his Messiahship. Then he spoke further, pro
posing a troublesome question in which there lay a wealth both
of provocation and of instruction : " But why does David in spirit
call him a Lord, when he says : The Lord spoke to my Lord, Sit
thou at my right hand, until I shall have laid thy foes under thy
feet ? If David calls him Lord, how is he his son ?"3
When we seek for the meaning which Jesus connected with
this question and protest, we must not suppose that he intended
distinctively to deny the Davidic sonship of the Messiah, whether
with the view of establishing a higher view of the Messiah, or,
as is now often said, with the view of explaining a personal defect
in his Messiahship — that he was not descended from David.4
1 Comp. Matt. xii. 30, xxi. 31, xxiii. 13, and Schleiermacher' s assertion (p. 373)
that Jesus held his recognition to be compatible with the continuance of the existing
theocratic authorities.
2 Matt. xxii. 41 ; Luke xx. 41 ; Mark xii. 35. According to Matt, he asks the
Pharisees, and they answer. According to Luke, he speaks to the antagonistic Scribes,
without waiting for or reeeiving an answer. But according to Mark's unfortunate
exegesis of Luke, he is teaching the crowds of people in the temple, and asks them :
" How say the Scribes that Christ is David's son" (Luke : how say they) ? As if Jesus,
after the manner of the fourth Gospel, would have thought of holding theological con
versations with the people. And how abrupt this antagonism towards the Scribes
after the scene of conciliation ! The offensiveness of this procedure of Jesus is recog
nized — against Mark— by Weisse, I. p. 586; Hausrath, p. 438. On the other hand,
Neander (p. 493) very remarkably prefers Mark, and finds the offensiveness unworthy
of Jesus.
3 Ps. ex. 1. "In the spirit" means by inspiration of God. Thus also the Rabbis,
in spiritu, Schottgen, p. 190. Wetst. p. 479. In comparison with prophecy, "the
spirit" ranks as of secondary degree. Schottgen, p. 191.
4 The latter, Strauss, New Life of Jesus, Eng. trans., I. p. 304 (4th ed. I. p. 649, un
determined), Weisse, Schenkel, Holtzmann, Hausrath, Reville, Weiff. Volkmar (pp. 530
sq.) thinks that Mark would here retract Paul's admission (Rom. i. 3) that Jesus was
of the lineage of David, and that the whole narrative is the work of the Pauline poet

THE TEMPTERS. 185
As the popular opinion of the Son of David was very definitely
based on the Old Testament itself, as Jesus himself, up to his
entry into Jerusalem, readily accepted the Messianic title of
" Son of David" from the mouths of his most intimate adherents,
as his own counter-question by no means denied to himself the
sonship of David, but simply inquired into the compatibility of
this sonship with lordship, the supposition of an attack upon
the Davidic sonship has no support.1 There is quite as little
support for the supposition of an apology with respect to a Mes
sianic qualification in which he himself was wanting. For it is
as certain, from the testimony of the Apostle Paul and from that
of the disciples at the entry, that Jesus passed as a descendant
of David, as it is from this incident itself that Jesus without any
hesitation directed the controversy to a subject which, according
to all traces, was never referred to by his opponents, and which
nevertheless, according to the above supposition, taken in con
nection with his opponents' unalterably materialistic and literal
mode of conception, would have been his most vulnerable point.
and didactic author. Jesus might have thus answered, but at that time, and even
until the time of Paul, this question had not been much discussed. Upon this sonship
in general, see above, II. pp. 25 sqq. Granting that the Nazarenes knew simply
nothing of this high lineage of the child of their city (Matt. xiii. 55), and that the
formation among the Apostles of an actual belief in such a descent, based upon the
official title, is quite (?) conceivable, there remains, on the other hand, the firm testi
mony of Paul — who was not careless in his assertions, and like all Jews attached
importance to lineage, as he did to his own (Phil. iii. 5) — while the silence of the
Nazarenes about the nobility of a decayed family proves nothing. On the duration of
the Davidic line, and on the continued discussion of the question, comp. also Hitzig,
Gesch. Isr. p. 361, although H. himself doubts, and thinks that Jesus has been regarded
as a descendant of David, without careful investigation. The ideal of an Israelite and
descendant of David to become Messiah, in Schottgen, and Hase (p. 86).
1 In the expression lies no support of the negatory view, although even Gess (p. 129)
finds this in itself possible from nS>g. The expression in Matt, and Luke (nuig iori)
rather favours (1 Cor. xv. 35) the actual descent from David, the denial of which
would lie only in dv Ar\ (Acts viii. 31) or y (Matt, xxiii. 33), or eorai (Luke i. 34 ;
1 Cor. xiv. 7), or Svvarai (Matt. xii. 29 ; Mark iii. 23). But the expression in Mark
(n69i v iori, comp. vi. 2, viii. 4) means : qui fit ut (Luke i. 43) ; at most : qui fieri
potest ut. Whilst Schenkel (article Jesus in Bib.-Lex.) believes the scale to turn in
favour of the negatory view, the afiirmatory view is firmly upheld by Neander (p. 495),
Weizs. (p. 540), Hase (p. 61), Beyschlag (p. 62), Press, (p. 340), Gess (p. 128), Godet
(Divinity de I. Chr., 1869, p. 20), Weisse (N. T. Theol. p. 58).

186 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
Whence it rather follows that the Davidic sonship could not be
wanting to the man who introduced it as a topic of conversation,
whilst no one mentioned it against him. On the other hand, the
purpose of his question about the Messiah was this ; he wished to
show his opponents to how small an extent the meaning of Mes
siahship was exhausted by the Davidic sonship, by the derivation
from the great earthly sovereign, and indeed by the popular
opinion of a restoration of material empire which accompanied
this derivation.1 " How"— that is, " in what sense"—" is he then
David's son?" By putting the question thus, he at the same
time gave the plain answer : according to human birth he is to
be a descendant of David, but not according to his vocation and
his dignity, as if he were nothing more than a repeater of the
Davidic royalty. The Messiah may and will descend from the
house of David, but this descent will be the smallest part of his
greatness. As certainly as David called the Messiah a greater
than himself, so certainly he, at the distance of a thousand years,
through which he was carried forward by his presentiment, bowed
and cast himself in the dust before this his Lord? This lord
ship, then, receives its intrinsic character and expression in the
announced elevation of the Messiah to be the throne-associate of
God, which, according to the passage and to the whole Psalm,
comprehends three things, — viz., his divine sonship instead of a
mere Davidic sonship; his being misunderstood and rejected by
his foes, the rulers of the Jewish people ; and finally also, after a
temporary elevation to heaven, his glorious restitution upon earth

1 Similarly De Wette, Neander, B. Crus., Bleek, Meyer. Beyschlag and Gess, soar
ing higher, think of a superior, supernatural origin, Beyschlag even of pre-existence ;
but Neander and Weisse only of higher dignity. Critical doubt even against the tes
timony of Paul has recently become so strong, that Volkmar has called that testimony
very unreliable in general, and even in the notice of the Lord's Supper. What will
men now build upon ? Referring to this passage, Volkmar (p. 534) has boldly said
that not only did Jesus possess nothing materially Davidic, but if the conception of a
Messiah as son of David had then been already in existence, there would have been no
Christianity. 2 According to Weizs. (p. 541), Jesus, altbough son of David, had expressed himself
against the designation which he had approved at the entry.

THE TEMPTERS. 187
and upon the ruins of his foes, by the omnipotence of God his
Father. And in this Psalm, how remarkably do the words sound
in verses 2 and 3, words generally altogether overlooked, and
not expressly quoted by Jesus himself, but silently kept in view :
" Eule in the midst of thy foes ! Thy people come voluntarily in
the day of thy miBtary might!"1 By this reference he made
sufficiently clear what he understood to be the higher dignity
of the Messiah, and that under this higher, now mistaken but
soon recognized dignity of the Messiah, he himself understood
his own personal dignity. Since his foes mistake concerning
him, they do not know the true character of the Messiah and of
Jesus ; they seek merely the son of David, and do not find even
that, because he foregoes the temporal glory of the son of David.
In the mean time, he is now already more than the son of David,
he is the Son of God, the spiritual representative of God, the
spiritual giver of blessing to men, though in the lowly form of
the Son of Man ; and soon he will be still more, when God shall
place the misunderstood of men first upon the heavenly and
next upon the earthly throne, although his throne even then will
not be so much the throne of the powerful ruler as, according
to the words of the Psalm itself, that of the blessing priest.2
It may be questioned whether Jesus himself spoke such
words, whether it is not more likely that the later community
put these words, these very significant closing utterances against
his foes, into the mouth of him who, according to their beBef,
1 The foes are really contained in the first verse, which was quoted by Jesus, still
more plainly in the second, and the people in the third. It is to be noted here that
Jesus, taking account of the contents of Old Testament passages, suggests still more
than he quotes, just as Matt. xxi. 16 in relation to Ps. viii. 2 (see above, p. 124).
2 Ps. ex. 4 : priest (according to the oath of God) for ever, after the order of Mel-
chisedec. Beyschlag (l.c.) has forced too strong a meaning out of the Psalm, by finding
indicated there a pre-existence — if only an ideal one — of the Messiah. On the other
hand, Strauss (New Life of Jesus, Eng. trans., I. p. 304), has got rid of a higher
exposition by saying that the Gospels have nowhere propounded the view that Jesus,
according to the spirit, is a higher nature, proceeding immediately from God. This is
correct against Beyschlag ; but a higher spiritual dignity, without any claim to having
eome immediately from heaven, is abundantly claimed by him, Matt. xi. 27, xii. 28,
xiii. 17. Our passage supplies nothing fresh thereupon.

188 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
had been lifted to heaven.1 Support for this conclusion may be
sought partly in the popularity of this Psalm among Jews and
Christians as a Psalm of Messianic proof, partly in the stiB
traceable abruptness, subtlety, and resultlessness of Jesus' ques
tion, and partly, perhaps chiefly, in the factual inutility of the
passage from the Psalm for the here attempted production of
Messianic proof, a circumstance which encouraged Dr. Paulus
in the hypothesis that Jesus gave expression to a doubt of the
Davidic composition of the Psalm.2 This last objection would
indeed be the weakest, for the results of recent criticism of the
Psalm— according to which it was certainly not composed by
David, but was addressed by an unknown writer to David, " his
lord," perhaps however to a much later prince, Uzziah, or one of
the Maccabees — decide nothing whatever as to the conception of
Jesus and his time.3 If the time of Jesus believed in the com
position of Psalm ex. by king David — a belief which is indicated
by the later superscription of the Psalm — then Jesus, since he
was no scholar, doubted or objected to this assumption as little
as he questioned the genuineness of the book of Daniel ; and
thus, with correct and irresistible logic, he would have insisted
upon the fact that David, if he was the author, pointed beyond
himself to a Lord, and in truth to a Messiah, to whom was to be
ascribed a lordship very different from his own. The other
grounds of suspicion of the genuineness of the words of Jesus
have no force. The passage is consistent with itself; it is less
profound than acute, but it is not exactly subtle ; and even if it
1 Comp. Hitzig, Ps. II. p. 321 ; Gesch. Isr. p. 361.
2 Midr. Teh. on Ps. ex. 1 : temporibus N. T. Deus Messiam sedere jubebit ad dex-
tram et Abrah. ad sin. suam. Beresh. Rabb, f. 83, 4 : intellig. rex Mess., quemadm.
de eo dicitur 4>- HO, 3. Comp. Soh. Num. Schottgen, p. 192. Wetst. p. 479.
Even in the LXX. the Psalm is mysteriously interpreted, ex. 3 : is yaorpbg npb
iioo(f>6pov iyevvnad at (Logos). Langen, p. 396. Christian use, by Paul, 1 Cor.
xv. 25, 27; Acts ii. 34; Heb. i. 13. The hypothesis of Paulus, L.J. I. ii. p. 115;
comp. Strauss, 4th ed. I. p. 648.
3 Comp. Ewald and Hitzig. One might also translate le-David : to David (Ewald).
Hitzig (to David from the dedicator) thinks of the royal priest Hyrcanus. Neander
(pp. 495 sq.) quite correctly : should the Psalm not be Messianic, Jesus did not engage
in such an investigation.

THE TEMPTERS. 189
be, it is genuinely Jewish, genuinely Scribe-like, in the spirit of
those Pharisees with whom Jesus was then engaged in contro
versy. Moreover, it fully expresses the real, undeniable convic
tion of Jesus. And who would be able to decide whether it was
the Christian Church, and not Jesus the searcher of the Scriptures,
the Scripture-taught announcer of his own fate, that took hold
of this passage, a passage so remarkably characteristic of Jesus'
situation at the time ? FinaBy, all the early Gospels agree here ;
and the resultlessness of the question itself, the absence of all
and any answer on the side of the questioned and indeed even
of Jesus, is rather an evidence of genuineness because of sim
plicity, than a sign of spuriousness and intrusive interpolation.
"No one was able to answer him a word." With this remark
Matthew closes at the right place this last conversation with the
Pharisees ; " neither durst any one from that day forth" — he
thus adds — " address to him any further question."1 This silence
upon the most difficult question, a question to which a solution
could the less be found the lowBer, the more Davidic, the more
terrestrial the Messianic expectation, was just as natural as the
disinclination for, nay the fear of, further disputation, after the
most hopeful attempts had so completely miscarried. Men were
ashamed before Jesus, and they were ashamed before the people,
who, as inconvenient witnesses, listening gladly to Jesus — as
Mark inserts — still remained standing by even up to the proposal
of the question about David.2 But the issue of the fear was not
surrender, the issue of the victory was not a change of side ; for
from the beginning the opponents had not sought instruction
1 Matt. xxii. 46. In Luke xx. 40 this passage (only : durst no more ask) stands
after the conversation with the Sadducee, with whom, according to Luke, the disputa
tions come to an end ; in Mark xii. 34 it stands after the question of the Scribe. In
both cases, therefore, earlier. But Luke has there arbitrarily abridged, and has thought
it pragmatically more appropriate to insert the terminating remark at the point where
the attacks are checked, and before Jesus' attack upon the silent opponents, although
Luke has done this incorrectly, since the remark is not in its right place until the
opponents have been completely reduced to silence even when challenged by Jesus. In
Mark, who is half inclined to follow Luke, the sentence stands very awkwardly at the
conciliatory close of the conversation with the Scribe.
2 Mark xii. 37. In the non-reply, Hase (p. 224) sees only the Christian verdict.

190 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
and certainly had received none, at least in the obscure and yet,
as they thought, sun-clear Messiah question. In so far had the
last shimmer of hope disappeared. The fruit of the futile intel
lectual campaign was the return of the foes to the beginning, to
the straightforward campaign of force.

C. — The Last Disclosures and Announcement of Woe
upon the System.
During Jesus' conflicts with the hierarchs, in the Gospels his
sayings to the people fall entirely into the background. They
are referred to only very generally. But while it is to be assumed
that the disputations with the opponents, to which the people
also listened, absorbed a good part of the time and strength and
attention of Jesus, there can, nevertheless, be no doubt that Jesus
directed a series of addresses more or less lengthy to the people.
This is rendered certain by the facts that he was moving about
the temple from morning tiB evening, and that his chief end and
his chief support were the people.1 An intimation upon this
point is to be found not only in Jesus' words of farewell to
Jerusalem, and in the subsequent accusation that he had spoken
of the destruction of the temple, but also in the tempting ques
tions of his opponents ; for the attack of the Pharisees concerning
the greatest commandment may have been suggested by Jesus'
doctrines concerning law and custom uttered in the hearing of
the people, and the Sadducees' scorn of the resurrection may
have been called forth by his public announcement of the judg
ment and the last things. These popular addresses of Jesus,
unfolding his doctrine of the kingdom of heaven, his insistance
upon repentance, his threats of the judgment, as they had been
1 Activity in Jerusalem, Matt. xxi. 18 ; Luke xix. 47, xxi. 37; Mark xi. 19 sq.
Teaching, Matt. xxi. 23, 26; Luke xx. 1, 6, 9, 45, xxi. 37 sq. ; Mark xi. 18, 32,
xii. 35, 37 sq. Popular favour, Matt. xxi. 26, 46, xxii. 33 ; Luke xix. 48, xx. 26 ;
Mark xi. 32, xii. 12, 37.

THE LAST DISCLOSURES. 191
formerly unfolded in Galilee, as they must have been brought to
bear upon the popular conscience afresh, more urgently and more
forcibly on this his last and most decisive mission field, — these
popular addresses have been passed over by the Gospels, it may
be chiefly because the Evangelists were hastening to the crisis
and would not repeat the Galilean copious exhibition of the
sayings of Jesus, which may have been in part actually repeated.
Moreover, it may in some cases have happened that sayings
uttered at Jerusalem were transferred to Galilee. Luke has very
visibly and to a considerable degree obliterated all distinction
of place in the speeches he has reported ; while Matthew has,
at least possibly, transferred the sayings of Jesus about sacri
fice in the temple and swearing by Jerusalem, the City of the
Great King, to the Galilean Sermon on the Mount.1 Again, it
may be granted that at least the parable of the man who had
not on the wedding garment — which Matthew places at Jerusa
lem, together with that of the marriage feast — might belong
as well to Jerusalem as to GaBlee, as a word of warning to
the careless, unprepared guests of the approaching kingdom of
heaven.2 As the locaBty for this preaching to the people, which
has become to us almost invisible, we have the outer temple
courts to think of. Besides the outermost court, the great inner
courts of women and of Israelitish men were used for assem-
1 Comp. Luke xi. 37, xiii. 34 ; Matt. v. 23, 35. But the Johannine velleitSs (even
Hase, p. 223) are to be rejected, since the quantity and contents of these speeches are
suitable only for Galilee.
2 Matt. xxii. 11. See above, IV. pp. 118 sq. While the parable of the Feast, to
which this little parable attaches itself, belongs only to Galilee, the close, which does
not reject the people, but only admonishes them to make just preparation, may have
actually belonged to the last sermon. Weisse (II. p. 112) places the parable at Jeru
salem because he understands by the man without the wedding garment (as did also
Olsh.) Judas the betrayer. On the closing saying, "Many are called," &c, comp.
(Weisse, II. p. 108, and Zeller, in Hilg.'s Zeitschrift, 1867, p. 203), besides 1 Cor.
ix. 24, the sentence in Phcedon, 13 : vap9rjKo<j>6poi uiv 7ro\Xoi, fiaKxoi Si re navpoi.
Hebrew, nikra (mekora, Is. xlviii. 12; Talmud, mitkere, Buxt. p. 2110) and bechir
Jahve. A notable distinction from Paul, with whom the pre-temporal election is in
fallibly fulfilled in the temporal calling, Rom. viii. 28 sqq., xi. 2, 28 sq. With Jesus
the two fall apart, and the election itself is made perfect in time, and then in relation
to subjective performance. In Matt. xx. 16, the passage is spurious.

192 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
blies connected with religious questions.1 When the temple was
destroyed, there were six thousand persons crowded together in
one of the outer courts.2 Solomon's Porch may have been one of
Jesus' favourite halting-places. Later it became a place of resort
of the Apostles, and is mentioned by the fourth Gospel — perhaps
not merely by prolepsis — as a place in which Jesus was wont to
tarry.3 It is distinguishable by its position from the "Eoyal
Porch" of King Herod, on the south side of the temple. Solo
mon's Porch lay on the east of the outermost court, therefore at
the principal entrance into the temple. On account of its posi
tion, it was usually called the east porch. It derived its other
name from its builder : it was a venerable, antique relic of the
long crumbled temple of Solomon.4 At the abrupt descent from
the temple hill into the Kidron vaBey, it is said to have rested
upon a stone waB 400 cubits high. The porch itself was composed
of colossal marble rectangular blocks, every stone six cubits deep
and twenty long. When in AD. 65, just before the destruction
of the temple and of the city, and when all building in the
temple was ended, the people of Jerusalem desired Agrippa II.
to restore this antiquated and partly decayed structure, the king
nervously shrank from the work, which would require time and
money without end, and preferred to employ the more than 18,000
men who had been at work on the temple in the paltry task of
paving Jerusalem with white stones.6
A second place of resort of Jesus can be more certainly pointed
out, being mentioned not only by John, but also by Luke and
Mark. This was the treasury, which Jewish tradition, in close
1 Jos. B.J. 2, 17, 3; comp. below, p. 193, u. 1.
2 Jos. B. J. 6, 5, 2. The whole temple quadrangle was (Jos. Ant. 15, 11, 3) four
stadia (half a Roman mile) in circumference.
3 Acts iii. 11, v. 12; John x. 23.
4 Jos. Ant. 15, 11, 5 (Herod); 20, 9, 7 (Solomon). Certainly in the Jewish War
(5, 5, 1; comp. Ant. 15, 11, 3) Josephus refers to Solomon at first only the lower
walls, but then also the porch. Ewald (p. 471) asserts, against all probability, that
the porch was so called as the meeting-place of the teachers of wisdom, and that
Josephus was here under a mistake.
5 Jos. Ant. 20, 9, 7.

THE LAST DISCLOSURES. 193
harmony with the New-Testament accounts, places in the court
of the women.1 The latter was situated at the entry of the inner
quadrangle of the sanctuary, fourteen steps higher than the court
of the Gentiles, fifteen steps lower than the westerly and more
inwardly-placed court of the men, next to which was the court
of the priests, and then, twelve steps higher than the court of the
men, the temple building itself. Jesus' resort to this place does
not show that, at Jerusalem as in Galilee, he found or indeed
sought success chiefly among the women. This large space
(according to the Talmud, having a length and breadth of 135
cubits) was called the court of the women simply because it
formed for them the extreme limit of their allowable approach
to the temple ; but it was open to all the people, and the torch
dances of the Feast of Tabernacles, as weB as the assemblies of
the people, were held here. Here in particular were the gifts for
the temple, that fed the temple treasury with its many millions
of sacred money, thrown into the trumpet-shaped money-chests,
which, for security's sake, were narrow at the exposed end but
broad within, and of which there were thirteen, with separate
inscriptions for their different objects.2 A charming scene is
1 Luke xxi. 1 ; Mark xii. 41 ; John viii. 20. In the Old Testament, lishkah (nish-
kah) bechazre bet elohim, ya%. iv avXy o'ikov 9tov, Neh. xiii. 7. Aram, korbana, Jos.
B.J. 2, 9, 4. Matt, xxvii. 6; Mark vii. 11. Rabbis also, betgaza. Comp. Jos. Ant.
19, 6, 1 (the treasure chamber, rb yaZoipvX.); B.J. 5, 5, 2; 6, 5, 2 (twice plural,
rd y.). Writers have often (on account of Josephus) distinguished between treasure
chamber and treasure houses. In point of fact, the actual temple treasure (6 9noavpbg,
oi 9 — oi) lay, according to all traces, in the building of the temple itself, in the roT%oj
vaov, B.J. 6, 8, 3; comp. 1, 7, 6; 1, 8, 8; also 2, 14, 6; 2, 15, 6 (Antonia, by the
temple, Ant. 15, 11, 7) ; further, Ant. 14, 4, 4 ; 14, 7, 1 ; comp. 8, 4, 1 ; on the other
hand, B.J. 2, 3, 3, Ant. 17, 10, 2 (pointing to the courts), do not harmonize with
the rest. The treasure chambers with utensils and money, of which there were several,
and to which to yaX,. in Ant. 19, 6, 1 (in the sight of all), comp. 15, 11, 3, itself also
belonged, were, according to Josephus (in the first passages), as according to the Rabbis,
in the courts, especially in the court of the women (Lightfoot, after B.J. 5, 5, 2),
where Jesus taught. Rabb. (tractate Shekalim) in Lightfoot, pp. 193, 406, 635.
Obscure, Meyer, Bleek (II. p. 348), and Wies. (Beitr. p. 211). More in detail below.
2 Azarat nashim, yvvaiKuivlrig, B.J. 5, 5, 2. Tac. Hist. 5, 8: vigiliis, feminis
clausum. Tabernacle feast, Lightfoot, p. 193. An assembly of the people at the eastern
brazen gate of the inner sanctuary (Nicanor gate), B.J. 2, 17, 3. On the shopharot,
trumpet-shaped money-boxes, see Lightfoot, pp. 405 sq. Out of these thirteen money-
VOL. V. 0

194 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
drawn, at least by Luke and Mark, from the court of the women.1
Jesus, who even at the approach of his end at Jerusalem had
not lost his Galilean fondness for observation, watched the people
as they threw their money into the temple coffers, money which
was not alms for the poor of Israel, for whom sufficient provision
was otherwise made, but the payment of dues or free gifts to God
and the multiform temple service.2 Among the givers the rich
predominated ; and not only heavy copper — of which Mark speaks
— but gold and silver was dropped into the sacred coffers by un
wearied zeal for the honour of God, and by the highly developed
righteousness of works.3 There Jesus saw a very poor widow carry
to the money-chest her two scraps of copper, the smallest existing
coins allowed in the temple, together worth scarcely two or three
centimes.4 " Yerily, I say unto you," spoke he, touched, to those
around him, lauding this pearl of pious poverty even though that
poverty might have been mingled with superstition, " I say unto
you, that this poor widow has thrown in more than they all ; for
all these have thrown in gifts out of their superfluity, but this
boxes, three times in the year three general coffers of twenty-seven seahs, i.e. above
forty Roman modii, had to be recruited and filled. Jom. f. 64, 1. Shekal. c. 3. The
temple treasure, at the time of Pompey and Crassus, amounted to two thousand talents
(twelve million francs), besides the value of the gold about the temple, eight thousand
talents (forty-eight million francs). Jos. Ant. 14, 4, 4; 14, 7, 1.
1 Luke xxi. 1 ; Mark xii. 41. Luke has the simple account, Mark throughout a
coloured one.
2 Comp. Maimonides' enumeration of the objects to which the thirteen chests were
allotted. Shekal. 2. Lightfoot, pp. 405 sq. Therefore Volkmar (p. 535) speaks
incorrectly of the support of the poor and the oppressed. In a foot-note to p. 536, he
is obliged to correct himself, and yet the "Christian communism" remains. On this
occasion, Mark (xii. 41) depicts Jesus' observant sitting over against the treasury. But
the conversation is carried on so exclusively with the disciples, that Volkmar's schema
is quite erroneous : " Ye sacrifice falsely" (as though Jesus was addressing the Pha
risees). 3 Luke mentions first only rich givers, Mark at once mentions the people generally.
4 The Xmrbv (thinness) is the eighth part of an as (one), which is the tenth part of
a denarius, the last being not quite a franc (the Talmud reckons shene peruthot [scat
tered], two prutha to a farthing). The as was already proverbial as a paltry piece of
money ; see above, III. p. 307, IV. p. 319. A single prutha might not be given for
sacrifice, Wetst. p. 618.

THE LAST DISCLOSURES. 195
woman has thrown in out of her want aB the living that she
had."1 Nevertheless, the Gospels have not withheld from us the most
weighty of all the addresses to the people at Jerusalem ; and they
could not withhold it, because it contained Jesus' fareweB to the
people, his last admonitions, as weB as his last annihBating cri
ticism against Pharisaism, to which he for the moment was corn-
peBed to leave the field, and indeed to commit the people with
the interests of their piety. The vigorous denunciation of the
Pharisees, delivered in the hearing of the people, which Matthew
has preserved to us at the close of the public ministry at Jeru
salem, may be spoken of as genuine in the main, and in point of
fact it proves its own genuineness by internal evidence.2 Evi
dently it does not belong to the same day as the last controversy
with the Pharisees, since after that controversy the narrator him
self makes a significant halt, and the general mood of Jesus is a
very different, a profoundly solemn and passionately excited,
one. We are led, therefore, to think of one of the immediately
following days ; and as it is improbable that the last days of
Jesus should have been vacant and unoccupied or should have
been dropped out of the narration, we can fix upon the first of
1 This incident stands only in Luke and Mark, not in Matthew, who, according to
Volkmar (p. 537) passed it over because of its defective communistic sense. As if
he had not given the passage about alms, vi. 1, and that about the rich young man
and the poor, xxvi. 9. I decline to endorse the suspicion that this incident, unknown
to Matthew, is simply a fabrication of Luke's Ebionite source, though it certainly har
monizes with the spirit of that source (xi. 41, xii. 33, xvi. 1 sqq., xviii. 3, xix. 8) ;
but, in view of its relative simplicity, I accept the incident as genuine. I believe
that Matthew passed over the narrative, which was perhaps known to him, because
its effect would be lost, nay, it would form a disturbing element in the midst of
the tragical conflict and end (comp. Weisse, I. p. 588). On the other hand, Luke
and Mark, not regarding the situation, introduced this incident the more willingly
because they had immediately before, in the brief anti-Pharisaic address, exposed the
false piety of women. According to Mark's impossible account, the scene would have
tranquilly followed (xii. 41) the struggle with the Pharisees as the close of the ministry
at Jerusalem ; but Luke, xxi. 1 — 5, gives it more correctly in the form of an anecdote,
careless of the historical connection. The last three addresses in Mark are thu3 grouped
by Volkmar : (1) Ye hope erroneously, (2) Ye go about falsely, (3) Ye sacrifice falsely !
Did the Rabbis sacrifice ?
2 Matt, xxiii. 1.
o 2

196 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
the following days, Thursday the 12th of April1 Though this
seems to introduce a certain violent change in events and in the
attitude of Jesus, making him, in the midst of his standstill, in
the midst of the relaxation of hostilities, and directly after the
moderation which he himself had exhibited on the previous day,
blow the war trumpet loudly and defiantly, whilst he was at the
same time keeping fully in view the end of his ministry and his
departure, — though it appears, on this very account, that some
event or some decisive turning-point must lie between these two
situations, but which the sources have in an incomprehensible
way hidden and withheld from us, it is nevertheless not so. In
truth, the attitude of Jesus, his views in those four days from
the 8th of AprB to the 11th, had become sufficiently decided.2
One day after the other had witnessed the implacability of his
foes, the incubation of dark purposes in the temple cloisters,
though one day after the other had had to tell of the futility of
binding the new Samson. But the people, the impartial witnesses,
had come at least not much nearer to him.3 Whatever interest
might be felt in or respect paid to him, there was no revival of
enthusiasm and Messianic faith after the first essay had mis
carried. The zealot works and the disputations awoke respect
rather than love or even only appreciative recognition, and called
forth the application of the test of Prophethood much rather than
of that of Messiahship. In point of fact, a Messiah who fought
only with words, and who used only words to support his claims
against an old faith, was the opposite of that which the letter of
the prophets had spoken of and the people expected. Hence it
was natural enough that no one should resolutely espouse his
cause or resolutely break with the authority of the teachers of
the Law ; that many, without taking any notice of him, should
carry on their temple worship according to ancient custom, as
1 Matt. xxii. 46 favours the close of a day.
2 Renan (15th ed. p. 213) thinks that a week would be much too short for the last
ministry of Jesus at Jerusalem. See above, p. 113, n. 1.
3 This is recognized also by Ewald (p. 530) : the sympathy was, as his opponents
saw, at least not increasing. Reimarus, pp. 149 sqq. Geiger, p. 121.

THE LAST DISCLOSURES. 197
did those rich persons and that poor woman; and, again, that
many should now already have decided to support the existing
system, the venerable sages, and the sanctified ordinances, against
the reckless, unintelligible modern, whose aims they could not
definitely calculate upon1. Jesus' very last address to the people
which concerns us here, will produce just this impression. For
these reasons, however, Jesus could close as violently as in this
address we find he did. The close, which his opponents had not
yet made and still less the people, he was able to make without
violently hastening the catastrophe, since he already, with a
penetrating glance that looked through everything, watched the
approach of his catastrophe from night to morning and from
morning to night.2
Yet there Bes a complete net of difficulties over these last
sayings of Jesus, to which in John, as a far-off parallel, nothing
so nearly corresponds as the conflicts with the hierarchs after
the healing of the man born blind. But Luke and Mark give, at
this closing point, only a few smaB portions from Jesus' warnings
to the people about the Scribes.3 And even these cannot com
pare in antiquity, vigour, and fulness of meaning with the intro
duction to the address in Matthew, and they betray a later origin
not without dependence upon Matthew, to whom they point both
in their detailed arrangement and in their general character, since
the post of forlorn hope allotted to these few sentences is best
explained from the necessity of giving at least something like a
companion piece to the forcible address in Matthew.4 This little
1 I.e. a part of the subsequent blood-party, Matt, xxvii. 20, 25.
2 When Schleiermacher (p. 407) objects to the offensive action of Jesus, Matt, xxiii.,
he only shows that, in his preference for John, he quite overlooks the actual historical
tension of the situation. How much more correct is Weisse, I. p. 441.
3 Luke xx. 45 ; Mark xii. 38 ; according to Luke, addressed to the disciples in the
presence of all the people (formerly Tisch. read incorrectly, npbg aiiroiig, i.e. the Pha
risaic opponents) ; according to Mark, addressed to the people. Hase also admits
(p. 224) that Luke and Mark offer only a single representative passage, and Luke xi.
only fragments. The Johannine far-off parallels, John ix. 40 — x. 18.
4 Matt, xxiii. 5 — 7 has three members, each again of two parts : (1) phylacteries
and fringes ; (2) first place, first seat at feasts and in synagogues ; (3) greetings at

198 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
forlorn hope, however, which so greatly lacks the completeness
of what is in Matthew, is explained in a striking manner by
Luke's having already used up, at two points in GaBlee, the great
material of Matthew. In doing this he follows his peculiar
sources that were to some degree indifferent to the requirements
of date and locality. SimBarly Luke transposed to Galilee the
conversation at Jerusalem with the Scribe; and the GaBlean
utterances about the Pharisees harmonize marvellously weB with
the abbreviated saying at Jerusalem given by the same author.1
Here there is no doubt that these passages are by Luke quite
incorrectly transferred to Galilee, since the vehement woes against
Scribes and Pharisees, with the points of attacks upon which
they are based, are decidedly more appropriate to Jerusalem
than to Galilee; and the lament over Jerusalem, which Jesus
had vainly endeavoured to gather to himself, seems an utter
impossibility on the soil of Galilee.2 Notwithstanding this deci
sion in favour of the correctness of Matthew's localities, it would
market and being called Rabbi. On the other hand, Luke and Mark have five simple
members : (1) clothing, (2) greetings, (3) synagogues, (4) feasts, (5) (unrepresented in
Matthew, since it is not genuine there, the only valuable occurrence of it being in Luke
and Mark) creeping into widows' houses. The secondary character of this account in
general is shown (1) by the suppression of the antique phylacteries and fringes, for
which "state robes" are substituted; (2) the suppression of the being called Rabbi ;
(3) the suppression of the mental motive for the detailed acts (Matt, xxiii. 5) ; (4) addi
tion of the widows ; (5) re-arrangement of the original Nos. 1 and 3 in Matt, as 1 and 2,
No. 2 in Matt, as 3 and 4. Comp. Luke xi. 43. According to Holtzmann, Ev. p. 200
(comp. Schenkel, p. 250), Matthew has more completely utilized the sources.
1 Luke xi. 37, xiii. 34, a. 25. Strauss thought also of Luke xiv. 7 sq., but this
parable may be independent. The so-called Galilean utterance, xi. 43, is repeated in
Jerusalem, xx. 46. Comp. xi. 50 sq. (Matt, xxiii. 33) and xx. 47; Mark xii. 40.
Mark followed Luke the rather because he was glad to dispense with the Jewish sayings.
2 With respect to the controversial address in Matt, xxiii. (Luke xi.), not only
Schleiermacher (p. 407, Jesus was not able to irritate !), but also Weizs. (p. 456),
assume that Matt, has placed it too late, and Luke more correctly; Weizs. says it
belongs to the context of Matt. xv. On the other hand, Weisse (I. p. 441) recognizes
the perfect fitness of time of this enormous boldness of speech, and Schenkel (p. 250,
and Bib.-Lex. III. p. 293) the more correct position in Matt. How can any one
(Weizs.) say that the frightful vehemence of the address in Matt, xxiii. is in harmony
with the spirit of Matt, xv., and is in its place anywhere except at the threshold of the
catastrophe ? That the passage concerning Jerusalem (Luke xiii., Matt, xxiii. ) at any
rate fits in only at the close of the history of Jesus, is admitted almost without excep
tion (comp. Neander, p. 497).

THE LAST DISCLOSURES. 199
still be possible to find at least the contents of the Galilean "Woes"
of Luke more original than those of the "Woes" placed by Matthew
at Jerusalem.1 But in the main a very different result is here
capable of being established. For the formerly often lauded
introduction of these "Woes" in Luke by a midday meal in the
house of a Pharisee is altogether fictitious, since Jesus could not
in honour return hospitality by predicting woes ; and he could
not requite the censure for not washing his hands by the merely
apparently apposite proof of the worthlessness of the Pharisaic
cleansing of dishes, since Pharisaic invitations to table could no
longer be talked of at Jerusalem.2 But the division of the seven
"Woes" of Matthew into three — in reality four— pronounced
against the Pharisees, and three against the lawyers, belongs again
to that later inventiveness which similarly struck into two series
the "Blesseds" of the Sermon on the Mount, a series of "Blesseds"
and a series of " Woes." It is very easy to show that Pharisees
and lawyers could not be classified in this manner, notwith
standing the ingenuity of the classification ; and that the order
of sequence of Luke's " Woes" exhibits a constant reference to
Matthew.3 Finally, it is necessary only to detect the crude
1 Formerly Schleierm., Schulz, Schneck., Olsh., thus expressed themselves ; Neander,
Tholuk, Bleek, took a. middle position ; again, Holtzmann (p. 200) favours Luke ;
Schenkel (p. 250) finds Matt, too diffuse. According to Volkmar, of course Matt, must
be dependent upon Luke, and the latter upon Mark (vii. xii. ). Matt, is said to have
lent to Jesus the Rabbinic controversies of the second century. On the other hand,
Strauss, De Wette, Hase, Meyer, Hilgenfeld, have placed themselves on the side of
Matthew. Even Weizs. (p. 460) admits that Luke xi. gives merely an excerpt.
2 How much has the appropriateness of the occasion in Luke been lauded by Schleier.,
Neander, Olsh. , and others ; but how adroit it was of them to represent the no longer
" Attic" attacks of Jesus (Strauss) as possibly not taking place in the house ! The utter
inappropriateness and inexplicability from Matt. xv. 2 of this fictitious interpolation of
Luke (climax), have been particularly emphasized by Strauss (4th ed. I. p. 694) ; and
even Weizs. appears to be unwilling to defend this preface (p. 456).
3 Luke (xi. ) gives the following four antitheses, with three " Woes," against the
Pharisees: (1) cleanness of vessels (without "Woe"), (2) tithes, (3) vanity, (4) simi
larity to sepulchres. Then the three " Woes" against the lawyers : (5) vices, (6) sepul
chre building, (7) withholding of key of knowledge. Even without glancing at Matthew,
the violence used in constructing the two rubrics can be seen, rubrics which Luke him
self can never separate, v. 17, 30, x. 25, xx. 39 (comp. Bleek, II. p. 170). Nos. 5—7
have no special application to the lawyers, nor 2, 3, to the Pharisees ; and 1, 4, and 6,
are mutually inconsistent, while 7 is lame in every respect. Then when we look at

200 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
Ebionite principle in the treatment of the question of the purifi
cation of dishes— according to which the giving away the con
tents of the dishes as alms purifies the dishes, nay everything
Pharisaic— in order to recognize the later false reconstruction of
Matthew's speech of Jesus by the hand of that Ebionite Evan
gelist whom Luke is fond of following.1
At the same time, the long and important address to the people
in Matthew, although, according to Hilgenf eld's acknowledgment,
containing what is most genuine and most original, and by no
means obnoxious to Volkmar's arbitrary charge of consisting of
a Jewish disputation of the second century, is not altogether un
impeachable ; and here Luke can, in a subordinate degree, help
towards the discovery of the truth.2 This address, according to
Matthew directed to the people and to the disciples, really falls
into at least three distinct addresses — an address to the people,
another to the disciples, and a third to the Pharisees.3 For
Matthew we find there : (1) a much more organic order of sequence (see below, p. 209) ;
while, on the contrary, Luke, guided by his fictitious motive, has converted the fifth
" Woe" into No. 1, has then manipulated the " Woes," 4, 6, 7, and has ended with the
first ; he has, moreover, most unskilfully dragged in, from an altogether different series
of addresses (Luke xx. 46 ; Matt, xxiii. 4, 6), the "Woes" in xi. 43, 46, which are
altogether devoid of antithesis. (2) In Matthew there is much more originality of
detail than in Luke xi. 39 — 41 (vessels), xi. 42 (tithing), xi. 44 (sepulchres), xi. 47
(sepulchre building) ; see below. The separation of the two classes, Pharisees and men
of the Law (in Luke xi.) is derived simply from the Pharisees and Scribes, of Matt.
xxiii. 2 sqq., comp. xv. 1. In distinction from Matthew and Mark (ii. 16, yet comp.
vii. 1), Luke places the more general category (Matt. xxii. 35), Scribes, commonly as
here in the second rank, v. 17, 30; Acts v. 34. In Josephus, instead of ypaufxarlig,
generally stands i^nynrai vouov, Ant. 17, 6, 2; 17, 9, 3; 18, 3, 5; 20, 2, 4. Also
ao(piorai, 17, 6, 2; B.J. 1, 33, 2 ; 2, 1, 1 sqq. Juvenal, 6, 544: interpres legum
solymarum. 1 The passage against which the charge lies, Luke xi. 39 sqq., opp. Matt, xxiii. 25 sqq.
2 Hilg. Zeitschrift, 1868, p. 43. Volkmar, p. 535. The tithes, the sepulchres,
the temple gold, this pathos, this acuteness, this intellectual vigour, out of the second
century ! Even the brief anti-Pharisaic sayings in Luke and Mark are to Volkmar only
strokes of Mark's pencil. But Matthew, whose artistic disposal of his material even
Weizsacker (p. 459) praises, does not once exhibit to Volkmar a good arrangement.
3 Matt. : people and disciples ; Luke : xx. to the disciples before all the people,
xi. to the Pharisees ; Mark : to the people. Weiz. (p. 461) is inclined to think only of
the disciples, Hilg. (p. 43) of the multitudes that had accompanied Jesus from Galilee.
Weisse (II. p. 116) correctly distinguishes two addresses, one to the people and one to
the disciples.

THE LAST DISCLOSURES. 201
instance, Jesus could not possibly have introduced into the
midst of an address to the people admonitions to the disciples
concerning their one teacher Jesus, nay Christ, concerning their
heavenly Father, their brotherhood, their mutual helpfulness, —
subjects which he had elsewhere discussed in a narrower circle.1
Further, in an address to the people, he could not possibly have
launched his long-drawn "Woes" at the Pharisees, as if he were
speaking to them, — unless indeed we regard him as a rhetori
cian ; he could have stood forth with the " Ye," " Ye blind !" " Ye
hypocrites !" only if the Pharisees, and not merely the people,
were before him.2 Neither can the difficulty be explained by
supposing that Matthew forgot to mention the Pharisees. For the
address to the people assumes that the Pharisees were absent, or
at least that their presence was not obvious ; while, on the other
hand, the address to the Pharisees assumes that their position
was not in the background but in the foreground. Moreover, it
is altogether impossible that at one and the same moment Jesus
should have admonished the people to render some kind of obedi
ence to the occupants of the seat of Moses, to the Pharisees and
their teaching and commands, and yet have cast the Pharisees
down into the dust by a veritably annihilating hail of accusations
against both their living and their teaching ; or that he should
have given counsel to the people after the manner of a sympa
thetic, anxious, and in a certain sense trusted friend, and yet
should immediately afterwards have taken occasion from the
"Woes" pronounced against the Pharisees, to reject Jerusalem,
together with the Pharisees, as a contumacious and prophet-
murdering city.3 Thus we here see plainly that Matthew,
1 Matt, xxiii. 8 — 12, comp. also only xx. 26—28 ; further, the Sermon on the Mount
and the sending forth of the disciples.
2 It is remarkable that no offence has been taken at this. Yet Philippi's Commen
tary on the Epistle to the Romans discovers mere rhetorical figures in Rom. ii. 1, 17.
3 Weizsacker (p. 459) lays stress upon the former contradiction of annihilating con
flict and tolerant mildness. He holds the mildness to be a later softening qualification
introduced in the Jewish-Christian interest and based upon the earlier standpoint of
Jesus. Schenkel (p. 251) also finds that Jesus did not utter such sentences as Matt.
xxiii, 3, but that the author had inferred them from the closing words of verse 3. On

202 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
according to his wont, has brought together under the half-
correct heading "for people and disciples," things that are related
and that nevertheless do not belong to each other ; and the easy
transition from the delineation of the Babbins before the people
to the mention of the one Babbi before the disciples, thereby
becomes speciaBy instructive.1 But a trace of this original divi
sion of the material is to be found even in Luke, who has in par
ticular distinguished— although by no means sharply — between
the address to the people and that to the Pharisees. On the
other hand, Luke's separation of the lament over Jerusalem from
the "Woes" pronounced against the Pharisees is hardly to be
regarded as original, and a better place than this is certainly not
to be found for the lament.2 But the three addresses which are
thus to be divided — one to the people, one to the Pharisees, one
to the disciples — must be so arranged that the address to the
people comes first, the "Woes" addressed to the Pharisees next,
though very possibly spoken on the same clay, while the admoni
tion to the disciples is to be placed indefinitely in the last days
and in the midst of the addresses of farewell.3 Probably the
only spurious part of these addresses is the reference to the fate
of the righteous and of the apostles in the "Woes" pronounced
against the Pharisees, and the lament over Jerusalem has also
the other hand, Paulus, Exeget. Handb. III. i. p. 312, brings in the idea that Jesus only
permitted what was actually Mosaic. But before a critic adds to and cuts out, he
should be careful to discover whether Jesus could not thus speak, and whether in a
certain situation he did not very probably thus speak. Or is it seriously supposed that
such utterances can be better explained out of the apostolic age than out of that of
Jesus ? Comp. Gess, p. 293.
1 Make a division between Matt, xxiii. 2 — 7 and 8 — 12.
2 Luke xi. : to Pharisees ; Luke xx. : to disciples and people. Sharp distinction want
ing, comp. Luke xi. 43 and xx. 46, Luke xi. 46 and Matt, xxiii. 4. The lament over
Jerusalem, Luke xiii. 34, unskilfully separated from xi. 51, and placed at xiii. 34 in
combination with the prediction of Jesus' own death, uttered as a message to Herod,
xiii. 31 sqq.
3 This is also the order in Matt, xxiii. 1 and 13. Moreover, it is psychologically
more probable that Jesus should pass from the relative toleration of the Scribes in the
address to the people, to the violent attack upon the Pharisees, than that he should
take the opposite course. See below. The admonition to the disciples, Matt, xxiii.
8 — 12, may belong to the last quiet hours with the disciples, comp. Luke xxii. 24.

THE LAST DISCLOSURES. 203
its doubters, although both utterances possess the testimony of
two Evangelists.1
If we place Jesus' last address to the people quite by itself on
the morning of Thursday, April the 12th, it is not then in the
strictest sense a farewell address, but one of general instruction
concerning the Law, ordinances, and Pharisaism. But though the
form of farewell is wanting, the unreserved explanation of the
character of Pharisaism, the remarkable summons to obey the
prescriptions of the teachers of the Law, the expression of sym
pathy with the poor people groaning under the loads which their
unmerciful teachers had imposed upon them, — aB this is such a
wonderful mixture of opposition and resignation and sorrowful
state of mind, that the discourse of Jesus — rightly pushed for
ward by the narrator to this closing point — produces the over
powering impression of a last disclosure, of the last and most
necessary and most useful hints and rules, of the testament of
one who is about to depart, who has loved and cannot cease
to love his nation, even though he has been disappointed by it.
His instruction given to the people concerning the Pharisees has
great similarity to the earlier instructions given to the disciples,
and at last to the people, concerning the yoke of the Pharisees,
their human commands without number, their neglect of the
divine Law in teaching and still more in action, their vanity,
their ambition, their hypocritical system. But very remarkable
is the difference that he enjoins the people at Jerusalem to obey
the teachers of the Law, whose ordinances he in Galilee rejected
and committed to the judgment of God. Must we here charge
him with a declension from himself, perhaps indeed with pusil
lanimity in the face of the piety that was so firmly and securely
established at Jerusalem, or with an attempt to free himself from
the enormous difficulties by which he saw himself encircled?
This does not, in truth, require discussing,— a decisive testimony
against it is found in the independent openness and reckless
daring which now play about his Bps. Candour and compliance
1 See below.

204 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
in one — they show a new, deliberate, self-conscious system, a
most sagacious connection of principle with the requirements of
the situation, with the commandment of the moment. "While
perceiving that he could not tear from the people their faith in
the teachers who were highly esteemed throughout the land, and
that it was not given to him, even with the best will of the
people, in this span of time, with convincing, enlightening force
to establish a distinction between the Law and the ordinances,
and the worthlessness, nay the absurdity of the latter, he, like a
physician who saves what remains salvable, laid hold of the
resource of commending to the people the Law-teaching of the
Pharisees, if the Law be only actually observed in a pious, self-
sacrificing spirit, and not merely confessed in words or with
sham deeds.1 This expedient rested in part upon the fact that
the Law and the ordinances were bound together by a hundred
links. It also in part rested upon the double perception, first
that the unripe nation, in its inability to separate the two, must
either lose both, the ordinances together with the holy Law of
God, or retain both, with the Law the ordinances ; and second,
that the observance of the Pharisaic ordinances would do but
little harm, if at the same time the Law were also in some sort
observed — nay, that here and there the observance of the ordi
nances might carry with it a religious blessing, just as would the
observance of the Bttle things of the Law itself, if those little
things were but observed and performed in humility and self-
abnegation, and in combination with the great commandments of
love to God and love to one's neighbour.2 In having recourse to
this grand expedient, which brought together principles and
actual circumstances by stripping the principles of a too rigid
obstinacy, Jesus must naturally have put out of view aB the
abuses, evasions, and morbid exaggerations of the Law by the
ordinances, which he had always condemned, to which he could
1 Respect for the Scribes, see above, I. pp. 332 sqq., 344, 364 sq. On this passage,
«omp. Paulus, quoted above, p. 201, n. 3.
2 Matt, xxiii. 23, v. 18 sqq., xxii. 36—40.

THE LAST DISCLOSURES. 205
never ascribe the character of pious actions. But what he in his
broad formula sorrowfuBy relinquished, he expected to make
good and to restore by leading on and stimulating the people to
a general fidelity to the Law and to a general observance of it.
At most he was thinking merely of a transient interim. As
certainly as he believed that he would again appear before his
nation as the Messiah of God after a brief period of dishonour
and rejection, so certainly was he assured that the time was then
dawning in which God would destroy not only his foes but also
their teaching, the cruel burden of the people, would root out
human doctrine, and would afresh establish his pure Law as his
own eternal ordinance.1
Hence in this light the last doctrinal monitions of Jesus,
addressed not to the disciples, whom he would not again deliver
over to the Pharisees, but solely to the people, are both intelligible
and, on account of their sympathetic tone towards the people- — ¦
who were shepherdless and, whether disobedient or obedient
to their teachers, unfortunate — truly and powerfully affecting.
Upon the seat of Moses, he said, the Scribes and the Pharisees
had placed themselves.2 By these opening words he pronounced
them to be not caBed of God, but violent intruders into the office
of legislating for, teaching, and guiding the nation. As he pro
ceeded, however, he admitted — quite in the spirit of his Jewish
belief in Providence — that they could nevertheless rule and com
mand by the permission and the forbearance of God, as long as it
was pleasing to God. " Everything, therefore," thus he continued
1 Matt. xv. 13, xxi. 33 sqq. Gess (p. 293) correctly : provisional bond.
2 Matt, xxiii. 2 : al-kisse Mosheh jashebu. Seat, judgment-seat, kisse, Talm. also
katedra, also masc. katedrin, Buxt. p. 2164. Seph. Hakkab. f. 61 sedit in cathedra
ejus (successor fuit). Golden seats'of the Jewish council at Alexandria, Bab. Succ.
f. 51, 2. Authority of the Jerusalem Sanhedrim, Maim. Mamr. 1 : fundamentum
legis traditionalis et columna doctrine. Quia Mosi, magistro no. ejusque legi credit,
illis inniti tenetur de rebus legis. Lightfoot, p. 356. Comp. the preference of the
teachers to the Law, above, I. p. 335. In UaBusav, Paulus, Meyer and Bleek (but
not De Wette, Hilg. ) found violent intrusion expressed ; at least the Greek word, with
what follows, implies it ; comp. also Matt. xv. 13. Yet see also xxi. 33. Galat. (ap.
Lightf. p. 356) thought the aorist pointed to the antiquated character of their position
(as Luke xix. 46). The words of Jesus are quoted, Clem. Horn. 3, 18.

206 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
in this train of thought, " whatsoever they say unto you, do and
observe, but do not according to their works, for they say and do
not."1 It is evident that he had pretty much the same views of
the rule of the Eomans as of that of the Pharisees : both were, as
facts showed, divinely permitted, divine dispensations though
only dispensations of discipline, divinely commanded though
only for a time.2 "For they bind" — thus did he strengthen his
description of their unconscientiousness, they showing themselves
to be harsh, heartless tyrants, caring only for their own comfort
— " they bind heavy burdens and lay them upon the shoulders
of men ; but they themselves will not lift a finger to put them
in motion."3 Next comes the disclosure of the real value
of their merely apparent, eye-serving piety in the matter of
clothing, in attending the synagogues, and in zeal in praying:
it is all vanity, ambition, covetous self-seeking. " But they do
all their works to be seen of men.4 They make broad their phy
lacteries and enlarge the tassels of their garments.5 They love
the first cushions at feasts and the first seats in the synagogues,
and greetings in the markets, and to be called by men, Babbi !6
1 Targ. Hier. on Numb, xxiii. 19 : hom. dicunt, sed non faciunt. Chag. f. 15, 2 :
memineris doctrine ejus et not memineris operuin ejus, Schott. p. 192 ; Wetst. p. 480.
2 Matt. xxii. 21. Also xxi. 33 ; see above, p. 141.
3 Matt. xi. 28; comp. Isaiah xlvi. 1. It is otherwise said by R. Judas, Berach.
f. 22, 1: etsi aliis levia imponam, mihi gravia impono. Finger, Abot Nat. 2: non
tetigit me ne quidem digito suo minimo. Also classic, unS' a/coco r. SaKr., digito, extr.
digitis. Wetst. p. 480.
4 Comp. Matt. vi. 1 sqq. ; above, III. p. 331. ' Av9piawdptaKm, Ps. Sal. 4, 8, 10.
5 Here the Hellenizing of the text in Luke and Mark : iv tsroXalg. The phylacteries,
the tephillin, above, III. p. 343. Jos. Ant. 4, 8, 13, favours the literal conception of
Ex. xiii. 9, Deut. vi. 8. Phyl. capiti, brachio (left arm) affixa. Great superstition
these phylacteries ( = amulets, comp. Bleek, II. p. 343; Hausrath, p. 418) put demons
to flight, are substitutes for the study of the Law, Wave great promises. Observate prac
meum de Teph. ego vero id ita vobis imputabo, ac si dies noctesque in lege mea suda
veritis. Buxt. p. 1743. Lightfoot, pp. 272, 330, 356 sq., 517. Schott. p. 192,
Wetst. p. 481. The tassels, zizit, above, III. p. 343. Weighty, Lightfoot, p. 357
See above, p. 179, n. 1.
0 Sedere loco prseeipuo, beresha (rosh), Wetst. p. 481. Comp. Luke xiv. 7. Rabbi
on the mistaken objection of Gratz (IV. pp. 74 sqq.), Volkmar (pp. 86, 457), Strauss
(New Life, Eng. trans., I. p. 382), see above, III. p. 15. Was it not already said in
the Old Testament, abi, abi (2 Kings ii. 12), for which the Targ. rabbi, rabbi (Wichelh.

THE LAST DISCLOSURES. 207
They devour widows' houses, and that under pretence of long
prayers. These shall receive greater condemnation I"1
A remarkable contradiction runs through this address. The
address both takes away from and gives to the Pharisees a divine
right ; more than that, it foBows up the admonition to subjection
with violent and bitter renunciations, in fact with a series of
repudiations and of instigations to repudiate, that in reaBty over-
weighs the exhortations to obedience.2 It was the contradiction
in the circumstances, the perception of the inherent wrongness
of the system and of the necessity of its maintenance, that gave
rise to the contradiction in the address and its sentiments. He
wished to uphold, and yet he was obliged to judge and condemn ;
he was compelled to destroy, almost against his will, and more
than he wished. There is no doubt, however, as to the justice of
the brief and vigorous description, for we cannot haggle over
the matter and say, " They were not all thus." The mass of them
were exactly thus ; and the system, the spirit of holiness by
p. 229), and in the year A.D. 38, mari, marin (also obscurely, mori from mar, mare,
not moreh, Buxt. p. 1246), see Bib.-Lex. III. p. 52 ! Then the old saying of Shemaia :
hate the Rabbinate, Pirke Abot, I. 10. Schott. p. 197. Customary diplasiasm, rabbi,
rabbi, Lightfoot, pp. 357 sq. Wetst. p. 481. Exaggerated estimate of the title : a
Rabbi more than a king, Lightfoot, p. 358. Of Johanan ben Sacchai it is reported that
in the market he first greeted every one, Wetst. p. 481.
1 This single passage, the only overflow from Luke and Mark, I accept uncondition
ally as genuine. Type, Ezekiel xxii. 25. Devout women, Jos. Ant. 17, 2, 4 ; 18, 3, 5 ;
20, 2, 3 ; B.J. 2, 20, 2. Above, I. p. 344. The wife of Pheroras, brother of Herod
the Great, paid all fines for the Pharisees, above, I. p. 252. Comp. also Ps. Sal. 4,
4 sqq. Later Christian teachers were charged with seeking specially to influence women,
Celsus, 3, 55 sqq. Also the Talmud speaks of manifold plundering of widows. Sot.
Hier. f. 20, 1 : inter plagas, qua? a Pharisseis proveniunt, etiam hase est : est qui con-
sultat cum orphanis, ut alimenta viduse eripiat. Of such a widow it was said : plaga
Pharis. tetigit illam. Schottgen, p. 199. Covetousness of the Pharisees, Luke xvi. 14.
The pretensions, Lightfoot, p. 358. Long prayers, comp. Matt. vi. 2. Lightfoot,
p. 358. Schottgen, p. 200. In particular it was advised to protract without end the
Dalet in Echad (the one God, in the prayer Shema), and for it was promised the
seventh heaven. Fortunately the more reasonable did not become extinct, who said :
preces justorum breves sint !
2 The exhortation to obedience, the approbation of the Pharisaic teaching by Jesus
appears (see above, p. 201, n. 3) to Schenkel (p. 251) and to Weizs. (p. 459) not genuine,
but marked by a Jewish-Christian colouring.

208 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
works, led in that direction.1 On the other hand, again, there
can be no doubt that Jesus did not serve the people with this
duality of representations. The fundamental thought was good
and ingenious and wise ; but, by not restraining the strong indig
nation of which he was the subject in view of all this abnormal
piety and of the cruel frustration of his ministry as Saviour, he
failed in this way to estabBsh that middle position which he
wished to establish ; he simply destroyed to some both Law and
ordinances, whilst he drove the others over to the side of the
opponents against whom he inveighed.
Thus far, certainly, this last address to the people stands very
closely related to the last address to the Pharisees ; and this
supplies an explanation of the fact that Matthew has brought
the whole together into one context. We are, however, com
pelled, for the reasons given above, to make a division. It is also
evident that, in the last address to his opponents, Jesus went
still further than in his address to the people ; without reserve
he pronounced a distinct " Woe," and that against the doctrine
which he had in the other address forbearingly upheld. Though
we have no means of deciding whether Jesus uttered this "Woe"
against the Pharisees on the same or on one of the foBowing
days, it is credible that, at once letting loose all the anger of
his inner opposition and of his indignation against the frustraters
of his Messiahship, and perhaps further irritated by the Phari
sees' contradiction of his address to the people, he proceeded on
the same day to his final deliverance, to his final breach with the
Pharisees, the witnesses of which the people themselves must
necessarily be.2
The preaching of " Woe" against the Pharisees and Scribes —
1 The idea of painted Pharisees (colorati, fucati) already expressed by king Jannsus
above, I. p. 344. Lightfoot, p. 360. Schottgen, p. 199. Also Pa. Sal. 4, 7 : oi iv
i-n-OKpioa Zcuvreg. Asmmpt. Moys. 7, 4 : ficti in omnibus. Then comp. the descrip
tive sentence in Midr. Esth. 1, f. 101, 4 : decern portiones hypocriseos sunt in mundo :
novem Hierosolymis, decima vero in toto terrarum orbe. Schottgen, p. 198.
2 Above, pp. 195, 202. Comp. Luke xi. 53 sq. We see the people, Matt xxiii
1, 37.

THE LAST DISCLOSURES. 209
which has as little to do with the curses that close the five books
of Moses and at the same time the ministry of Moses, as it has
with the "Woes" of the Eevelation of John, but evidently refers
back to the cries of the ancient prophets, particularly of Isaiah
— is a comprehensive summary of the whole of Jesus' opposition
to the Pharisees from the Galilean days.1 It is true it does not
by far comprise everything which he had said in Galilee to the
disciples, the people, and the Pharisees themselves ; but it makes
a selection of what is characteristic, it adds fresh points of attack
which Jerusalem might offer, summarizes the general attitude of
the opponents to the Old Testament and to the kingdom of God,
and develops itself in a model order of battle. In the seven
" Woes," the first place is given to the judgment against the foes of
the kingdom of God, whose proselyting zeal for their lost cause
stands in sharp contrast to the hindrances to the progress of the
kingdom of heaven. The third and fourth "Woes" denounce
their false teaching of the Law ; the fifth and sixth, the slovenly
efforts after purity by the " pure ;" the seventh definitively
reverts to the attitude of the Pharisees towards the prophets — the
announcers and forerunners of Jesus — whose graves they build,
and in doing so prove themselves to be the sons of those that
murdered the prophets. The language is poured forth in a
foaming torrent, sharp and clear but also excited and passionate,
bitter, ironical, at the same time sorrowful and sympathetic. It
is a genuine creation of Jesus and is original, notwithstanding
its remarkable resemblance in matter to the Psalms of Solomon
and the Ascension of Moses. It is certainly not, as some would
persuade us, the creation of a Babbi of the second century; but it
1 The Ebal curses, Deut. xxvii. 13 sqq. (altogether only conditional). The three
"Woes" of the Apocalypse, viii. 13 sqq. (of a physico-cosmical kind). On the other
hand, see Isaiah v. 8 (in the chapter about the vineyard), the six "Woes;" x. 1 a
"Woe" against the Sopherim with their unjust statutes. Also Hab. ii. 6 sqq. has
five " Woes." Thirty " Woes" in Book of Enoch 94—100.
''• How weak and arbitrary are, on the other hand, the six or seven " Woes" in Luke :
(1) cleanness of vessels, (2) tithes, (3) vanity, (4) concealed sepulchres, (5) burdens of
the people, (6) sepulchre building, (7) key. See above, p. 199, u. 3. The "pure,"
above, I. p. 341.
VOL. V. P

210 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
is the fruit of the one great moment into which was compressed
aB the noble— though by Celsus and Beimarus depreciated-
anger of the sublime man who felt the presentiment that he
should faB a sacrifice to the powers of darkness from which he,
with the fulness of superior strength and love, longed to deliver
his unhappy people.1
"Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees" — thus began he with
a two-fold " Woe" — " ye hypocrites, because ye shut the kingdom
of heaven against men; for ye neither enter in, nor let those
that are entering go in !2 Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites, because ye compass sea and land to make one prose
lyte, and when he is made, ye make him two-fold more a son of
hell than yourselves !"3 In a crushing manner, this commence
ment showed the contrast between the icy coldness towards the
question of the age and of the day, namely, towards the growth of
1 Comp. Ps. Sal. 4, 3 sqq., the remarkable resemblance : irowCXiai duapnuiv, iv
aKpaaiaig, ol b<p9dXuoi ini ndoav yvvdiKa, iv vnoKpiuei %u>vreg, dv9ptinrdp€aKOL.
Assumpt. Mays. 7, 4 sqq. ; pestilentiosi et impii, dicentesse esse justos; sibi placentes,
ficti in omnibus suis et omni hora diei amantes convivia, devoratores gulas, [paupe]-
rum bonorum comestores, dicentes, se haw facere propter misericordiam eorum, &c.
Hitzig (Geschichte Isr. p. 502) has pointed out the similarity of the Ps. Sal. The
scolding of Jesus was censured by Celsus (2, 76) as ungodlike, nay, as humanly irra
tional : dneiXd Kai XoiSopd KoiiQiog, bnorav Xsyy. ovai vulv, &c. Similarly Reimarus,
pp. 144 sqq.
2 Matt, xxiii. 13. Comp. the keys, xvi. 19. The construction in Luke (seventh
"Woe," xi. 52) : Ye have taken away the key of knowledge (daat, Hos. iv. 6 ; patach
of the exposition of the Scriptures, and of the key mapteach, Luke xxiv. 32; Light
foot, p. 531 ; therefore clavis and accipere clavem a symbol of the teachers of the Law,
Schottgen, pp. 199, 209), is fine : one cannot go into the house of the kingdom, not
only because it is violently closed (Matt.), but also because it is hidden from know
ledge, kept back, displaced. And that withdrawal of the knowledge was the chief
sin of the hierarchy ; on the other hand, they had not violently forbidden admission.
Yet it is easily seen that the withholding action of the Scribes could be spoken of as
Matthew speaks; further, that in Luke the artificially introduced voulko'i must be
described as men of knowledge in contrast to the drastic Pharisees, and that the aorist
of Luke in a suspicious manner (like xix. 46) shows his late date. Comp. Clem. Horn.
3, 18, where Matthew and Luke are joined together and the words of Jesus thus given :
Kparovm piv rr/v kXuv, roig Si SovX. d<riX9dv ov napixovau Also xviii. 15 sq.
3 Proselyting zeal of the Jews, above, I. p. 305 ; but also arrogance, so that the
proselytes were often called the scabies Israelis. Lightfoot, p. 358. Schottgen, p. 202.
Gehennse filii or hseredes, often by the Rabbis. Wetst. p. 485. With the duae gehennse
Jom. 72, 2, the expression iSwrX. has nothing to do.

THE LAST DISCLOSURES. 211
the kingdom of heaven, and the feverish zeal to gain proselytes to
the dead ordinances : an antithesis the more striking because in
the one case thousands of men longing to enter in, nay the whole
nation, came under consideration, while in the other only the
miserable capture of one Gentile soul, and because in the one
case the kingdom of heaven was in prospect, while in the other
there was in truth nothing but heB and double hell for the still
more ordinance-blinded pupil.1
But why has he only hell to offer them ? He shows it in
the four violent attacks upon the system itself, upon its legal
dicta, upon its requirements as to purification. " Woe unto
you, blind guides, who say, Whosoever swears by the temple
house, it is nothing ; but whosoever swears by the gold of the
temple, he is bound."2 These miserable depreciations and invali
dations of oaths— such as Jesus had long before in another way
censured — according to which only oaths and vows by what was
materiaBy most costly in the temple by its golden overlay that
ran over the marble and glittered like the sun, by the golden
vessels, gates, doors, and decorations, or indeed by the millions
of the temple treasure, were to be held as binding — these were
matters of fact, and afforded a self-speaking monument of the
frivolity, the low range of thought, the outspoken mercenary
spirit, of these watchmen of Zion.3 Therefore he went on, com
passionating, confuting, enlarging: "Fools and blind, which is
greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold ? And
again ye say, Whosoever swears by the altar, it is nothing ; but
whosoever swears by the sacrificial gift that lies upon it, he is
1 Comp. only Tac. Hist. 5, 5 : pessimus quisque spretis relig. patriis tributa illuc
gerebant. Transgressi in mores eorum idem usurpant, nee quidq. prius imbuuntur,
quam contemnere Deos, &c. Juvenal, 14, 101. Or comp. the Jewish-Christian prose
lytes in the Epistle to the Galatians or in that to the Corinthians, who outdid the zeal
of the teachers (Rom. ii. 19), Gal. iv. 9, 21 ; 2 Cor. xi. 20.
2 Matt, xxiii. 16. Leaders of the blind, xv. 14; Rom. ii. 19. Pedagogues, 1 Cor.
iv. 15. Blind, Tanch. f. 71, 4 : melius esset, impios esse ccecos. Schott. p. 151.
3 Above, III. pp. 311 sq. On the golden adornments of the temple, Jos. B. J.
5, 5; 3 — 6 ; 6, 8, 3. Altare sanctificat, vasa sacra sanctificant. Schottgen, p. 202.
Wetst. p. 485. Avarice, Luke xvi. 14, xx. 47.
P 2

212 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
bound.1 Ye blind, which is greater, the gift or the altar that
sanctifies the gift ? Whosoever, therefore"— thus, with sound,
faultless, and acute logic, he draws his inference— " whosoever
swears by the altar, swears by it and by all that is upon it.
And whosoever swears by the temple, swears by it and by
Him that dwells therein. And whosoever swears by heaven" —
another carelessly permitted form of protestation — " swears by
the throne of God and by Him that sits thereon."2 Thus, in
this first question concerning the Law, he censures the frivolous
obscuration, weakening, disintegration of the clear language of the
Law. In that which now follows, he denounces the rebellious
obliteration of what was weightiest in the Law, the unblushing
sacrifice of the moral in favour of the material and external,
practised with a dilettant extravagance. " Woe to you, Scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites, because ye tithe mint and anise and
cummin, and have let go the weightier matters of the Law, jus
tice and mercy and fidelity. The latter ought to be done, and
the former not left undone. Blind guides, ye strain out the gnat
but swallow the camel."3 In fact, a more contemptible, a more
1 Adjurare per cornua altaris interioris (altar of incense), Wetst. p. 485. Jesus
means the altar of burnt sacrifice in the court of the priests. Fools, comp. 1 Cor.
xv. 36, and above, p. 172, n. 2.
2 The meaning of Matt. v. 34 (above, III. p. 311) is here still plainer.
3 Matt, xxiii. 23 sq. ; Luke xi. 42. Here, again, the preference is plainly due to
Matthew. Luke gives, (1) in addition to mint, the also sweet-smelling but bitter-
tasting rue (also in Varro, Ling. Lat. 5, 103, along with menta; Pliny, 19, 37, along
with anethum), and (generally) every garden produce ; (2) passes over rd fSapvr.
vouov, and comprises that in Kpioig and dydnn 0eoi>, passes over therefore the — ¦
certainly more difficult to understand — -rriarig, and changes tXtog towards men into
dydirn, nay, distorts it into d. 9tov ; (3) leaves out entirely the straining out a gnat.
The commands to pay tithes (only in general of the principal produce), Levit. xxvii. 30 ;
Numb, xviii. 21 ; Deut. xii. 6, xiv. 22. In xiv. 22, SEKarn navrbg yevvijp.. r. a-jrip-
parog, but verse 23 limits it to corn, must, and oil. Thus still in the restoration period,
Neh. x. 39, xiii. 5, 12. Express mention in the Bab. Talmud, B. Jam. f. 83, 2 :
decimatio olerura est a Rabbinis. 'KSvogu. (sweet-smell) = mentha (Talm. minta);
anethum = dill, anise, cuminum, cumin. The trivial rules of the Rabbis (Luke xviii. 12
shows their conceit as to actual observance), particularly concerning anise, cumin, but
also all other garden produce, Lightfoot, p. 359 ; Schottgen, p. 203. Luke has rue (ruta,
according to Pliny, Hist. Nat. 19, 45, .much planted, particularly among fig-trees),
because this very plant was declared free of tax. M. Sheb. 9, 1. The weightier
matters, see on Matt. v. above, III. pp. 299 sq., and on Matt. xxii. above, p. 177.

THE LAST DISCLOSURES. 213
ludicrous antithesis could not be exhibited than this paltry legal
punctiliousness that observed the smallest ceremonial detail, in
contrast to the broad lack of conscientiousness in life. Those
whom Jesus condemned not only taught — charging the disobe
dient with deadly sin — but also practised that punctiliousness,
even to the tithing of the smaBest and most unimportant fruits
of the earth (even rue), for the benefit of the temple, whilst the
Law itself mentioned only the more important produce, corn, oil,
and must or fruits ; they, again, in the direction of morals, sinned
most grossly against the commands of love, nay even against
those of righteousness and truth and faith.1
This picture from life, the gnat and the camel, a sign of their
fondness for trivialities in general, and at the same time an
apposite portrayal of the fastidiousness at table that would be
offended at the presence of a gnat, — this picture led Jesus on to
refer to their purifications, the renowned climax of that obser
vance of the Law which gained for them the admiration of the
people, and which was yet so terribly unrighteous.2 " Woe unto
you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, that ye make clean the
outside of the cup and of the dish, but within ye are full of
robbery and excess. Blind Pharisees, cleanse first the inside of
the cup, thereby its outside will be clean also." In view of the
outward washing of household vessels so persistently carried on
with the most passionate and the holiest zeal, he here pointed
Judicium et eleemos. non fecit, Wetst. p. 486. Jesus meant rules of love of one's
neighbour (his principle, Matt. ix. 13) ; Luke, of love of God. Straining out the gnat,
here figurative, was seriously practised by the careful Jews. Buxt. p. 516. Figurative
also by the Rabbis. Gift. f. 90, 1 : quemadm. varii sunt hom. mores circa ea, quae
deglutiunt, ita etiam circa uxores. Est qui ubi musca in poc. s. inciderit, earn tamen
effundit nee ebibit (alius deglutit). Foolish exposition in Nizzach. vet. 248 : Jesus
here called himself camel. The muscas, i.e. the prophets, they accept; camelum
deglutilis h. c. necem mihi machinamini. Schottgen, p. 204.
1 Comp. Sanh. f. 83, 1 : qui comedit non decimata, reus est mortis. Lightfoot,
p. 553. See also Schottgen, p. 26. On the tithing of many articles there was a dif
ference of opinion, e.g. in the case of anise, was tithe to be taken of only the flower, or
also of the seed and the plant ? Wetst. p. 486. Comp. rue, in the previous note. A
saying in the Pirke Abot, 1, 16, under the name of Gamaliel I., gives the caution :
tithe not according to conjecture too much !
2 Above, I. pp. 304, 341 ; IV. p. 20.

214 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
with telling and unpitying appositeness to the inner spiritual
cleansing of the wine cups and meat dishes filled with trespasses
against justice and truth and love, and with abuse of the pious
fancies of laymen and widows, the cups and dishes emptied
at private and public feasts with greedy eagerness — as the
" Ascension of Moses," as late as the second century, complains
— and the cleanness of which seemed to him restored by righteous
acquisition and spotless intention, without any polishing and
furbishing.1 And from their dishes he turned, in the sixth
" Woe," to the men themselves, the likenesses of their bright
vessels, but also the copy of a new picture which the Eastertide
just then presented to him. In the month before the Easter
month, at the end of the rainy season, about the loth of Adar,
the sepulchres at Jerusalem were carefully whitewashed. This
was done not so much — as many of the people and Jesus himself
might have thought — that at Easter Jerusalem might be, even
to the very graves, the adorned daughter, as that the unclean
places, contact with which would render men obnoxious to
ceremonial penalty, might be made warningly conspicuous.2
This custom had struck Jesus, and at once his mental eye saw
in the graves which made themselves conspicuous by their white
ness, his mortal foes, the clean, the Pharisees. " Woe to you" —
thus, therefore, he continued his address — "Scribes and Pharisees,
1 Comp. the variation in Luke xi. 39—41. In particular, verse 40 exhibits a gene
ral idea (comp. Matt. xv. 18) which is not at all apposite; while verse 41 gives the
Ebionite opinion, as if with the giving away of the contents of the dishes the unclean-
ness of the contents would be removed. For the exegesis that makes the inside repre
sent the soul of man (the Fathers, and even Neander) is incorrect. Also Bleek, II.
p. 166, for Matthew. The zeal of the Jews for purifying, Mark vii. 1 sqq.; comp.
the trivial considerations of the Rabbis whether a vessel is wholly or partially unclean
if it is spotted on the outside or the inside. Schottgen, p. 204. Wetst. p. 488. Ps.
Salom. 4, 3 : iv noimXia djiapriuiv k. Iv aKpaalaig. Ass. Moys. 7, 4 : amantes con-
vivia, &c.
2 Shekal. c. 1, h. 1 : 15. mens. Adar emendant vias et plateas etc. et pingunt sepulcra.
They were washed over their whole superficies (like the stones of the altar of burnt
sacrifice at Easter and the Feast of Tabernacles) with lime and water, after the rain
had washed off the former coating. It is expressly said : ut locus immundus dignos-
ceretur, particularly by the priests ! Calce alba instar ossinm ! Lightfoot, pp. 356,
359 sq. Schottgen, p. 206. Similar figure in Ezekiel xxii. 28, xiii. 10.

THE LAST DISCLOSURES. 215
hypocrites, because ye are like whited sepulchres that outwardly
appear charming, but within swarm with dead bones and aB
uncleanness. So ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men,
but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity I"1
A fine association of ideas led him at last to the seventh, the
closing "Woe." Among the sepulchres, which, in consequence
of the genuinely Israelitish belief that the dead in death, and stiB
more after the resurrection, continued to dwell upon the earth,
were very carefully built, and which even now surround Jeru
salem, particularly on the south and east, he saw also the graves
of the prophets, at the present day shown to the east of Kidron
on the Mount of Olives.2 Israel and its Scribes built to the
prophets stately sepulchral chambers, mausoleums, cenotaphs,
pyramids, and columns. They thus proclaimed the exact service
they performed, the sepulture of the prophets and of the king
dom of God. " Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
that ye build the graves of the prophets and adorn the monu
ments of the righteous, and say, Had we been in the days of our
fathers, we should not have been partakers with them in the
blood of the prophets.3 Therefore" — thus spoke he, with a
startling and bold transition which obliterated the subtle and in
reality false self-distinction of the sons from their fathers, and
extorted from the exculpation itself, and from the reparation for
crime, a guilty confession of fellowship in crime — " therefore ye
1 Matt, xxiii. 27. More briefly, Luke xi. 44. But the chief idea — that the Phari
sees appear adorned — is unskilfully altogether omitted here ; one only does not see
that there are graves there, but the pv. dSnXa do not look strikingly attractive. " Ye
appear," that is the colorati, picti, Lightfoot, p. 360. Schottgen, p. 199. Ficti in
omnibus suis, Ass. Moys. 7, 4.
2 Comp. Robinson's Palestine. Hausrath (p. 438) remarks that the most southerly
monument is now called that of Zechariah. The high-priests, also Scribes, had their
venerated sepulchres in Jerusalem, later in Galilee, e. g. that of Annas, B. J. 5, 12, 2 ;
comp. the grave of David, Ant. 7, 15, 3; of Herod, 17, 8, 3; of Helena (pyramids),
20, 4, 3 ; the splendid grave which Philip the tetrarch had built in his life-time, 18, 4, 6.
The pillars which were sometimes set up were descriptively called naphshot, souls.
Interesting contradiction, Gem. Hier. Shek. (c. 2, h. 5) f. 47, 1 : non exstruunt pvnp.ua
(naphshot) justorum, nam dicta eorum sunt memoria eorum. Lightfoot, p. 360.
3 R. Akiba : si nos fuissemus in synedrio, non esset unquam quisq. interfectus.
Mace. u. 1, h. 17; Lightfoot, p. 370.

216 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
bear witness to yourselves that ye are the sons of the murderers
of the prophets.1 And ye ! fill ye up the measure of your fathers !
Serpents, brood of vipers, how would ye flee from the condemna
tion of hell?"2 He concluded by a transition from holy anger
to the profoundest sadness. In the fate of the prophets he had
beheld his own fate, in the sepulchres of the prophets his own
sepulchre. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem" — into this solemn prophetic
lamentation he compressed his acute pain on account of the
futility of his career from Galilee even to the holy city, a futility
due to the religious rulers of Jerusalem — " Jerusalem, that kiBs
the prophets and stones them that are sent to it, how often
would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathers
her young under her wings, and ye would not. Behold, your
house " — according to Isaiah, the unforsaken house — " is for
saken to your loss ; for I say unto you, ye shaB not see me
henceforth until ye shall say, Praised be he that comes in the
name of the Lord !"3
It has been mentioned that the address in Matthew is some-
1 Here also Luke xi. 47 (against Matt, xxiii. 29) has leapt over the chief point of
the application. The paradox of the identification of the sons as witnesses with their
fathers is possible only by virtue of the self-exculpation of the sons (Matthew), not of
the mere sequence of murder by the fathers and of grave-building by the sons (Luke).
Proverb, Ezekiel xvi. 44 : as the mother, so the daughter.
2 Only in Matt, xxiii. 32. Implere mensuram and judicium gehennas also in the
Rabbis. Wetst, p. 490. In the Old Testament, jasaph (sapha) chatthat al ch. Is.
xxx. 1. 1 Thess. ii. 16.
3 Matt, xxiii. 37 ; Luke xiii. 34. '"Epnpog (allusion to the destruction) — as was
simply assumed by Weizs. p. 548 — is to be struck out in Luke ; and even in Matthew,
notwithstanding Sin., Ephr., Bez., and Tisch., it is not established. Lachm. rightly
left it out on the authority of BL It. Desolation of Jerusalem certainly often threat
ened in the Prophets. Comp. Hos. ii. 3 ; Micah iii. 12. But Is. Ixii. 12 (comp. Deut.
xi. 12) comes chiefly into notice ; and according to that, the reference is not merely to
a "handing over," but to a "forsaking." Complaint of disobedience, Jer. vii. 25,
xxv. 4; 2 Chron. xxiv. 19. The protecting bird, Isaiah xxxi. 5; Deut. xxxii. 11,
i. 31 ; Joel iii. 16. Very frequently in the Rabbis. Vaj. rabb. s. 25, f. 168, 4 : gal-
lina, quando pulli ejus teneri sunt, congregat eos et ponit sub alis suis, ipsos calefacit
et pro ipsis humum pedibus effodit. Further, venire, colligi sub alas Dei, shechina?.
Schottgen, pp. 207 sqq., particularly also of proselytes. Expressions in the classics,
Wetst. p. 492. Belief in a, better reception (which was wanting at the entry into
Jerusalem, Matt, xxi.), comp. Hier. Taan. f. 64, 1 : si resipuerit Isr. vel. uno die
illico adveniet redemptor. Kimchi on Isaiah lix. 16 : multi pcenit. acturi sunt, cum
signa viderint redemptionis. Hilg. Zeitschrift, 1868, p. 49, thinks of Rev. xi. 13.

THE LAST DISCLOSURES. 217
what more copious than it has been here given. According to
Matthew, before the lamentation over Jerusalem, Jesus not only
showed the filling up the measure of their fathers by the sons,
but also the advent of the righteous judgment of God upon the
Pharisees and the whole generation to avenge the death of all
the righteous men and prophets from Abel, the son of Adam, to
Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, in truth even to his own
Apostles.1 Evidently there is here a certain coherence; but
the lack of coherence is still more marked.2 For how could
Jesus leap from the prophets to his Apostles, and indeed speak
of the latter under the altogether unusual titles of prophets, wise
men, and Scribes, without mentioning what was most important
and most decisive, himself and his approaching fate? How
could he speak of the persecution of the Apostles, and after
wards only of his ovm rejection and recognition ? How could he
threaten the living generation with bloody judgment, and in the
subsequent lamentation over Jerusalem only with temporary
forsaking ? We here detect the interpolation.3 The spuriousness
of this passage is, however, definitively proved by the great
improbability that Jesus should have predicted the fate of his
Apostles, with all the details of their sufferings and the modes
of their death, nay, that he should have had time to busy himself
so minutely with the future, whBe to him the present moment
1 Matt, xxiii. 34 ; comp. Luke xi. 49.
2 By no means in the structural connection, as Bleek (II. p. 175) thinks, quite
unjustly preferring Luke at Sid rovro ; still more so Volkmar, p. 519. The structural
connection in Luke is only smooth, that in Matthew is full of significance, whether we
bring S. t. into connection backwards with n&g tyvynre. or nXnpilxr. (De Wette), or
forwards with 'onuig 'iX9i}, verse 35 (Meyer). In particular, the transition in Matthew
from the renunciation by the Pharisees of the sins of the nation against the prophets
to the direct imputation of these sins to the Pharisees, is full of significance.
3 We are reminded of well-known and in part earlier utterances of Jesus by the
words prophets, wise men, and Scribes ( = Apostles), Matt, xxiii. 34, and x. 41, xiii. 52.
Scourging in synagogues, x. 17. Fleeing from city to city, x. 23. The interpolation
can be recognized by noting that in verse 33 mention is made of a punishment of the
Pharisees ; in verse 36, of a punishment of the people ; in verse 38, again, of a pardoning
of the people ; and that when verses 34 — 36 are rejected, verse 37 joins on well to
verses 32 sq. Jerusalem stands en rapport with the murderers of the prophets, but
is not identical with them, wherefore the absolute condemnation falls upon the mur
derers, but only temporary abandonment upon Jerusalem.

218 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
was full to overflowing. And here is light at once. A later age
that placed in the mouth of Jesus the prediction concerning the
Apostles, just as it did in the parable of the marriage, is quite
plainly to be detected in the menace of the punishment of the
living generation for the murder of the righteous men from Abel
to Zechariah, i.e. to the end for old, in truth for new, things.1
The murder of the prophet Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, more
correctly the son of Jehoiada, was committed about the year
B.C. 839. It is impossible that Jesus should have quoted this
as the latest of the murders of righteous men, as if the hun
dreds of years, nay the thousand years, since had been without
guilt, and as if the living generation of Scribes and Pharisees
were at all responsible for that ancient royal murder.2 On the
other hand, everything becomes clear when we think of the mur
der of the later Zechariah, the son of Baruch, who in the begin
ning of the Boman war (before Easter, A.D. 68) was murdered
within the temple by the zealots, the genuine fruit of Pharisaism,
even though the latter wished to deny its fruit. It is true this
Zechariah was no prophet, but according to Matthew himself, as
well as Josephus, he was a righteous man, Bke to Abel who
opened the series of the mortal sacrifices to wickedness.3 At
1 See the likewise spurious later passage, Matt. xxii. 6.
2 The well-known prophet, one of the twelve, is called in the Hebrew the son of
Berechiah (Zech. i. 1). In Matt, xxiii. 35, he is confounded with Zechariah, the son
of Jehoiada, who, according to 2 Chron. xxiv. 20, was stoned by king Joash (B. C.
878 — 838) in the court of the temple. The confusion occurred, as it seems to me,
because the former (Zech. i. 1) is also called the son of Iddo, and the Rabbis also
call the second Zechariah filium Iddo (Lightfoot, p. 362). Futile attempts at recon
ciliation in Lightfoot (p. 362), Wetst. (p. 491), and later writers. Luke prudently
drops the name of the father (xi. 51) ; but the Gospel of the Hebrews makes the cor
rection, fil. Jojada, which Hilg. would take to be the original (Hilg. iV. T. IV. p. 17,
&c). Apart from the error, it is striking that a murder about B.C. 839 should appear
as the limit downwards. Even the Old Testament mentions, e.g., the later murder of
Drijah, Jer. xxvi. 23. And why not John the Baptist ? It is said here, without any
illustrative force, that the Jews felt the murder in question very deeply, and in the
Old Testament canon 2 Chronicles was the last book (thus Meyer, and even Hilgenfeld).
Can men read ? Matt, xxiii. 35 : ye, ye have slain !
3 Jos. B. J. 4, 5, 4 : nvd rSiv ImtpavEo-rdraiv airoKruvat wpo9£p.tvoi Zaxapiav
vibv Bapoixov. He is a righteous man (pio-oirovnpov), who accused the Zealots of all
their irapavopiai, was acquitted even by the Sanhedrim, which though arbitrarily

THE LAST DISCLOSURES. 219
this date, therefore, near the close of the apostolic period, just
before the fall of Jerusalem, originated this prophetic saying of
Jesus, in which, for the sake of historical propriety, the name of
the son of Baruch was converted into that of the Old Testament
son of Barachiah, so as to cover the anachronism ; but the circle
of the Apostles and Christian teachers was very unhistoricaBy
mixed up with Old Testament prophets, wise men, and Scribes.1
The fact that Luke has also, as weB as Matthew, accepted this
passage in his "Woes" pronounced against the Pharisees, by no
means aids the establishment of its historical character. One
might find an important superiority in Luke by supposing that
to him a prediction concerning the Apostles — although he alone
seems to mention them — did not really exist, but that Jesus
derived his utterance about Prophets and Apostles, that is the
sent of God generally, from an unknown earlier Old Testament
prediction.2 The whole address, however, in Luke has the appear-
appointed was mindful rov SiKaiov, then iv utffip ieptp Sia$9dperai. Beginning of the
year A.D. 68 ; comp. B.J. 4, 7, 2. After Hammond and Krebs, he was thought of
particularly by Hug, Credner, Ammon, Gfrorer. There are not wanting refutations
(Theile and others) which are correct only in so far as a prediction by Jesus would be
an absurdity, and which are called for only so long as there is no doubt of the genuine
ness of the whole. The passage rather gives a hint as to the age of Matthew. A
second hypothesis was very unfortunate : this Zechariah was the father of John the
Baptist, but his father is not designated either as Berechiah or as Baruch, and his
death is apocryphal fable (Ev. Jac. 23; comp. Hilg. Zeitschrift, 1868, p. 47). This
hypothesis was upheld from Origen to Hilgenfeld, who however now withdraws it.
1 Neander (p. 497) finds no difficulty in the prophets, &c, in 'Matt, xxiii. 34, it is
the. unity of theocratical development ; in xiii. 52 also, the Apostles are called Scribes,
and in the Apostolic Church there were prophets (1 Cor. xii. 28). I will add that in
Matt. x. 41 prophets are also spoken of ; but would Jesus have made a title which he
had once given to his disciples for the sake of comparison, their chief title ? He did
not predict the apostolic period with its details. Therefore the mention of those
details rather points to the later period.
2 Not only is the introduction to the passage in Luke xi. 49 not better than in
Matthew, but the passage itself, although somewhat shorter, lacks the originality of
Matthew (comp. only Matthew's ypapp. and Skaioi), and the designation of Abel as
prophet is a blunder. Even in Clem. Horn. 2, 16; 19, 9; comp. 3, 26; 17, 4, Abel
is only a righteous man, Adam a prophet. The introduction of the utterance as said
by the Wisdom of God, has often led critics to regard it as a quotation from a writing
by Jews or Christians with some such title as " Wisdom of God" (Paulus, Hengel,
Baumg.-Crus., Ewald, Bleek, Weizs.; recently also Strauss, Hilg.'s Zeitschrift, 1863,
p. 84, New Life of Jesus, Eng. trans., II. p. 66). But Neander (p. 467, after Twest.)

220 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
ance of being late and untrustworthy ; the Apostles and even
the suspected Zechariah, although prudently mentioned without
his father's name, are in reality here also ; while the introduc
tion of the speech looks exactly like a quotation from Matthew,
and would, in case of greater originality as compared with Mat
thew, be a conclusive proof of the unhistorical, apocryphal, and
obscure origin of this part of the address, a part that is introduced
by a more than mysterious formula.
It would perhaps appear to some to be consistent to give up
also the lamentation over Jerusalem, with the spurious section
which it closes.1 It may be thought that the passage is more
appropriate to a later age than to Jesus. It may be said that he
had not so often gathered Jerusalem together, that he had never
ministered at Jerusalem with the full Galilean love, and that he
could not exactly accuse Jerusalem — which heard him eagerly,
or at least protected him — of unwiBingness, of obstinate resist
ance. Finally, the desolation of Jerusalem and its restoration
in case of a Messianic greeting of the returning Messiah, was the
faith, the hope, of the apostolic age. In the bird's-eye view
taken by a later time, in which all the details were obliterated,
men were able to talk about endless futile efforts of Jesus on
behalf of Jerusalem, i. e. properly speaking, of Israel. This
expedient of pronouncing the passage spurious would naturally
be the simplest way of disposing of the objection long ago so
forcibly raised against the old Gospels in favour of the late
Johannine book, that the one incidental lamentation over the
long work at Jerusalem throws light upon the Johannine account
and Meyer thought of an important introduction of a saying of Jesus ; Ritschl and
Baur of the passage in Matthew ; comp. also Hilg. Zeitschrift, 1868, p. 46. Since
Luke is later than and dependent upon Matthew, it is probable that he either thought,
by mistake, of an Old Testament passage (Olsh. suggests 2 Chron. xxiv. 19), or, in for-
getfulness as to decorum in his historical representation, thus introduced Jesus as if
he were in reflection and devotion, for which not only the Proverbs and the Book of
Wisdom — from which Neander quotes vii. 27 — (or, according to Volkmar, 4 Esdras
xiv. 47), but also sentences in Matt. xi. 19, 27, xii. 42, form precedents.
1 In fact, Hilg. (p. 49) questions only this very passage, whilst he accepts the previous
one as the original text of Matthew. But his reasons are not weighty, and ipnuog is
uncertain.

THE LAST DISCLOSURES. 221
of a long residence at Jerusalem, and justifies that account
against the " Galilean " Gospels, which here make an involun
tary admission.1 But the beautiful and evidently thoroughly
ancient passage could be given up only with sorrow.2 Thus felt,
thus spoke Jesus, particularly in this lofty moment of retrospect
and close. The hen with her chickens — that was his picture and
that was he ; and already in Galilee, in the presence of the
Pharisees, had he, just as here, spoken of his efforts to gather the
people together.3 But, as everything shows and as Eusebius
already saw, by Jerusalem he meant not only the city but all
Israel, misled by the builders, by the masters of the tower, by
the holders of the key, aB Israel lukewarm through foreign guilt
and their own foolishness, all Israel persisting in their indiffer
ence or in their unbelief.4 The house which he forsook, without
threatening it with destruction, was the whole Israelitish com
monwealth that had its centre at Jerusalem. But the Messianic
recognition which was ultimately to be brought about, not, it is
true, among the builders whom he committed to the judgment of
God, but in the nation awakened from its Blusions by the signs
of God, — this was the hope which, according to all reports, he
confessed and undeniably even before the Sanhedrim, in order
thus to see the parable of the two sons afresh exemplified in a
"No" which should be transformed into a "Yes."5
1 Comp. only Neander, Bleek, Liicke, and all the defenders of John ; even Strauss
formerly, 4th ed. I. p. 471 ; and now again Schenkel, Bib.-Lex. III. p. 291, who sees
a reference to a several months' residence of Jesus at Jerusalem.
2 Weisse also retains it as genuine, II. p. 120.
3 Comp. the antique stoning, against Matt, xxiii. 34. And comp. Matt. xii. 30
with xxiii. 37.
4 Eus. Theoph. in Nov. Patr. Bibl. IV. p. 127 : risva ri\g ttoXewc; bvoudZ,u rb
lovSaiKov ttciv ysvog. Comp. Micah iii. 10, 12, iv. 8, 13; Zeph. iii. 14; Zech. i. 19,
ix. 9, xii. 2 sqq., xiv. 21 ; 4 Esdras x. 7 (Siwv ?) pr\rnp t)pSv) ; Gal. iv. 25, re/cva
ItpovoaXriu. Just so upon this point speaks Hilg. (p. 49). We cannot think this
utterance directed merely against the hierarchy, although it immediately follows the
announcement of punishment upon them. It is too general, it is too sad, it is also too
mild in its verdict. It must be remembered that to Jesus the people were not merely
standing before his mind's eye, but they were actually present before him.
6 Neander (p. 498), with many others, erroneously explains the house as the de
stroyed temple ; the words, " until ye shall say," he expounds, "others than ye, later

222 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
According to Matthew, Jesus ended his addresses to the people
and his conversations with the Pharisees on this Thursday, the
12th of April. The other Gospels know at least of nothing
greater to add. It is true that Luke and Mark, after the address
to the Pharisees, give the narrative of the widow and the temple
coffers ; and Luke, followed in part by John, closes this pre-
Easter time with the general formula that Jesus spent the days
teaching in the temple, and the nights upon the Mount of Olives ;
whence it might be concluded that Jesus had persevered in his
active ministry at Jerusalem up to the last moment.1 It may be
thought that this manly courage and this witness to the very end
best accord with the office and mission of Jesus, and directly
provoked the hierarchs' interposition determined upon in the
two following last days ; whilst a two days' retreat to Bethany —
which, otherwise, we should have to accept — would have been a
dereliction of duty, and also a signal for the cessation of the
violent measures of the foes. Against all this, the actual closing
of all addresses in aB the Gospels two days before Easter is elo
quent enough ; and the incident of the widow — which is imme
diately attached to the address to the Pharisees, and in truth
occurred before it — and finally the indefinite formulas of Luke
and the others, have no force to the contrary.2 This representation
of the events, adopted by all the Gospels, and carried still further
in John by the communication that Jesus hid himself imme
diately after the entry, from the 9th to the 13th of April, could
be invalidated only by the very precarious assumption that they
have inaccurately crowded the controversies into too few days.3
But this representation of the events is supported by two decisive
facts. The last address to the Pharisees plainly announced the
men" ! And Weisse (II. p. 121) also refuses to understand the return as a material
one. ' Luke xxi. 1 ; Mark xii. 41. The general notice by Luke of Jesus' teaching minis
try after the address about the future, xxi. 37. Comp. also Matt. xxvi. 55 ; John
xviii. 20.
2 Matt. xxvi. 2 ; Mark xiv. 1. On the widow, see above, p. 194.
3 John xii. 36. The above is a very common assertion. Weizs. pp. 273 sqq.

THE LAST DISCLOSURES. 223
retreat of Jesus ; and its well-armed attack upon the system and
the men of the system would lead to such a decided rupture, that
he could not speak again, or would have to fear that any further
speech or action would be followed by immediate apprehension
or violence. Hence Matthew correctly reports that Jesus left the
temple and retreated to the Mount of Olives immediately after
the close of this address.1 A second fact is the well-established
sojourn of Jesus in Bethany, on the occasion of the feast there
in the course of the last two days before the Passover, as well as
his remaining in Bethany on the morning of the day of eating
the Passover lamb, whilst he sent his disciples to the city, and
did not go thither himself until he went privately in the evening.
From all this it is safe to conclude that Jesus remained away
from the city, and spent the time in Bethany and on the Mount
of Olives, from midday on the 12th until evening on the 14th of
April. This retreat was no flight, and it was no concealment in
order to save his life ; his remaining in the immediate neighbour
hood and his going into the city to celebrate the Passover on
the 14th, prove the contrary. This retreat was only a procras
tination of the fall which he saw was imminent. He would not
throw himself too rashly into the hands of his foes. He wished
to take his farewell in quiet, to arrange the affairs of his com
munity, if possible, once more — nay, the first as well as the last
time — to eat the Passover with his disciples, in this Easter
solemnity instituting for them an eloquent symbol of the death
to which he was hastening.2 For he could not hope that in this
pause his foes would reconsider their position, certainly not that
a miraculous turn of affairs would be brought about by the arm
of God. He would be more likely to hope for the latter when
the attempt to seize him was being made, than in this quiet
heated pause. But while he himself, in spite of this temporary
1 Matt. xxiv. 1. After the controversy with the Pharisees, Luke (xi. 53) mentions
ambushes and questionings by the Pharisees; but how untrustworthy in the whole of
this connection !
2 The Fragmentist (p. 152) charges Jesus with cowardly absence from the temple ;
already Celsus, flight and hiding, 1, 65 sq. ; 2, 8 sqq. ; 2, 67, 70.

224 THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE.
truce, purposed and was compeBed to bring his work to an end,
his foes were regarding his cause and the situation in exactly the
same way. His retreat was no plea to them for peace. They were
aware of the secret glowing passions, the secretly rooting convic
tions. It behoved them to indulge in no idle procrastination,
but to strike a vigorous, decisive blow, so long as he was stiB
before the public and was in the neighbourhood, so long as those
festival crowds reverently looked up to him and inquired after
him, whilst at the same time the danger from those crowds had
as completely disappeared as had that from the Prophet himself
who was in hiding.

ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 225

Division IV.— THE FAEEWELL.

The Gospels report a triple leave-taking of his followers by
Jesus, one oh the Mount of OBves, another at Bethany, another
at the last supper at Jerusalem. The leave-taking on the Mount
of OBves is marked by teaching and admonition, that at the
Bethany meal by the last cordially serious sociality, that at
the last supper at Jerusalem, the crown of the fareweB, by an
intenser form of both these characteristics. At Jerusalem, the
feast of friendship became the festival of the new religion, which
distributed its gifts, revealed its prospects, and made known its
requirements. When we consider everything, we understand
why Jesus withdrew ; and we readily give up any prejudice in
favour of finding a leave-taking only in the farewell addresses
in John's Gospel.

A.— On the Mount of Olives.
According to the Gospels, according to Matthew most distinctly,
Jesus forsook — as indeed his closing address in which he finally
broke with the Pharisees compelled him to do — the temple
buildings ; and with his band of foBowers he struck into the road
over the Kidron to the Mount of Olives and Bethany.1 Looking
back, they would* see opposite to them the lofty hiB of the temple
standing forth as grandly and overpoweringly as on the first
hopeful day of the entry, like the tower of the parable majestically
rising from the terraces of the courts to the gold-glittering marble
heights of the House of God.2 This is the situation to which the
1 Matt. xxiv. 1 ; Mark xiii. 1. That Ms adherents also accompanied him is shown
by Matt. xxiv. 3.
2 See above, pp. Ill, 121. Bavuaaal)rarov i-pyov, Jos. B. J. 6, 4, 8. Comp. Tac.
Hist. 5, 8 : immense opulentia? templum, and the whole description there. Meyer,
VOL. V. Q

226 THE FAREWELL.
great prophetic utterance of Jesus belongs; though Luke mis
places the whole proceeding in the temple and in the hearing of
the people, and Mark puts at least the introduction of the speech
at the departure from the temple, as if the seriousness of the situ
ation permitted Jesus or his disciples to take yet another quiet and
loving glance at the temple, as Mark had already twice repre
sented them as doing.1 The disciples looked back with an eye
to the material temple. He looked backwards upon a closed, past
history, upon the futility of his ministry; but he also looked
forwards to the condemnation of this futility. They admiringly
pointed out to him the gates, the porches, the temple itself, one
hundred and fifty feet high and long, with the gigantic stones of
five-and-twenty cubits in length, lying one upon another like the
stones of a fortress.2 " See ye not all this ?" thus spoke he, with
solemn and fearful brevity, in the old words of the prophets.
" Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone
upon another which shall not be thrown down."3
This utterance of Jesus is more readily doubted than discredited.
As well as the following address about the future, it has often
been pronounced to be an interpolated prediction.4 The destruc
tion of the temple, which actually took place thirty-five years
afterwards, Jesus could not have foreseen. Moreover, the Beve-
after Chrys. and others, very awkwardly makes the words in Matt, xxiii. 38 give the
disciples occasion to point to the temple. But there was there no reference whatever
to the temple.
1 Luke xxi. 5 ; Mark xiii. 1 (iKnop. against Matt. k&X9wv iirop.) ; comp. Mark
xi. 11, 27.
2 The size of the stones, Jos. Ant. 15, 11, 3, and B. J. 5, 5, fi. Length 25 (accord
ing to B. J. single stones 45), height 8 (5), breadth 12 (6) cubits.
3 Matt. xxiv. 2, and parallel passages. Comp. Micah iii. 12 ; Jer. xxvi. 18 : Sion
should become heaps of stones, ijim, the hill of the temple a forest. See also the first
destruction, 2 Kings xxv. 9, 13.
1 Thus in particular the critical school since Baur, Untersuch. pp. 604 sqq.; comp.
Kostlin, Hilgenfeld, Strauss, Volkmar ; but recently Hilg., Zeitschrift, 1868, p. 65 ;
also Pfleiderer, Jahrb. d. Theol. 1868, pp. 134 sqq. In spite of my having (above,
I. pp. 64 sqq.) sufficiently exposed the arbitrary character of this assumption, idle
repetitions are continued as though no protest had been made. The genuineness of
the prediction is upheld also by Paulus, Fritzsche, Weisse, Schenkel, Hausrath, Holtz
mann, Weizsacker.

ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 227
lation of John shows that on the very eve of the actual destruc
tion, at Easter, A.D. 69, the fall of the temple was considered
impossible in Jewish and Jewish-Christian circles.1 Yet it has
already been shown elsewhere, that this counter-proof is alto
gether invaBd ; whBe for the actuality of the utterance of Jesus
— which was not Bterally fulfilled, and thereby reveals its early
date — good evidence can be adduced.2 In the first place, the
expression of Jesus' foes in the Sanhedrim is here of importance :
" I can destroy the temple of God and in three days build it up
again." Though this may be — as the early Gospels say — a false
testimony when put in this form, yet it escapes censure and
harmonizes remarkably well with many menaces of Jesus, parti
cularly with words uttered on the Mount of Olives, as soon as it
is made to mean that he taught a destruction of the temple by a
divine judgment upon the carnal temple servants and despisers
of the Messiah, and a material or spiritual rebuilding in the
Messianic kingdom of the future.3 A second proof is given by
the accusation of the martyr Stephen, in the beginning of the
apostolic period, one or two years after the death of Jesus, an
accusation which a conscientious investigation cannot show to be
1 Kostlin, p. 18 (also Pfieiderer) lays stress upon the fact that the Apostle Paul
shows in Rom. xi. no presentiment of such a catastrophe. The fact is, that the fate
of Jerusalem did not intimately concern him; comp. also 1 Cor. ii. 6, vi. 2, 19; 2 Cor.
vi. 16 ; Rom. ii. 1 — 24 ; 1 Thess. ii. 15 sq. Volkmar thinks (p. 539) indeed that the
catastrophe of Jerusalem was not at all calculable ; the struggle under Barkochba was
carried on outside of Jerusalem round the fortress Bether. Date of the Revelation, see
above, I. pp. 57, 66, where A.D. 68 is the date given. Recent critics fix it between
A.D. 68 — 70. Having proportionate regard to the imperial and other evidences of
date (Tac. Hist. 2, 8) as well as to the traces of Easter (i. 7, 10, 18, ii. 7 sq., iii. 20
sq.), I have, in I. p. 223, dated it at Easter, A.D. 69.
2 Above, I. pp. 66 sq. That the utterance of Jesus was not literally fulfilled is
seen in the facts that the temple was really burnt, but was not demolished by human
hands, and that stones of it remain standing firmly. KaraXbu) is essentially the expres
sion for pulling down, Jos. Ant. 15, 11, 3 (of the temple). But after the taking of
the city, nothing except the walls of the city were pulled down, certainly not the
temple, which was reduced to "ashes," B.J. 6, 4, 6 sq. ; 6, 5, 1 ; 7, 8, 7. Pulling
down of gates and walls, B. J. 6, 5, 2 ; 6, 9, 1 ; 7, 5, 2, in general : p.iye9og r&v
ippnyp.iviov KaraaKEvaaudruiv.
3 Matt. xxvi. 61, and parallel passages. Menaces, comp. Luke xiii. 3, 9; Matt.
xxi. 41,
Q2

228 THE FAREWELL.
a fabrication by the author of the Acts, or a free version by Luke—
the historian in both cases — of the words about the temple which
Jesus was charged with uttering, but must regard only as an essen
tially true reminiscence of a primitive Stephen-source. The charge
against Stephen ran thus : " We have heard that he said, Jesus
the Nazorsean wiB destroy this place and change the customs
which Moses delivered unto us."1 It might be said that this
commission, this future, was first ascribed to the Messiah on his
second advent by Stephen ; that no such announcement was made
by Jesus, who, indeed, never said anything about the abrogation
of the Laws of Moses. But who does not see that Stephen could
not have spoken thus definitely concerning this peculiar future
judgment of the Messiah, if there was an utter lack of tradition
upon the subject, and that the actual tradition of Jesus' words
concerning the extirpation of the Pharisaic human teaching stood
by the side of Stephen's menace of an alteration of the Mosaic
customs; again, that the tradition of Stephen essentially harmo
nizes with the double, triple tradition of the words of Jesus in
the Gospels ? Thus it happens that we can conceive the words
of Jesus to have been uttered, without having recourse to the
miracle of prediction.2 Purely human calculation must already
have had a presentiment of the destruction of the temple as the
end of the unnatural condition of the people, as the end of the
heathen rule and tyranny, and of the spirit of revolt which —
justified and unjustified— continued to smoulder. Such a catas
trophe had already once been brought about by the Chaldean
heathenism ; and Borne, in association with the Herods, had since
the time of Pompey six times threatened or indeed commenced
a similar destruction. This Jewish presentiment can be shown
1 Acts vi. 14 (icaraXvaai, as in Matt. xxiv. 2, xxvi. 61). The place is, according
to verses 11 and 13 and vii. 48, the holy place or temple. The question of the sources
of the Acts has been but little elucidated by the critical school (with exception of
Zeller) ; on the other hand, by Schleiermacher, Schwanbeck, Lekebusch.
2 Comp. Paulus, Fritzsche, Strauss (in the earlier L.J. 4th ed. II. pp. 347 sqq.)-
also Weisse (who, however, again speaks of magical clairvoyance, I. p. 591) ; recently
in particular, Colani, Croy. Mess. p. 209 ; Schenkel, p. 258.

ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 229
to have expressly manifested itself more and more strongly from
year to year after A.D. 50. It would therefore be ridiculous to
consider it impossible in the decade A.D. 30 — 40, when the pre
conditions already existed, from the revolt of Judas Galilseus to
the provocations of the procurator Pontius Pilate.1 But Jesus was
influenced by another calculation, a solid, certain, though not
supernatural calculation based upon the religion that knew God
to be the Buler, that beBeved in providential dispensations even
where the iron hand of Borne seemed to destroy the grounds of
faith in such dispensations. Hence now, when the Boman power
was already the rod of divine discipline, when by the will of God
the blind leaders were leading the people into the pit, when
indeed those blind leaders were thrusting the Messiah of God out
of the temple of God which they had desecrated and converted
into a den of robbers, it was inevitable that he, if he believed in
God and in himself, should believe in the corrective judgment
and in the eagles of the supreme tribunal whose organs stood
ready right and left, and whose victims must be not only the evB-
doers, but also the temple in which the power of those evB-doers,
their insolence, their violence, their works-holiness, their unclean-
ness, had a home and a centre.2 We have already seen that he
predicted the pit to the blind leaders, judgment to the hypo
crites, downfall to the possessors of the stronghold : is it then a
great thing that he should make the stronghold — by no means
1 The temple threatened at the conquest by Pompey, above, I. p. 235 ; by the Romans
and Herod, ib. p. 237. Easter revolt against Archelaus, ib. p. 254. Pentecost revolt
against the Romans and Archelaus, and pillage of the temple by Sabinus, ib. p. 256.
Also by Crassus, ib. Pilate's fight in the temple, Luke xiii. 1. On Pilate, see above,
I. pp. 266, 305, II. p. 224. Anticipations of the downfall of the temple, Jos. B. J.
2, 12, 5; Ant. 20, 6, 1 ; B. J. 2, 15, 4; 2, 16, 4; 2, 17, 10 ; 2, 19, 5, &c. Comp.
above, I. p. 67. According to the Rabbis, Simon Justus, in the Syrian period, had
already prayed for prevention of its downfall, Herzf. III. p. 245. Josephus finds it in
Daniel, Ant. 10, 11, 7; and Strauss thinks it possible that Daniel, without any expe
rience of the destruction which Josephus and the Rabbis (placing the birth of the
Messiah in the time of the destruction) had before them, had already given this direc
tion to men's thoughts in the days of Jesus, L. J. 4th ed. II. p. 349.
2 The Roman rod of correction, Matt. xx. 25 ; Luke xiii. 1 . Punitive judgment
upon Israel, Luke xiii. 3, xvii. 37.

230 THE FAREWELL.
the city, as has been often fabled, but the temple— share the
general catastrophe with its possessors I1
But the great speech concerning the future cannot boast a
credibility equal to that of the isolated utterance of Jesus. This
speech, although on the whole excellently well attested— not, it
is true, by the latest, but by the three older Gospels— presents
so many difficulties, that one's perplexity is equally great whether
it is taken in hand critically or uncritically, whether its genuine
ness be admitted or denied.2 Strict believers are perplexed at
seeing Jesus calculate the future from such a Jewish standpoint
and give to it such a speedy and limited termination ; and in
order to save him from the reproach of illusion, the letter of his
utterances has been maltreated, the periods have been extended,
or the forms and the periods, definitely as they are stated, have
been — in part not without complaints that the EvangeBsts have
given a gross and coarse version of what was said — volatilized
into indefinite ideal pictures and perspectives.3 The freer view is
1 That in Matt. xxiv. 2, and particularly 15 sqq., the destruction of the city itself
is included, is however maintained by most critics, from the Fathers down to Strauss,
Baur and his followers, even Weizs., Schenkel, and Holtzmann ; but already Paulus,
III. i. p. 141, and Fritzsche, upon the passage, remarked the opposite. Comp. more
in detail upon xxiv. 15, above, I. pp. 64 sq., below, p. 238.
2 The want of harmony between the testimony of the Synoptics and that of John
was already seen by Fleck, De Regn. Div. p. 483. The whole school of Schleiermacher
also consoled themselves with that want of harmony, either renouncing faith in the
Synoptics or (in spite of Neander's protest, p. 501) spiritualizing them.
i The ways of escape on this side, in Strauss, 4th ed. II. pp. 347 sqq., also in De
Wette, Meyer, Bleek. Particularly suspicious is the close connection of the return,
the closing event, with the history of the time, the events that preceded the close.
Help has been sought in the following hypotheses : (1) this connection does not exist
at all in reality : either everything, including Matt. xxiv. 15, belongs to the close
(prophetata de fine, noviss. tempore), Iren. 5, 25, 5, or everything is only what comes
before in time (the rationalists ; partly down to Olshausen, Weisse, Hase, Bunsen,
Schenkel). (2) The connection exists, but it is possible to separate: in particular,
Luke keeps the periods more apart (Schleier., Neander, recently Gess, pp. 134 sqq.);
but in Matt, also the closing time does not begin until xxv. 31 (Lightfoot, Wetst.,
Flatt), or at earliest xxv. 1 (Rud. Hofmann), or after xxiv. 22, so however that after
wards long periods between the destruction and the second advent are described (Ebr.
1842); at least Matt. xxiv. 14 (as also much more plainly Luke xxi. 24) indicates
a long course of events in time (Kern, Tub. Zeitschr. 1836, pp. 141 sq.). (3) A
separation can no longer be made, and Jesus himself did not make a separation ; but

ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 231
also exposed to danger. In case these sayings are admitted to
be genuine, there is the danger of ascribing to Jesus conceptions
of time the most limited and contradicted by the actual result ;
but in case the sayings are resolutely denied, there is the danger
of robbing this life of its principal features, nay, of completely
annihilating the great anticipations and the sacred claims of this
Bfe, that thus is made to suffer defeat in the conflict.1
Here, however, first of aB, it behoves us to obtain, more
minutely than in ordinary cases, all the information we can con
cerning the contents and compass, the age and credibility, of the
great speech which in a tolerably uniform shape, and evidently
based upon a common, independently used source, appears in aB
the three Gospels.2 We find here many important grounds of
help can be derived from the theory of Jesus' so-called perspective mode of viewing the
future, after the manner of the prophets, in which the near and the distant flow
together (Bengel, Hengstenberg, Olsh., Kern, Beck, Krabbe, Pressense; on the other
band, already Neander, p. 500). (4) It is no longer possible to make the separation,
even though Jesus did it; but the "confusion of the periods" (Pressense, p. 587) is
explained by the fact that the Evangelists, in part already the Apostle's, have con
founded the invisible with the visible advent of Jesus, comp. Eichh. and Kuinbl ; more
recently Neander, De Wette, Meyer, Bleek, Hausrath, partly also Weisse, Schenkel,
Ewald, Hase, Krabbe, Press., Gess.
1 The former in Paulus, III. i. pp. 343 sqq. ; comp. Strauss, 4th ed. II. p. 347 ; the
latter, the critical school. Strauss believes in error on the part of Jesus, II. pp. 341,
356. Speaks with more reserve in New Life of Jesus, Eng. trans., I. pp. 327 sq. Very
gross opinion of the Fragmentist, that the Apostles invented it all with the aim of reco
vering their mode of life exempt from care, pp. 184, 201 sqq.
2 Its limits, Matt. xxiv. 1 — 44 (or 51) corresp. to Mark xiii. 1 — 37, Luke xxi. 5 — 36.
Recently the belief in one feeding source has become almost universal : the Gospels are
seen to stand mutually independent, yet united by a given something. Notwithstand
ing the industrious search after the date of origin, by Baur, Kostlin, Hilg. (not to
speak of R. Hofm., Weiderkunft Chr. 1850, p. 10, and Gess, pp. 131 sqq.), the
analysis of the speech about the future has not been sufficiently carried out (Hilg.
regards Matt. *. as the original eschatological speech, which should have followed
chap, xxiii., chaps, xxiv. xxv. being of later origin) ; on the other hand, Weizs. and
Pfleid. have recently begun to point out other dissimilarities in the speech than merely
the antithesis of particulars and universals. Pfleiderer's essay in the Jahrb. deutscher
Theol. 1868, pp. 134 sqq. (Composition of the Eschatological Speech in Matt, xxiv.)
treats verses 4, 5, 9 — 14, 23 — 28, 32 sqq., as interpolations, disturbing the connec
tion, the progress, intentionally introducing retardation. Here are many things correct
in detail; but the other Gospels are too little taken into account; and if only retarda
tion was aimed at, why not such in the centre, ver. 29 ? The literature on the escha
tological speech, particularly in Hase, p. 228 ; Bleek, II. p. 349.

232 THE FAREWELL.
doubt. In the first place, this speech has many counterparts,
the matter of which comes more or less into immediate contact
. with it, as more particularly the address about the future which
Luke, in chap, xvii., has placed immediately before Jesus' entrance
into Judsea.1 Here there arises not only the question whether
the speech on the Mount of OBves justifiably combines in itself
all this important material ; but also the wider one, whether it
can compete with its rival in originality and naturalness. We
shall return to that rival, and shall then find at least that it
offers on the whole greater guarantees. But we now confine
our attention to the speech on the Mount of Olives. This is
presented to us by all the Gospels, even by Luke, in a well-
attested manner, in a definite situation, wanting altogether to the
other speeches. Yet it is very soon discovered that in its entirety
it is by no means to be regarded as an original speech uttered
by Jesus. Even when we purge it of the alterations and inter
polations which the several Gospels have very evidently to a
greater or less degree introduced, there still remain against its
primitive form — so far as that can be restored — notwithstanding
a fuB recognition of the grandeur of its plan, the two objections
of a lack of unity and a lack of probability.2
1 Similar portions in Matt. vii. 15 (comp. xxiv. 5, 24), x. 17 — 23 (comp. xxiv. 9 — 13,
yet more Luke xxi. 12—19 ; Mark xiii. 9—13). Luke xii. 11, 12 (comp. xxi. 12—19),
xii. 35 — 46, particularly xvii. 22 — 37 (comp. Matt. xxiv. 22 sq., 27 sq., 37—41).
2 The original form may, in brief, have been this : (1) Matt. xxiv. 1 — 8 (ver. 3
shorter) ; (2) Mark xiii. 9—13 (with erasure of the inserted verse 10) ; (3) Matt.
xxiv. 15 — 25 (verses 17 sq. also assumed in Luke xxi. 21, notwithstanding xvii. 31 ;
verses 26 sq., in Luke rightly placed elsewhere xvii. 23 sq. ; the point of junction
evident from Matt. xxiv. 25, Mark xiii. 23) ; (4) Matt. xxiv. 29—51 (with exception
of verses 37 — 41, which passage corresponds to Luke xvii. 26 sqq., and of smali addi
tions in verse 30, upon which comp. Luke xxi. 27, Mark xiii. 26. The prejudices
in favour of Luke (Schleier., Neander), and of Mark, or of Mark and Luke (comp.
Holtzm., Schenkel, Bunsen, Volkmar) have already been refuted or lessened by Strauss,
De Wette, Meyer, Bleek. Matthew is here not absolutely original (verses 3, 9 — 14,
26—28, 30 [partly], 37 — 41); on the other hand, in detail mostly superior and ori
ginal, xxiv. 1—3, 8, 14 (fin.), 15, 29. The superiority of Luke over Matthew lies
principally in xxi. 12—19, and in the absence of the additions, Matt. xxiv. 26—28,
37—41. ^ At the same time, he is to a greater degree than Mark second to Matthew,
not only in periphrastic expression, but in the alteration of the oracle, which is plainly
made to refer to the speedy destruction of Jerusalem, and whose final close is retarded,

ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 233
There is less lack of formal unity — although breaks and joins
are not wanting — than of material unity.1 For how much of
self-destroying contradiction has been crowded into these lines !
The speech of Jesus gives excellent practical moral admonitions
and consolations for the disciples, and at the same time busies itself
with unfruitful heathen and Jewish higher politics, and indeed
with an exhibition of heath en -Jewish -Christian signs of the
times.2 The speech addresses itself exclusively to the Apostles,
whose future position in Israel appears to be isolated and men
aced on all sides. At the same time, however, it addresses itself
as a faithful friend to the whole Jewish nation, and urgently
counsels migration from Jerusalem.3 The speech is limited in its
whole spirit to the position of the Apostles and of Jesus within
the Israelitish nation ; and nevertheless it adopts — at least in the
form given to it in Matthew and Mark — the perspective of the
universal propagation of Christianity, although the hatred of all,
or, as Matthew has it, of all nations seems to contradict this.4
The speech begins with the destruction, with the passing away,
of the temple ; yet it afterwards announces the most elaborately
comp. xxi. 9, 12 sqq., 20—24, 25—28, 31, 34—36. On the other hand, Gess (p. 135)
overflows with praise of the words in Luke xxi. 24, which he holds to be genuine and
weighty, and to have been rescued from oblivion by Luke's industrious search, while
recent criticism regards them rather as of later date. On the whole, Mark shares in
the superiorities of Luke, but at the same time holds himself back somewhat from his
neoterisms. He also has (with Matt. xxiv. 22 — 25) xiii. 20 — 23, whilst Luke has
very intelligibly rejected it. Yet he is secondary in xiii. 1 — 3, 10, 14, 18, 23 sq., 29,
33 — 37. Volkmar, on his part, regards Mark as author of the reprisal against the
Johannine Apocalypse with its calculations of the future (in which, however, Mark
himself is caught), admitting (like Weizs.) the possibility of a preceding apocalyptic
pamphlet. According to him (pp. 538 sqq.), Matthew has interpolated from Luke xii.
and xvii. Comp. in general, above, I. pp. 64, 95, 114. Details below.
1 A want of connection, depending upon the working up together of different mate
rials, is evident in Mark xiii. 9 sqq. and parallel passages. The combination of the
separate Gospels (previous note) is not here the question.
2 Comp. only Matt. xxiv. 32 sqq., and the series of signs, xxiv. 4 — 29.
3 Matt. xxiv. 9 sqq. and 16 sqq.
* Matt. xxiv. 9 sqq. (x. 17 — 23) and xxiv. 14, but also already xxiv. 9. In Mat
thew, verse 1 4 — in Mark, xiii. 10 — is very evidently interpolated, and in this section
most of the corrections have been made here and there in verses 9 — 14. Comp. against
both, Luke xxi. 12 sqq., 24.

234 THE FAREWELL.
detailed desecration by the heathen.1 Finally comes what is most
decisive. The speech contains the most exact serial arrangement
of the times, the most definite enumeration of both the great and
the insignificant facts of the future, and is therefore in truth a
computation of the periods and the days untB the second advent.
And yet it closes with numerous warnings of the sudden coming
of this second advent, and with the remarkable acknowledgment
that even he himself does not know the day or the hour, — a
warning and a confession which at one blow overthrow the whole
of this sharply outlined cloudland of the future, the whole of this
edifice of artificial prospective calculation.2
These impossibilities, which are at once betrayed by the very
composition of the speech about the future, are confirmed when
one simply asks, " Could Jesus thus speak ?" Without staying
to test the singular and quite unusual citation from the book of
Daniel, or the views of Judaism, Christianity, heathenism, the
Sabbath, the temple and temple desecration, adopted in the
speech, it is enough simply to ask, Could he be such a speaker
about the future ?3 At the close of a great life it often happens,
1 Matt. xxiv. 2 and 15.
2 The members of the triplet : (a) Matt. xxiv. 6 ; Mark xiii. 7 (retardation of Luke,
in respect to Matthew, in Luke xxi. 9) ; (b) Matt. xxiv. 14 fin. (omitted from Luke
and Mark), then verse 15 ; (c) Matt. xxiv. 29, curtailed in Luke xxi. 25 (comp. simi
larly 9, 28, 31) and Mark xiii. 24 (comp. 29). On the other hand, renunciation of
calculation and certainty (after Zech. xiv. 7; comp. Deut. xxxii. 34), Matt. xxiv. 36,
42, and parallel passages ; comp. Luke xvii. 24 sqq. The limitation of Matt. xxiv. 36
to the narrowest measure of time (R. Hofm. p. 33), or to the mere succession of events
(Press, pp. 587 sq.), has been thought "trivial" by Neander, p. 499. Comp. also
Weizs. p. 551. On the other hand, Volkmar (p. 539) attains to the new wisdom that
Mark has fabricated the passage against the Apocalypse, with the calculations of the
future in which he is yet so essentially at one ! The Son of Man's ignorance stands —
as Volkmar still appears not to know, although the question has been decided for years
(comp. above, I. p. 138) — not merely in Mark, but also in Matthew. He thinks the
narrators of Jesus' being born of a virgin — a spectre he always keeps before him, as if
the story of the virgin-birth had painted a God — have not ventured to insert this
passage (p. 544) !
3 Where else is such a citation from a particular book to be found, as in Matt.
xxiv. 15 (Dan. ix. 27), whether we take it as spoken to the readers of Daniel or to
the readers of this apocalyptical speech based upon Daniel ? Comp. Dan. xii. 4 sqq. ;
Rev. xxii. 18, xiii. 18. Colani, p. 201. Weizs. p. 124. Citations like that in Matt.

ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 235
and is often supposed to happen, that prophecy exhibits itself
and raises the departing spirit, that in its immortality has pro
jected itself into the future, above the bounds of its earthly
existence.1 This may be ; yet it is, in the first place, certain that
Jesus could not possibly find, in those last feverish moments, the
time and the repose minutely to consider the course of the future
and to exhibit it in a most exact register of events, classified in
a triplet of stages and of progressive intensities. It is, in the
second place, certain that the proclaimer, the representative, of
unanxious rest in the bosom of God, and the preacher of the
inscrutable dispensations of God, never gave himself up to calcu
lations about the future, not even in the province of the mazes
of Jewish Messianic belief, and least of all in the province of the
great heathen world-politics.2 It is certain that the strict and
sober refuser of signs from heaven, though he might in his grand
manner — as this speech itself gives it- — detect the historical signs
of the times, and connect his second advent with the dreadful
catastrophe of Israel, could not possibly speak of miracles in the
sun, moon, and stars, and of a "heavenly sign" of the Son of
Man, unless he were no longer himself, but merely a Jew.3 It
is quite as certain that, with the humanly limited knowledge
which we have always found in him, he could not look through
and beyond the external events of the coming years and decades.
In fact, what would he not have foreseen if we confine ourselves
only to the points upon which the predictions of the speech have
been verified, and cover with silence that which did not come
to pass — the desecration of the temple, the non-destruction of
xix. 4 are very different, do not admonish the hearers to read, but assume that they
have read.
1 Comp. the farewells of Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Simeon, Paul.
' Matt. xxiv. 6 sq. The repeated genuinely Jewish and Jewish-Christian warnings
against pseudo-Messiahs (xxiv. 5, 11, 23 sq. ; comp. the same at least twice in Mark
xiii. 6, 21 sq., once in Luke xxi. 8; comp., on the contrary, Luke xvii. 23 against
Matt. xxiv. 24) show » too great anxiety on the part of Jesus himself (comp. above,
I. p. 65, V. pp. 123 sq.), and a conception of the Apostles as unstable children.
Weizsacker (p. 552) most definitely : Jesus uttered no apocalypse.
3 Comp. only Matt. xxiv. 29 sq. with xii. 39, xvi. 1 sqq. ; Luke xvii. 20.

236 THE FAREWELL.
Jerusalem, the flight from the city, the miracles of the false pro
phets, the second advent soon after these catastrophes ? It seems
he would have foreseen the false Messiahs of the wilderness
under the emperors Claudius and Nero, and whom, in spite of
their very ridiculous character, he would have taken au serieux ;
the contemporaneous famines and earthquakes of the Boman
empire; the wars of the Eomans and the Parthians; perhaps
even the sanguinary downfaB of the Boman dynasty of the Julii ;
the interregnum under Galba, Otho, ViteBius ; and last, the
accession of the iron FlavB to the imperial throne. He would
have foreseen the horrible administration of the Zealots in the
Holy Land; the sufferings and the examinations of Peter and
Paul before the Agrippas, father and son, before Felix and Festus;
perhaps the baptism of blood of the young Church in general at
Eome and at Jerusalem.1 We can quickly escape from aB this
perplexity, from this extensive knowing and this extensive non-
knowing, not by the assumption of a medley in Jesus' divine-
human or even purely human seer-gift, but by the assumption of
a late authorship belonging to the boundary-time of knowing
and non-knowing, and by a glance at the restless attempts of
the later Jews and Jewish-Christians to calculate future events,
attempts which, as the fruit of the pioneer in that direction, the
book of Daniel, are so tangibly placed before us in the books of
1 The Fragmentist (pp. 184, 201 sqq.) speaks derisively of the unfulfilled predic
tions. On the other hand, Paulus, Fr., De Wette, and in part also Meyer and others,
speak in the interest of the real, but not purely supernatural, prophesying of Jesus.
With regard to what was fulfilled (ex eventu : on which comp. the Roman ridicule of
Josephus, B. J. 3, 8, 9), I briefly refer — as well as to Baur, who admitted the non-
fulfilments down to the destruction, but, on the other hand, by transposing the Gospel
of Matthew to the time of Hadrian (about A.D. 134), found everything clear (Kanon.
Ev. pp. 605 sq.) — to Karl Kostlin's adoption of the destruction under Titus as the
limit, in his Synopt. Evang. pp. 18 sqq., 113 sqq.; Hilg. Zeitschr. 1868, pp. 50 sqq.;
Hofm. p. 35. Meyer, in his Commentary, has confined himself to denial of the points
of similarity; whilst others, as Krabbe, R. Hofmann, lay stress thereon as evidence
of prediction. Bunsen (pp. 444 sq.) indeed found the migration of the nations and
the oracle not yet exhausted. The only thing capable of refutation in Kostlin was the
ascription of the horror of the destruction to the murderous band of Zealots and
Sicarii in the temple, when mention had already been made of a. lupiacn'tvn rroXig
Jos. B. J. 4, 5, 2.

ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 237
Enoch and Ezra, the Ascension of Moses and the Sibylline Books,
and in the Eevelation of John. That it was not Jesus, but this
Judaism, which arranged and linked together those signs of the
future, is shown chiefly in the similarity— just here surprising — of
many of these predictions, and, for example, in the fact that only
zealous Jewish-Christians, and by no means Jesus, could object
to fleeing on the Sabbath, or could anxiously dread a desecration
of the temple by heathen idolatrous worship.1
This piece of writing, therefore, is to be ascribed unquestion
ably, not to Jesus, but to a Jewish-Christian who Bved towards
the close of the apostolic period, and who, in view of the
impending catastrophe of the temple and of the holy city, dedi
cated to Christians and Jews the revelations, counsels, and con
solations of Jesus, and did this evidently at once in writing and
1 Similarity of description of the coming of the day of the Lord in the Old Testa
ment. Joel ii. 10 sqq., 30 sqq., iii. 15 ; Isaiah xiii. 4 sqq. ; Jer. iv. 23 sqq. ; Ezekiel
vii. 2 sqq., xxxii. 7 sqq. ; comp. Book of Enoch i. 80. Fixed times and calculations
(ha-et ba, karob, ad kez), Joel ii. 1 ; Isaiah xiii. 6, 9, 22 ; Ez. vii. 2, 6 sq. ; Hab. ii. 3 ;
particularly Daniel vii. 12, 22, viii. 17 sqq., ix. 26 sq., xi. 27, 35, xii. 13. The i/Siveg,
Matt. xxiv. 8 (Woes), are the chabalim, cheble hammashiach, calamitates M. (Lightfoot,
pp. 319, 454), bitter with sweet fruit, chiefly out of Micah iv. 9 ; Is. lxvi. 7 sqq. Only
as time of extremity, Hosea xiii. 13 ; Is. xiii. 8 ; Jer. xiii. 21, xxii. 23. Comp.
Schottgen, II. p. 550. Berth, pp. 43 sqq. Of the later literature, comp. upon Matt.
xxiv. 6 sq., 4 Ezra xiii. 31 : dXXoi dXXovg Xoyiaovrai KaraTroXeueiv, noXig ttoXiv Kai
ronog ronov Kai Wvog Kar Wvovg k. BaoiX. Kard 3. Soh. chad. f. 8, 4 : bella in
mundo excitabuntur, gens erit contra gentem et urbs u. urbem. Beresh. Rabb. 42,
f. 41, 1 : si videris regna contra se invicem insurgentia, tuno attende et adspice pedem
Messise. On verse 19, Schottgen, p. 211. On verses 20, 22, Lightfoot, p. 365 ; Schott
gen, p. 212. On Matt. xxiv. 21, as well as Dan. xii. 1, Mos. Assumpt. 8 : cito adveniet
in eos ultio et ira, qua? talis non fuit in illis a sseculo usque ad illud tempus. Comp.
Ex. xi. 6 ; Ez. xvi. 16 ; 1 Mace. ix. 27. On Matt. xxiv. 12, 4 Ezra v. 2 : irXrj9vv9ri-
aerat i] dSiKia v-rrip rjv dSeg vvv Kai virip rjv ijKcvodg norz. Comp. in general,
Lightfoot, pp. 363 sqq. ; Schottgen, II. pp. 509 sqq. ; Bertholdt, p. 48 ; Gfrorer, I.
ii. pp. 195 sqq. Strauss, 4th ed. II. p. 348 ; Hofmann, pp. 37 sqq. ; Hilg. Zeitschr.
1868, pp. 52 sqq. Only not exactly a use of Ezra (Hilg.). How could Jesus (xxiv. 20)
find the flight on the Sabbath open to objection (which Mark xiii. 18 drops out), when
his principle and his practice in the conflict about the Sabbath, Matt. xii. 1 sqq., were
so liberal? How could he, notwithstanding Matt. xxi. 13, entertain anxiety about the
temple, which lay more remote from his consciousness in general ; and how could he,
after Luke xiii. 1 and Matt. xxii. 21 (in spite of Matt. xx. 25), ascribe to the Romans
this shameful deed (see above, I. p. 308), which was not perpetrated until after
Caligula (A.D. 39)? Comp. the similarity in 2 Thess. ii. 4.

238 THE FAREWELL.
not orally.1 It is plain that he wrote before the destruction,
nay even before the investment of Jerusalem, therefore before
the spring of A.D. 70, since, in accordance with the prediction
of Daniel, he feared only a heathen desecration of the temple in
the manner of Antiochus or Caligula, and counselled Jews and
Christians, in the face of this horror, to migrate from Jerusalem
and Judsea, and to await upon the hills the speedy redemption of
the immediately returning Messiah.2 The more exact point of
time is visibly the approach of the storm of war from subjugated
Galilee towards Jerusalem, and — if we listen to Matthew in
particular — the perpetration of the sanguinary and shameful
deeds of the revolutionary party at Jerusalem after the spring of
A.D. 68, with which deeds was certainly connected the increasing-
persecution of the Christians.3 It is probable that the Easter
1 A purely Jewish, not Jewish-Christian writing, the existence of which Colani (Les
Croyances Mess. p. 208) asserted, Weizsacker (pp. 121 sqq., 551 sq.) accepted (on the
ground of the similarity of Matt. xxiv. 22 with Barn. 4, an Enoch-Apocalypse ; comp.
Book of Enoch 80) ; on the other hand, Pfleiderer, Jahrb. deutsche Theol. 1868,
pp. 134 sqq., rightly again supposed it to be written by a Jewish-Christian, since the
core of it is Christian (29 — 31, also 15 — 22).
2 Flight, Is. xiii. 14. Hills, Ez. vii. 16; Gen. xix. 17. Frequently it is assumed
that the writer had overlived the destruction of Jerusalem ; thus— after Credner — ¦
Strauss, Baur, Kbstlin, Hilg., Volkmar. On the other hand, Colani, Weizs. and Pflei
derer recently, have rightly combatted this. The desecration of the temple (comp.
above, I. pp. 64 sq. ; recently also Pfleiderer, I.e.), assumed by the author on the
ground of Daniel ix. 27 (comp. Hilg. p. 53), did not actually come to pass, and just as
little did the subsequent flight out of Judasa. Strauss, 4th ed. II. p. 350, passes over
this instance with the remark that the author had incorrectly made Daniel refer to the
destruction of the temple, and indeed also of the city. Hilg. still abides (1868, p. 53)
by this unfortunate exposition, as if he could explain iarbg, which (above, I. p. 65 ;
comp. Bunsen, p. 444) can be made to refer only to the sacrifice to the standards under
Titus. Hilg. also speaks of a pouring of the wild soldiery (of whom, after Paulus,
Hofm. p. 40, Schenkel, p. 257, Volkmar, p. 542, think, in connection with BSiX. i.)
out from the destroyed city over the country ; wherefore then everything in Judsea
was to flee to the hills. But this outpouring of the soldiery is not historically attested.
With the cvBiug (see R. Hofm. p. 28) of Matthew, the secure support of his fidelity in
contrast to what was traditional, and which Volkmar, p. 546, does not argue away with
his careless verdict, Hilg. (p. 54) well compares, Mos. Ass. 7: ex quo facto finientur
tempora, momento finietur cursus, quando hora? IV venerint. To this I add c. 8 :
cito adveniet ultio, &c. ; 10 : protinus vindicabit illos ab inimicis.
3 The Galilean war was at an end in the late autumn of A.D. 67 (B. J. 4, 2 5) •
from that time Jerusalem was (B. J. 4, 3, 1), as it knew itself, the point aimed at,

ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 239
oracle of Jesus, which this witness 'brought into circulation,
appeared as a pamphlet, not as part of a Gospel ; for the serious
ness of the situation required it to be so and not otherwise, and
the whole, regarded both externaBy and internally, gives the
impression of mastership in this apocalyptic province and of
seclusion. And, finally, it is possible that it coincided with that
oracle which, according to ancient testimony, admonished the
Christians of Jerusalem before the war to go out of the city, and
induced them to retreat to Pella in Persea. It must, however, be
admitted that the ancient account in Eusebius points rather to a
new special revelation of God or of Christ, than to a publication
of an earlier utterance on the Mount of OBves.1
and from the beginning of the year 68 (B. J. 4, 7, 2, comp. 4, 4, 5 sq., shows Easter)
accumulated the horrors of the Zealots and Goetes (B. J. 4, 2, 1) specially described by
Matthew. Matt. x. 23 shows also the persecution of the Christians, which in such a
time (as also in that of Bar-Kochba's, Justin, Ap. I. 31) were very natural (above,
p. 53, note 2), and gave occasion to the migration of the Christians. Matt. x. 23 does
not say that the Apostles shall not have finished their mission to Israel before the
Messiah comes, but in their flights they shall not have exhausted all the cities before
the Messiah shall make an end of the distress. The flight of the people (Matt. xxiv. 20,
comp. 32) began in the spring of A.D. 68 (B. J. 4, 6, 3). The higher classes went as
early as the autumn of 66 (B. J. 2, 20, 1). We are forbidden to think of Easter or of
July A.D. 69 (Matt. xxiv. 7) by Matt. xxiv. 20.
1 Comp. Eus. 3, 5 ; above, I. p. 68, note 3. Colani, Croy. Mess. pp. 208 sq., and
Pfleiderer, p. 141, assume the identity of Matt. xxiv. with that oracle in Eusebius,
evidently simpler and more original than the Revelation of John. Even Volkmar,
p. 542, allows it to be used by his doctrine-inventor Mark. Kostlin's doubt of the
identity (p. 119) is based upon the above noted distinction, which, however, may be
dependent upon the inexactness of the communication of Eusebius. I must here add
that if this pamphlet-apocalypse (against above, I. p. 68) probably belongs to the spring
of A. D. 68 (see previous note ; Colani and Pfleiderer think of A. D. 67, Pfleiderer the
latter end of 67), as afterwards the great Johannine Revelation belongs to Easter,
A.D. 69, the composition of the original Gospel of Matthew before the destruction loses
somewhat in probability. It would then have to be assumed that it was written (comp.
xxiv. 29) soon after this destruction (comp. xxiv. 15, 22), and perhaps already with
reference to the Apocalypse (in xxiv. 30; comp. Zech. xii. 10; Book of Enoch i. ; see
above, I. p. 67, note 4; much more certainly in Luke xxi. 24, &c), but at any rate
before A.D. 72 (xvii. 24). To the tvBiuig (with somewhat longer space, Heg. ap. Eus.
2, 23 ; Justin, Ap. I. 32) would Matt, then have given retardation, not only by the
already earlier verses 21 — 25, but also by the — by him introduced — verses 26 — 28
(Luke xvii. 23). The most extreme limit for the rise of this Gospel would thus be
A.D. 70 72 (above, IV. p. 331). But does not xxiii— 35 point, again, distinctly to
A.D. 68, and not to the later horrors (B.J. 4, 6, 1 ; 4, 9, 8 sqq. ; 5, 1, 3 sqq.) ; and
could the author, even if he were deriving his material from a source the text of which

240 THE FAREWELL.
Whilst the whole of the farewell address thus appears to
resolve itself into nothing, we must not, on the other hand, hide
the fact that the seer of the seventh decade, whose oracle our
Gospels have incorporated, could scarcely have lacked all histori
cal support justifying him, not only in disclosing coming events
in God's name, but also in placing in the mouth of Jesus this
enlarged and extended future. It is also a fact that a part of
this historical glance at the future by Jesus lies before us in the
announcement of the fall of the temple made at the thoroughly
appropriate and scarcely altogether fictitious halt of observation on
the Mount of Olives. We possess the right, nay the duty, of ascrib
ing to Jesus and to his Easter, whatever in the great speech that
is otherwise historically well attested, whatever happily corre
sponds to his certified manner of thinking and speaking, and
whatever is in harmony with the situation in which he spoke.
In this we have the additional support of the evidence of an
imperfect and artificiaBy effected welding of these most ancient
passages with the copious additions of the editor.1 This being
admitted, we shall first of all recognize as the production of Jesus
the two chief detail of the tableau, the destruction — not the
desecration — of the temple, and the second advent of the Messiah
as the redeemer of the people after the divine judgment executed
upon the tower and the lords of the tower. Indeed, in the definite
formulse of the second advent before the then existing generation
had passed away, of the saving of the nation in the midst of the
fall, and of the sending forth of the angels by the Son of Man,
we shaB welcome already well-known genuine points of view and
he wished to preserve as much as possible, in the exact moment of the non-fulfilment
(xxiv. 15 sqq.), put the erring prediction in the mouth of Jesus ? Here all logic ceases,
whilst sound logic perceives that later writers, farther from the events, could do this
more easily. Finally, what stands in the way of the assumption that the Evangelist,
writing in the summer of A.D. 68 (xxiii. 35, xxiv. 20 ; comp. B.J. 4, 5, 2 — 5) incor
porated the little apocalypse which had just appeared into his work ?
1 Reference has already been made, above, p. 233, to such imperfect connections,
both formal and material. And what is in detail more striking than the conversion of
the temple destruction, Matt. xxiv. 2, into a desecration, xxiv. 15, perhaps an abase
ment similar to, yet different from, that in Rev. xi. 1 ?

ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 241
expressions of Jesus.1 The sufferings of the Apostles as the
immediate successors of Jesus were also a familiar topic with
Jesus, though without knowledge and prediction of the details.
From this dark and pessimistic glance at the present, from this
solemn and clear look into the future, they could not be altogether
absent ; nay, thrown into a new form and gilded with hopeful
glances towards the Father, these predictions are too character
istic to aBow the interpolation of isolated later facts to justify a
doubt of the whole.2 Just as credible is the beautiful and
remarkably apposite Easter parable — certainly not the cunningly
devised work of a later author— of the putting forth of leaves
by the early fig-tree, which pointed to the approaching harvest.
The same is true of the self-conscious and noble saying that the
predictions of Jesus would be more enduring than heaven and
earth.3 Just so, finally — the genuinely human and the limited
becoming lofty, uncertainty and the unsolved obscurity of the
future becoming prophecy — a complete genuineness lies in the
saying about the ignorance even of the Son as to the time and
the hour, and in the saying about the sudden thief-like surprise
of a heartless humanity by the lightning-like outburst from
heaven of the second advent.4 These are the fundamental lines,
or at least the fragments, of an address about the future, which
we would gladly piece together, combine into one body and clothe
with flesh and blood, were we not perplexed by the thought, not
only that more than one calculation of probability does not work
out correctly, but also that the individual sentences perhaps
belong to different times and occasions, and that the individual
points of view, the illegibility and the legibility of the future,
appear to directly exclude each other, at least from the unity of
1 Matt. xxiv. 2 and 30 sq., 34. Comp. also xvi. 27, xiii. 41, and (respecting the
nexus of the second advent with the catastrophe of the world) xv. 13 sq., xxi. 13, 33,
41, xxiii. 33, 38 sq., xxiv. 28, xxvi. 64. Comp. above, IV. pp. 284 sqq.
2 Mark xiii. 9 — 13 and parallel passages, with interpolations, upon which see also
below, p. 243, n. 3. The place of this passage is to be sought here (and not Matt. x.
or Luke xii. ) so much the rather because all the Synoptics are agreed about this position.
8 Matt. xxiv. 32—35. * Matt. xxiv. 36, 42—44 (51).
VOL. V. K

242 THE FAREWELL.
one and the same hour. The case is not, however, so bad.1 The
Mount of OBves' station may in general pass as reliable. And
the single tangible momenta of the speech, betraying their unity
through the forced connections of the later apocalyptist, adapt
themselves to each other without needing any violence. Thus
the delineation of the outline of future things — whose figures the
limitation and the humility of Jesus could not exhaust, whose
exact relation to the final end the departing Master could not
measure — foBows in a perfectly natural and genuinely human
way the confession of the ignorance of the Son of Man concerning
the day and the hour ; and then comes the admonition to watch
fulness against the incalculable epoch of the commencement of
the kingdom of heaven.2
On the basis of these considerations, the course and contents
of the actual speech of Jesus may have been the foBowing.
After the brief and solemn prediction, spoken on the way over
the Mount of Olives, concerning the temple and the stones of
the temple, Jesus sat down probably on the summit of the
Mount — as Mark rightly has it— just opposite to the eastward-
looking temple hill.3 Jesus' terrible prediction the more power
fully impressed the souls of the disciples the more the simple
1 Weizs. also (pp. 549, 551 sq. ) regarded as portions belonging to Jesus, fig-tree,
ignorance, thief-like coming, survival of the Apostles and of the current generation. He
even recognizes the warning against false Messiahs and the preaching to the world.
The admission (p. 126) is, however, peculiar, that Jesus himself perhaps made use of
an apocalyptic Book of Enoch, in which Matt. xxiv. 22 (comp. Barn. 4) was contained.
See above, p. 238, n. 1. He is also reminded of the Book of Enoch by the well-known
Papias-tradition of the vines (above, I. p. 39). On the other hand, how much will
Weisse and even Schenkel accept as original, it is true with symbolical interpretation !
Volkmar (p. 549) is able to save only Matt. xxiv. 35, 42 ; but also the certainly later
Mark xiii. 37.
2 That Jesus gave forth something concerning the course of the future (and indeed
not merely the prospect of the survival of the contemporaries, Weizs. p. 552), certainly
follows from the sign of the fig-tree ; and as concrete objects we can see only the per
secution of the Apostles and the destruction of the temple. But the less he saw of
detail, and the less he was able sharply to delineate the sequence even of the destruc
tion of the temple and the second advent, the more could he speak of things that could
not be calculated and of surprises, of which, in the face of the sharp delineations of
the apocalyptist, he could not possibly say more.
3 Matt. xxiv. 3 ; Mark xiii. 3.

ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 243
Galileans had admired the temple, and the more they — despite
all that had taken place — had bound up their faith and their
pride with the sanctuary of the nation. Their reflections found
voice in a question. The most intimate, i.e. the Twelve, according
to Mark's individualizing description the two pairs of brothers,
went to Jesus and said, " TeB us, when shall this come to pass ?"1
The answer appeared to be irrelevant, but in reality it was most
relevant and most needful ; it pointed to the last insolent deeds
of the lords of the sanctuary who would not be overthrown but
with the overthrow of the temple itself. " Take heed to your
selves before men," said Jesus ; " for they will deliver you up to
councBs, and in their synagogues they will beat you. But when
they deBver you up, be not anxious how or what ye shall speak ;
for it shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak ; for
it is not ye that are the speakers, but the Spirit of your Father
who speaks in you. And a brother will deliver a brother to death,
and a father a child, and children wiB rise up against parents
and cause them to be put to death. And ye wiB be hated by all
for my name's sake ; but he that endures to the end shall be
saved."2 In the depressed and solemn mood which came over
him, he saw the immediate future of his disciples in the gloomiest
light, saw it just as the prophetic pictures had long since pre
sented it to him — nay, he saw it darker than it really was when
it came. And as the temple spaces and the lords of the temple,
1 Mark xiii. 3, in the correct sequence of position : Peter, James, John, Andrew.
Quite erroneously, Luke allows the possibility that persons from among the people, as
it were the nation itself, asked xxi. 7, as in fact the whole speech appears to be deli
vered in the temple before the people. How often has the late Luke thus anti-Jewishly
generalized ! The question itself is — as most critics see (Hofm. p. 17; Schenkel, p. 250 ;
Weizs. p. 549) — the most simple in Luke xxi. 7, enlarged in Matt. xxiv. 3 ; but Mark
xiii. 4 again combines.
2 Mark xiii. 9—13; Luke xxi. 12—19; Matt. xxiv. 9—14 (x. 17—23). Comp.
the parallel opening of the apocalyptist, Matt. xxiv. 4 ; and Paulus, III. i. p. 343.
Luke is manifoldly periphrastic ; Matt, and Mark force in the mission to the world.
Comp. above, p. 233, u. 4. There may be a doubt about the trials — given by all three
Gospels — before kings and governors (procurators), before whom testimony is to be
borne (comp. the alteration of Luke xxi. 13) ; but can Jesus have thought of a trial
before such a tribunal whilst John and himself experienced nothing of the kind ? He
could, in his position, the most readily think of a procurator, but not of Antipas or of
the not vet existing king Agrippa. R 2

244 THE FAREWELL.
with his daily danger and the morrow's threatened violence,
floated before his mental eyes as the place and the instru
ments of his own path of suffering, so also in reference to his
disciples he thought of synagogue and temple judgments ; and
he could only console them, as he consoled himself, with the
presence and aid of the Father, and with the path of patience
that led to Messianic glory.1
" But then," continued he, after the distress of those days, when
their measure shall be filled and the blind leaders shall have fallen
with the blind into the pit, "then shall they see the Son of Man
coming upon the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.2
And he will send out his angels and gather his elect from the four
winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.3 But learn a
parable from the fig-tree. When its branch begins to become
tender and it puts forth leaves, then ye know that the harvest is
near. Therefore ye also, when ye see all this, know that it is near,
at the doors.4 Verily I say unto you, this generation shall by no
1 The passage Mark xiii. 12 (Matt. xxiv. 10) suggests the similar passage Matt.
x. 35, which is based on Micah vii. 6, and belongs to Galilee. Above, IV. p. 318;
V. p. 51. Interesting parallel from A.D. 68, Jos. B.J. 4, 3, 4 : rr\v Ka9' avrbv 'iKavrog,
trairnpiav r\ydna. Treachery, ib. 3, 8, 1.
* Matt. xxiv. 29 sq. and parallel passages. As the eschatological predictions in verses
15 — 28 either are not genuine or belong elsewhere, as also the eschatological colouring
of verses 29 sq., is untenable, the connection of the parts of the speech of Jesus is here
for the most to be restored only by hypothesis.
3 Mark xiii. 26 sq. (Matt. xxiv. 30 sq. ) has already been attacked by Weisse (I. pp.
694 sq.) with veritable passion. Such a strange vagary, such a phantasm, such an
expression of the most narrow-minded superstitious belief in Daniel, could not have
come from the mouth of Jesus ; he may have thus spoken in a symbolical sense, but
without attaching to the words a literal meaning, which later men (as early as the
Apostles) first attached to them. Similar views in Hase, Schenkel, and most recently
Volkmar, the champion of the great sober man against such distasteful distortion. But
see above, IV. pp. 285 sqq. With the expression in Matt. xxiv. 31, comp. — besides
Matt. xiii. 41 — Deut. iv. 32, xxx. 4 ; Ps. xix. 6 ; Ez. vii. 2. If any one thinks sus
piciously of Matt. xxv. 32, let him not forget x. 23, xiii. 32, 41.
4 Scarcely from Ez. vii. 10 (the rod blossoms) ; comp. Hosea ix. 10 ; Book of Enoch,
v. 1. The early fig (bikkure) comes into leaf at Easter, the harvest is at the end of
June. Ben Seb. in Wetst. p. 503 : ab exortis foliis ad ficus CXXX days. " The
blossoms lie hidden in a fleshy covering, which appears on the old branches (in Pales
tine in the middle of March) and ripens to fruit before the leaves appear (Pliny 16
49)," Winer. Comp. Lightfoot, p. 320.

ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 245
means pass away until all this has come to pass.1 The heavens
and the earth shall pass away, but my words shall by no means
pass away.2 But concerning that day and the hour knows no one,
not even the angels of the heavens, nor the Son of Man, but the
Father only.3 Watch, therefore, for ye know not what day your
Lord comes. But observe this, that if the master of the house
had known in what watch of the night the thief would come, he
would have watched and would not have suffered his house to be
broken through. Therefore be ye also ready, for in the hour in
which ye think it not, the Son of Man comes."* And then he
1 The idea y£i/£<i (Hebrew, dor) quite falsely applied, from Origen until Lange, to
the Christians in general, from Calov until Dorner to the Jews, by Jerome to the genus
hum. In truth it designates the period of a human generation ; so that most critics
think of 30 — 40 years ; Baur, with his followers (chiefly to justify the date of the pas
sage under Hadrian), of 100 years. It allows narrower or wider limits ; e. g. 100 years,
Gen. xv. 16 ; comp. however Irenaeus, 5, 30, 3. Plutarch, De Def. Orac. 11, speaks
of such as reckon the ytv. to 108 years or even to only one. Herodotus (2, 142) and
Heraclitus (in Plut. 1. c. ; comp. Thuc. 1, 14) assume 30 years (Herodotus about 33 :
yivtai rpdg dvSpaiv harbv irtd itsn; Heraclitus the round number 30). On the
other hand, Censorinus (3rd cent.), De Die Nat. 17, at any rate gives his own opinion
emphatically (qui annos 30 sec. putarunt, multum videntur errasse), and defines the
sflec. = yeved as spatium vitas longissimum. It maybe that the estimate of 100 or 120
years is derived from the estimated length of the human life (Varro, Ling. Lat. VI.
§11: seclum spatium annorum centum vocarunt, dictum a. sene, quod longissimum
spatium senescendorum hom. id putarant) ; the assumption of a generation at any rate
favours the usual smaller number. In the Gospels (Matt. xii. 41 sq., xxiv. 34), there
can be no doubt it was meant that not merely the so-called longasvi, among whom
Baur classed the Apostle John, Ignatius, Symeon, Quadratus (comp. Heges. ap. Eus.
3, 32 : napd\nXv9ii »; yaitd, namely, of the eye-witnesses [after Trajan]), but a not
small part of the contemporaries would survive unto this future ; although, again, other
passages (Matt. xvi. 28), based on Jesus' words or on modified traditions of them,
point only to the remains of such a generation. Comp. Baur, Jahrb. 1849, p. 316 ;
Zeller, 1852, p. 299. Above, IV. p. 286.
2 Comp. the saying about the Law, Matt. v. 18 (of God, Is. xl. 8), and the remarks
thereon, above, III. p. 300. Our passage speaks only of the prediction, not of the
teaching, of Jesus.
. 3 The mention of the Son of Man as not knowing, is not only in Mark, but also
in Matthew on the authority of the oldest MSS., Sin., Vat., Bez., It., also Irenasus,
2, 28, 6 (comp. Tischendorf), whereby Volkmar's remark is set to rest (p. 544), that
those who mentioned the virgin-birth did not venture to predicate such ignorance.
Rather would Mark (above, I. p. 124) have ventured upon the assertion still less than
Matthew, had it not been handed down ! On the knowledge and ignorance of the
angels, Schottgen, p. 213. God alone knowing, Deut. xxxii. 34 ; Zech. xiv. 7.
4 Matt. xxiv. 42 sq., where, after rejection of the interpolation verses 37 — 41,
verse 42 admirably fits on to verse 36 ; and what follows to the end of the chapter is

246 THE FAREWELL.
gives to the parable the most useful application, in order to show
to the disciples their mission as servants, and their obligations of
oversight and provision in the future community. " Who, then,
is the faithful and understanding servant, whom his lord has set
over his household, to give them food in due season I1 Blessed
that servant whom his lord, when he is come, shall find so doing.
Verily I say unto you that he will set him over all his goods.
But if that evil servant says in his heart, My lord delays his
coming, and begins to beat his fellow-servants, and eats and
drinks with the drunken, then will the lord of that servant come
in a day when he does not expect it, and in an hour when he is
not aware of it, and will cut him asunder and appoint his por
tion with the hypocrites : there shall be wailing and gnashing of
teeth."2
so well connected, and is so much in harmony with the parallel passages, that no one has
a right to close with verse 42. In Luke we have a corresponding passage, xii. 35 — 40
(conglomerate of sayings in a later formation), especially verse 39, and yet the passage
is also presupposed in general in xxi. 34 sqq., as also in Mark, who in xiii. 34 sqq.
gives a kind of synthesis of Matt. xxiv. 43 and Luke xii. 38 sqq. Picture of the thief,
Joel ii. 9.
1 Comp. Proverbs xxxi. 15. On the "then," Volkmar (p. 546) remarks that it is
to be explained only from Luke xii. 42, as afterwards the wicked servant from Luke
xii. 45. But how can we (comp. next note) find the opening in Luke, verse 41, older,
or overlook the greater difficulty of the expression of Matt. xxiv. 48 as compared with
Luke xii. 45 ?
2 Matt. xxiv. 45 — 51 ; comp. the somewhat later form in Luke xii. 41 sqq. — simi
larly attached to Luke xii. 35 — 40, as in Matthew to xxiv. 42 — 44— after which comes
the later addition xii. 47 sq., which may treat of the relation of Jewish Christianity to
Gentile Christianity. Evidently Luke xxi. 34 sqq. presupposes the same section also
in the eschatological speech. The parable-form in Mark is a, synthesis of Matthew
and Luke ; the later date is shown at once in xiii. 33, 35, 37, then also in the un
fortunate medley of the Apostles' work (by day) and their night watch, of which
alone, according to the context, mention should have been made. In the parable of
Matthew and of Luke, mention is made simply of the responsible position of all the
Apostles in relation to other believers, not of a supremacy of Peter, or of a substitution
of John in Asia Minor for the martyr who died in A.D. 64, or even of the bishops as
the successors of the Apostles, as Hilgenfeld, 1868, pp. 56 sq., thinks. As little is
the wicked, beating servant, whose portion is among the hypocrites, Paul, the foe of
the Jewish - Christians, but every perverse disciple of Jesus. Only not everything
derived from unhistorical tendency-soil ! The cutting asunder (Six- Ex. xxix. 17) with
saw (2 Sam. xii. 31) or sword (Susanna, 59), Hebr. shisseph, 1 Sam. xv. 33 (LXX.
oipdrru, Vulg. in frusta concidit), and gasar (also batak, batar, nittach), 1 Kings
iii. 25 sq. Also Rabbis : corpus dissecatur (baka, in the judgment), Schottgen p. 216.
Comp. Luke xix. 27.

AT BETHANY. 247

B. — At Bethany.
According to all appearances, the evening of the 12th of April
and the foBowing Wednesday were spent in the quiet of Bethany.
As early as Tuesday evening, Jesus announced to his disciples,
with solemn, incisive brevity, " Ye know that after two days is
the Eassover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be
crucified."1 Only Matthew has this last announcement of the
Eassion ; but when we note the exactness and the reliability of
these very communications concerning the Eassion, we can console
ourselves for the fact that Luke and Mark, having mentioned the
same point of time, immediately pass on to what is weightier to
them, to the resolves of the enemies, with the report of which
Matthew also has accompanied that last declaration of Jesus. In
a certain sense, this prediction of death is indeed the most cre
dible, not only because it is the simplest of them all, but also
because Jesus must now grasp his fate, and because he must now
signify it to his adherents.2 The utterance of Jesus by no means
gave expression to a certainty that the enemies were at that
moment proceeding to make their attack, or that the day of his
Eassion would be exactly the Passover-day. He had a sure pre
sentiment of nothing more than that the opening of the Feast
would mark the beginning of his catastrophe, and that the mode
of his death would be that of the Boman cross. He was sure
of the former, because his opponents had only postponed their
onset, because he himself had completed the breach, and finally
because his retreat and the climax of the stream of festival
1 Matt. xxvi. 1 sq. ; Luke xxii. 1 (indefinitely, Easter draws nigh). Mark xiv. 1
has the definite statement of the time, like Matt.
2 Above, I. pp. 71, 102, 119; IV. pp. 268 sqq. Luke xvii. 25 has an announce
ment analogous to this. The natural character of the present formula is striking, par
ticularly in contrast to the wealth of words in Matt. xx. 18 and parallel passages.
All details are lacking (except the cross, which Matthew alone already has, xx. 19),
even the resurrection. Nothing is said of the impression produced on the disciples,
as in xx. 19, Mark x. 34. The wisdom of the most recent critics has discovered that
the passage is unhistorical just because it is so important to Matthew.

248 THE FAREWELL.
visitors — which was at the same time the climax of his oppo
nents' feeling of strength — necessarily encouraged his foes. And
he believed he should die on the cross, because he plainly saw
that his opponents would and must adopt the course of a regular
indictment, because the procurator was on the spot, and he knew
him to be mistrustful and cruel, a despiser of men, a friend of
executions, acquainted with and jealously watchful of the people
and their leaders.1 Such reflections could not now be absent
from the mind of Jesus, for he was always gifted with a circum
spect and reflective sagacity. And still more strongly would he
feel the immediate presentiment which is wont, often so inexpli
cably, to accompany the decisive points of men's lives ; and with
the personal presentiment would be connected the religious,
which would cause him now to believe in a redemptive connec
tion, through Divine Providence, of his death with the ancient
sacred cult of the blood of the Paschal Lamb.2
On this day the thoughts and words of Jesus would naturaBy
turn afresh to the future of his disciples, to their forlornness as
well as to their task of untiring waiting and assiduous toil in the
name of their Lord. The most important of these speeches has
been preserved to us. The relationship between its contents and
the address on the Mount of Olives has led to the two being
mixed up in aB kinds of ways, and that not only by Matthew,
who, according to his wont, brings aB the addresses about the
future into one day, but partially also by Luke and Mark, nay,
already by the author of the Mount of Olives' oracle himself. A
speech of such a kind, by no means so weB placed as here, is
preserved by Luke and Matthew, by the former in the neigh
bourhood of the Galilean entry, and by the latter in the Mount
of Olives' oracle.3 " The days wiB come," said Jesus, " when ye
1 Above, I. pp. 266, 304 sqq., II. p. 400. 2 Matt. xxvi. 26 sqq.
3 Luke xvii. 22 — 37 is a speech so natural, practical, and original in its ideas and
in its pictures, and so admirably self -consistent, that it is undoubtedly to be used as a
Bpeech by Jesus. Comp. already Schleier., Luk. pp. 215 sqq., 265 sqq. The best
locality, however, is (see particularly verse 37) Jerusalem ; for the want of order and
the transpositions of Luke are well known, although he is here not far from the right

AT BETHANY. 249
will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and ye wiB
not see it.1 If therefore they say to you, Lo ! he is in the desert,
go not forth ; lo ! in the chambers, believe it not.2 For as the
Bghtning goes from the uprising and shines to the downsetting,
so will be the advent of the Son of Man.3 And as it came to
pass in the days of Noah, so wiB it be also in the days of the
Son of Man. They were eating, drinking, marrying, being given
in marriage, until the day that Noah went into the ark, and the
flood came and destroyed them all. Even so, also, as it came to
pass in the days of Lot: they were eating, drinking, buying,
selBng, planting, buBding; but the day that Lot went out of
Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed
point, as he places the speech near the entry. Only the connection with the spiritual
present kingdom, Luke xvii. 20 sq., is unfortunate. Above, IV. p. 13, note 1. Mat
thew, in the speech about the future, violently inserted from this speech xxiv. 17 sq.,
26 — 28, 37 — 41. Luke took xxi. 21. Mark took xiii. 15 sq. But without doubt the
original oracle had itself — 'as the three Gospels can show — adopted Matt. xxiv. 17 sq.,
Luke xxi. 21, Mark xiii. 15 sq., although the original connection and the fuller develop
ment are in Luke xvii. 31. Perhaps also that part of the oracle which stands in Matt.
xxiv. 23, Mark xiii. 21, is in its original place only in Luke xvii. 23, at least in its
original sense (see below, note 2).
1 Jemot hammashiach, Lightfoot, p. 552. Recalls Matt. ix. 15.
2 Salvation out of the desert was the watchword of the false prophets, above, II.
p. 229, V. p. 123. When the temple was taken by the Romans, the Zealots begged
from Titus leave to go into the desert, Jos. B. J. 6, 6, 3. Moses also expected out of
the desert, Wetstein, p. 503. The chambers (Matt. vi. 6) = Messianic retirement,
dyvworog, Justin, Trypho, 8 ; above, II. pp. 254, 297. The whole sentence reminds
one of Luke xvii. 20 sq., where Jesus denies to the kingdom of heaven the material
coming which he, however, now in his catastrophe, claims. Luke himself has in
xvii. 23 (also Mark xiii. 21) a more indefinite expression than the concrete one in
Matt. xxiv. 26. But Matthew and Mark (perhaps also the author of the oracle him
self) have quite erroneously referred these words to false prophets instead of to Jesus.
3 This splendid figure has close analogies. In general, the glory of God appears
in lightning and thunder; comp., besides Ps. xviii. 14 sq., especially Ps. lxxvii. 18,
and Job xxxvii. 3. It is not exactly said that the advent itself will be marked by a
display of lightning (Matt. xxiv. 30) ; comp. Numbers xxiv. 17; Matt. iii. 2 ; Luke
i. 78 ; and Rabb. : lux Messiae, Berth, p. 204 ; lux nomen Messiah, Lightfoot, p. 635 ;
above, II. p. 87) ; only the suddenness (Matt. xxiv. 43 ; Rev. iii. 3 ; 1 Thess. v. 2) and
the staggering vehemence are directly expressed. Certainly Soga, Matt. xvi. 27, will
be there. On the sign of the Son of Man (signa redemptionis, above, p. 216, n. 3),
Matt. xxiv. 30, comp. different explanations in R. Hofm. pp. 50 sqq., who, however,
brings in even the fable of Joseph ben Gorion, 6, 53, about an appearance of a splendid
form of the Son of Man above the Holy of Holies at the time of the catastrophe.

250 THE FAREWELL.
them all. In the same measure will it be in the day when the
Son of Man is revealed.1 In that day, he that shall be upon the
house, let him not come down to fetch the utensils of his house;
and he that is in the field, let him not turn back to fetch his cloak.
Eemember Lot's wife. Whosoever seeks to gain his life will lose
it ; and whosoever loses it will gain it.2 I say unto you, in that
night two will be upon one bed, one wBl be taken and the other
left ; two men will be in the field, two women together at the
mill, one wBl be taken, the other left."3 " Where, Lord ?" asked
the chilled and astonished disciples. " Where the carcass is, there
will the eagles be gathered together."* He again spoke, as
allusively, reticently, mysteriously as on the previous day, of the
1 Luke xvii 26 — 30. Evidently more original than Matthew ; comp. here xxiv. 37,
39. Noah, Gen. vi. 1 sqq. Lot, Gen. xix. 1 sqq. The continuous character of the
sinful worldly life might be concluded from Gen. vi. 2 — 7, 11 — 13, vii. 1, then espe
cially xix. 5 sqq., 14. Comp. 1 Peter iii. 20. The two examples also connected by
the Rabbis, Wetst. p. 777; comp. 2 Peter ii. 5 sq. The carelessness, Jalk. Rub. f.
29, 1 : homines tempore diluvii viventes rapinam et injuriam exercuerunt, peccarunt
et peccare fecerunt, usque dum catarrhactse cceli se aperuerunt. Schottgen, p. 213.
The description of the facts as in Luke xiv. 18 sqq. ; Matt. xxii. 5. Schottgen, pp. 175
sqq. Above, p. 173, note 1. If it be asked how Jesus, after giving such definite signs
of the future (temple), could assume such a sense of security, such a lack of anxiety
on the part of men, help towards an answer can be obtained only by supposing that in
the actual speech of Jesus the tvBiuig, Matt. xxiv. 29, did not exist, the fall of the
temple did not immediately bring in the end.
2 Luke xvii. 31 — 33 ; Matt. xxiv. 17 sq., and the par. passages. Lot's wife (Gen.
xix. 26) evidently well connects this little section with the previous one. The escha
tological speech, Matt: xxiv. 18, has the concrete picture of the cloak in addition
(against Luke xvii. 31). To preserve life, Gen. xix. 17, 20; Matt. x. 39, xvi. 25.
Jewish watchword, above, IV. pp. 280, note 2, 281, note 1. The perverted watchword
in the time of the war, B.J. 4, 3, 4; see above, p. 244, n. 1. Comp. with Luke
xvii. 33, the eschatological saying, Matt. xxiv. 13, Luke xxi. 19.
3 Luke xvii. 34 sq. (bed, mill) ; Matt. xxiv. 40 sq. (field, mill). The difference
may be connected with the fact that Luke places the advent in the night (as also
Matt. xxiv. 43 ; Mark xiii. 35 ; also by the Rabbis, the last part of the night, Wet-
stein, p. 503). Similar pictures by the Rabbis, Wetst. p. 214. On the mill, Ex. xi. 5.
4 Luke xvii. 37. In Matthew unskilfully attached, xxiv. 28. The passage after
Hab. i. 8 (comp. Job xxxix. 30). As symbol of judgment, Hosea viii. 1 ; Jer. iv. 13,
xlviii. 40, xlix. 22; Ez. xxxix. 17 (Rev. xix. 17), xvii. 3; Deut. xxviii. 49. On the
other hand, Ex. xix. 4 is not to be referred to here (Meyer). The irrZua also suggests
the 7ro\t/ai'o'pioi' (field of the dead) which Antiochus wished to make of Jerusalem
2 Mace. ix. 4, 14. Among the classics, Seneca, Ep. 46 : si vultur es, cadaver exspecta !
Mart. Epigr. 6, 62, 4 : cujus vulturis hoc erit cadaver ? Comp. Wetst. p. 502.

AT BETHANY. 251
catastrophe of the fatherland. He did not mean Eome and
Israel, he meant himself as the spoB-taker in the physical and
moral ruin of Israel.1
In this speech he showed at large, in a forcible and earnest
manner, the inexorable law of separation which he had already
in GaBlee proclaimed for the terrestrial development of his king
dom, and which was to accompany — only with stiB more of
energetic appBcation — the irrevocable decision of his second
coming. He now gave this law a special application to the
narrow circle of his disciples, showing to them — this time in dis
tinction from yesterday to each of them according to their
peculiar characters — their missions, their prospects, their gains.2
He stimulated them by hoping that the majority of his servants
would do good brave work, and that their work would receive a
final blessing. He alarmed them by drawing the picture of a
servant upon whom punishment and perdition would necessarily
fall. Matthew, and after him Mark — so far as he can here come
under our notice at aB — have on the whole rightly placed, in
connection with these farewell sayings, the parable-like passage
about the servants to whom money was entrusted. Luke, with
a distinctly unhistorical view, has placed it before the entry.3
1 The Roman eagle was thought of by Lightfoot, Wetstein, and others, as well as
R. Hofm. p. 47; but it contradicts the context. Rather (since nesher and dirbg by
no means forbid it), on account of the carcass, we are to think of the carrion vulture
or the golden vulture, than of the eagle (Paulus, III. i. p. 390 ; comp. Winer, Grimm,
Furrer). Still much worse is the old explanation of the carcass, as referring to men
and believers (Christ and the Church). The correct explanation by most modern
critics, comp. Hilg. p. 54.
2 The parable, Matt. xxv. 14, has a similarity to that in Matt. xxiv. 45. On this
very account it scarcely, as Matthew now gives it, belongs to the same day. The
former treats of the relation of the Apostles as such to the community, the latter of
the particular work done by each individual Apostle.
3 Matt. xxv. 14 — 30; Luke xix. 11 — 28, where the parable is brought forward and
placed before the entry of Jesus, which is thus treated as a departure. Mark xiii. 34
is evidently a brief working up together of the different parables in Matthew and Luke
(thief, Matt. xxiv. 43, Luke xii. 39 ; master of the house in the night, Matt. xxiv. 45,
Luke xii. 42, 36 — 38; the Apostles, Matt. xxv. 14, Luke xix. 11). Does not this
contraction correspond perfectly to the treatment of the speeches in Mark (above, III.
p. 17, &c.) ? And has not the violence of the combination of business transactions
and night-watches been already shown ?

252 THE FAREWELL.
That the nucleus of the parable, which has its parallels also
among the Eabbis, is primitive and genuine, is to be inferred,
apart from the Gospels, from the saying of Jesus, much quoted
by the most ancient writers of the Church, " Be good, faithful
bankers!"1 Thus, from his glance at the tables of the money
changers in the temple courts, he had, notwithstanding the
repugnance which he felt towards them, extracted an Blustration
for his kingdom of heaven. The activity of the money-changers,
their indefatigableness, the profits derived from their transactions,
must have been to him prototypic of the activity that should be
exhibited in the higher work of the kingdom of God. It is true
there are some very noticeable differences in the narrative.
Besides the reports in Matthew and Luke, that in the Gospel of
the Hebrews, in the form it had assumed in the fourth century,
is also at our service.2 There is a difference in the number of
the servants, the amount of the money entrusted to them, the
kind of use to which the money was put, and the reward. It
might be inferred therefrom that Jesus himself had contributed
nothing to the parable besides the brief saying about the bankers,
the very saying which our Gospels have omitted ; and that
the so contradictory parables developed out of this saying
have been the artificial work of later writers and not of Jesus.
In their main points, however, the different narratives agree;
and a closer examination shows that the divergences of Luke
and the Gospel of the Hebrews, already open to question through
suspicions otherwise aroused against these sources, are a work
of arbitrary fabrication.3 The oldest form is therefore without
1 rivEo9t rpamtirai Sokiuoi, Clem. Horn. 2, 51, &e. Above, I. p. 37. Hilg. N. T.
ex. Can. IV. p. 27. A late Jewish parallel in Soh. chad. f. 47, 2 : a king gives three
servants a deposit (pukdana, pakdan, Heb. pikkadon). The first custodivit, the second
perdidit, the third commaculavit, partem alteri custodiendam dedit. When he returns
he asks for his deposit. The first laudavit et prsefectum domus s. fecit (neeman beto).
The second ultimo supplicio affecit. The third is kept in prison until information is
given concerning his accomplice. Schottgen, p. 217, comp. p. 198.
2 Eus. Thecph., Greek by 0. F. Fritzsche in the Monatsschrift d. wiss. Vereins in
Zurich, 1856, pp. 56 sqq., epitomized also by Hilg. NT. ex. Can. IV. pp. 17, 26.
3 Luke xix. 11 (above, p. 65) is as little (comp. Strauss, Meyer, Weisse, II. pp. 127
sqq.) original (Neander, p. 504, who believes in two parables; further, Holtzm. p. 202)

AT BETHANY. 253
doubt to be found in Matthew. We need not here repeat all
the details of the well-known parable. Each one of three
servants of a lord who is travelling into a far country receives a
sum of money proportionate to his ability, to his mental capacity
for engaging in business transactions. One receives five talents
or 30,000 francs, the second two talents or 12,000 francs, the third
one talent. The first and the second double their capital, the
third does nothing but bury his talent, excusing himself with the
plea that he acted thus out of sheer dread of the severity and
insatiable avarice of his lord, who in fact, on returning, can
answer that he ought on this account to have put out the money
to interest instead of merely taking care of it. The two good and
faithful servants, who had been faithful in little, are set over
as its occasion. This is shown by the ten servants (rather a picture of the twelve
Apostles) against the three of Matthew, the smaller amount given to the servants (to
each one a mina = 100 drachmae ; Matthew, talents = 60 minse, 6000 drachmae), because
an iXdxusrov (Matt. bXiya) will have been assumed ; by the colourless equality of the
distribution (to each one mina, Matt, five, two, one talents) ; by the great increment
of the amount entrusted to the servants, indeed artificially a ten-fold increment
( = number of servants) or five-fold (Matt, two-fold) ; and finally by the corresponding
reward, ten and five cities, comp. Schottgen, p. 198. Besides, there are arbitrary
insertions, e.g. verse 25. Above all, the violent introduction of the relation of the lord
going to a far country to the Jewish nation instead of only to the servants, which two
points of view are extremely loosely combined ; and the punishment of the rebellious
Jews (in Matt, the punishment of the three servants) unintelligibly limps in the rear.
The Gospel of the Hebrews, also, gives nothing original against Matthew, in its three
servants, whose obligations are, moreover, too compendiously treated. The first servant
increases his possession (inrapZiv : but this is not exactly the one equal talent which
Hilgenfeld by interpolation gives to all three) and is accepted; the second hides the
talent and is censured ; the third, as a reprobate, wastes his possession with harlots
and pipers, and is thrown into prison. Hilgenfeld says this is in the first place simpler,
in the next place better, more many-sided, than the narration in Matthew, where there
are two servants almost identical, and where the dissolute servant is, in order to screen
the Gentile Christians (wherefore does not Luke xv. screen them ?), converted into the
second, the one who keeps the original amount. On the other hand, again, Volkmar
(p. 175) thinks the dissolute one has become the third in Matthew. Is it, then, more
probable that Jesus was deceived in two-thirds of his servants than in one-third — that
he should assume as probable the dissoluteness which in chap. xxiv. he treats only as
a possibility? Finally, does it seem half reasonable that the lazy Jew was only cen
sured by Jesus ; and does it not appear very narrow-minded and fanatically Jewish
that only tlie Gentile is punished ? Moreover, the Gospel of the Hebrews is the later
Gospel, though perhaps older than the more detailed parallel, Luke xv. 11 sqq. ; comp.
above, I. p. 104, note. Volkmar, it is true, represents that the pearl of Luke has been
" broken to pieces" by Matthew, as well as by the Gospel of the Hebrews.

254 THE FAREWELL.
much, and are allowed to participate in the joy of their lord ;
the third is cast into the outer darkness, his capital given to the
first, because, according to the popular adage, " to him that has
shaB be given, that he may have abundance ; but from him that
has not, shaB be taken even what he has."1 Jesus— or the parable
— by no means meant to make these servants represent the Jews
or the Gentiles, but great and smaB, active and lazy, apostles ;
and it is a sign of the genuineness of the parable that neither the
history of Peter nor that of Paul, who " wrought more than all,"
appears to be in any way interwoven.2
We must doubtless regard as much later and less original
several other speeches in Matthew and Luke which, attested by
only single authorities, found a lodgment either in this connec
tion or elsewhere. There are descriptions of waiting for the Lord,
of the second advent, of the judgment, in which the apostolic or
post-apostolic time expressed their sighs, their longings, their
hopes. The waiting is depicted in the Matthew-parable of the
ten virgins, in the Luke-parable of the widow and the unjust
judge ; the judgment of the world, in the conclusion of the fare
well speeches in Matthew and in the conclusion of the same
Evangelist's Sermon on the Mount. The parable of the five wise
and the five foolish virgins, who waited in the night for the
bridegroom, and only half of whom took a gladsome part in the
1 The third servant in Matthew buried the money, the third in Luke hid it in
sudario, upon which Ketub. f. 67, 2 : R. Abba pecunias in sudario ligavit illudque
post se rejecit, ut pauperes invenirent. Cavedoni, Bibl. Numism. p. 146. Faithful
in little, nssssman bakethannim (Schottgen, p. 217), comp. Skem. R.S. II. : Deus nun-
quani res magnas largitur hominibus, nisi eos prius per res parvas exploraverit (e.g.
Moses and David), Wetst. p. 510. The sum, though great in itself, was small for a
king (comp. Matt, xviii. 24). He that has, comp. Matt. xiii. ; above, IV. p. 130. Also
Soh. chad. f. 75, 4 : quic. addit, illi plura adduntur, qui demit, iUi plura demuntur.
Tanch. f. 38, 1 : Deus, si videt hominem, in quo spir. sap., ilium sap. implet. Schott
gen, p. 218. Into the joy, Shem. R. XVIII. : veniet in gaudium filii mei. Wetst.
p. 510 ; comp. Schottgen, p. 218.
2 1 Cor. xv. 10. Hilg. (1868, p. 58) understands the first servant, who increases
the money, to represent the Jews that believed in Christ, those who added a belief in
the Messiah to their attachment to the Law ; the second, who buries the money, he
takes to be the unbelieving Jews ; the dissolute servant of the Gospel of the Hebrews is
the Jewish-Christians.

AT BETHANY. 255
marriage because five lacked oil, is constructed on the basis of
Oriental marriage customs, in accordance with which the bride
groom and his friends appeared at night in the bride's house,
sometimes to be ceremoniously received in the house of the
wedding by the bride and her companions who met him with
torches, as Matthew supposes, and sometimes to conduct, amid
gBtter of lamps and shouts of jubilation, his bride into his
ancestral house.1 Well constructed as is the parable — the ele
ments of which can be detected in Luke, perhaps in their genuine
words — it is very inappropriate, in this application, to the lips
of Jesus. The picture of the virgins, the picture of the sleeping
of the whole of the virgins, the picture of the heedlessness and
uselessness of a fuB half of those that waited, — these pictures by
no means apply to the disciples — the servants of the previous
parables — who alone in the first instance were addressed. They
apply better to the later community, the bride of Christ, which
consisted only to the half of those that were wise, nay, in con
sequence of the long tarrying of the Lord it consisted of none
but sleepers, awaking only in the midst of the positive signs of
the second advent.2 The companion piece is the picture in Luke
1 Wedding ceremony in the house of the man, 1 Mace. ix. 37 sqq. ; Tobit xi. 20 ;
comp. R. Solomon, below. In the house of the bride, Judges xiv. 10 ; comp. Song of
Sol. iii. 4 sqq. In Matthew it is evident (xxv. 1, 10, comp. Meyer) that the house of
the bride is meant, of course, for the returning Messiah comes back to his community.
The matter is thought out very circumstantially by Bleek : the scene is laid first at the
bride's house, then at the bridegroom's. At the marriage ceremonies the friends of
the bridegroom are present (napavvpipwi vwi vvpipZvog, Matt. ix. 15 ; John iii. 29 ;
comp. 1 Mace. I.e., Hebrew mereim, Judges xiv. 11 ; Talm. shoshbanim), but also the
companions of the bride, Judges xi. 37 ; Song of Sol. iii. 11. In Matthew, the virgins
come to the foreground as representatives of the community. Judges xiv. 11, thirty
friends are mentioned ; R. Solomon, in Chelin. 2, 8, speaks of ten torches ; Lightfoot,
p. 368 ; Wetst. p. 507. Ten was the minimum of a Passover-lamb company, of a Pha
risaic or Essene assembly, of a synagogue, of a marriage or funeral procession, ib. ;
Friedlieb, p. 53. Above, I. p. 383, note 2. The remark of the already mentioned
R. Solomon is interesting : mos est in terra ismselitica, ut sponsam ducant e domo
patris sui in domum sponsi ferantque ante earn circiter decern baculos ligneos, in cujus-
que summitate vasculum instar scutellse habentes, in quo est segmentum panni cum
oleo et pice. His accensis facem ei prseferunt. Torches of honour, see Schottgen, p. 88.
2 The elements of the parable, Luke xii. 35 — 37. Volkmar (p. 190) looks for them
in Mark ii. 19. Doubt neither in Neander, p. 506, and Bleek, II. p. 385, nor in Weisse,

256 THE FAREWELL.
of the widow who compels justice against her adversary from the
judge that was destitute of all fear of God and of all regard for
men.1 It is the forsaken community of Jesus that cries day and
night to God for vengeance against its enemies, and must even
tually be heard. This parable betrays its late date by its distinct
reference to the necessities, the impatience, the lukewarmness of
a later age, and by the crude wrangling with God, and the crude
comparison of God to a sinful man which is developed in
the thoroughly Ebionite spirit of the late parable of the unjust
steward.2 In the description of the judgment of the world by Jesus,
Matthew, or probably the Gentile-favouring editor of Matthew,
has given a fine .conclusion to these speeches about the future.3
Coming in his glory, with an escort of all the angels, the Son of
Man will take his seat on the throne of glory, and as a shepherd
divides the sheep from the much meaner goats, he wiB separate
the assembled peoples of the earth, from whom the Chris
tians are expressly distinguished as exempted from judgment.4
II. p. 125. Christ the bridegroom, comp. Matt. ix. 15, John iii. 29, 2 Cor. xi. 2,
Rev. xix. 7, 9 ; in the Old Testament, God and Israel, above, IV. p. 40, note 1. Comp.
the analogy in Pirke Abot, R. Eliezer, c. 41, where Moses awakens the Israelite camp :
surgite a somno vestro, venit sponsus et qussret sponsam, ut earn in chuppam
introducat. Et sponsus egressus est in occursum sponsse, ut soil, daret ipsis legem.
Schottgen, p. 216. Kimchi mentions, on Is. lxv., a saying of R. Johanan ben Zacchai,
who invited his servants without fixing a time : sapientes se ornarunt, stolidi abierunt
ad opera sua. Thus some went ornati, the others sordidi (Matt. xxii. 11), with whom
then the king was angry. Lightfoot, p. 369. The awaking in prosneco of the second
advent, Rom. xiii. 11 sqq. Most critics do not question the genuirYjgii jf the para
ble ; on the other hand, Strauss, New Life of Jesus, Eng. trans^ X^ tt . . Volkmar,
pp. 190, 545. \^
1 Luke xviii. 1 sqq. ; comp. R. Johanan in Tanch. f. 15 B : nemo hemt~sicgulis horis
defatigare debet Deum. Schottgen, p. 305.
2 Above, I. p. 100, note. In the earlier Gospel, Matt. xxv. 24, it is only the wicked
servant who thus designates his lord. Lukewarmness of a later time and stimulation
by a touching word of Jesus, Luke xviii. 8.
3 Matt. xxv. 31 ; comp. above, I. p. 83.
* That the Christians have an exemption from judgment, stands very plainly in
verses 40, 45 ; for the brethren of Jesus are different persons from the judged, good
or bad, the conversion of whom to Christianity is nowhere related. To Hilgenfeld
(comp. his Ev. p. 104, and Zeitschrift, 1868, p. 59) belongs the credit of having
emphatically established this ; assent of Weizs. p. 553, Volkmar p. 546; and. earlier

AT BETHANY. 257
Some he wiB place on his right, others on his left, and then in
his character of king he will invite the former, as the blessed of
his Father, to inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the
creation of the world, but will send away the others as accursed
into the eternal fire prepared for Satan and his angels.1 To the
astonishment of the former, he wiB give as the grounds of his
sentence the deeds of feeding, giving drink, sheltering, clothing,
sick and prison visiting, done to the Christians, to the brethren,
to the cBents of Jesus ; and in reply to the protesting humility
of the righteous, who object that they have done no such deeds
to him, he will support his sentence by maintaining that what
they have done to the least of his brethren they have done to
him.2 He wBl then justify his decision against the condemned
in a similar way. He wiB roundly cut short their exculpatory
appeals to the impossibility of such services to his own person, by
pointing to their lack of love towards his poor brethren. Though
this delineation is captivating in its finely-conceived pictures,
with its liberal Jesus-like proportions, and with its remarkable
tolerance even for the Gentiles, and though there is little doubt
that Jesus in some way claimed for himself as the returning
Messiah the judgment of men, nevertheless the creative or at
least the formative hand of a later generation is unmistakably
thus Keil, Olsh., Baumg.-Cr. Others, since Lact., Jerome, have thought of a judgment
upon Christians only (Neander, Bleek, Meyer upon all Christianized Gentile nations) ;
others, again, as Calov, Kuinol, Fr., De Wette, have thought of an absolutely universal
judgment, the dead in part not excluded. The exemption of the Christians, Rom.
vi. 2 ; Rev. xx. 4 ; comp. Matt. x. 32, xii. 41. Separation of sheep from goats, after
Ez. xxxiv. 17. Comparatively small value of latter, Luke xv. 29; Gen. xxxviii. 17.
1 Right, left, Luke i. 11; Mark xvi. 5. Essenes, above, I. p. 376, note 3; comp.
V. p. 50, note 3. Soh. chad., f. 45, 2 : datur dextra, datur etiam sinistra. Dantur
Isralitae et gentiles (at the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt), paradisus et gehenna,
mundus hie et mundus futurus. Schottgen, p. 219. Seven things before the creation :
lex, poenit., paradisus, infernus, thronus, templum, nomen Messiae, ib. Devil in hell,
above, II. p. 317, note 1 ; Rev. xx. 2, 10.
2 Talk. Rub. f. 13, 2 : unicuique exponet opera ejus ; illi vero stabunt et mirabuntur.
Similar approval of deeds of mercy to the poor, to the sick, to pilgrims at whose right
hand God stands, and whom God sends, Schottgen, p. 220. Comp. Proverbs xix. 17.
The least, Matt, xviii. 6, x. 42. Above, III. p. 252, note 1 ; IV. p. 336, note 2.
VOL. V. S

258 THE FAREWELL.
to be detected here.1 This speech tacitly assumes, if not the
Christianizing of the whole of mankind, at any rate the diffusion
of the confessors of Jesus over all parts of the earth; whilst
Jesus has not — at least until now — publicly uttered a word
about such a diffusion, or indeed about a mission to the whole
world.2 It assumes a time in which the opinion had been formed
that Christians — why not also non-Christians ? — can minister to
their absent and invisible Head in his suffering and persecuted
members, and by such ministrations can even acquire an interest
in the future kingdom.3 These conceptions appear to be alto
gether late productions of the apostolic time. Nay, we should be
compelled — especiallyinview of the liberal conception of heathen
ism which makes the better spirits among the heathen the elect
of God from eternity — to ascribe them to the second century,
if we could not assume that the author had introduced Jesus'
strikingly strong benediction of the heathen with the idea that
he was describing a judgment upon Christianized heathens, and
not upon heathens in their natural state, as his source had
originally understood it.4 Any one who is still incBned to doubt
1 Judgment of Jesus, Matt. xvi. 27, xiii. 41, &c. Above, IV. p. 295, note 1. But
never expressly upon all peoples. Also many traces of a final judgment of God, I. c.
This is what is correct in Weizsacker's uncertainty, p. 553.
2 Passages such as Matt. xxi. 43, xxiv. 14, have fallen away; and Matt. v. 13 sq.,
viii. 11, xii. 41, xiii. 38, 41 sqq., xxiv. 31, contain at most obscure intimations.
3 1 Cor. viii. 11 sqq. ; Rom. xiv. 15, 18 ; comp. Barn. 19 ; Hermas, 2, 8 ; Clem. Horn.
3, 69 ; Ignat. Eph. 10, &c. Imprisoned, Rev. ii. 10, xiii. 10 ; Heb. x. 34. Lucian,
De Morte Per. 12. With respect to non-Christians, note the milder opinion of the
apologists of the second century (comp. already John iii. 21, x. 16) ; on the other side,
note the protection which to their own loss they often afforded to the Christians in the
Roman persecutions. As prelude thereto, see the opinion of the heathens in Rome
upon Nero's persecution, A.D. 64, Tacitus, A nn. 15,44. Eus. 4,15; 5,1; 6, 41; 10, 8, &c.
* Particularly on account of the emphatic recognition of good men, Neander (p. 508)
declines to think of mere heathens, and erroneously thinks of a separation between
true and impure Christians. The conception most readily arrived at would be that in
verses 40 sqq. only the poor (Luke vi. 20 ; James ii. 2) or martyrs (Rev. ii. 10, vi. 9,
vii. 14; Hermas, 1, 3, 1 sq.j; 3, 8, 2 sq. ; 3, 9, 28; Tert. An. 55) are exempt from
judgment. But Bleek (II. p. 390) believed in a disarrangement of the original form
of the parable by the Evangelists ; only he conceived that originally a judgment upon
the confessors was described, and afterwards a general judgment. But before a man
brings in Matt. x. 32 (which Bleek does not), x. 40 — 42 lies much nearer.

AT BETHANY. 259
should examine the titles which Jesus is made to give to himself:
Lord of aB angels, judge and final judge of all nations, and then
repeatedly the king — " the king wiB say." These are titles he
was not accustomed to bear, titles which he was accustomed to
give to God ; but they are titles of reverence, such as the com
munity laid with emphasis at the feet of the glorified one.1
Finally, it is to be noted that this speech appears nowhere else ;
while, on the other hand, the elements of its composition — a com
position which in many points has a dual character, and has
plainly grown by successive additions of the actual words of
Jesus, together with insertions from the Old Testament — are
easily to be detected.2 Still another judgment address, placed by
Matthew at the close of the Sermon on the Mount, belongs to
the province of the same later compositions. The saying about
the false prophets of the future appears to be entirely a new con
struction of the words of rejection which Jesus spoke against the
Pharisees ; and the repudiation of those who by using the name
of Jesus had become prophets, miracle-workers, exorcists, and
would in the future judgment attempt to justify themselves
by their works, evidently rests upon a later reconstruction — not
directed exactly against the Apostle Paul — of the words of rejec
tion uttered by Jesus against the people with which Galilee and
Luke have made us acquainted.3
Thus whilst much here falls away, much nevertheless remains,
1 Lord of the angels, but not exactly of all (this is God's attribute, Book of Enoch,
5, 39 sq. ; Rev. iv. 4 ; Jude 14), Matt. xiii. 41, xvi. 27; king, only God, v. 35, xxii. 2
sqq. God the final judge, x. 32, &c. Paul and the Apocalypse describe Jesus as
king ; but also John i. 49, xviii. 37.
2 It is based simply in part on Matt. xvi. 27, in part still more on x. 40 — 42 ; comp.
also xxiv. 31. Weisse (II. p. 132) similarly decides, with a doubt as to the original
character of the piece; also Weizs. (p. 553), who seeks, but does not produce, a foun
dation for it in the sayings of Jesus. From the Old Testament, Ez. xxxiv. 17 (separa
tion of sheep from goats); Is. Iviii. 7; Ez. xviii. 8 (compassion); Proverbs xix. 17.
Volkmar (p. 546) is inclined to derive the speech from Mark xvi. 16, Rev. xx. 4 — 15,
4 Ezra vi. 3 sq. (orient, rec).
3 Matt. vii. 15 — 23, comp. xii. 33 sqq. ; Luke xiii. 25. Hilg. and Kostlin are in
clined to think of Paul. But theoretical and practical vagaries existed among both
Jewish Christians and heathen Christians ; and was Paul par excellence a miracle-
worker ? Let but Matt. xxiv. 24 be thought of !
s 2

260 THE FAREWELL.
not only as genuine utterances of Jesus in these last days, but
also as the revelation of his self-consciousness and his conscious
ness of the future. The persecuted, rejected Messiah calculates
upon the eternal validity of his person and his cause. The
world that opposes him will lie at his feet, must come to him,
await him, boAV before and do homage to him.1 His self-con
sciousness has been justified, and his expectation has been
crowned with victory, though everything has not been so ful
filled as was the downfall of the temple. In particular, his return
as conqueror and as judge has not come to pass as he pictured to
himself and to his followers. And because the issue has been
different, the ancients improved upon his sayings, and the
moderns have attempted subtle expositions of them. It is, how
ever, as we long since saw, a fact above aB objection, that Jesus
in thoroughly genuine words held out the prospect of his return
to the then living generation and to the then living disciples ;
and that Peter and Paul and the community lived for decades
and centuries upon this belief.2 There is also nothing more cer
tain than that he, standing on the ground of a human self-con
sciousness, could find only this and no other adjustment of the
difficulties of the situation, if he would connect the salvation of
the world not only with the spiritual truths which he taught, but
also with his own person and with his own Messiahship. It is
equally certain that, from the same human standpoint, the catas
trophe of Jerusalem must appear as the terminus in which his
Messiahship upon earth should attain to honour and power.3
He may be charged with human error, but his is a noble and
beautiful humanity : first he humbly admits his own limitations,
then he adopts a well-considered belief, not in a speedy act
of divine vengeance and restoration, but evidently in a slow
and lingering evolution of the downfall of Jerusalem. In the
1 Not only Weizs. (p. 553, note), but also Volkmar (p. 549), recognize this main fact.
2 Above, IV. pp. 285 sqq.
3 Volkmar, I. c. quite rationalistically : he could be certain that spiritually he would
be for all time the teacher and redeemer, the judge and king (king ?). See Ausbruch
gegen eine hist, realist. Auffassnng, p. 550.

AT BETHANY. 261
third place, he carries in his hand like a banner of victory the
great historical justification, the proof of facts, that he thought
of himself not too grandly but too meanly, too humbly when he
found a second advent necessary. The idea which he had planted
in the world, and to which he had given an incarnation in his
historical appearance, was great enough to rise again and survive
in the minds of his disciples, nay in the world-mind itself, and
to become the measure, the power, the light of universal history,
a breaker in pieces not only of the stones of Jerusalem, but of
aB the rocks of Jewish and heathen resistance, and a builder of
the New Jerusalem, whose walls should embrace all countries and
islands and seas.

Wednesday evening (the 13th of April) closed with a beauti
ful tribute of homage at Bethany, and with a most memorable
declaration. Jesus was recBning at table with his disciples in
the house of his host, Simon the leper.1 This man, whom Mat
thew and Mark plainly point out as the host at whose house
Jesus sojourned, has been already referred to in discussing
the entry into Bethany.2 He could hardly be leprous at this
time — it does not appear to have been at all the intention of
the Gospels to give prominence to a fearlessness on the part of
Jesus in entering this house. Simon had been leprous and had
been healed, plainly not by Jesus, for if so this fact would
have been handed down with the other incidents connected with
Bethany. But the severe illness, which may have left its traces
in his countenance, procured for him in the mouths of the people
the name which distinguished him from the numerous other
Simons, "Simon the leper."3 The meal which introduced the
1 Matt. xxvi. 6 ; Mark xiv. 3, comp. Luke vii. 36, 40 ; John xi. 2, xii. 2 sqq.
2 Strictly one might find in Matt, and Mark, as in Luke, merely the host of a meal J
but Matt, and Mark distinguish between sojourning in a house and merely taking a
meal there.
2 It is by no means to be concluded that because a man was called "leper" he was
then suffering from the malady (on the contrary, Bleek, Meyer, Volkmar). Nor is it
to be concluded that Bethany was the home of the lepers of Jerusalem (comp. Gratz,

262 THE FAREWELL.
ovation, apparently an evening banquet, at which the disciples of
Jesus were present, and to which it was wished to give a festive
conclusion, presents nothing striking.1 It may appear peculiar
that at such a critical position of affairs a meal of a festive
character should have been offered to and accepted by Jesus.
But the full seriousness of the situation was recognized by Jesus
alone, scarcely by his company of disciples, and least of all by
his adherents at Bethany. Moreover, the house was that in
which Jesus was sojourning, and it was possible for him, even at
such- a solemn hour, nay at the very dawn of the crisis, and in
fact by way of farewell, to be once more genial and familiarly
cordial with his friends. Important as the table-talk must have
been, none of it has been preserved to succeeding ages; but what
happened at the close of the meal put everything else out of
view at the time, and to-day compensates for what is lost.2
There entered a woman who was evidently neither one of
Jesus' Galilean friends nor the wife or relation of the host, since
the recollection of such a fact could not have been lost. She
must have been a woman of Bethany, a noble part of the small
Jerusalemite harvest which, in these few days, in the days of his
intense earnestness, of his bitterness, of his struggle, had ripened
to him under the sparse yet still brilBant and warming beams of
Galilean sunshine. With a small alabaster bottle of most costly
spikenard oil, the best and most highly valued gift she had, the
woman came behind Jesus, broke off the slender neck of the
III. p. 240 sq. ; see above, p. 127, note 1), because such diseased persons were not
allowed in the city (Jos. B. J. 5, 5, 6). Meyer, with many of the Fathers (comp.
Friedlieb, p. 27), groundlessly thinks of healing by Jesus. Least of all are we to think,
with Cornelius a Lapide (Friedlieb, I. c), of a family name, similar to the Roman name
of the Claudii.
1 Matthew and Mark speak of a meal (dvaK&a9ai, KaraK.), Luke and John of a meal
to invited guests. In honour of Jesus, John. Matthew and Mark do not exclude this.
Festive meals were as a rule about the second hour (8 p.m.), Jos. Vita, 44; B.J. 1,
17, 4. The noon meal (SCiirvov p.ionufip.) was considered only as breakfast (apiarov),
comp. Luke xiv. 12.
2 Most critics, by following John (xii. 1), escape the difficulty caused by a festive
meal falling almost immediately before the Passion. Thus even Schenkel, Bib.-Lex.
III. p. 295.

AT BETHANY. 263
vessel, from which the ointment could flow only drop by drop,
and poured the whole full stream of the deliciously fragrant
Indian oil without stint upon his head.1 This was an act of
personal homage such as he had never before received, though
the anointing of the head of guests, particularly of illustrious
teachers, with oil and costly substances was not at all unusual,
in spite of being considered effeminate by men of sterner tastes.
It was an act without words, and yet it spoke louder than any
words ; it was a genuinely womanly act in its delicate display of
outward self-sacrificing service, and yet a deed worthy of a man
in its boldness towards Jesus and his companions at table, and
in saving the honour of the nation whose Messiah she anointed
while Jerusalem stood off coldly and heartlessly and failed to
understand him.2 As he — although not, as Eenan thinks, an
ambitious man — was receiving with silent emotion the honour
whose dispenser he well knew and the significance of which he
more profoundly interpreted than did the woman, there began to
show itself among the disciples — not among the guests generaBy,
1 Matt. xxvi. 7 ; Mark xiv. 3. Pliny, 13, 3 : unguenta optime servantur in alabas-
tris, odores in oleo. 36, 12 : lapidem alabastriten vocant, quem cavant ad vasa un-
guentaria, quoniam optime servare incorrupta dicitur. The narrow neck, 9, 56. The
breaking, see Friedlieb, Archdol. der Leidensgesch. 1843, p. 33. Wichelhaus, Komm.
zur Leidengesch. 1855, pp. 71 sq. Wetst. p. 515. Paulus, I. ii. p. 768. Matthew
has pvpov, i.e. aromatic anointing oil in general, finer than ordinary oil, hence in
special use by women, Xenophon, Symp. 2, 3 ; Luke vii. 46. It was as a rule com
pounded of several substances, particularly myrrh, unguentorum mixture, Pliny, 13, 2 ;
29, 8. Mark gives oil of spikenard : nardus indicus, principale (regale) in unguentis
(less costly syriacum, Phceniceum, gallicum, creticum), Pliny, 12, 26 ; 13, 2. Mark
speaks of genuine (moriKog) spikenard, as opposed to pseudonardus, Pliny, 12, 26.
Fritzsche's (also Cas. and Bez.) derivation from mva = potabilis, obsolete. It means
reliable, genuine. Plutarch, Pelop. 8 ; Artemidorus, On. 2, 32, 66 ; 3, 54.
2 Comp. Luke vii. 46 and Bab. Ketub. f. 12, 2 : nonne mater tua effudit pro te (in
nuptiis tuis) unguentum super capita Rabbinorum ? Lightfoot, p. 456. Among the
Greeks and Romans, Plato, De Rep. 398 A ; Martial, Ep. 10, 19, 20 ; Petron. Sat. 65.
Comp. Wetst. p. 515, and Winer, articles Gastmahl and Salbe. Therefrom, and also
from Ps. cxxxiii. 2, Bunsen, p. 390 (who accuses Matthew and Mark of error), might
have learnt that ointment was poured upon the head without fear of "soiling the
clothes." It is, however, correct that this custom prevailed more among the Baby
lonian Jews (Pliny, 13, 1 : Persae madent unguento) than among those of Jerusalem,
and that at Jerusalem the maxim was established, Hier. Berac. f. 11, 2 : indecorum
est discipulo sapientum, olere aromata. Lightfoot, p. 457 ; comp. above on the Essenes,
I. p. 375.

264 THE FAREWELL.
as Mark gives it — the pedantic criticism of men who, with the
shallow wisdom of acquired ideas, censure an unusual and uncom-
prehended fact of a higher character, confine and crush in the
mould of abstract moral doctrine the outburst of a true and deep
feeling.1 "Why this lavish waste, evaporating in a moment?"
whisper they, Bke the Eoman Pliny. " For this might have been
sold for much" — for more than 300 francs, it is said in Mark —
"and given to the poor."2 In an incomparable manner Jesus
rebutted this, and to make amends for the censure he at once let
the praise which he had at first hidden in his soul flow forth in
a full stream. " Why trouble ye the woman ? 3 She has performed
a beautiful work upon me. For ye have the poor always with
you, but me ye have not always. For in that she poured this
ointment upon my body, she did it to my burial.4 Verily I say
unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole
world, shaB be told also what this woman did, as a memorial of
her." Thus mildly, but firmly, did he correct the hasty and indeed
1 Renan, 15th ed. p. 385 : It was sought by redoubling external marks of respect to
overcome the indifference of the public !
2 Pliny, 13, 4 : hase est materia luxus cunctis max. supervacui. Margaritse enim
gemmaeque ad heredem tamen transeunt, vestes prorogant tempus, unguenta illico
exspirant ac suis moriuntur horis. Immediately after : exceduntque quadragenos
denarios libra?. Comp the prices in chap. 2, and in 12, 26. Also by the Rabbis, 300
denarii. Lightfoot, p. 457.
3 Greek, usually npayp. nap. Wetst. p. 516. Hebrew, hithriach, mathriach et-
hammelech. Schottgen, p. 224.
4 Thus Matthew and Mark. The same is the sense of the Received Text in John
xii. 7. But the genuine text also, "Let her alone, that she may observe this against
the day of my burying" (comp. ix. 16, xv. 10), regards her action as an anticipation
of a pompous burial, and the explanation, " Leave her alone, that she may preserve it
(the remainder of the pound) for my burial" (Meyer; also Bunsen, p. 440), is weak
and trivial. After the head of the vessel had been broken off, this was no longer
possible ; certainly Venturini (p. 402) is wrong in thinking it was only the remainder
of the oil used in anointing Lazarus. Wichelh. (p. 95), again, says that she had with
held it (nrripijKs) from her brother ! The artificial expression, however, points clearly
to the view of the author, which was, in the already mooted question of the second
century as to the rnpuv or the p.n rnpuv of the Jewish Passover by the Christians to
pronounce for the rnpuv, not of the Passover-day, but of the day of Jesus' death or
that of his burial. According to John, indeed (see below), the day of anointing is
the picture of the day of burial, the Saturday before the burial Saturday.

AT BETHANY. 265
arrogant disciples. He upheld the ministering to the poor which
he himself had preached ; but he was far removed from the iron
consistency which is the foe of what is good, and which converts
one good principle into a tyrannical obstacle in the way of a
second and equaBy justified good. Not only poverty, but his own
person was to be honoured and cherished, for he was more than
the poor, and he would not be with them much longer. With
equal modesty and thoughtfulness, he made it apparent that
in another situation, at another time, notwithstanding he was
what he was, he would have declined the merited honour, would
have left the money to be used for the poor ; but he now accepted
the act as a fareweB greeting, as a work of love which might be
held to have reference to his burial, and, in the intention of the
woman, was done more or less consciously with such a reference.
He here at once fully and tenderly justified the woman, and in
the midst of the festive company pointed solemnly to his death,
which he saw close at hand, and which would lack, not an
honourable sepulchre, but — as was easy to be foreseen — the cus
tomary and coveted ministrations of love, yet, because of the
previous attention paid to him by the woman, would not entirely
lack them, as Socrates had wished.1 His last words triumphed
over death and the grave and his fall. It is true he neither
said nor knew anything about a rising again of his weary body ;
1 Socrates (why has this not been quoted ?), Plato, Phcedrus, 115 A : Soku yap Sri
/3&Xnov dvat Xovodp. muv r. Qdpu. k. pi\ npdypara rate yvvat^i napkxuv, VEKpbv
Xoituv. — An over-scrupulous criticism might conclude that the utterance under con
sideration was afterwards invented in order to make amends for the factual subsequent
non-anointing of the corpse of Jesus. In point of fact, Strauss, in 1864 (New Life of
Jesus, Eng. trans., II. p. 297), not yet in 4th ed. I. pp. 733, has taken hold of this
point. But this invention could not well originate with Mark the poet, since he
ascribes to the Galilean women an intention to anoint which was rendered superfluous
by the resurrection of Jesus (xvi. 1). But as to the supposition of its invention (in fine,
by Matthew, as by Mark), how can Strauss imagine that the Christians, who believed
more than did Strauss in the resurrection of their Lord, and thought more about that
than about his death, should have painfully missed his anointment, and have invented
this anointment story? If Jesus necessarily thought of his death, if he necessarily
thought of a sepulture without honour, he would speak just as he spoke. And in
reality he did not at all intimate that the anointing of his corpse was excluded, but
only that it was now superfluous.

26G THE FAREWELL.
but he knew that his gospel would take its course through the
world, and would preserve from oblivion not only himself, but
even the woman who had paid the last duty to his body. And
as every one of the few words at the Bethany guest-table must
necessarily be golden, he quite incidentally, and as if accidentaBy,
introduced into his very last utterance, not only the firm and
sure faith in his future, but also the — by us longingly coveted —
avowal of his universal mission, of his conquest of the world.
This faith in his universal mission was already shown in obscure
outline in the Sermon on the Mount ; Galilee matured it, so far
as that he there included in his prospect the beBef of the heathen
world ; and Jerusalem perfected it. The utterance at Bethany
is the only quite reliable saying of Jesus' last days concerning
the world-wide course which he saw opened to himself and to
his cause. This utterance goes so far as to show that he was
not merely conscious of being a light to the world, and saw the
GentBes coming in a wider sense than — as in Galilee — that of
superseding the Jews, but that in a calm vision of the distant
future he saw the universal spread of the gospel, the preaching
of the glad tidings broadening out from the Holy Land to the
nations of the earth. But here also there is no exaggeration. He
said nothing about the entering of the Gentiles instead of the
Jews into the kingdom of God ; and he did not say that his twelve
disciples were to be the Apostles of the nations. He knew only
this — that the Gentiles as weB as the Jews would hear the truth,
and that the message of truth would pass beyond the boundary
of Israel to the nations of the world, though he was still as care
less by whose instrumentality this was to happen as he was
about the preservation of his own personal history. It was
Jerusalem that had at last led him to this knowledge. The fact
that his people rejected him evidently did not induce him on his
part to reject his people, whose Messiah he was and still wished
to remain ; but it led him to relax the rigidity of the national
idea which fettered his Messiahship, and, as far as it was possible
in his historical situation and necessary to his historical dignity,

AT BETHANY. 267
to give effectual expression to the universal character of his mis
sion, a character which from the beginning had been in conten
tion with the national one.1
Criticism, while throwing suspicion upon this incident, has in
truth only condemned itself. It is as incorrect to talk of supple
mentary and invented prophesyings, as of disturbances of the
context and of the tendencies of GentBe-favouring editors. The
latter is refuted by the fact that Mark, who did not know the
edited form of Matthew, nevertheless possesses the passage as
weB as Matthew ; the former is refuted by the easy conceivabiBty
of the sorrowful and ingenuous utterance about the sepulture,
and by the humility — intelligible only in Jesus, but not in a late
inventor — that keeps silence concerning the resurrection. In
particular, prejudice rather than sound judgment is shown by
overlooking the signs of antiquity and genuineness just there
where an open eye can only admire the unique coincidence of
the most concise form, and of an overflowing yet not overloaded
wealth of meaning.2
1 Comp. above, III. p. 55, IV. pp. 84 sqq. A commission of the Apostles to preach
to the Gentiles stands only in Matt, xxviii. 19 (not v. 14, viii. 11, x. 5, 18, xxiv. 14).
2 Hilg. has attacked this little incident, in his Ev. p. 104, and in his Zeitschrift,
1868, p. 62, first as an addition of the Gentile-favouring editor, then as that of the
Evangelist. His chief ground is the break in the context of xxvi. 5 and 14. Comp.
Kostlin, p. 73. Even Meyer, in the interest of the attempt to prove the secondary
character of Matthew in contrast to John, could welcome this present from the enemy;
whilst Volkmar (p. 559) is pleased to allow the applicability of Hilgenfeld's remark to
Matthew, but not to Mark, the Pauline didactic writer to whom the interruption of a
principal action by interludes is allowed. Holtzmann (p. 95) rightly finds no intro
duced incident. In fact, how can one speak of a rupture of the context in either
Matthew or Mark, when the action of Judas in verse 14 is not brought about by the
plan of the hierarchs, and is actually an interference with that plan (verse 5) ? Since
that plan and Judas' action are thus mutually independent, it is far better that some
thing historical lies between and softens the antagonism of things that are partially
contradictory and are not in any way brought into harmony. For by the pause, verses
6 — 13, an altered development is made possible, even though a participation of Judas
in the dissatisfaction at Bethany (according to the fourth Gospel) is not to be thought
of. It is also worthy of note that this fourth Gospel evidently presupposes the order
of sequence of the meal at Bethany and the treachery of Judas, i. e. the representation
of Matthew and Mark. — A further objection to this incident (apart from Strauss's
suspicion, mentioned above, p. 265, note) can lie only in Jesus' words about a universal
Gospel (comp. thereupon Wichelh. p. 104) ; and even Bleek is willing to admit at least

268 THE FAREWELL.
The Bethany meal is to be retained only in the form of the
oldest tradition, in that of Matthew and Mark, not in that of
Luke and John. Luke transposes this festive meal to another
time, to other surroundings. In his Gospel it occurs in Galilee,
in the lifetime of the Baptist, and in the time of the first great
struggles with the Pharisees. The host Simon is a Pharisee ; the
majority of the guests belong to the same party ; the anointing
woman is weB known in the town as a gross sinner, but is cer
tainly not Mary Magdalene. Her deep penitence and her love ;
the wetting the feet of Jesus with her tears and drying them with
the luxuriant waving hair with which she had been wont to
aBure her wooers, but with which she now, Bke a servant-maiden,
serves the man of her faith ; then the kissing his feet ; and finally,
that which she intends to be specially distinctive, the humble
anointing, not of his head, but of his feet, with the oil from the
alabaster vessel : aB this becomes the subject of a conflict with the
Pharisees.1 The host says in his heart, " If this were a prophet !"
that the expression "this Gospel" belongs only to the composition of the Evangelist.
I would refer to Matt. xxiv. 14. But Jesus has sufficiently spoken of the good message
of the kingdom, Matt. xi. 5 (xxiv. 14 ; Luke iv. 18, xvi. 16 ; Mark i. 15) ; and if he
had already regarded his work as cosmical, could he not now give special emphasis to
this attitude ? And though we should dispute as to whether Jesus said " in the world"
or "in the whole world," the chief point is still the uninvented simplicity and great
ness of the utterance (comp. Weisse, I. p. 599), the genuineness of which finds its
culmination in the fact that no fiction-writing Evangelist has been able to give the
name of the woman, notwithstanding the strong provocation to do so. Volkmar
naturally believes the incident to be unhistorical. The homage-paying woman is the
Church. And the protesting Apostles ?
1 Luke vii. 36 sqq. The anointing of the feet is, in accordance with the position of
the person, an act of greater humility (therefore not because the head of Jesus — accord
ing to 1 Sam. x. 1 — was already anointed by God, Volkmar, p. 559). To wash the
feet of guests with water or oil was customary, Luke vii. 44, Menach. f. 85, 2, whence
it appears that servant-maids did it. Yet in Hier. Peah. 1, the mother of a Rabbi
imposes upon her son, on the authority of Ex. xx. 12, the duty of foot-washing.
Anointing the feet with choice oil was indeed commonly held to be effeminate, and the
Israelitish women were accused of anointing their shoes out of coquetry, Lightfoot,
p. 653. Athenams, 12, 78, in Wichelh. p. 81. Strauss, 4th ed. I. p. 743. Comp.
Essenes and Pharisees, above, p. 263, n. 2. It is not the fact, however, as W. says,
that only the effeminate and the debauched could do it ; from oil to ointment is but
a step. In the woman, the uncovered head was held to be indecent : transgreditur
legem, si prodeat in publ. capite aperto., Lightfoot, p. 515. The unbinding of the
hair, however, was held to be disgraceful, Sot. f. 5, 1 : sacerdos solvit capillos uxoris

AT BETHANY. 269
But Jesus confutes him by the parable of the two debtors, both
of which had their debts remitted, the one with his five hundred
francs, the other with his fifty. The Pharisee himself is com
pelled to lay down the principle that the greater the forgiveness,
the greater should be the love. Jesus then points out to him the
instances of less and of greater love : from the Pharisee he
received on coming in no water, no kiss, no oil for his head ;
from the sinful woman he has received tears, kisses, ointment !
" Her many sins are forgiven, because she has loved much ; but
he to whom little is forgiven, loves little !" He dismisses her with
express forgiveness, and the guests are astonished at the for-
giver.1 From the earliest times it has been debated whether this is the
incident which occurred at Bethany, or another. And because
John comes with an anointing by Mary, many have assumed that
there were three or, reckoning Mark's account as a distinct one,
four anointings, and three or four anointing Marys, since a mis
taken acuteness has found in the sinful woman of Luke, Mary
Magdalene.2 On the other hand, Tertullian, and a little later
suspectse. It sometimes occurred in mourning and in sorrow, comp. 3 Mace. i. 9.
The women of the Germans passis crinibus flentes implorarunt, Csesar, B. Gall. 1, 51.
Here it was done in grief and in humble servitude. Magdalene was very arbitrarily
thought of by the ancient Church (Greg. M. Horn. 25), because of Luke viii. 2 (of
course also John xii. 3), comp. Dey ling, 06s. III. p. 291. Recently (against J. D.
Michaelis) Paulus, I. ii. p. 766, who makes her first dissolute, then a demoniac; Lange,
II. p. 730, and in Herzog, article Mar. Magd.
1 The forgiving is here represented in a fine and elastic manner ; on the one hand
it is, in ideal anticipation, prior to the deed of love ; on the other hand it is actually
communicated after that deed. On the contrary, Meyer and others have given a violent
interpretation of it; and Weisse (II. p. 142) has spoken of confusion. Luke was not
thinking of Gal. v. 6.
2 Origen upon Matt. 77 : multi quidem existimant, de una eademque muliere IV ev.
exposuisse. He is for three (or four) women, (1) Luke, (2) Matthew, Mark, (3) John.
Quite correctly on this ground, Chrys., Theoph., and last (16th century) Faber Stapu-
lensis, assumed three anointing Marys. On the contrary, the West (with exception of
Irenaeus, 3, 14, 3) readily identified the incidents: Tert. Pudic. 11, and then Ambrose,
Augustine, Gregory the Great. The mistake was, that this Church with increasing
emphasis found both in Luke vii. and John xii. the (particularly in France) highly
revered Magdalene. At present, most critics are in favour of the identity of the inci
dents in Matt., Mark, and John (against which Lightfoot protested, following Origen,

270 THE FAREWELL.
the contemporaries of Origen, and later still Gregory the Great
at the head of the Eoman Church, with perfect justice assumed
the identity of these two, nay, of all these incidents. And an
earlier writer than Tertullian, Luke himself and indeed the other
EvangeBsts support this, since each has but one incident, whilst
Luke in particular forbears to relate an incident at Bethany,
because he has already given it. How could there be a four-fold
or even only a two-fold repetition of an anointing which the Lord
himself, in his great encomium, has dignified above aB plainly as
a unique incident ? The great simBarity is evident in spite of
the points of difference. Both here and there a festive meal, a
host Simon, a number of guests, a homage-paying woman with
ointment in an alabaster vessel, a protestation against the woman,
a vindication by Jesus. The greater simplicity, however, belongs
to Matthew and Mark: the homage-paying woman is no notorious
character out of the dark side of society; the homage paid is
more intelligible, more unobjectionable, more natural; the action,
together with the utterances, briefer, more condensed, marked by
a greater degree of unity. The contrast of the Pharisee and the
sinful woman is evidently a source of pleasure to the author, and
is drawn with a considerable outlay of artistic effort. The cir
cumstance as a whole calls to mind Jesus' intercourse with pub-
Beans and sinners, which evoked the antagonism of the Pharisees.
It also calls to mind the entrance of publicans and harlots into
the kingdom of heaven instead of the Pharisees. The parable
recalls the two debtors in Matthew ; the astonishment at forgive
ness, the paralytic ; the sending away the woman in peace, the
Jerome, and Chrysostom). On the other hand, many hold Luke vii. to be a different
incident (the person being the same : Augustine), Olsh., Neander, Winer, Tholuk,
Liicke, Hase, Krabbe, Wichelh., Bunsen, De Wette, Meyer. The correct opinion held
by Grotius, Hug, Schleierm., Ewald, Strauss, Bleek, Baur, Hilg. Bleek, however
(II. pp. 112 sqq.), makes a marvellous attempt at harmonizing the accounts, and frees
the sinful woman of Luke (as already Schleierm. Luk. pp. Ill sqq.) from all stain
which, e.g., Meyer affixes to her lewdness. The remote Luke is held to have inferred
it only from vii. 48. The Johannine account is preferred, from a sense of obligation
by Neander, Meyer, Bleek, Ewald, Bunsen, and others ; and Wichelh. (p. 62), angry
at the evil eye of criticism, indulges heartily in harmonizing.

AT BETHANY. 271
woman with the issue of blood.1 Hence it is to be assumed that
the incident in Luke is in the main a later production, not due
to his invention, but the contribution of his Ebionite source.
That source was fond of artificial combinations, and was marked
by indifference to chronological arrangement, by controversies
with Pharisees, by disputes at table, by the antithesis of Phari
sees and pubBcans or sinners. And one might almost suppose
that Jesus' apparently depreciative utterance about the poor was
purposely dropped out, while the sinful woman was purposely
introduced as one who was at the same time poor in contrast
to the rich Simon, like the widow that gave her all but was
ashamed before the rich. If the question of the existence of an
historical remainder be left open, that remainder may be sought
above all in the natural parable and in the words of Jesus, " He
to whom much is forgiven, loves much." These are words which,
quite independently of the anointing incident borrowed and
imitated from Bethany, might have been at some time uttered
in view of the self-renunciation of sinners or of an individual
sinful woman, and in antithesis to the aristocratic coldness of the
righteous Pharisees. And these words, in their paradoxical con
nection with the apparently quite contradictory conclusion of
forgiveness as a reward of rich love, were extremely profound
and completely true to nature, yet almost beyond the invention
of lesser spirits.2
Nearer to the old account than Luke stands the report of the
anointing given in the latest Gospel. The author, as it seems,
was at first inclined to hasten over this incident ; and when he
does subsequently give it, he hands down only a mosaic, composed,
with much adroitness and subtlety, of details from Matthew and
1 Comp. Matt. ix. 11, xviii. 23, ix. 2, 22 (Luke viii. 48), xxi. 31.
2 Just so Weisse (II. p. 142) holds fast the parable, only he finds some confusion in
the above views. But how much illustration lies in Luke viii. 2, x. 40, xix. 8 sqq. ?
Also above, p. 269, n. 1, and my Sermons, II. pp. 328 sqq. On the other hand, Bunsen
(p. 391), not being able, and that correctly, to assent to Schleiermacher's and Bleek's
cleansing of the sinful woman, found in Luke vii. the remains of an actual narrative
of a sinful woman — mixed up with the occurrence at Bethany — in which only tears,
not ointment, flowed or was wiped off.

272 THE FAREWELL.
still more from Mark, with only traceable allusions to Luke.1
In John's Gospel also the meal takes place at Bethany and in the
last days of Jesus, yet not quite near to the end, but on the day
before the entry into Jerusalem, six, not two, days before Easter.
The house is not expressly said to be that of Lazarus and his
sisters ; yet everything suggests this, while nothing leads us to
think of a Simon. Lazarus reclines at table with Jesus ; Martha
serves ; Mary appears with a pound of ointment, anoints the feet
of Jesus, dries them with her hair, and the house is fiBed with
the aroma of the spikenard.2 Only Judas the betrayer raises an
objection in the circle of the disciples. He thinks the ointment
might have been sold for 300 francs and given to the poor. It
is not in behalf of the poor that he thus speaks, but as the
bearer of the sacrifice-box which he is in the habit of robbing.3
He is refuted in the same way as in the old account ; yet the
reference to the sepulture is less simple, and not only too arti
ficial, but unintelligible. It is probably an aBusion to what, in
the freer view of the second century, would have been the correct
ceremonial at the burial of Jesus.4
The false assumption of the eye-witnessing Apostle has, in
this representation, again discovered the relatively correct form.5
Here we have at last found the right house, the right woman,
the right disciples ; and when with a Bvely faith we fiB in
1 John xii. 1 sqq. John xi. 2 can be explained only by supposing it was the author's
original intention to omit this passage altogether. Otherwise it would have been soon
enough in xii.
2 As was remarked by Origen on Matt. 77, Mark xiv. 5, by giving the price, gave
the weight — a pound. Comp. above, p. 264, n. 2. On the filling of the house, Origen
on the Canticles, ed. Lomm. XIV. p. 429 : replevit omnem hujus mundi domum ac
totius eccl. domum.
3 On this assumed box, see above, III. p. 347. Wich. p. 90, thinks it was an alms-
box (since Origen thus names the almoner of the church).
4 The question in the second century (not for the first time in A.D. 170) was the
rnpuv and the p-q rnpuv of the Jewish Passover-day. The striking rnpuv (comp.
above, p. 264, n. 4) may allude to that, and the sense then is : leave her alone, that
she may observe the (my) festival upon the day of my sepulture or the day of my
death. See Eus. 5, 23 sq. ; and below, p. 274, n. 2.
5 See above, p. 270, note.

AT BETHANY. 273
the names from the others, the Bethany pedigree is said to be made
out-1 It has also been easy to find in the incident in Luke traces of
the Johannine Bethany-homage, i.e. the anointing, not the head,
but the feet, and the drying them — moistened, not with tears, but
with ointment — by the hair of the woman who was performing
the act of homage ; although in this remarkable humiliation —
the anointing the feet and wiping them with the hair — pro
bability is in favour of the penitent of Luke and not of the
Johannine friend of Jesus.2 But even apart from general Gospel
criticism, we are led to a different conclusion by the report itself.
The latest Gospel has utilized to the very letter the late Mark ;
and even the quantity of the ointment — a pound — is inferred
from Mark's calculation as to its cost.3 It has without doubt
also utilized the earlier Luke, and particularly two passages in
Luke, the one where he describes the sinful woman, the other
where he describes the two friends of Jesus in the Galilean
village, Martha the hostess and Mary who sat reverently at
his feet.4 That the fourth Gospel also borrowed Lazarus from
Luke is shown by the resurrection of Lazarus, on which occa
sion the family trio have already appeared, Martha and Mary
especiaBy exhibiting the same diversity of character as at the
festive meal and in Luke.6 New features, doubtless neither
old nor original, are the transformation of the house of Simon
— who according to the naive harmonists was the father or the
brother-in-law of Lazarus — into that of Lazarus, the conver
sion of the nameless or the sinful woman into Mary, the unde
fined quantity of ointment into a pound, the nameless disciple
1 See the fables, below, p. 274, n. 1. How harmonistically have Ebrard, Wichelh.,
Bunsen, and even Bleek, laboured in this province ! According to Bunsen (p. 390),
the Synoptics have confused the Johannine account.
2 An extreme self-humiliation might indeed befit the pious adherent (against Volk
mar, p. 560), but it would much better befit the penitent woman.
3 John xii. 3 and Mark xiv. 3 ; John xii. 5 and Mark xiv. 5.
4 Luke vii. 37, x. 38 (see above, I. p. 104, III. p. 151, V. p. 87). The relationship
of the adulterous woman in the spurious passage in John to the sinful woman in Luke
was discussed above, pp. 165 sqq.
5 Above, pp. 79 sqq.
VOL. V. T

274 THE FAREWELL.
into Judas the betrayer,— whereby we may very plainly see that
no Evangelist would have forgotten the betrayer if that betrayer
had in fact in these last moments troubled Jesus and the woman.
Moreover, the words of Jesus would have been far too mild for
the one whom he knew to be his betrayer.1 The sixth day before
Easter, which John mentions instead of the second, stands closely
related to the reminiscence of the historical entry day of Jesus,
with which it is sought to bring the meal into connection. The
subtle author probably attempted to indicate that if Jesus was
anointed to his burial on Saturday the 8th of Nisan, at Bethany,
the next Saturday would naturally be the sad and solemn day of
Jesus' sepulture.2 Thus we have here artificially constructed
narration, and not history. Those who object to this must
remember that, with the loss of the resurrection of Lazarus, the
house of Lazarus and the wonderful excitement of an association
at table of the raised man and Jesus are irretrievably lost also.
It is therefore quite worthless to interest oneself in the possibility
1 Whilst formerly the penitent in Luke and the friend of Jesus in John (to the
profit of the former and to the prejudice of the latter, Bleek, II. p. 113 ; above,
p. 270, note) were identified and placed under the name of Magdalene, recently Ewald,
Bleek, and others, have brought together the Simon of the Synoptics and the three
members of the family in John. Ewald, as several Fathers (above, p. 84, n. 1), found
in Simon their old, now deceased, father; Bleek (after Paulus), the (according to P.
deceased) husband of Martha ! On the other hand (following ancient precedent),
Renan, Wich., Bunsen, and others, are content to find in Simon the host, in Lazarus
the guest. But Judas has been retained, not only by Paulus and all the defenders of
John down to Renan, Bunsen, Wichelh., but even by Schenkel.
2 The proximate purpose of the definition of date in xii. 1 is the definition of the
day of entry, which also, according to Synoptic tradition, fell about a week before the
catastrophe. Since the author wished to preface the entry into the city by a short
rest at Bethany, partly in order to give new prominence to the place which had become
important through Lazarus, partly in order to give the Jerusalemites time to come out
to Jesus, he very appropriately fills up the time by introducing the meal, as he did not
wish to come back to Bethany again. Thus it was that, for the sake of the symbolism
of the death, he fixed upon the sixth day before Easter for the meal. The sixth day
before the 14th of Nisan, before the Friday and the day of Jesus' death (according to
John), is the 8th of Nisan, Saturday, the same day of the week as the burial day of
Jesus. Volkmar (p. 560) reckons the day as Sunday, therefore the same day of the
week as the resurrection ; but the sepulture has nothing directly to do with the resur
rection, and it is well known that in John we must not reckon from the 15th of Nisan
but only from the 14th.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 275
that the village of Martha and Mary mentioned by Luke, who so
often incorrectly mixes up dates and places, was after all no
other than the Bethany of John.

C. — At Jerusalem. The Last Supper.
The Thursday — in the later Christian mediasval language called
Green Thursday — the 14th of Nisan, the day of the Fassover
lamb (the 14th of April), dawned, and brought with it the seven-
days' Passover festival.1 Two fundamental ideas, which seem to
have graduaBy coalesced, dominated this festival. It was the fes
tival of the divine passing over (pesach, old Aramaic and Greek
pascha) of the people in Egypt, perhaps originally — as in the
customs of other nations — an expiatory festival connected with
the spring equinox. To this had attached itself, since the settle
ment in the Holy Land, the agrarian celebration of the beginning
of the time of harvest.2 The opening of the festival placed the
two fundamental ideas at once prominently in the foreground.
On the 14th of Nisan the lamb was slain, its blood and its fat
dedicated to God, and its flesh eaten by the sacrifice-guests on
the beginning of the 15th. Again, in the night of the 15th — 16th
the first barley was cut, and in the morning, after having been
ground, was brought with oil and incense before the Lord. In
early times the Passover sacrifice was evidently celebrated by
every head of a household at his ordinary place of abode, as is
indicated by the sprinkling of the door-posts and Bntels of the
1 The name (dies viridium, comp. pascha floridum for Palm -day) is differently
explained. We may think, not of the Passover herbs, but of the green spring food.
Might not also the antithesis of the Lord's Supper joy (dies lucis) and the hebdomas
nigra lie therein ? The German name Easter, according to Bede, from the Anglo-
Saxon goddess of the light of spring, Eostre ; Karfreitag, dies lamentationum. Comp.
Steitz, in Herzog, articles Pascha and Grosse Woche.
2 On the original expiatory signification of the festival, comp. later the executions
at Jerusalem, and particularly above, II. p. 399, note 2. On the name ndoxa (Aramaic,
Herzog, I.e.; Targ., Rabb. pis-cha), Buxt. p. 1765. Gesenius, Hdw. II. p. 372.
Wichelh. p. 5.
t2

276 THE FAREWELL.
house with the lamb's blood. But from the days of Hezekiah
and Josiah it was connected with the temple and Jerusalem. A
remnant of the universal priesthood remained to the people in
the right possessed by heads of households to slay the lamb even
though it necessitated- a breach of the Sabbath when the festival
fell on one, and in the sacrificial meal which gathered together
the household as such.1 The festival was held to be so sacred
and was so profoundly venerated that, notwithstanding the diffi
culties of travelling in the spring, thousands, nay millions, of
Israelites streamed towards Jerusalem, the seat of it, from all
parts of the world ; the non-observance of the festival was indeed
threatened with death.2
On the morning of the festival day, the disciples went to Jesus
with the question, " Where wilt thou that we make ready for thee
to eat the Passover V'3 They took it for granted that Jesus would
observe the sacred rite ; and since he had in these last days been
looking forward to the festival with longing, the observance of it
would already have been spoken about, even though Jesus care
lessly delayed, or seemed to delay, making any detailed arrange
ments, and though no one had thought at aB of providing a
Passover lamb on Sunday the 10th of Nisan, according to the old
rule of the Law which was obsolete.4 The disciples' question left
it open to Jesus to decide where he would like to eat the Pass-
1 2 Chron. xxx. 1 sqq., xxxv. 1 sqq. ; Ex. xii. 7. Comp. generally Winer and
Herzog, Pascha. Pascha breaks the Sabbath, Lightfoot, pp. 373, 458. Upwavvn
navri r<$ Wvu, Philo, Vita Mos. 3, 29 ; comp. my Gesch. Chr. pp. 18, 72. Above,
I. p. 349.
2 Above, I. p. 303. Ex. xii. 15, 47; Numbers ix. 13.
3 Matt. xxvi. 17; Mark xiv. 12. On the other hand, in Luke xxii. 7, Jesus first
makes general arrangements, and then asks the disciples about the place.
4 Longing of Jesus, Luke xxii. 15. The day of selection, Ex. xii. 3. Obsolete,
according to M. Pesach. 9, 5 (Steitz, in Herzog, Pascha, XI. p. 141). Jesus had not
been quite careless ; he had perhaps already privately engaged a place, see below.
Jesus' tardiness in this weighty -matter has long been found objectionable, comp.
Gabler, in his Theol. Journal, II. v. pp. 441 sqq. Strauss, 4th ed. II. p. 381. Now
also Volkmar (p. 562), who finds it a sign of a non-historical character. He holds
indeed, that Mark is no biographer, but a doctrinal narrator of the pre-arranged death
bed !'

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 277
over lamb. Without doubt they thought of Bethany, since the
Immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem, at least as far away as
Bethphage, had the right to eat the Easter lamb outside the city,
a right based on the subtle theory of connections of locality, but
which was also in harmony with the domestic character of the
festival, and had reference to the over-filling of Jerusalem.1 But
Jesus chose Jerusalem, although for two days he had kept away,
and although in taking this step he had to fear the violence of
his foes.2 In this remarkable resolve might be read the intention
of provoking the attack of his foes, of finally bringing on a crisis
to his intolerable position, or the hope of attaining his end, not
certainly by the help of the festive-tempered people, but by the
help of God. The general mood of Jesus, however, has pointed
not to hope, but to resignation ; and his quiet, private entry
into Jerusalem shows that he sought neither the violence of his
foes nor the miraculous arm of the Father. His choice of Jeru
salem rested simply upon the wish to celebrate the sacred rite
at the legal festival locality, and in the midst of the people who
were similarly engaged and to whom he stiB desired to belong.
And he wished to give to the solemn rite which he was secretly
intending to establish, a higher sanctity by its performance in
the neighbourhood of the temple, in the city of the Great King,
in the city where the people of God assembled, in the city 'of
prophetic testimony. "Go into the city" — said he to the disci
ples, two of whom, according to Luke Peter and John, he selected
as his messengers — "to such an one, and say unto him, The
Teacher says, My time (he meant his death) is at hand ; I will
make the Passover at thy house with my disciples ;" or according
to another account : " Where is the chamber, that I may eat
t
1 Lightfoot, p. 198, whence it appears that the lamb had to be slain in the temple,
but could be eaten in B. Comp. above, p. 134, notes 1 and. 2.
2 Volkmar (p. 561), thinks that Jesus had been in conflict with his adversaries until
Wednesday (why not until Thursday?), and had incensed them; and that the breaking
off of the struggle in the Gospels is the schema of the writers ! With reference to the
final attack, there should be added to IV. p. 274, note 2, that even Neander (p. 486)
thought of the employment of Sicarii against Jesus. "

278 THE FAREWELL.
the Passover with my disciples?"1 It is thus evident that he
indicated to them, and that not obscurely, a distinct name which
afterwards escaped memory, the name of a reliable and weB-to-do
adherent at Jerusalem, in whose house he could with certainty
expect to find a room at his disposal, notwithstanding the over
crowded condition of Jerusalem, a person of whom indeed, accord
ing to one reading, he had previously and in secret engaged a
room.2 If any one wishes for a name, the one most readily to be
thought of would be that of Joseph of Arimathea, the former
disciple and the friend at Jesus' death, were it probable that tra
dition would here have forgotten the man that it did not forget
elsewhere.3 This view would apply at least to Matthew ; while
in Luke and Mark tradition was compelled to combine with the
inclination to make a mystery of the miracle, a tendency not only
to conceal the name, but also to set aside all well-known names.
These unquestionably obscure accounts, which are at once put
to the blush by the simple, clear, sober words in Matthew, repre
sent Jesus as speaking to his disciples in the manner of a clair
voyant prophet, just as in the case of bespeaking the animal on
which to ride into Jerusalem. " Go into the city, and there wiB
1 Matt. xxvi. 18 (disciples in general, whereon Volkmar makes merry) ; Luke xxii. 8
(Peter and John) ; Mark xiv. 13 (two disciples, as many times elsewhere). The first
form of Jesus' words in Matthew, the second in Luke and Mark. A certain one,
Hebr. peloni almoni. Make = asah, Joshua v. 10; comp. Xen. Hell. 7, 4, 28: noiuv
'OXvpnia. The time is not that of the Passover solemnity; perhaps — as has been
readily assumed — Jesus had ante-dated that by a day (Kuin. and others) ; nor is it
the Messianic manifestation (Ewald). Comp. Wich. p. 228.
2 According to Luke xxii. 11 and Mark xiv. 14.
a Ewald (also Lichtenstein, L. J. p. 394) thought of the house of John Mark, Acts
xii. 12. Erasmus and since him Bleek and Meyer have assumed that Jesus mentioned
the name. Kuinol thought he did not name him (lest Judas might find him out) ;
according to Fr. the disciples already knew who he was. According to Theophylus,
and also Wichelh. (p. 226), the man was unknown and himself knew nothing of the
matter ; and Jesus sent in faith in the Almighty Father, who could open to him a
large room ! The sentence, Schol. Luc. vit. auct. 19 : rb Suva do>9a<siv ol ndX.
Xeyuv — £7ri ruiv ovyKpvnruv ri fiovXofi. ry doptaria rov bvoparog, does not altogether
apply. Wetst. p. 516. Even Olsh., II. p. 385, found in Matthew's narrative simply
nothing miraculous (as Strauss, 4th ed. II. p. 383) ; Weizs. (p. 559) also thinks of a
friend's house, but speaks of a secret arrangement.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 279
meet you a man carrying an earthen pitcher of water.1 Follow
him, and where he enters in say unto the master of the house,
The Teacher says, Where is my room, that I may eat the Pass
over with my disciples 1 And he will show you an upper cham
ber, large, spread with cushions, and furnished ; there make
ready for us."2 As to this communication, we shall be equally
perplexed whether we see a miracle here or none.3 In the
former case, it would have to be assumed that Jesus when at a
distance saw men walking about in Jerusalem, detected the right
one out of thousands, the right servant, the right master, the one
favourable to him and just then at home, the right room, — in
fact, that he saw everything, pitcher, house, cushions, and the
owner's sentiments. Nay, more ; the miracle must extend from
Jesus to the disciples ; for in the bustle of the festival city, to
detect the right pitcher-bearer among the multitude of pitcher-
bearers who would be fetching water for washing utensils and
the hands of the guests, could be only a matter of accident or of
miracle.4 In the other case, there would have to be assumed an
arrangement made by Jesus with the Jerusalemites, not only as
to house and room and table, but also as to the sending out of a
1 Hewers of wood and drawers of water the most menial of servants, Deut. xxix. 11 ;
Joshua ix. 21. Wichelh. (p. 230) indulges in fancy as to the locality of the well.
2 Luke xxii. 10; Mark xiv. 13. Volkmar (p. 563), following Luther's erroneous
translation, explains iarpiaukvog = square-stone chamber, the chamber of the Sanhe
drim, — this or such a high-priestly room was placed at Jesus' disposal. One can talk
like this when one likes to indulge in poetry. From the time of Homer (Wetst.
p. 672 ; Wichelh. p. 232), the Greeks said tjrpuvvvuv kXivtov (sternere triclinia),
comp. Acts ix. 84 ; and the KXivn, indispensable at this meal (see below) and (below,
p. 280, n. 5) placed at the disposal of the guests, is pointed to by Matt. xxvi. 20 ;
Luke xxii. 14. If any one will force in the meaning of stones, there were in Jerusalem
iorp. enough, exclusive of the lishkat haggasit, e. g. the temple courts, the palaces, the
better houses. Prophetic knowledge, e. g. Samuel's concerning Saul, 1 Sam. x. 2 sqq.,
to which Strauss, 4th ed. II. p. 385, and Wichelh., p. 226, appeal. But who would
think, with Volkmar, p. 562 (after Strauss), that Jesus, like Saul, was on the road to
kingship or to high-priesthood !
3 As formerly Schulz, Schleier., Weisse, Wich., Ewald, could prefer the narrative of
Luke and Mark, so now again Holtzmann, pp. 96, 203. Volkmar, p. 568 : to the
prosaic it is much too wonderful ! For Matthew, rightly, Theile, Strauss, Meyer,
Bleek. The superiority of Matthew dawns even upon Weisse, I. p. 600. Others
attempt to give a natural explanation of Luke and Mark (Olsh., Neander).
4 Above, I. pp. 108, 124, 170; II. p. 303; III. pp. 271 sq.

280 THE FAREWELL.
servant with a pitcher ; and in point of fact, some have already
seen in this an eloquent sign of the anxious situation, and of the
well-weighed and cautious action of Jesus with respect to his foes
and his betrayer.1 To others, this solution of the difficulty wBl
be still more objectionable than the untenable miracle. Jesus is
dishonoured rather than honoured by ascribing to him this secret
cunning and this triviality of previous arrangement ; and it would
remain to be explained why the arrangements should have been
made in this mysterious manner, when the sending of trusted
disciples with definite instructions as to man and house would
have effected the same end, and that yet more quietly and pri
vately.2 It is plain that the tradition included a miraculous
knowledge ; and the sign of the man bearing a pitcher came in
appropriately because he symbolized the preparations for the
solemnization of the festival, to which, e.g., the washing of hands
was indispensable ; perhaps also because he symbolized, in a half-
Johannine way, the transition of Jesus from the Jewish water to
the wine and blood of his own last supper.3
Thus we shaB do best to abide by the simple account of
Matthew. In the first place, then, Jesus was announced, and with
him his twelve disciples.4 It may here be mentioned that it
was customary to allow to strangers the use gratis of the neces
sary room, with articles of furniture, especially with cushions and
tables ; in return for which it was usual to leave behind the
skin of the Passover lamb and the earthen vessels that had been
employed.6 Further, it was the custom for the family circle that
1 Thus Gabler, Paulus, Kuinbl, Kern, even Neander (p. 526). Comp. Strauss, 4th
ed. II. p. 383.
2 We could only assume that Jesus, in the unavoidable presence of others (as
Judas), would be compelled to speak this obscurely, or that he could not rely upon the
silence of even his most trusty followers if he gave direct commissions and names.
'" Comp. above, IV. p. 210. Volkmar's exposition, based on 1-Sain. x. 3, see above,
p. 279, n. 2.
* Volkmar (p. 570) justifies to himself the fable that Jesus partook of the last supper
with a part of his disciples.
5 Bab. Jam. f. 12, 1 ; Megill. f. 26, 1 • traditio est, non mercede conduci domos
Hierosolymis, quia propria non erant. — Recepit ergo paterfam. ab hospitibus coria
sacrificiorum. Abai dixit : hoc etiam inde discas, moris fuisse, ut quis relinq. vas

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 281
gathered together to eat the lamb, to be composed of from ten to
twenty definitely enumerated persons.1 Jesus, together with his
disciples, represented a family; indeed, he had always assumed
the character of the head of a household, and had acted as such
in the breaking of bread at their common meals. The number
of heads at his table stood about midway between 'the usual
extremes. The wider circle of disciples and the Galilean women
were left out, not only on account of the number, or of the non
necessity of the participation of women, but also because Jesus
wished to have around him only his own household, his most
intimate disciples, that he might say and give to them the last
that he had upon his heart to say and give.2
Whilst these things were taking place at Bethany, Jerusalem
was not idle. The two opposite movements — the turning of
Jesus towards Jerusalem and his sorrowful celebration of the
Passover, and the plots of the hierarchs against Bethany and
Jesus — must, by a remarkable accident, have coincided to the
day and almost to the hour.
The Gospels of Matthew and Mark relate that, on the last day
but one, or the last day, before Easter, on the 12th or the 13th
fictile atque etiam corium sacrif. a. hosp. suo. Wetst. p. 516 ; comp. Lightfoot, p. 376.
Ab. R. Nat. f. 9, 1 : nee dixit quisq. prox. suo: non in veni clibanum, in quo assem
Pascha meum, vel non inveni lectum, in quo recumbam. Lightfoot, p. 186. A part
of the strangers (Winer) may have celebrated the Passover under tents.
1 Jos. B. J. 6, 9, 3 : ouk eXafftrov dvSpiov SsKa. noXXoi Si Kai ovv ukoow d9poi-
Zovrai. Similarly Jon. on Ex. xii. 4 (minus quam decern, quantum ad corned, agnum
satis). Pesach. f. 64; 2 Ech. R. 1, 1 : non est P., in quo numerentur ultra decern.
R. Chila dixit : etiam XL, etiam L ; fil. Caparse : imo C. Wetst. p. 517. Gem. Pesach.
c. 5 hai. 3 : si mactant pro non numeratis, profanum est. Lightfoot, p. 377.
2 The women, Lightfoot, pp. 379 sq. Whilst, however, e. g. Hier. Pesach. f. 37, 2,
mentioned the wine as the joy of the festival for all, even women and sons, Bab. Pes.
1. 109, 1,- gave prominence to fine clothing as that which had the most attraction for
them. According to the Gemara, the women were not obliged to eat the Passover ;
the Karaites distinctly excluded them. Thence is in part explained the absence of the
Galilean women. According to the Gospel of the Hebrews, James, the brother of
Jesus, was present at the last supper : jurav. Jac, se non comesturum panem ab ilia
hora, qua biberet calicem domini. Even Hilg., N.T. IV. p. 27, Zeitschrift, 1868,
pp. 63 sq., admits the doubly unhistorical character of this remark, since James was
no Apostle, and at that time was not a believer ; but it took its rise in the spirit of
the Palestine church, which made James equal to the Apostles.

282 THE FAREWELL.
of April, Jesus' opponents held a final consultation against him.1
The Gospels favour the former day, that is, the Tuesday on which
Jesus closed his ministry at Jerusalem with the reckless candour
of his "Woes" pronounced against Fharisees and Scribes, and
then hastily withdrew to the Mount of Olives. The consultation
would have been most appropriately held on this day: the
unparaBeled demagogic attack of Jesus united the hierarchs by
arousing their instinct of self-preservation, and on this very day
it could be best decided whether proceedings should be taken
against the disturber before or after the festival. The fourth
Gospel, which places two decisive sittings of the Sanhedrim at
the time of the raising of Lazarus and of the re-entry of Jesus
into Bethany, need not here be noticed.2 Matthew reports now
in detail a meeting of the high-priests and elders of the people in
the palace of the high -priest Caiaphas (his proper name was
Joseph), whose initiative John also mentions. Luke in his brief
notice is silent as to this ; and Mark stiB more inexcusably never
mentions the name of Caiaphas, and finds it enough to speak of
high-priests in general and Scribes.3 Neither this earlier account
1 Matt. xxvi. 3 ; Mark xiv. 1. 2 John xi. 47, xii. 10 (comp. below).
3 Matt. xxvi. 3 (erase ypapp.) ; John xi. 49. Luke xxii. 2 and Mark xiv. 1 have
only high-priests and Scribes (hence the introduction of the latter in Matthew) ; yet
Luke at least mentions Caiaphas, iii. 2, Acts iv. 6. Caiaphas, originally called Joseph,
Jos. Ant. 18, 2, 2 : 6 Kai ~K.did<pag; 18, 4, 3: 'Iiiiarjnov rov Kai K. imKaXovp.evov.
Matt, says only \j-yojii., which (as KaXovp.) may refer to the name (ii. 23, ix. 9,
xxvi. 14, 36, xxvii. 16, 32 sq., 57), and surname (i. 16, iv. 18, x. 2, xxvii. 17). The
surname, not according to usual acceptation (also in Hausr. ) = Kepha (like Peter), but
= Kajepha (kajeph naphshi, Targ. Ps. lvii. 7; Buxt. p. 1024). Paulus, Ex. Hdb.
III. ii. p. 463 (followed by Fritzsche, Meyer, Grimm), quotes the subst. kajepha (de
pression Targ. Prov. xvi. 26 (Buxt. ib.). Verb kuph, comp. kaphah, kaphaph, subst.
kaph, signifies to bend, to press down. Jost. I. p. 332 (comp. ib. I. p. 404), thinks
of the town Chaipha. Noack's fancies, p. 245. Comp. Wichelh. p. 49. The time of
Caiaphas, above, I. p. 266 (even Grimm, A. D. 25 — 36 !). In deference to Luke and
John, recent critics depreciate Caiaphas in favour of Annas, in comparison with whom
he was of no importance, and remained high-priest so long only because of his insig
nificance. Thus Langen, p. 230; Hausrath, p. 411. AvXri here is not court (Vulg.
atrium, recently Meyer, Friedl.), which certainly is the meaning in Matt. xxvi. 69;
Luke xxii. 55 ; Mark xiv. 66 ; but, according to late usage, AthemEus, Deipn. 4 (but
comp. Odyss. 4, 74), house or palace ; comp. Esther vi. 4 ; Matt. xxvi. 58 ; Mark
xiv. 54, xv. 16 ; John xviii. 15. Luke xxii. 54 plainly enough puts oiVia for it; and
again Matt. xii. 29 substitutes oUia for the abX-q of Luke xi. 21.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 283
nor the urgency of the occasion requires us to think of a full
gathering of the Sanhedrim. It was rather an informal assembly
of the leading men among the high-priests, Scribes, and rulers
of the people, such as we see meeting together and arriving at
decisions in various critical circumstances down to the time of
the last Jewish war.1 The point of greatest moment was, that now
the antagonistic parties, and at their head the highest spiritual
dignitaries, acted in unison. That Sadducees and Fharisees were
acting together is shown, on the one hand, by the fact, which is
certain notwithstanding the obscurity thrown over it by the
Gospels, that Caiaphas the high-priest, and his father-in-law,
and perhaps at that time still more influential man, Annas, were
both Sadducees ; and, on the other hand, by the credible report of
Luke and Mark that Scribes, factuaBy Pharisees and Sadducees,
were present. Indeed, John also represents high -priests and
Pharisees as acting together in the Sanhedrim after the raising of
Lazarus.2 This complot of the parties is rendered inteBigible by
what had previously occurred, chiefly by the last address of Jesus,
which, notwithstanding its predominant application to the Phari
sees, nevertheless disavowed respect for any of those who sat in
Moses' seat, for any of the Scribes, and repudiated all faith in
the durability of then: God -opposing rule.3 The coalition of
Sadducees and Pharisees, most of all the appearance in the front
line of action of Sadducees holding the highest offices, and infa
mous on account of their reckless severity and cruelty, portended
the speedy downfaB of Jesus, unless a divine miracle interposed
between him and his foes.4
1 Comp. Jos. B. J. 4, 5, 4 ; Ant. 17, 6, 3 : 'lovS. ol iv riXu ; 20, 8, 11 : ol npov-
XOvrEg; 20, 1, 1 : apx- k. np&roi; B.J. 2, 12, 5 sq. ; 2, 15, 2 ; 2, 17, 5 : ol Svvaroi
ovv roig dpx&pevoi. Also 2, 14, 8 ; 4, 3, 5, and Ant. 20, 10 : dpiaroKparia i\ noXirda.
Similarly Paulus, Ex. Hdb. III. ii. p. 462.
2 John xi. 47. The party attitude of Caiaphas, Geseh. Chr. p. 239. My article
Annas, in Bib.-Lex. I. p. 135. The same view held by Renan, Holtzmann, Hausrath.
3 Matt, xxiii. 1 sqq.
4 Comp, also above, I. pp. 359, u. 1, 364, a. 2. Gesch. Chr. p. 239. It should
be observed how the Talmud connects the spoliation of the chanujot (houses) of the
sons of Hanan (Annas), three years before the destruction of Jerusalem, with the law-

284 THE FAREWELL.
And yet — a sign that Jesus was still feared by his opponents —
even the powerful Sadducees, generally so contemptuous towards
popular movements, were this time very cautious. When Caiaphas
" the oppressor," the most influential and the ablest of the high-
priests, who in an almost incredible manner had succeeded in
retaining his high position for seventeen years under the emperor
Tiberius, under two procurators, and particularly under that closely
allied hysena, Pontius Pilate, — when Caiaphas assembled the
heads of the people in his palatial house within the precincts of the
temple, it wTas the unanimous opinion that the person of Jesus must
be seized and that he must be put to death.1 The account in the
fourth Gospel represents the councillors as giving way to despair
under the overwhelming impression of the Bethany miracle
(therefore much too early, in truth weeks before the entry), and
as yielding with lamentation to their fate— viz. that every one
would believe in Jesus, and that then Eome would take away the
temple and the nation — until finally Caiaphas, erroneously called
the high-priest of the year, with more than Sadducean sternness
and violence, though at the same time with an aB too tender
consideration for the value of a human life, convicted his col
leagues of both want of courage and of ignorance. This account,
however, evidently contradicts not only the earBer sources, but
also all the facts, by endeavouring to discover in the anxiety of
the Sanhedrists and in the vigorous counsel of Caiaphas, who
would have one man die for the nation, involuntary and miracu
lously, nay— in an impossible way — even divinely arranged pre
dictions of the actual future, on the one hand of the downfaB of
Jerusalem in consequence of the guilt of shedding the blood of
Jesus, on the other of the salvation of Israel and of the world
through the death of Jesus.2 But though it was unanimously
lessness of the sons of Annas (quia facta sua stabilierunt super verba legis), Lightfoot,
p. 409. Their arbitrary conduct, ib. p. 502.
1 More in detail upon Caiaphas' house, when considering the narration of the sitting
of the Sanhedrim, Matt, xxvii. 1.
2 John xi. 47. That Caiaphas is thrice said to be high-priest for the year doubtless
betrays an erroneous view of the duration of Caiaphas' term of office, or of the high-

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 285
resolved that Jesus should be put to death, it was nevertheless
found necessary to proceed with extreme caution. In the first
place, his opponents wished to get possession of him by strategy,
that meant now to come upon him secretly ; in the second place,
they apparently wished to postpone, not only the execution, but
the whole action to the end of the festival, when the festival
guests were gone, therefore for a whole week.1 Thus no one
thought of hindering Jesus' from appearing before the people, if
he would venture to do so, on the chief day of the festival, the
15th of Nisan, especiaBy as there was no longer any reason to
fear him.2 They plainly thought of being able to rely upon the
people of Jerusalem ; any leaning towards Jesus, any inclination
to disturbance, was looked for, and that rightly, only among the
strangers, above aB among the Galileans.3 The risk involved
in delay was at any rate less than that involved in too great
haste. There was no longer any reason to be anxious in the
interval about any immediate success of Jesus among the masses;
priests in general, xi. 49, 51, xviii. 13. If it had been mentioned but once, it might
have been explained as an indication of the significance of that year. But why does
it occur in xi. 51, xviii. 13 ? John was mistaken here as much as he was about the
name (in truth the surname) of Caiaphas. Thus Bretsch., Strauss, Baur, Weisse ; on
the other hand, evasions even in Krabbe, p. 425. Comp. Strauss, 4th ed. II. p. 361.
And he might mistake, because the Herods and the Romans often allowed the high-
priests to remain in office only .a year, from Easter to Easter. Comp. Jos. Ant. 18,
4, 3 ; 18, 5, 3, and above, I. p. 266. Lightfoot, p. 668. Vajikr. 189, 1 : cum pontif.
coemerent nummo, abbreviati sunt anni eorum. That the high-priests enjoyed divine
revelation corresponds better to the Old Testament than to the Johannine conception
of Judaism, although, according to Jos. Ant. 3, 8, 9, the oracular character of the
high-priests had ceased for two hundred years (he means since the death of John
Hyrcanus, B. C. 107). Better that one should die, see parallels in Wetst. p. 919.
Unconscious prophecy : vaticinata est filia Pharaonis et nesciebat, quid vaticinaretur.
Shem. R. 1.
1 "Not at the festival" was explained by Neander and Ewald, in opposition to all
the expositors (comp. also Hase, p. 231 ; Krabbe, p. 453), as referring to an intention
to carry out the purpose before the festival. Thus now also Hausrath, p. 444. An
execution before the festival proper is indeed described by John. Wieseler, Syn.
p. 367: apprehension not on the scene of the festival! Comp. on the passage, Matt.
xxii. 15 ; Acts xii. 4.
* Hausrath, p. 444.
3 Tumults at festivals, see above, I. pp. 254 sqq., 267. Also Wetst. II. p. 514.
Incorrectly, Tert. Ap. 21 : cum ingens multitudo deficeret.

286 THE FAREWELL.
and there was no danger of his escaping, since he could be appre
hended and thrown into prison either in Jerusalem or at Bethany
towards the close of the festival, or after the festival on his
journey back to GaBlee, or even in Galilee itself.1
But whilst Jesus' opponents were thus deliberating and resolv
ing in Jerusalem, and, influenced not by magnanimity but by
pusillanimity, were granting him a week's respite, deliberation
and resolving were going on at Bethany, by which the plans of
his foes were both supported and thwarted. Those plans were
thwarted not by Jesus, not by the band of his friends and
adherents, but by a spirit of darkness whose secret deliberations
aimed at the same end as the consultation of his mortal foes.2
The plot was devised by one hitherto an adherent, and, more
than that, by one who was not a novice, by one who did not
belong to the outer circle of disciples, but — the worst feature of
all — by one of the old and most intimate circle of disciples, one
of the twelve Apostles, Judas the man of Kerijot.3 The fact
of his betrayal of his Master is so unexpected, so incredible, so
horrible ; it so alarmingly threatens not only belief in aB human
fidelity, but also in the dignity and greatness of Jesus, in his
knowledge, his judgment, his sagacity, most of all in the force of
the impression he produced and the powerful influence of his
love ; it is so beset by the scorn of foes, led by the venomous
Celsus, who exalts the discipline of a robber band at the expense
of the attachment of the disciples to Jesus, that it would be
greeted as the removal of a heavy weight from the heart of
Christendom if it could be proved, what some have attempted to
prove, that the betrayal by Judas never occurred, that it was a
fiction of Christian fancy personifying in Judas the Jewish people
with or without the inclusion of the Apostles, and desiring, by
1 Schleier. (p. 417) thinks Jesus might have been able to save himself by retiring
from Jerusalem.
2 Ewald's representation (p. 531) is too strong : Jesus could not be seized until
recourse was had to treachery.
3 All the Synoptics lay stress upon "one of the Twelve.'' Matt. xxvi. 14; Luke
xxii. 3 ; Mark xiv. 10.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 287
the removal of Judas from the number of the twelve Apostles,
to gain a place for the Apostle of the Spirit, Paul, in the sacred
apostolic choir.1 But unfortunately it is not possible to con
struct historical evidence for this bold and in truth fantastic
supposition, a supposition which was afterwards somewhat modi
fied even by its author.2 It is true that the obscure story of
Judas is veiled in enigma and partly in untenable myth. It is
true that it is not certain whether Paul knew of a betrayer,
whilst it is certain that both he and the Eevelation of John even
to the end spoke of twelve, not eleven, Apostles to whom Jesus
appeared after his resurrection. All this, however, is easily ex
plained ; whilst, on the other hand, there exists the unanimous
testimony of aB the Gospels, as well as of the sources of the Acts
of the Apostles, which bear witness to the election of a twelfth
Apostle in the place of Judas ; and the Christian invention of
such a shameful stain upon an Apostle and upon the twelve
Apostles, of such a terrible ground of accusation against Jesus, is
not for a moment to be thought of.3 In order to decide here
1 Origen, Con. Cels. 2, 12 : arparnybg piv dya9bg Kai noXXurv uvpidS. rjynadu.
ovStmiinort npoiiSoBrj, dXX.' ovSe Xyarapxog novnpbg k. naunovrjpiov dpx^v.
3 Unfortunately there is nothing to be made of Old Testament parallels, not even of
Ahitophel, of whom Volkmar thought (2 Sam. xv. 31, xvii. 23). Comp., on the other
hand, 2 Sam. xvi. 23, xvii. 1, 14. Volkmar, Rel. J. pp. 260 sqq. Quite recently,
ib. Ev. pp. 554 sqq., where, however, the historical character of the man and of his rdle
of betrayer (whether traitor to Jesus or to the earliest Church!) are admitted. But
he could not have belonged to the specially chosen, to the "Twelve ;" and since such
a betrayal would prostitute both the disciple ("a more than knavish person, a brutal
caricature") and Jesus (rationalistic desperation of exposition), since moreover this
help was not needed for the apprehension of Jesus, Judas was essentially only the
type of the Judaism that put Jesus to death, and Mark in particular shows that this
traitorous Judaism existed in all the Twelve. Strauss (New Life, Eng. trans., I.
p. 376) has rejected this hypothesis, which is still thought much of by its author, but
is approved ^see below) and further developed by a Noack alone ; it is rejected also by
Hase, p. 232, and Mangold, article Juda, in Bib.-Lex. III. p. 429. We may call it
fantastic and ill-digested, since a personification of Jewish treachery (comp. Acts ii. 23,
iii. 13) does not lead to the forcing of the man into the number of the Apostles, the
delineation of apostolic unfaithfulness does not involve the unification of the Apostles
in one man, or at least in a betrayer.
3 1 Cor. xv. 5; Rev. xxi. 14. Of course the honourable title of the Twelve does
not cease because one of them falls, particularly since his place is supplied, Acts i. 16
sqq. Is not Philip still called one of the Seven in A.D. 59, though Stephen had long

288 THE FAREWELL.
with full conviction, it is merely necessary to remember that the
first Gospel writings containing an account of Judas came into
existence only a generation after Jesus, during the Bfetime of
many old witnesses and even of Apostles ; and also that all the
Gospels as well as the Acts of the Apostles take pains, by Blus-
trations out of the Old Testament, by explanations concerning
the foreknowledge of Jesus, in a word by every possible means,
to place the betrayal by Judas, the horrible dark spot, in a better,
in an endurable light. In fact, the Gospels and the Acts take
what would have been foolish and ridiculous pains in this respect
if the matter were nothing more than a fable which had been
"poeticaBy" constructed as a rod of correction, a fable which,
with the outlay of but little courage and reflection, must have
been indignantly repudiated in a very different manner from
other unhistorical incidents, such as, e.g., Luke knew how to dis
cover. The question how Judas came by his project can no longer be
answered with certainty, though many, from the Evangelists
downward to the recent times, have attempted with various
arguments to find an explanation.1 Unfortunately, scarcely any
thing is weB attested except the naked fact of the betrayal, all
details in the narrative, whether of the deed or of the end of the
man, being mere surmises of individuals or late and obscure
myths. Moreover, it is the case with Judas as with most of the
Apostles : of his early discipleship not a single feature is reported
which would in any way throw light upon his personal character
since finished his course, Acts xxi. 8 ? Does not Paul speak of the Twelve in A.D. 58,
though the elder James had been dead since A.D. 44 ? In 1 Cor. xi. 23, there is still
to be found a trace of the betrayal, since the precise statement of time, "delivered up
in the night" (notwithstanding Rom. viii. 32), applies not to God, but rather to the
human betrayer; thus not only Grimm and Mangold, but also Hilg. 1861, p. 316
explain it : night of betrayal. In support of the testimony of the fourth Gospel comes
the Acts, i. 16, ii. 23.
1 Comp. the collection of the views of antiquity, in Winer, article Juda. Strauss,
4th ed. II. pp. 363 sqq. Hase, pp. 231 sqq. Very reticent as to the motive, Strauss,
and Weisse, I. pp. 450 sqq. The conceivableness of the act, A. Schweizer, Dogm II
p. 144.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 289
and the secret motives of his inner life.1 The Gospels agree
with the Acts of the Apostles, in representing him as having taken
money, or as having been influenced by the prospect of a money
reward, for his treachery. But whilst in Luke and Mark the
money is promised him after his delivery up of Jesus, Matthew
and subsequently John with much less probability represent him
as bargaining to get money beforehand.2 However, the two nar
rations which give this latter view are decidedly unhistorical.
Matthew, or more correctly his editor, in detaBing the transaction
of Judas with Jesus' foes, and in giving Judas' question as to the
amount of the payment for the betrayal, has in a very self-evi
dent manner merely fabricated a fulfilment of prophecy. John,
again, in describing the immediate occasion of Judas' resolve —
namely, his vexation on account of the anointing at Bethany,
which deprived him, the dishonest cash-keeper, of the rarely or
never received sum of 300 francs, as weB as on account of the
correction administered by Jesus, which at the same time wounded
his ambition — has narrated things found in no other source,
things which have no other value than that of a skilful, surprising,
and yet not reBable combination based on the two circumstances
in Matthew, viz. that Judas bargained for money, and that he
began his treachery after the Bethany meal.3 Indeed, apart from
1 It is remarkable that Judas' deed is not more fully handled in the apocryphal
Gospels ; either this dark side of the apostolate was avoided, or the main facts were
found to be described with sufficient exactness in the Gospels, particularly in John.
On the other hand, many accounts were in circulation as to the end of the traitor (see
below). Concerning his youth, the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, 35, says that Judas was
the victim of a biting madness (comp. his kiss !), which in the lack of other substances
to bite caused him to bite himself. Judas' mother went to Mary and her child ; Judas,
sitting by the right of Jesus, sought to bite him, but not being able to do so then
struck him on the right side, making the child weep. Immediately the devil fled from
Judas in the shape of a mad dog. It was in his right side that the Jews, moved by the
same devil, after wounded Jesus.
2 Luke xxii. 5 ; Mark xiv. 11 ; Matt. xxvi. 15 ; John xii. 6, xiii. 29 ; Acts i. 18.
3 John xii. 4 sqq. To this adheres, e.g., Schleier. pp. 414 sqq.; whilst even Hase
(p. 232) and Neander (pp. 517 sq.) differ from it. That John's conjecture is erroneous
is to be seen from the facts that the Synoptics, while mentioning the objections of
several disciples to the extravagance at Bethany, were not able to mention Judas, and
that Jesus himself, even according to John, answered the disciples on that occasion with
extreme moderation, and by no means combatted the vice of ambition (Neander, p. 517).
VOL. V. U

290 THE FAREWELL.
these arguments, the mercenary motive of Judas, in any form in
which it can be presented, gross or refined, throws no adequate
light upon the transaction.1 A man who in association with
Jesus imposes upon himself the sacrifice of temporal goods, who
finds a satisfying compensation for what he has lost in the un-
anxious character of this living in common and in his hopes of
the future, certainly could not so easily give way to the mean
motive of pecuniary gain. Nay, if we accepted this commonplace
motive, it would not be Judas alone who would be disgraced, but
Jesus also who chose as a disciple a soul so fundamentally base,
and in fact persisted in tolerating a notorious thief as cash-keeper.2
In the same way the motive of wounded ambition disappears.
This motive is to be found only in John; elsewhere it is not
visible ; for in the little disagreements among the disciples it is
not Judas but the favourites, Peter and the sons of Zebedee, who
manifest ambition. And if such a madness of passion on account
of the mBdest censure in the world is not altogether unworthy
of the circle of Jesus, how is it to be explained that Judas sought
merely the death of Jesus, and not also that of his rivals among
his fellow-disciples, and particularly of the detested favourites ?3
1 It is remarkable that not only the many who will not give up the money, on
account of the Gospels (Bleek, Ewald, Meyer, Krabbe, Wichelh., Mang., also Weizs.,
p. 562, who refers to Matt. xxv. 24), but even Strauss and Renan have defended this
view, which is vigorously combatted by Theile, p. 63 ; Hase, p. 232 ; Neander, pp. 516
sqq., and Weisse, pp. 450 sqq. Strauss (4th ed. II. pp. 366, 380) still finds this
(New Life, Eng. trans., I. pp. 375 sq.) more plausible than any of the ideal explana
tions. Renan (15th ed. pp. 394 sq.) puts the ease thus : Judas did not covet money
for himself (he would have gained more by remaining with Jesus), but he was rather
an economist than an Apostle ; he thought Jesus cost the company too much. Goldhorn
had already (in Tzschirn. Memor. I. ii. pp. 152 sq.) converted him into a St. Crispin.
Again, others have thought that Judas wished by his treachery to save his life and
money. Henneberg, Komm. uber Leidensgesch. pp. 32 sq. ; recently also Lange, II.
p. 1173.
2 To Schleirm. also (p. 416) this is too much for Jesus and the fellow-disciples of
the thief ; it must therefore have been only an " inference " of John's. Similarly
Neander, p. 517.
3 This hypothesis rests simply upon John xii. 4 sqq., xiii. 26 sq., and is advocated
by Kaiser, Bibl. Theol. I. p. 249 (also in Klopstock's Messias), recently by Wichelh.
pp. 127, 132 ; also by Renan (15th ed. p. 394), who speaks of ruptures in the society,
wounded self-love, and of the anger of the Apostles against the economist.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 291
Those who do not admit the avarice and ambition of Judas to
be his motives, will perhaps look with favour upon a second
mysterious explanation, which Luke first offered and John after
wards adopted, namely, the temptation of Satan.1 This certainly
involves a renunciation of all explanation of this transaction by
ordinary human motives. But when the motives are in fact so
very inconceivable, recourse to obscure superhuman powers may
be the more readily made; and the initiative of such powers,
whatever effect those powers produced in the human soul,
whether avarice, or ambition, or malicious destructiveness,
saves both Teacher and disciple from harsh reproaches, and
creates for the downfall of Jesus a not merely hateful but grandly
tragical and truly cosmical background, which in quite recent
times has called forth the Bvely interest of a philosophical
thinker.2 But if the earBer Gospels know nothing of this entering
of the devil into Judas, and if Jesus here in plain words, as on
other occasions, throws the blame of the crime upon the man
Judas and upon him alone, are we to accept from less ancient
sources a report which is clearly connected with later Ebionite
and Jewish-Christian views of the devil and of Antichrist, as weB
as with the tendency in the direction of an unhistorical glorifica
tion of Jesus ?3 This last tendency is most strikingly impressed
upon the Gospel of John. Whilst Luke, the predecessor, speaks
simply of an entry into Judas of the devil that prompted him to
treachery, John distinguishes between an inspiration of the devB
and an entry of the devil, and represents the latter as not taking
1 Luke xxii. 3 ; John xiii. 2, 27. Comp. the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, quoted
above, p. 289, n. 1.
* Daub, Judas Iscariot, ar the Bad in relation to the Good, 1816. Comp. Ullm.
p. 136; Mangold, article Juda, Bib.-Lex. III. p. 430. Also Olsh., Ebrard, Ullm.,
even Weisse, have spoken of the most extreme diabolical wickedness. Weisse, p. 451 :
thoroughly wicked motive, no better incentives.
3 Comp. Matt. xxvi. 24 ; Luke xxii. 3 ; John xiii. 2, 27, comp. xii. 23, 27, 31, xiv.
30, xvii. 12. It is noteworthy that Luke gives expression to the dualistic idea of the
Ebionite Gospel, John to the idea of the immanence of the Antichrist (instead of the
eschatological Antichrist). The Gnostic Antichrists of the first Epistle of John stand
as it were midway between the two.
u 2

292 THE FAREWELL.
place until Jesus assented to it when he handed to him the sop
at the last supper and required him to do at once what he was
intending to do. In the interval between Jesus' handing to
Judas the sop and his uttering the words, Satan entered in.
Besides this diabolic causation, a divine one appears in the Acts
of the Apostles and to some extent even in John's Gospel, accord
ing to which the Son of God binds and unbinds the devB. The
divine appointment which wiBs the death of the Son in order to
give to mankind the redeemer through blood from sin and punish
ment, needs an instrument and provides it. This divine appoint
ment is a bright conception against the gloomy power that
wishes to rule man and to snatch the world out of the hands of
God. And how often do we, in distress and sorrow and amid the
inscrutable mysteries of existence, take refuge in this divine
appointment ? Yet no ; we know of a divine appointment which
permits wickedness, but none that is the author of wickedness
for a good purpose.1
A semi-historically credible explanation of Judas' conduct can
be arrived at only by bringing together the sparse historical facts
and the historical probabilities of the situation. We thus obtain,
in the first place, a sure impression that Judas, whatever may
have been his behaviour in the beginning, was throughout Jesus'
career to the close, like the other disciples, a trusted and self-deny
ing companion of Jesus, even in those Galilean journeys of flight
which none but the Twelve shared with Jesus. He therefore had
a prospect of participating in the twelve thrones.2 This impres
sion is by no means affected by the conscious efforts of the
1 Acts ii. 23, comp. iii. 13 — 18. Similarly Olsh. II. pp. 458 sqq.; see Strauss, 4th
ed. II. p. 369. Also Ullm. p. 138. Akin to this view is that which makes Judas a
willing instrument of this higher will, see below, p. 296, n. 2.
2 Wichelhaus, p. 125 (comp. Krabbe, p. 459), lays stress upon the rights of Judas,
the thrones, the blessed because of the seeing eyes, in order to show the horrible cha
racter of the sudden fall of him who was not predestined to salvation. On the other
hand, Mangold (Bib.-Lex. III. pp. 426 sqq.) applies everything possible — the parable
of the weeds and the wheat, the. corrupt fishes, the non-wedding garment, the saying
about offence — as warnings from Jesus to Judas. Weisse (II. p. 112) has thus applied
the wedding garment, Weizs. (p. 562) the unfaithful servant. '

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 293
fourth Gospel to exhibit him as a disciple who had been unfaith
ful from the beginning, and whose real character had all along
been discerned by Jesus, as a disciple therefore who was self-
called, to his own personal hourly torment, to the desecration
of the holy cause, and also to his own ruin.1 A fact totaBy
opposite to a former voluntary self-renunciation is now shown
by the progress and completion of the betrayal. When Judas
spontaneously, without any instigation from without, goes to the
hierarchs and offers them as prey the person of Jesus, when he
subsequently remains as a designing hypocrite in association
with Jesus, listens to his sayings, even accompanies him to
Jerusalem, — when, finally, he volunteers the sign of betrayal, the
kiss, and with cruel resoluteness steps up to Jesus to greet him
as Eabbi and to kiss him, he shows himself to be determined
and able, and at the same time to be a man who has broken
through aB the restraints of respect, of piety, of esteem and love,
and has passed over to the most cold-blooded contempt or to
the intensest hatred.2 In such a case, it becomes once more quite
evident that this detestable conduct is very poorly explained by
motives that would have their rise in mere avarice, or ambition,
1 John vi. 70, comp. ii. 24 sq. This absolute knowledge of Judas by Jesus (held
not only by Wich., p. 133, but also by Weisse, though without knowledge of the betrayal,
p. 452), was too much for Strauss, 4th ed. II. pp. 367 sqq., and even for Schleierm.,
pp. 440 sq., comp. ib. p. 320. Whilst other conservative theologians endeavour to
exhibit in Judas as Apostle at least a struggle between good and evil, a possibility of
moral victory had he possessed great spiritual capabilities (comp. Neander, Ullm.,
Olsh., Krabbe, Wich., Press.), Schleierm. held that the discipleship of Judas was in
telligible only on the assumption that the choice of the Apostles did not depend abso
lutely upon Jesus, but upon those who came to him. Luk. p. 88 ; L. J. pp. 320 sq.
The preponderance of evil from the beginning is most distinctly assumed by Ullm.,
Siindl. p. 136; yet he makes e? dpxnQ, John vi. 64 (Neander, p. 516), mean (Wich.
p. 132) not from the beginning, but only from an early period. The Synoptics, on
the other hand, do not show the knowledge of Jesus until the last evening, Matt.
xxvi. 24.
2 Inner apostacy, Schweizer, II. p. 144. External influence, ib. p. 145; and see
below, p. 295, n. 2. Pressense, p. 435, rightly speaks of a strong, passionate nature.
Intelligent, worldly, violent, Hase, p. 233. Strength of character even in doing wrong,
Weisse, p. 451. Lavater, comp. Wich. p. 128, speaks of his terrible elasticity, of the
remains of apostolic greatness (Niemeyer, Charak. I. pp. 85 sq. ). Neander, p. 522,
speaks of his practical talents.

294 THE FAREWELL.
or even fear of suffering, since no such motives would really
suffice to produce such a cruel uprooting of all traces of rever
ence. The conviction is irresistible that such a treatment of the
Master can rest only upon the completest estrangement in the
inmost consciousness of the disciple from his Master. Accord
ing to the probabilities of the situation, this deeply penetrating
rupture could have only two causes, the one or the other of
which, or both united, brought about a radical revolution in the
man's spiritual life. One was disappointment in the Messiah,
who had excited the most gigantic expectations but had fulfiBed
none of them, who no longer wrought miracles, so that even the
fear of his miracles passed away, who neither attracted the people
nor smote his opponents, who withdrew from the public gaze,
spoke sometimes of his own death, sometimes of the sufferings
of his Apostles, sometimes, it is true, of the prospects of the future,
but they were prospects which vanished like a jingling of words,
like a hoBow dream, in the presence of the actual reality.1 The
other was a growing respect for the men who sat in Moses' seat,
who stiB extorted reverence, to whom belonged the temple with
its marble splendour, with its treasures and its consecrated gifts,
with its sacrifices, with its priests and Levites without number,
and to whom the nation paid obedience and homage in the persons
of the thousands, nay millions, that crowded to the Holy City
and thronged the temple courts, whilst Jesus with his Twelve,
insignificant and powerless, passed out of sight.
It is not to be denied that, under the pressure of these weighty
facts, a profound crisis was possible among the adherents of Jesus.
To those adherents the proud Jerusalem, the strong impression
produced by which was felt and heard of on Jesus' retirement to
1 Disappointment on these grounds is spoken of by most recent critics, Schleier.
pp. 263, 440 (also Neander, Bleek, Mangold, Volkmar) ; Schenkel, p. 266 ; Hausrath,
p. 444 ; particularly Ewald, pp. 531 sqq., who points out the general indefiniteness of
the situation which was a source of temptation to all ; on the other hand, Neander,
p. 522, quite overlooks the special character of the situation. It is interesting that
John's Gospel (xiv. 22) has ascribed this materialistic Messianic tendency to the other
Judas.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 295
the Mount of Olives, became in and of itself a place of tempta
tion, and that both because of the collapse of the cause of Jesus
and because of the so sudden, so violent check and suppression
of the just now most highly-wrought expectations.1 And while
it must be regarded as one of the most notable indications of the
spiritual greatness of Jesus that the crisis went no further, that
from his stiB weak and materiaBstic foBowers the course which
things were taking did not evoke a loud "But, why?" that
apostacy did not make havoc among the Apostles, and that the
one apostate was compelled to tread his dark path alone and
silently, without even attempting to weaken the fidelity of his
feBow-disciples, who stood firm and defiant as a strong wall, it
is at least inteBigible, and it reflects no dishonour upon Jesus,
that one out of twelve fell, one whose preponderantly material
istic mode of conception and whose coarsely vigorous mode of
action prevented him from preserving in the trying circum
stances of the moment the equilibrium of his inner attachment
to the person of his Lord. Moreover, it may be that a native of
this southern district — as was this one alone among the Apostles,
whether we look for Karijot in a southerly or in a northerly
direction — became the subject of a burning mental struggle under
the immediate influence of relations and friends ; or the force of
his old associations with the sanctuary of Israel was powerfully
revived ; or, finaBy, the legal-material pietistic tendency slumber
ing in the nature of the Judsean burst forth afresh under the
excitement of the festival surroundings.2 Such considerations
1 Comp. Matt. xxiv. 1. The crisis in John vi. 66 — 71.
2 Comp. above, III. pp. 276, 392. To the two places called Kerijot (LXX. KapiM)
there mentioned, and of which only the more southerly had generally been taken
notice of, there is now to be added a middle one, south of Bethlehem and Herodium,
Khureitun (Kiepert and Van d. Velde). Matt, and John have 'loKapubrng ; Mark and
Luke, '\aKapiw9. In Cod. D and It. through all the Gospels, Jkapiwr, SKapiiiirng, dnb
TLapviirov (D always in John, Sin. in vi. 71), Carioth, Scarioth, Scariothes (a). On
Ish Keriot, comp. also Ish Jerush, in Pirke Abot and Talmud. Bleek, I. p. 418. On
the fantastic explanation, Origen on Matthew, 78 : exsuffocatus (also interesting
parallel of the two Judases). Noack, p. 235, mentioned the Moabite Keriot. Olsh.,
II. p. 458, was led by Gen. xlix. 17 to think of the tribe of Dan. — Neander, p. 522,
holds a preceding negotiation by t>he Pharisaic party possible. A. Schweizer (Dogm.

296 THE FAREWELL.
will help us to form a juster estimate of even this crime, though
we may not defend it or exculpate the "brave honest man."
And whilst thus the criminal is raised from the brutish monster
to the man who errs in a question of truth, the Master himself is
again relieved from odium, and the dark incident of the betrayal
\ is as a whole lifted above the level of a foul and repulsive scandal
j to that of a phase in the great human conflict between light and
\darkness, between truth and error.1 Others have in other ways
sought for higher motives in this catastrophe. But those who
/have ascribed to the apostate a belief in a miraculous power of
| Jesus which would necessarily protect Jesus from the consum-
jmation of his opponents' deed of violence, or in a power of Jesus
j which at the chaBenge of a hostile attack would be aroused to
put an end to the fatal truce, and would with the assistance of
the people and in connection with a festival insurrection effec-
tuaBy establish the Messiahship; or those who, following the
precedent of the ancient Gnostics, would acknowledge Judas'
efficient assistance in bringing about the redemptive death and
the victory of Christian truth; — such have invented nothing
that is noble, but only an impossible, a more or less unworthy
| and positively childish fancy.2
II. p. 145) suggests that perhaps Judas was previously acquainted with individual
Sanhedrists. Hausrath, p. 444, thinks that Judas had always held an isolated position
among the Apostles, and that on that account the second Judas was, for distinction's
sake, called Lebbseus, the cordial.
1 The brave man, in Schmidt, Bibl.f. Krit. III. p. 165 (Venturini explains himself
differently). Comp., however, even Lavater, p. 248. More than knavish, a brutish
caricature, Volkmar, p. 555.
2 Belief in the miraculous power of Jesus, Theophyl., Lightfoot, Heum., Bahrdt,
Niemeyer, Schmidt. The driving of Jesus into action, Thiess, Liebe, Goldh., Paulus,
Winer, Theile, Hase, G. Schollmeyer (Jesus u. Juda, 1836). According to Paulus,
Hdb. III. p. 351, and L. J. I. ii. p. 200, Judas wishes to save Jesus by a rising of
the people, especially of the strangers. Comp. Hase, p. 233. The direct opposite is
Henneberg's " Attempt to save Life and Money in the Shipwreck of Jesus," p. 245.
Refutations in Neander, pp. 519 sqq.; Bleek, II. p. 399; Strauss, 4th ed. II. pp. 376
sqq. But the simple refutation is the terrible audacity of the man. Judas' attempt
to bring about the redemptive death, view of the Gnostics, Irenaeus, Haer. 1, 3, 3;
1, 31, 1 ; 2, 20, 1 sqq. Tert. Prwscr. 47. Origen upon Matthew, 78. Epiph. 38, 3 ;
comp. Strauss, 4th ed. II. p. 373 ; Wichelh. p. 128. Noack (Gesch. Jesu, 1870,'
pp. 230 sqq.) has recently fallen back upon the Gnostic opinion that Judas (Lebbseus

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 297
Judas quickly executed his purpose. The sources agree in
reporting that the betrayal was conceived and settled in the
interval between the consultation of the opponents of Jesus on
the 12th of April and the sending of the disciples on the 14th
to make arrangements for the Passover meal. This report is in
essential harmony with the facts, since Judas' proposal led to a
change in the plan of the opponents, whilst on the other hand
the execution of the conspiracy on the evening of the 14th, as
well as Jesus' previous pointing to the betrayer in the course of
the Passover meal, show that the conspiracy was arranged in the
course of the 13th or early on the 14th. Matthew and Mark,
however, give a still more detailed account. According to them,
Judas' plan to betray is connected, directly or indirectly, with the
Bethany meal, therefore with the late evening of the 13 th or the
early part of the 14th, most probably — as Matthew would lead
us to think — with the late evening, since the work of darkness
would be favoured by night, and Jesus missed none of his dis
ciples on the morning of the 14th.1 Though the Bethany meal
offered Bttle that was calculated strongly to excite the passion of
the betrayer — of which John alone, and without ground, speaks
— it was nevertheless, in the view of the disciple, the crowning
point of Jesus' inaction and retirement, and of his resignation to
death and the grave.2 If Jesus had finished his career, if there
was nothing more to expect or to hope for, if the much-vaunted
Messiahship was entirely reBnquished, then the time was come
for Judas to finish his work, to close the old account, and to
shape the new project. The report of the fourth Gospel does
not shut out this intimation of the older sources. Certainly it is
the bosom-son) did Jesus the pleasure, the loving service of bringing him to the wished-
for and honourable death by involving him in the Samaritan rising, and by leading
him into fellowship with the Samaritan deceiver.
1 Comp. the fine words in John xiii. 30. Among recent critics, Venturini (p. 416)
has found probable an agreement with the hierarchs as early as the entry; Ewald
(p. 534), such an agreement for several days before the betrayal. Matt. xxvi. 16 does
not necessarily indicate a series of days.
2 Schleier. (p. 416) surmises that the mention of sepulture gave the immediate
impulse to Judas.

298 THE FAREWELL.
possible for us to assume, according to John, that Judas initiated
the work of the betrayal on the evening of the last supper, after
Jesus had challenged him and after the devB had actuaBy entered
into him, and that the execution of his work immediately foBowed
its initiation. But it is quite as possible that John passed over
the preparatory stages which according to the other sources were
undoubted facts, and that he regarded the execution itself as
being, in contradistinction to them, the consummated work of the
devil. Indeed, the mention of the plan of betrayal which Judas
carried with him to the last supper, as weB as the connection of
the betrayal with the incident at Bethany, plainly show a general
agreement with the Synoptic account.1
In the secrecy of the early night, whilst Bethany went to rest,
Judas took the road down from the Mount of Olives to the
temple. Whether he still had to struggle within himself we do
not know; the defiant obduracy which he exhibited the next
evening scarcely permits us to believe in any protest of his
heart at the last moment. Indeed we may conjecture that he,
detecting in Jesus the false prophet whom Moses had before
hand described together with his genuine foBower and fulfiBer,
would nerve himself to his work by repeating the saying : "When
, the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord and nothing comes
jto pass, then has the prophet spoken presumptuously, therefore
\be not afraid of him!"2 At the time of the festival, when the
people were going to and fro from early in the morning until
late in the evening and even in the night, it would still be
possible to get admittance to the outer court. The temple guard
of priests and Levites, learning that he had important matters to
communicate, directed him to the head authorities of the temple
of whom Luke expressly speaks. These procured him access to
1 John xiii. 2, 26 — 30. Also Lightfoot (p. 381) and the majority of recent critics
connect John with the Synoptics. On the other hand, Strauss (4th ed. II. pp. 364
sqq. ) thinks that, according to the fourth Gospel, Judas made no advances to the oppo
nents until the last evening. Comp. Liicke, II. p. 484. On the other hand, with
justice, Krabbe, p. 454.
2 Deut. xviii. 22, comp. 15.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 299.
the chief priests, at any rate to Caiaphas, who may have been
present or was sent for, or perhaps the secret visitor was taken
to Caiaphas' palace.1 Judas, with cold-blooded deliberation,
announced his willingness and his ability to deBver Jesus into
their hands. A gleam of joy and satisfaction, visible even in
the dim lamplight, lit up the countenances of the hierarchs.
They easily convinced themselves that this man was one of the
disciples, and that he was in earnest. They hastened to seize
the good opportunity without delay, and without regard to the •
resolution previously arrived at. The chief thing was to get
possession of Jesus, and this possession Judas could effect with
out causing a commotion, in secrecy, and in the absence of the
people, whose presence at the apprehension was especiaBy to be
avoided. The details of the plot could not yet be arranged, since
Judas himself was not in a position to know what would be the
next movements of Jesus ; but upon this they were agreed, that
Judas should take advantage of the next opportunity and make
it known to those whose commission he was executing, and they
on their part would await his caB in a state of readiness.2 Thus
they parted for this time, after the new friends had held out
to their accomplice, besides their laudatory recognition of the
serviceableness of his good work, the prospect of a money pay
ment for the sale " of the righteous."3 That they did this, and that
he accepted it without protest, was a fitting conclusion of the
covenant. The hierarchs showed upon what they reBed — upon
violence and corruption ; Judas accepted the mean estimate of
1 The gates were closed towards evening (ntpi SdXnv), particularly the inner, Jos.
B. J. 6, 5, 3, but also the outer, Ant. 18, 2, 2. At the Passover, however, they were
opened by the priests to the people at midnight, Ant. 18, 2, 2. Any one who announced
himself at the door earlier would also be admitted, because there were dwellings in the
courts. And whoever, e. g., announced the new moon, could gain admittance at any
time. On the chief officers of the temple (Luke xxii. 4), see below, the apprehension.
2 Matt. xxvi. 16 ; Luke xxii. 5, 6 ; Mark xiv. 11. Luke and Mark mention the
joy, as well as the promise of money. The serviceableness of the act, Ewald has well
emphasized, p. 534. Lightfoot (plainly also Schleier. p. 416) thinks that Judas had
decided to deliver up Jesus immediately after the celebration of the Passover, p. 381,
which is quite against the text.
3 Sale of the righteous, Amos ii. 6.

300 THE FAREWELL.
his patrons by yielding to base motives, whilst he had meant
to take the field only on higher grounds. We here make no use
of the copious account of Matthew, for reasons which have been
in part already stated. That Judas went abruptly to the hier
archs with the base question, " What wiB ye give me, and I wiB
betray him to you?" and they then and there weighed to him
thirty pieces of silver or shekels, i.e. about 90 francs, the double
of what Herod the Great bequeathed to each of his guards, —
this is not only opposed to the simpler account of the other
sources, but it is an evident and intended imitation of the thirty
pieces of silver which — according to his own figurative descrip
tion — were weighed to the prophet Zechariah by his people as
the paltry wages of a prophet, in truth a beggar's fee.1
The hierarchs had not long to wait. On the very next day, it
happened that Jesus was to be found in Jerusalem. On the
morning of that day (Thursday, April 14) we left the two
messengers of Jesus in Jerusalem, engaged in the preparations
for the Passover meal, according to the directions and in honour
of their Master.2 A number of misceBaneous details they might
well leave to the hospitality of the host and hostess, who had
already given sufficient evidence of their goodwiB by granting
the use of the commodious festival-room. To them would also
be left the duty of removing the leaven out of the house and
room, a ceremony which was carefuBy begun on the evening of
the 13th by the light of tapers, and was completed at noon on
1 Matt. xxvi. 15. As evidently Zech. xi. 12 sq. is used (comp. Matt, xxvii. 3, 9)
where iarnaav (jishkelu) = weighed, the often favourite exposition, they promised,
settled, promised it (Vulg. constituerunt ei, thus also Fr.), is impossible. To weigh to,
also in Jeremiah's purchase of land, xxxii. 10. Thirty shekels the wages paid to
God's shepherd by the people, Zech. xi. 12 sq. Also the price of a slave, Ex. xxi. 32.
Lightfoot, p. 376. Fifteen shekels and some barley for an adulteress, Hosea iii. 2.
Herod's fifty drachmae, Ant. 17, 6, 5. According to Origen on Matt. 78, the thirty
shekels represent the years of Jesus. The shekel, four Attic drachmae (a drachma a
little less than a franc), Ant. 3, 8, 2 ; more exactly (comp. Winer) 3£ drachmae, there
fore 30 shekels about = 90 francs. Reckoning a shekel as four drachmae, the amount
would be 104 francs. Hase (p. 233) finds a small payment conceivable (without
defending Matthew), since Jesus could be otherwise tracked.
8 Matt. xxvi. 19. See above, p. 280.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 301
the 14th. To them would faB the duty of baking, in the early
morning, the pure unleavened mazzot, the cake of wheaten meal,
as well as the preparation of the charoset — the thick batter of fruit
flavoured with vinegar and cinnamon — and the bitter herbs.
These were aB reminiscences of the distress in Egypt, and, still
further back, symbols of the solemn festival expiation and purifi
cation.1 On the other hand, the disciples themselves, according
to law and custom, undertook the purchase, slaughter, and pre
paration of the unblemished male lamb of the first year. There
is nothing said anywhere of the presentation of a special festival
sacrifice, of the so-called chagiga in cattle or small animals, which
indeed was not required on this day.2 The festival ceremonial
began in Jerusalem at noon, while in GalBee all business was
stopped through the whole morning.3 At about 2 p. m. the
blowing of horns caBed the people to the temple, which on
account of the multitude of participants in the festival could be
entered only by divisions of the people, by three consecutive
divisions. The head of the house or his servant — in this case,
therefore, the two disciples — took the lamb, when they did not
then and there purchase it in the court, and bore it, with a knife
fixed in the wool or attached to the horn, on their shoulders to
the temple court, which was specially adorned for the occasion
with bright-coloured carpets and was at once closed again. There
1 The usages based on Ex. xii. 1 sqq. (particularized in the tractate Pesachim and
in Maim.), see Lightfoot, pp. 376 sqq., 458 sqq. ; Paulus, Hdb. III. ii. pp. 482 sqq. ;
Winer and Herzog, Passah. Friedl. pp. 38 sqq. Langen, Die letzten Tage Jesu,
1864, pp. 147 sqq. ; also Wichelh. Komm. zur Leidensgesch. 1855, pp. 106 sqq.,
247 sqq. Mor. Kirchner on the Jewish Passover and Jesus' last meal, 1870. The
unleavened bread was referred to the haste of the exodus from Egypt, charoset (=pul-
mentum, Buxt. p. 831, made of pounded dates, figs, grapes, nuts, almonds) and the
bitter herbs (lettuce, celery, parsley, cress, horse-radish) were referred to the clay and
the bitternesses of Egypt. Certainly these materials were originally connected with
the idea of purity at the feast of expiation.
2 The choosing of the lamb (properly on the 10th of Nisan) and keeping it until the
14th (on the bed of the head of the house), Friedl. p. 43. Chagiga (Buxt. p. 707 =
festival, festival offerings, sacrif. festi) were held to be necessary only for the 15th, not
for the 14th. Friedl. p. 49.
3 Friedl. pp. 41, 45.

302 THE FAREWELL.
the priests inspected the animals and ascertained the number in
each Passover-meal company.1
In consequence of the multitude of persons bringing sacrifices,
these regulations were not punctually observed. We learn inci
dentally that the names of the heads of houses — e.g. that of
Jesus — were not written down, but that the number of persons
keeping the festival was subsequently calculated from the number
of kidneys of the lambs.2 About 2. 30 p. m. the evening sacrifice
was slain and an hour after was laid upon the altar. Then the
triple trumpet-signal of the priests and the choral singing of the
Levites, the so-called " Hallel," gave the sign for the slaughter of
the lambs, which took place between 3 and 5 p. m.3 The heads
of houses themselves or their commissioned servants generaBy
slew the lambs ; the priests stood in two long rows, with great
silver and golden lipped bowls, in which they received the blood
of the animals, and passed it through the hands of others until it
reached the altar, at the foot of which it was poured out.4 The
lambs, hung upon the iron hooks of the waBs or piBars of the
court, or else upon a staff between the shoulders of two men, were
then flayed and disembowelled, the tail, the fat, the kidneys,
and the Bver, consigned to the altar, and the rest, wrapped in
the skin, was carried from the temple hill to the house, towards
evening, as soon as the last division had finished operations.8
When evening fell, the carcase was skewered crosswise through
the length and across the forepart of the body with dry pome
granate sticks, and cooked in the ground in a speciaBy-prepared
earthen pot-oven without bottom. At sunset, when the stars
rose and the beginning of the 15th of Nisan was announced by
1 Comp. Lightfoot, p. 376, &c. The place of the head of the house taken by a
servant, Pesach. 8 : dicit quis famulo : macta mihi Pascha. Lightfoot, p. 459 ; Friedl.
p. 46. Inspection, Lightfoot, p. 377; Friedl. p. 47. The carrying = hirkib, Lightfoot
p. 377. The knife, ib. p. 458.
2 Above, I. p. 303.
3 Lightfoot, p. 376 ; Friedl. pp. 46 sqq. ; Kirchner, p. 15.
* L.c. 5 Friedl. p. 48; Kirchner, p. 16.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 303
the sounding of trumpets from the temple hill, the meal could
begin.1 In the evening, when it was dark, Jesus, leaving his retirement
at Bethany, appeared in the city and in the well-Bt house of his
host, with his disciples, from among whom not even Judas was
missing.2 According to the later Jewish custom, he reclined
upon the ground, which was covered with cushions, carpets, or
mats, he himself occupying the middle place and his disciples
being on either side of him.. They thus expressly Blustrated the
view that while the ancient custom of standing signified the
servitude in Egypt, the later custom of reclining signified the
liberty won even for the poorest in Israel.3 One cushion gene-
raBy sufficed for three guests, and was thence called a triklinion;
we have therefore to imagine four cushions arranged in a semi
circle in order to make the usually round and low footstool-Bke
table accessible to aB.4 The position of each individual was such,
that supporting himself on his left hand, he had his right at
liberty to use in eating and drinking; the feet were stretched
out behind. Jesus lay upon the single cushion in the middle —
this was the place of honour ; of his two neighbours, the one,
lying above, therefore again in a place of honour, was at his back,
the other at his breast. Thus conversation was somewhat diffi
cult : if Jesus wished — to abide by the description of the fourth
Gospel — to converse with John, who lay at his breast, John
would have to turn himself; if with Peter, then Jesus would
have to turn from left to right.5
But these are the least important questions. It is a matter of
1 Si tenebrae oboriebantur, exibant et assabant, Paulus, III. ii. p. 483 ; Friedl,
pp. 50 sq. ; Kirchner, p. 17; Herzog, p. 148.
2 Matt. xxvi. 20 ; 1 Cor. xi. 23 (night) ; comp. Friedl. p. 50. Volkmar (p. 570)
thinks only a part of the disciples were present. According to Venturini, Jesus had
breakfasted sadly in the morning with his mother.
3 Hier. Pes. f. 37, 2 : mos servorum, ut edant stantes, ut nunc comedant recum-
bentes, ut dignoscatur, exiisse eos e servitute in libertatem. Bab. -. record, libertatis.
Hier. Pesach. 10, 1 : etiam pauper in Isr. non comedat nisi inclinatus. Wetst. p. 517.
4 Lightfoot, p. 377.
5 Ib. He thus explains the positions of John and Peter in John xiii. 23 sq.

304 THE FAREWELL.
much greater moment that we can obtain no distinct picture of
the course of the meal. In the' Jewish authors, from the Tal-
mudists down to Maimonides, we have exact descriptions of the
Passover meals, although contradictions are not wanting, and the
Bteral likeness of the celebration in the days of Jesus and by
Jesus is questionable. In the Christian Evangelists, on the
other hand, we have, besides brief aBusions to the Passover
celebration itself by Jesus, a detailed narrative of only the
remarkable addition which Jesus made to the Passover meal in
his last supper.1 But how they were both connected, how the
supper was accommodated to the Passover meal, how far it
retained or abbreviated or supplanted the latter in its ceremonies
and in its compass, we have no certain account. As a conse
quence, many various suppositions have been made, which differ
so widely, that while some critics have thought of an observance
by Jesus of the whole Jewish ceremonial, and an introduction of
the supper at the close of the Jewish celebration, others have
thought of a setting aside of the latter at its very commencement,
and yet others of a direct and undivided unity of old and new.2
However, if we are never able to arrive at a certainty upon this
point, "we may rejoice in the fact that the second, the decisive
act, the Christian supper, has been described to us by the pens
of four writers, three Evangelists and the Apostle Paul, this last
being the earliest witness to and the faithful reporter of the tradi
tion of the Apostle Peter. By these it has been described in a
detailed manner, though not without difficulties and contradic
tions in small details.3 Indeed, a careful treatment of the existing
r 1 Even between Hillelites and Shammaites it was disputed, e. g., whether the wine
or the day was to be blessed first. Pesach. 10, 2 ; Lightfoot, p. 378.
2 The first, e.g. Friedl. p. 64, Langen, p. 153, Meyer, pp. 492 sqq., Wichelh. p. 252;
the second, Fritzsche and others, who place the introduction of the new features at the
customary breaking of bread ; the third, Hilg. Ev. p. 214 ; ib. 1868, p. 63. Simi
larly, Volkmar, p. 568.
3 Matt. xxvi. 20 sqq. ; Luke xxii. 14 sqq. ; Mark xiv. 17 sqq. ; 1 Cor. xi. 23 sqq.
Comp. Rev. iii. 20. A critical comparison and general estimate would lead us too far.
Some have preferred Matt, and Mark; others, Luke; others, John, who gives however
no Passover-meal and last supper, but only an ordinary meal, xiii. 2 sqq. (see below),

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 305
scanty material still remaining as to the Passover meal might
succeed in procuring for us better-established assumptions con
cerning the early part of the celebration.
Among the Jews the Passover meal had the significance of a
joyful festival. Every one looked forward to it with longing ;
and the morning meal was curtailed in order that a good appetite
might be brought to the Easter lamb and the unleavened bread.1
Even Jesus opened the ceremony in a joyous mood. It is true
there was sadness mingled with the joy ; for while he was glad
to be able to eat this last meal, he was sorrowful at the prospect
of the separation. " With yearning," said he, " have I desired to
eat this Passover with you ; for I say unto you that I shaB not
eat it again tiB it is perfected in the kingdom of heaven."2 With
on which, account Schleier. (p. 420) expresses himself somewhat sceptically, and the
negative criticism naturally rejects all the testimonies, even that of Paul. Renan
holds that much more was soon made of the last transaction of Jesus than it originally
signified, as only metaphorical expressions and the custom of breaking bread lay at its
foundation (15th ed. pp. 312 sqq.). Strauss, respecting the testimony of Paul, in his
first "Life of Jesus," 4th ed. II. pp. 421 sqq., now finds him no longer certainly
reliable, New Life, Eng. trans., I. p. 389; to which Volkmar (pp. 565 sq.) follows with
a decided negative, making, with indifferent foundation, the assertion that Paul was
absolutely wanting in the capacity to report objectively; hence here only the Passover-
meal with a part of the disciples remains, to which has been added the later use of the
Church and Paul's subjective belief. Paulus had already furnished a precedent, since
he found at least the repetition of the transaction (Paul, Luke) unhistorical, but
derived from the later Christian ritual, III. ii. p. 527. Thus now also Wittichen,
Idee des Menchen, p. 175. Weizs. p. 554, correctly : the transaction belongs to the
most certain ! Comp. on the different accounts, especially Paul's, my essay on the
"Last Supper in the Meaning of the Founder," Jahrb. fur deutsche Theol. 1859,
pp. 63 sqq.
1 Hier. Pes. 37, 2 : necesse est, ut homo exhilaret uxorem s. et filios ad festum.
At quomodo exhilarant ? Vino. According to Bab. Pes. 109, 1, also clothing (children,
wheaten bread and nuts), Lightfoot, pp. 379 sq. Comp. -Herzog, XI. p. 147.
3 Luke xxii. 15 (Gospel of the Hebrews : pri in. !), comp. Matt. xxvi. 29. It is
difficult in general to prefer Matt, and Mark to Luke, and vice versd, since each part
has its superiorities (comp. Bleek, II. p. 409) ; evidently, however, in Luke the intro
duction is most faithfully narrated (Neander, p. 530), and there is no ground for Volk
mar's (p. 568) objection (Hilg. Ev. p. 214 ; Zeitschrift, 1868, p. 63) that Luke as a
Pauline writer makes a distinction between the Jewish Passover and the Christian
ordinance, that he wishes to show two acts (Ewald, p. 547, rightly asserts the contrary).
The ia9i6vTuv of Matt, and Mark, and the utrd rb Sunv. of Paul and Luke, show
that the institution of Jesus assumes the preceding essential completion of the Jewish
Passover, as indeed it is impossible to suppose that Jesus would really neglect the fes-
VOL. V. X

306 THE FAREWELL.
these words he lifted from the table with his right hand the first
cup of red wine which a disciple had filled.1 It was usual to fiB
the quart cup with three parts of wine and one part of water
poured into the wine at table, in order to make an agreeable
drink.2 The customary blessing of the first cup consisted of the
words : " Praised be thou, Lord our God, thou King of the world,
thou that createst the fruit of the vine!"3 After he himself,
supported by his left hand, had drunk as the custom was, he
passed round the one cup, which he lifted up as an eloquent sign
of the unity of his community. " Take it," he said, " and divide
it among you ; for I say unto you that I wiB no more hereafter
drink of the growth of the vine, tiB I drink it new with you in
the kingdom of my Father."4 Through a long series of significant
tival custom. — The addition, "before I suffer" (Luke), is to be ascribed to the writer;
on the other hand, the mention of not eating (Luke) and drinking any more (Matt.,
Mark) is more appropriate to the beginning of the transaction (Luke) than to the end
(Matt., Mark), where Jesus has already proceeded to the institution for the disciples
(against Meyer, and Bleek, p. 409). The fulfilling in Luke is not accomplishment
(Matt, v.), but completion, without more exact definition (Bleek, II. p. 408 : eternal
celebration of the spiritual redemption, comp. Wich. p. 274).
1 Hier. Pesach.. praaceptum est, ut vina rubido (jain adom, comp. Gen. xlix. 11;
Prov. xxiii. 31) prastet id officium, Lightfoot, p. 380. Lifting up, Lightfoot, p. 384.
z Size of the cup of glass, metal, &c, several finger-lengths, Lightfoot, p. 380.
Quart (rebiit) : quartana vini italica (3 cyathi, 6 conchas, 12 mystra, spoons) ib. quarta
pars aquae, Pes. 108. Wetst. p. 518. Paulus, III. ii. p. 529. Friedl. pp. 54, 63.
Gloss, on Bab. Ber. 50, 2 : vinum eorum strenuum (strong) erat admodum, Lightfoot,
p. 380. But sapor et adspectus vini must remain. Bab. Pes. ib. Also undiluted
wine allowed, ib. As to the shape, comp. the sacrifice-cup on coins, round-cup on
pedestal, or bag-shaped with constricted neck, as among the Greeks. In the houses of
the rich we may think of silver cups, above, I. p. 359.
3 Lightfoot, p. 378. Friedl. p. 54. Baruch ha-bore et-peri ha-gephen.
4 Luke xxii. 17. Probably a two-fold intimation of "the end, according to Luke
xxii. 16 and Matt. xxvi. 29, Mark xiv. 25. The Gospels (including Luke xxii. 17,
notwithstanding Siapep.) assume one cup; the late Rabbis speak of a cup for each,
which the head of the house blesses in his own, Lightfoot, p. 378. Comp. Paulus,
I.e. p. 513. Friedlieb, p. 63. Langen, pp. 149 sq., 185. Hence Maim. (Lightfoot,
p. 378) speaks of an ebibere of the head of the house, which does not occur in Jesus'
meal. According to the requirements of each, there was (Maim.) more or less water
added, Friedl. p. 63. The smallest quantity of wine which each individual might take
was half an egg-shell. Paulus, I. c. Probably at the time of Jesus the ordinary custom
was simpler ; in fact, such a number of cups might not be found in every house. It
is to be assumed that the one cup was repeatedly filled in the course of the meal. That
Jesus himself drank is implied in Luke xxii. 18, Matt. xxvi. 29 (Origen Con. Cels.
1, 70) ; Jerome, Aug., Chrys., and others, represent him (according to Matt) as drink-

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 307
ceremonies, of which the Gospels make no mention, they slowly
approached the festival meal. The table was brought forward
bearing the various kinds of food, including the lamb already cut
into pieces. The company then ate with thanksgiving the bitter
herbs, and also, after praising God who had created the fruits of
the earth, the sweet red batter, into which was dipped herbs and
pieces of bread about the size of an olive. The table was then
pushed back, and there foBowed the mixing of the second cup,
instruction concerning the Passover meal, the singing of praise,
the beginning of the so-caBed HaBel (Psalms cxiii. cxiv.), and
finally the second cup circulated round the room.1 A last and
very significant solemnity formed the transition to the meal
itseB, after the table had been in the mean time again brought
forward. The head of the house took two of the round loaves,
broke one, laid the broken pieces upon the unbroken loaf, and
repeated the words of thanksgiving : " Praised be He who brings
forth bread out of the earth !" He then wrapped up a piece of
bread in the herbs, dipped it in the sweet batter, and praised God
the Eternal King who had sanctified Israel through his commands
and had commanded that meal. Having eaten the piece of
bread, the head of the house, after a fresh prayer, then proceeded
to partake first of the lamb.2 The unrestricted part of the trans
action, the meal itself, now began. Every one ate and drank at
wBl, foBowing the patriarchal custom of the East of putting the
fingers in the common dish.3 For Jesus, the main point was to
ing of the eucharistic cup. The early expositors, and also Olsh., Ruckert, De Wette,
Baumg.-Cru., thought he had not yet drunk. On the contrary, rightly, Bleek, II.
p. 408, and now also Meyer. On the not drinking any more, Strauss, 4th ed. II.
p. 425, makes the remark : not exactly in the next days, but only before the next
Passover, would the tarrying in this pre-Messianic dispensation end for Jesus ! On
the drinking anew, Bleek, p. 409 : glorified spiritual drink !
1 Chiefly according to Lightfoot, pp. 378 sq. ; Paulus, I.e. p. 511; Friedl. pp. 54
sqq. ; Wichelh. pp. 247 sqq. Meyer, Matth. pp. 492 sq. The formula : Bened. sit,
qui creavit fructum terras. Difference as to Hallel, Lightfoot, p. 459.
3 Benedictus sit ille, qui producit panem e terra. B. tu, dom. Deus noster, rex
seterne, qui nos sanctif. praec. suis, &c. Lightfoot, p. 379. Plate-like, thumb-thick
bread -cake.
3 Matt. xxvi. 23 ; Lightfoot, p. 379.
x 2

308 THE FAREWELL.
pass from the legal transaction — which he may have abridged
in some of its details, particularly the repeated washings — to
himself.1 He had come to the city with a presentiment of his impending
fate. On the way to the city, however, his suspicion that infi
delity lurked within the circle of his most intimate companions
was strengthened to certainty, not by the solemn warning of a
friend such as Joseph of Arimathea, but by his observation of
the whole bearing of the traitor-disciple, now of his sBence, then
of his forced cordiality, scarcely however of any confusion in his
manner.2 Some mistrust may be felt as to the report of the
Gospels that Jesus knew his betrayer. Harmonious as the
Gospels are in the main fact, they differ remarkably in the
details, and there is a strong contrast between the simple account
of Luke and the highly coloured one of Mark, still more that of
Matthew, and most of aB that of John.3 And were they not all,
Luke included, interested in removing from Jesus any stigma
arising out of the betrayal by a disciple ? They could not accom
plish this better than by representing Jesus as knowing of the
betrayal, nay, as supernaturally knowing and even wiBing it, by
making him point with his finger to the apostate and at the same
time announce the necessity of his downfaB and the inexpiable
guilt of the delivering him over to that downfaB. Yet it is here
1 Washing of hands, especially after the first cup, then before the breaking of bread,
Lightfoot, pp. 378 sq.
2 Information from without was thought of by Paulus, L. J. I. ii. p. 205 : shortly
before the sitting down, Jesus learnt that in that night, &c. Also Neander, p. 523.
Strauss (New Life, Eng. trans., I. p. 388 ; comp. ib. II. pp. 318 sq.) does not think
of the bearing of Judas ; at most, Jesus might have been warned by a secret adherent.
Thus also Volkmar, p. 570. But we know nothing of such a circumstance; and the
whole behaviour of Jesus makes the impression of a distrust springing up within him.
Strauss and Volkmar also admit that Jesus saw that his crisis was coming on. Comp.
below, the prediction of the denial in the coming night. Similarly Ewald, p. 541.
Weizsacker, p. 562. A. Schweizer, II. p. 144.
3 Luke xxii. 21—23; Mark xiv. 18—21 ; Matt. xxvi. 21—25; John xiii. 18—30.
Scepticism, especially in Strauss (the passage was afterwards put in the mouth of Jesus,
perhaps on the basis of the Old Test. [Ps. xii. 9 ; John xiii. 18]), 4th ed. II. pp. 410
sqq., New Life, as quoted in previous note. Volkmar, pp. 563 sqq. Weisse, p. 452 :
at least he did not designate Judas personally.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 309
not simply a question of renouncing a tradition which has a
strong testimony in its favour, whioh in the form it possesses in
Luke and approximately also in that of the other two Synoptics
is given quite irreproachably in the primitive words of Jesus, in
vivid and by no means Old Testameut style, with a characteristic
outburst of passionate excitement, and is capable of being natu
rally explained as easily as the ordering of the festival room.1 If,
for instance — and this is the main point — the betrayer was reaBy
present, as he was (though nothing or at least no precise details
are reported of his coming and going), because only thus could he
act the spy upon his Master's movements, then — even assuming
the greatest cunning on the part of the unfaithful disciple — it
would be to think meanly and contemptuously of the searching
and penetrating mental glance of Jesus, which is no novelty of
yesterday to us, to suppose that the countenance of the criminal
was not transparent to him who in GaBlee had discerned the
heart of Peter, of the paralytic, of the publicans, and who in
Jerusalem had anxiously noted the weakness of his disciples;
nay, who above aB others had read the heart of men and of man
kind.2 Jesus was not able to conceal and to suppress the feelings
which agitated his soul, even though he thereby hastened that
breach in the festival joy from which he could not after aB save
the disciples. He owed it to himself, to his disciples, to the
mutual confidence which existed between them and which was
again to exist, to give expression to his suspicion, to his grief, to
his indignant amazement. And perhaps the spoken words were
1 John (xiii. 18) first quotes the passage from the Psalms (xii. 9). The Acts (i. 16
sqq.) does not refer to this fact, but to the prediction of the downfall of Judas. If
Old Testament passages were wanted, Obadiah i. 7 and Micah vii. 6 might have been
quoted ; indeed, Jesus had applied the latter passage, Matt, x. 36. That no thought of
such an application occurred to these Evangelists is itself an evidence of the simplicity
and antiquity of the tradition. Comp. the remarkable similarity of Matt. xxvi. 24
and xviii. 6 sq.
2 The Synoptics assume that Judas was there with the other Apostles ; as to his
going away (perhaps at the general breaking-up of the party) they are silent ; on the
other hand, John (xiii. 30) makes Judas leave before the others. Remarkable are the
anxieties of Jesus concerning his disciples before Gethsemane, e.g. in the parables of
the servants, Matt. xxiv. and xxv.

310 THE FAREWELL.
the means of clearly discovering whether he was in error or not ;
it was perhaps also the way to call back the brooding or half-
decided disciple from the path of crime.1
Whilst, therefore, the eating was stiB going on— as Matthew
and Mark rightly show, against Luke— Jesus surprised the
disciples by the sudden words : " Verily I say unto you, the
hand of my betrayer is with me at the table.2 The Son of Man
goes as is written of him ; but woe to that man by whom the
Son of Man is delivered up ; it were good for that man if he had
never been born."3 The disciples were grieved, and began to cry
one after another: "But it is not I, Lord?" Thus cried eleven
in the consciousness of their fidelity, of their — in this respect
spotless — innocence, an innocence to which even the bare thought
of such a possibiility had never occurred. The voice of the
twelfth reluctantly chimed in. Jesus was silent. His observa
tion of the demeanour of the unfaithful one had strongly con
firmed him in his suspicion, yet he could -not renounce and thrust
1 What is correct in the Johannine representation (xiii. 27) is, that Judas then
definitively yielded to the devil. Certainly, if Jesus so prostituted him, as John repre
sents, he was to a certain extent irresponsible.
2 Matt. xxvi. 21 ; Mark xiv. 18. In Luke xxii. 21, it is after eating the Passover
and immediately after the institution of the Lord's Supper ; and since here (which
Volkmar, p. 568, does not see) the indecorum begins that Judas remains at the Lord's
Supper, Paulus, Olsh., Liicke, Neander, Friedl., Wichelh., Langen, Press., and others,
have preferred first John, and then Matthew and Mark. Luke simply would not divide
the transaction, whilst the two others had not given the former part of it, and there
fore could well put this scene before the Lord's Supper. If Luke — according to Hilg.
and Volkmar — had proceeded to separate the two transactions, the Jewish and the
Christian, he would (just then) have been able to introduce this scene before the Lord's
Supper. John (xiii. 18) places the scene after the beginning of the eating and after
washing of feet, but before the last farewell, when Judas was no longer present. In so
far, what Bleek says (p. 406) — that John, like Matt, and Mark, sets the announcement
of Jesus in the beginning of the meal — is not quite correct. Ewald, p. 551, following
Luke : at the end of the whole meal. — The words above according to Luke ; on the
other hand, Matt., Mark, John : one of you will betray me. Since these authors then
bring "the hand upon the table" again, Luke is here evidently simpler. The word
betray is not wanting to him, but Jesus spoke it only once.
3 Matt. xxvi. 24; Mark xiv. 21 ; Luke xxii. 22. This expression frequent among
the Jews : thoph lo (nuach lo), asher lo nibra (lo jitbare, lo ba [jaza] baolam [laolam],
leor haolam). Bux. p. 1316. Lightfoot, p. 378. Schottgen, pp. 83, 225. Comp.
Matt, xviii. 6 sq.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 311
out even the son of perdition ; he therefore mentioned no name
and gave no sign, and even refrained from any significant glance
of his eye.1
This indistinct intimation on the part of Jesus very naturaBy
did not satisfy the evangelical tradition. The exalted character
and the glory of Jesus in contrast to the dark betrayal must be
fully manifested by a clear designation of the sinner who was to
pursue his course with the knowledge and the consent of Jesus.
Thus the hand over the table, of which Luke had spoken,
and by which Jesus did not intend to exhibit a sign by which
the traitor might be known, but simply to make evident the
horrible character of a betrayal by a table-companion, became
in Matthew, Mark, and John, an actual sign of the guilty one.
Certainly the utterance of Jesus in Matthew, which is in response
to the urgent questions of the disciples, " He who has dipped his
hand with me in the dish,'' might have been the actual original
answer with the meaning that he wished to designate no one in
particular, but simply to lay emphasis on the reaBty and the
heinousness of the deed that was to be perpetrated by one of the
circle of festival associates, in the same sense as Mark's descrip
tive narrative makes him say, " One of the Twelve wiB betray
me."2 But since, after those words of Jesus, Judas alone put the
repeated question, " But it is not I, Eabbi ?" it is sufficiently
shown that he was the one dipping in the dish, and that Jesus
intended to make him known as the traitor. In fact, the question
of Judas is expressly and straightway answered by Jesus, " Thou
hast said it."3 In Mark, no question is proposed by Judas, and
none is answered ; but mention of the dish is there, and speaks
as plainly as the most direct indication would do. This utterance
1 Particularly according to Luke xxii. 23 ; Matt. xxvi. 22, &c. According to John
xiii. 22, the disciples only looked at each other, though afterwards Peter and John
asked the question. Paulus (p. 573) could not credit Judas with the boldness to ask
such a question. Also Holtzmann, p. 203. This opinion justly applies to Matt. xxvi.
23 — 25, but not to xxvi. 21 sq. See also above, p. 293. Weisse's correct remark,
above, p. 308, n. 2.
3 Matt. xxvi. 23. 3 Matt. xxvi. 25.

312 THE FAREWELL.
in Mark must as such contain within itself a sign, because it
cannot possibly be the mere repetition of the expression of
abhorrence, which, according to Mark, Jesus had already uttered :
" He that eats with me will betray me ;" and because it cannot
possibly refer to one then dipping, instead of one who had already
dipped, as stands in Matthew, without the particular disciple
who at that very moment stretched his hand toward the dish
with Jesus being at once known as the man in question.1 This
making known the betrayer, which Matthew and Mark endea
voured to exhibit, has become in John, on the strength of the
two Synoptics, a most obvious and palpable fact, and a most
forcible testimony to the knowledge and power of Jesus, on which
the disciples might rest their beBeving glance.2 Jesus here
speaks of the betrayer with a triple repetition; the disciples look
at each other and are distressed as to who is meant. Then Peter
makes a sign to the disciple who was beloved by Jesus and, lying
to his right, rested upon his breast : " Ask who it is of whom he
speaks?"3 "Lord, who is it?" the favourite now asks of Jesus
plainly. " It is he," answers Jesus, " to whom I wiB give the
piece of bread which I dip in the dish." And lo ! he gives it to
Judas, and at once the devB enters into Judas, upon which
Jesus urges to make haste, and Judas goes away. " And it was
night." All these narrations, circumstantial as they are, are unhis-
1 Mark xiv. 19. Kuinol, Henneberg, Hitzig, Weisse, Holtzmann, understand the
words in Matt, and Mark quite generally, as the similar ones in Luke ; but even Strauss,
4th ed. II. p. 415, finds that these two authors make the original and perhaps neutral
words refer definitely to Judas. Quite ludicrous attempt at harmonizing the Gospel
accounts in Kuinol on Matthew, p. 707. Strauss, I. c. p. 413.
2 John xiii. 21 sqq. ; comp. the statement, xiii. 19, which, as Strauss also saw, I. c.
p. 371, clearly shows the tendency of the author. But Sieffert could prefer John,
pp. 147 sqq.
3 The triple intimation (after what had already been given in vi. 70), xiii. 10, 18,
21. The mode of reclining, above, p. 308. But comp. also Wich. pp. Ill sqq. If,
according to Lightfoot and Wich., Peter had the place of honour above Jesus, while
John that below him, then Peter and John could not see each other without turning
towards each other. But perhaps Peter lay upon another cushion where he could see
John.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 313
torical. Luke is much the simplest. In Matthew, the question
of Judas — to have the audacity to put which, after the cursing
of the birth of the traitor, he must have been a devil — and the
confirmation by Jesus, have been forced into the text ; in Mark,
Judas' undisturbed continuance in eating, which then became
itself a sign against him, is an absolute impossibility ; and the
Johannine report is nothing more than the artificial and at once
apologeticaBy tendency-supporting conclusion, based on these
untenable previous accounts.1 This picture is vivid and pro
found : the unfaithful disciple is designated and not designated,
for only the favourite, and perhaps Peter, are admitted to the
secret, and the betrayer is apparently so little publicly exposed,
that the other disciples quite misunderstand the last requisition
addressed to Judas, for they imagine it has reference to commis
sions for purchases for the festival. And what is stiB more
significant, it is only by the wiB and act of Jesus, who ceases to
guard the unfaithful disciple, that the latter is given over to
the devB, whose victim, whose Antichrist he becomes, and then
proceeds to commit his nocturnal crime.2 But this individuaB-
zation is completely dissipated by the confuting silence of the
other sources, and by the impossibiBty that Judas should have
continued to eat, or that Jesus, contrary to the usages of the
table, should — after the CathoBc-Lutheran fashion at the Lord's
Supper — have thrust the sop into his mouth.3 Moreover, when
examined more closely, it is found wanting in delicacy in so
many respects : in that intentional giving of prominence to those
privileges of the favourite disciple which put an end to the
actual equality of the disciples; in the exposure of Judas by
Jesus, at least to John and Peter ; and lastly, in the misuse of
1 In Matthew we can erase xxvi. 25 without any injury to the text.
2 Comp. the rnpuv, xvii. 12, and the perfect power of the Son of God, x. 18 and
xviii. 6 sqq.
3 John xiii. 26 speaks certainly only of a reaching forth to him, which was possible
in itself. Paulus, III. ii. p. 507; Wich. p. 108. The intentional character of the
conversion of the taking (Matt., Mark, Luke) into a giving, lies, however, on the.
surface. His taking would be unbecoming (as the kiss) ; Jesus must be the actor.

314 THE FAREWELL.
power to a prostitution, as weB as in the harsh dismissal of
Judas.1 The earlier account is certainly more tender in every
respect ; and even the apparent harmony of John with the
earlier, nay with the earliest account, in the persistent want of
clearness in the minds of the disciples concerning the betrayer,
only brings again into view this author's old offence of cari
caturing the disciples' want of understanding. If Jesus had dis
closed who was the betrayer to John, the latter must have under
stood or surmised the meaning of Jesus' words, "What thou
doest, do quickly!" And if Jesus had in such a striking manner
drawn John's attention to Judas, not one of the listening disciples
could have misunderstood the dark secret that concerned Judas,
whilst not one could have happened upon the idea that Judas was
sent out in the middle of the night to buy something.2 Let us not
forget one thing more. Only a moment before this happened,
Jesus had referred to the passage in the Psalms, " He who ate
bread with me, has lifted up his heel against me."3 If Jesus had
really thus spoken, the obtuseness of the disciples, who saw with
their own eyes the bread given to Judas, would be beyond com
prehension. But there is no doubt that Jesus did not thus speak,
since even Matthew, the most zealous appealer to ancient pro
phecy, knows not a syBable about it ; while, on the other hand,
John, in quoting this passage, has at the same time brought in
an only apparently apposite fulfilment of prophecy in the giving
of the bread to Judas. One of the EvangeBsts — Mark — had
anticipated John in this, making Jesus say, " One of you wiB
betray me; he who eats with me." Thus the passage in the
Psalms may already have been present to Mark's mind ; and if
it had been present to the minds of aB the Evangelists, the doubt
1 Thus also Weisse, II. p. 277. Would not this also apply to John xiii. 18 ?
2 Schleier., p. 417, found here the hint that Judas should now fetch his assistants.
The late purchasing might remind us of the carelessness of Jesus (Matt. xxvi. 17) or
of the disciples (xvi. 5). But who would make purchases near midnight, especially
when, according to the Synoptics, the festival-day had begun (Levit. xxiii. 7; Numb.
xxviii. 18; comp. Ex. xii. 16)?
3 Psalm xii. 9.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 315
would have been inevitable that the whole Judas scene, the table
and dish scene, owed its existence simply to the conversion of
the passage in the Psalms into a fictitious incident.1
As Jesus refused to give any further information concerning
the betrayer, the meal was continued, though certainly in a
depressed mood and with a doubly damped joyousness, because
the unknown betrayer stiB remained.2 This serious mood was
acceptable to Jesus himself. This seriousness, the betrayer, the
impending death, made a bridge by which to pass to the trans
action which was more to him than the Passover, and which
without doubt he had reflected upon during the last days, and
before he knew of the betrayal. He now proceeded to this, using
the privBege which, notwithstanding the restraints of the celebra
tion, left to the head of the house considerable freedom in the
explanation and exposition of the rite, and considerable scope in
the conduct of the regular meal.3 Whilst they were still eating,
1 Comp. above, p. 309.
2 From the time of the ancients, critics have been in doubt whether Judas was
present at the Lord's Supper or not, Wichelh. pp. 256 sqq. The Fathers, the Scho
lastics (comp. Langen, pp. 165 sq.), the Lutherans, even the Reformers (comp. Zw.,
Calv. , Butz. , Bez. ) are preponderantly of opinion that he was present ; of recent
critics, e.g. Lightfoot, Bengel, Hofm., Strauss, Ewald. Most recent critics, however,
following Musculus, Piscator, Gomarus, Byn., are led by a general feeling of fitness to
believe that he was absent, Paulus, Olsh. , Neander, Tholuk, Liicke, Bleek, Kahnis, De
Wette, Meyer, Friedl., Wichelh., Langen, Pressense. Volkmar also (p. 569) expresses his
repugnance to the assumption, only he directs his anger merely against Matthew. If
we look to the evidence of the Gospels, we find that neither of the Synoptics favours
the going away of Judas ; Luke evidently assumes his presence, only he renders this less
striking by making the institution of the Lord's Supper precede the declaration of the
betrayal (Luke xxii. 21), comp. above p. 310, n. 2. John xiii. 30 gives a departure
of Judas, but not before the Lord's Supper, about which John's account contains nothing ;
on the other hand, it makes him go after the completion of the washing of feet (the
representative of the Lord's Supper), which Jesus performed upon the betrayer also
with a full knowledge of what the latter was about to do. According to Strauss, 4th
ed. II. p. 411, John gave the departure of Judas in order to introduce the conspiracy
then (on the other hand, see above, pp. 297 sq.). The reason is rather the complete
absolute severance, the handing over to the devil. The actual presence of Judas is
made more probable by Jesus' considerately refraining from naming him, and by the
absence of anything special in the distribution of the elements of the Lord's Supper; it
is postulated, moreover, by the fact that the betrayal was only thus possible.
3 Paulus, and recently Strauss, Weizs., Holtzm. , Holsten, have thought of the mood
of the moment induced — according to Paulus — by the breaking of bread. Even

316 THE FAREWELL.
though towards the end of the Passover meal, he took afresh,
with solemnity as at the beginning of the transaction, one of the
round plate-shaped loaves, gave thanks in the usual manner,
broke the bread, laying the pieces as before upon an unbroken
loaf, and then, without eating or drinking any more himself, said
to the disciples : " Take, eat ; this is my body which is given for
you; this do in remembrance of me."1 With this solemn act he
ended the eating of the Passover. It is improbable that the
material enjoyment of the terrestrial food was continued; the
holy ceremony could not have been thus covered without losing
its sanctity, and even the disposition to eat must have ceased.
On this account it is to be assumed that Jesus carefully chose
the moment when the eating was about to cease. Either the
Strauss, 4th ed. II. p. 426, gives the possibility of previous consideration. If any
value is attached to Luke xxii. 15, 19, as well as generally to the long-cherished
reflections of Jesus on the necessity and value of his death, the transaction must be
held to have been premeditated. — With regard to the point of time of the transition,
the essentially correct view is in Bleek, p. 410, Meyer on Matthew xxvi. 26 ; on the
whole, also Paulus, p. 513, and Wichelh. pp. 256 sqq. Divergent views, above, pp.
304 sq. Friedlieb and Langen think of the emptying of the fourth cup. — With
regard to the relative freedom of action, comp. the — in part quite unrestrained —
declarations of the head of the house (Friedl. p. 55), and also the harmless continuance
of the meal, ccenam protrahit, hoc vel illud edens bibensve, prout lubet. Lightfoot,
p. 379.
1 Paulus thought here of the last breaking of a piece of bread by the head of the
house at the close of the meal (p. 513), which, however, belongs to a late custom ; whilst
Fritzsche would connect the act with the first breaking. Factually Jesus connected
it immediately with nothing. The breaking of bread among the Jews, baza, chalak.
The formula seh guph (corpus) hapesach, does not exist among the Jews ; but Maimo
nides speaks of an eating of the guph hapesach. Lightfoot, p. 559. See Schottgen,
pp. 226 sqq. Paulus, p. 525. The formula of Jesus : Take (Matt., Mark), eat (Matt.) ;
body given (Luke) for you (Paul, Luke) ; remembrance (Paul, Luke). Comp. my essay,
1859. The command to do it in remembrance, the institution, has in particular been
questioned (Weisse, Holtzm.) : Jesus was too modest (Kais., Stephani) ; the Christian
overseers have spoken thus later (Paulus) ; it has risen up among the Christians through
the annual Passover and the meals of the Essenes (!) (Strauss, New Life, Eng. trans.,
I. p. 390). Could not this opinion be supported by the fact that the Acts of the
Apostles knows only of Jesus' breaking bread, and of no saving significance of his death ?
But the testimony of Paul (formerly recognized with its details also by Strauss, 4th ed.
II. p. 426) decides. Volkmar would regard as original only, " This is my body, my
blood" (p. 565). Weizs. p. 557: "Take, eat, this is my body." According to
Holtzmann, the "eat this" is only liturgical (pp. 96, 204). On the other side, Gess
(p. 147) harmonizes most beautifully by making Jesus say alternately, " for you, for
many."

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 317
lamb was all eaten, and it only remained for the head of the
house and the guests to eat the last morsel, of the size of an
oBve, which had to be done after the distribution of the bread of
remembrance, as after that last morsel no one might eat anything
more ; or Jesus, towards the close of the meal, set aside the
legal prescription as to the last morsel, and substituted for that
this last loaf of bread.1
According to the Jewish ceremonial, the eating was foBowed
by a third and fourth, seldom by a fifth cup, and between the
third and fourth it was customary to sing the second part of the
great song of praise, the Hallel (Psalm cxv. — cxviii.).2 When,
according to the four accounts which lie before us, Jesus, after
the meal was over, having caused a cup to be fiBed, offered
thanks for it, and, elevating it in commemoration of his death,
presented it to his disciples, it is uncertain whether he had first
exhausted aB the cups aBowed in the legal meal, therefore
whether he was then consecrating the fifth cup to his death,
or whether he devoted the third to this purpose.3 The latter
supposition is more than probable. There could be unity and
coherence in Jesus' institution only through an immediate con
nection of the cup of remembrance with the bread of remem
brance, otherwise the two elements of his transaction would be
split apart.4 Moreover, the accounts of Paul and Luke say that
this cup foBowed the eating, they meaning by the eating not the
complete Passover celebration to the fourth cup, but of necessity
1 Lightfoot, p. 379. Every one ate at the last and had to carry away the taste of
the lamb with him, Paulus, p. 517.
2 Lightfoot, pp. 380 sq.
3 Friedl., Langen, Meyer, think of the fifth cup, Jesus having necessarily gone
through the whole ceremonial. It is seldom supposed to be the fourth cup (yet see
Paulus, p. 529, against Langen, p. 153) ; on the other hand, very commonly among the
ancients and in modern times the third cup. Comp. Lightfoot, p. 380. Thus also
Hilg. Volkmar (p. 563) knows of only three Passover cups !
4 Not without some plausibility, Bleek says (II. pp. 410, 413) it may be assumed
from the Gospel and Paul that the eating still proceeded, and that there was therefore
an interval between the two parts of the institution. In truth the sources say nothing
on this point, and the grounds on which the representation in the text rests preponderate.
Langen (p. 178) is also for the immediate connection.

318 THE FAREWELL.
simply the eating of the Passover lamb, in the course of which
it must have been that the new bread of remembrance was dis
tributed, since after the end of the eating of the Passover lamb
nothing more might be eaten.1 FinaBy, Paul expressly caBs
Jesus' cup of remembrance the cup of blessing, a designation
which was given by the Jews to the speciaBy solemnly-handled
third cup, the so-caBed hos haberachdh, and to that exclusively.
There is no conceivable reason why Paul should have thus
designated the fourth or fifth cup, particularly as he very evi
dently supplements the Jewish designation by the Christian, " the
cup of blessing which we Christians bless."2 But if any one is
suspicious of a celebration by Jesus which does not completely
satisfy the letter of the ordinances, let him remember — if he has
forgotten Jesus' freedom with regard to the ordinances — that the
very institution of the bread and wine of remembrance was
both in letter and in spirit a breach of the ordinances, nay
of the law, a conscious and unconscious exaltation of the new
religion above the old.3 Thus then Jesus, taking hold with both
hands of the third and speciaBy holy cup, the cup which the
Jews regarded as the solemn offering of the head of the house to
his household, then elevating it with his right hand, he gave it
to his disciples, and as he looked round upon the company he
broke the profound silence by saying with impressive earnestness,
" Drink ye aB of this; for this is my blood of the covenant, which
is shed for you ; this do, as often as ye drink, in remembrance of

1 1 Cor. xi. 25 ; Luke xxii. 20.
3 1 Cor. x. 16. The Jews also called it in full kos birchat hamas(z)on (cup of blessing
of the food), Lightfoot, p. 380. Comp. Bux. p. 657. Wetst. II. p. 142. The solemnity
(particularly the covering of the head of the chief of the house, and the general
stillness), Lightfoot, ib. and p. 348. Even Paulus, besides the fourth cup, goes back
to the third ; but the two eould not be connected. The arguments of Meyer and
Langen against the third cup are weak.
3 Schenkel, pp. 270 sqq., speaks too strongly of a breach with the theocracy (also in
Luke xxii. 16), Weizsacker of acting independently of the law.
4 Bab. Berac. f. 51, 1: velat se et considit; sudarium expandit in caput suum.
Poculum accipit manu utraque, at dat in man. dextram, elevat a mensa, oculos in illud
figit; sunt, qui dicunt, dono impertit suis. Drink ye all, Matt.; Mark secondary

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 319
Through aB the Christian ages, since the days of Paul and
John, for two thousand years, the faith and love of Christians
have been exhibited in the task of showing the force and meaning
of the act of Jesus which he prescribed in remembrance of him
self, and which, even without any such prescription, he would
have made historically immortal for every feeling man who saw
in it the heart of Jesus and the breath of his love for all.1 It
may be admitted that this faith and love have often, in the
obscurity in which at any rate this transaction is involved, far
overstepped the boundary, and in the defence of their facts, or at
least of their assumptions, each of which involved a question in
the theology of redemption, they have lost themselves in the
passion and zeal of their warfare. For mere dogmaticalness,
mere uncharitableness, without higher interests, have never ruled
in the Lord's Supper controversies which began in antiquity,
were carried on in the Middle Ages, and culminated in the Eefor
mation time between Luther and ZwingB. And though we may
be thankful that the Eeformation, by its conflicts and still more
by its principle of the sole authority of the Bible and of free
study of the Bible, has released us from one-sidedness of opinion
and from the heat of the controversy, at the same time it must
nevertheless be admitted that the real and extraordinarily great
mysteriousness of the subject itself explained and excused the
errors and the confusions of the centuries.
Whilst the Last Supper institution of Jesus was brief and
unostentatious, a simple appendix to the broad basis of the
Passover ceremonial, it was solemn and mysterious in form and
great and profoundly significant in substance. However, a
sober examination of the facts and of Jesus' words at once frees
(notwithstanding Meyer and Holtzm. ), thus also De Wette and Bleek. My blood of
the covenant, Matt., Mark, against Paul and Luke : this cup of the new covenant in
my blood. Which is shed for you, Luke (against Matt, and Mark : which is shed for
many; Matt, adds: for the remission of sins). Remembrance, in Paul; Luke, only
in the first member.
1 1 Cor. x. 16 sqq., xi. 26 sqq., comp. John vi. 51 sqq. More in detail below, when
considering its meaning.

320 THE FAREWELL.
us from the very mysterious interpretations which have pre
vailed from Justin Martyr in the middle of the second century,
down through Lanfranc, Luther, the CathoBc and the Lutheran
Churches, the interpretations, namely, that represent Jesus as
having distributed his veritable body and blood at the supper,
and teach that the bread and wine are now changed by the words
of the priest or the words of the institution into the actual body
of Jesus, or that Jesus is offered to the faithful and veritably
enjoyed by him together with the elements.1 Formerly men
wrote long works upon these questions. We now know that the
phrase " This is," can mean here, as in hundreds of other cases,
only, "This signifies my body." We know that the Apostle Paul
himself extorted the same meaning when he spoke only of the
eating of the bread, not of the body, and when he made Jesus
say of the wine cup, " This is the new covenant in my blood,"
and not, " This is my blood." We know that the eating and
drinking of human flesh and blood — a savage custom of Pagan
ism, forbidden by the Jews — could never, beautifuBy as its real
character might be disguised, belong to the religion of Jesus, to
the religion of culture and of humanity. And the very thought
of it was excluded by Jesus when he made bread, not flesh, the
material substratum of his ceremonial. We know, finally, and
this is the end of the controversy, that Jesus, neither when living
nor when dead or glorified, was in a position to distribute his
material body and his actual blood to be eaten and drunk, unless
he was a magician, which he was not, or unless he — to speak
more mildly — was able by divine power to perform not only the
1 Already Justin, Ap. 1, 66 : r. nvxapiarnBuoav rpo$r\v, i% rjg Kard uerafioXriv
rpup. ai odpKEg rjpiov, iKuvov rov capKonoinBivrog Inaov k. adpKa k. alp.a eSiSdx-
9-np.m dvai. Similarly Ignatius, Sm. 7; Irenaeus, 4, 18, 4 sq., &c. Recent literature :
D. Schulz, The Christian Doctrine of the Lord's Supper, 1824 (second ed. 1831);
Ebrard, The Dogma of the Lord's Supper and its History, 2 vols. 1845 sq. ; Kahnis,
Doctrine of the Lord's Supper, 1851 ; Dieckhoff, Evangelical Doctrine of the Lord's
Supper in the Time of the Reformation, 1854, I. Very particularly, L. J. Riickert,
The Lord's Supper; its Nature and its History in the Ancient Church, 1856 (comp.
Baur, Theol. Jahrb. 1857, pp. 533 sqq.). Other treatises are mentioned, e.g. in
Hase, p. 237, and in my essay.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 321
impossible, but that which was repugnant to nature, which again
he could not do, because he was not God, and because God him
seK could not thus act.1 The meaning of this transaction was
therefore a very simple one ; it was, as Weizsacker rightly and
beautifully says, Jesus' last parable.2 "This is my body, my
blood," means, The broken bread is a symbol of my body ; this
red wine, this " blood of the grape," is a symbol of my blood ;
just as he said in the parable, the sower is the Son of Man, is a
symbol of the Son of Man.3 This was not, however, the whole, the
complete meaning ; and those who give the palm to the exposition
of those words by the Beformed Church may yet find themselves
in a position, with reference to the whole transaction, to ascribe
to their predecessors and contemporaries of that Church, not the
correct exposition, but a presentiment of the correct one.4 The
words give the impression that Jesus had something more in view
than merely to exhibit before the guests a striking symbol of his
body broken and slain for the salvation of the disciples. They
give the impression of a present, of a gift, of which, singularly
1 My essay on the Lord's Supper in the Sense of the Founder, pp. 84 sqq. Ewald
(p. 547) suggests the lamb's flesh instead of the bread in case the meal was (which he
does not believe) a Passover meal. In case of a partially Capernaumite view of the
Lord's Supper, it would fare badly with Aberle's ingenious hypothesis (Kath. Quartal-
schr. 1859, pp. 585 sqq.; comp. Hilg.'s Zeitschr. 1864, pp. 425 sqq.) that the Synop
tics, particularly Matthew, aimed at ref ating the Jewish and heathen reproaches of
Christian abominations by their detailed account of the Lord's Supper.
2 Weizsacker, p. 559.
3 Thus as early as the Reformation period, Zwingli, Subsid. p. 343 : quis tam tardus
erit, ne dicam hebes aut pertinax, ut non videat, est hoc loco pos. esse pro significat.
Particularly strong against a more positive conception, 12th Feb. 1531, Zw. Buc. VIII.
p. 580 : dati, dati, dati corporis in cibum animaa sacramentum, symbolum dedit.
Paulus, III. ii. p. 523 : this torn and broken bread is my body, resembles it. P. 530 :
to me it is as if I saw my blood in this cup. Similarly Riickert. Even Neander, Bleek,
and the majority of the accommodating theologians no longer shun this symbolical
explanation. — As Jesus spoke Aramaic, he would say hu (seh or sot or den, dehu, dek,
lia) guphi (corpus) or bisri (basar, besar=caro), Paulus, p. 519. Bleek, p. 412. The
formula among modern Jews : this is the bread (hu lachma), which our fathers ate in
Egypt, Paulus, p. 525. Langen insists upon retaining this formula (pp. 174 sqq.)
against Schottgen' s evidence of its later date. — Blood of the grape, Gen. xlix. 11 ;
Deut. xxxii. 14.
4 But even Strauss (4th ed. II. p. 422) says : to translate "this signifies" is to think
too little and too soberly.
VOL. V. Y

322 THE FAREWELL.
enough, Judaism speaks, and which he in a fresh manner in this
solemn moment consecrates to his own. And this gift lies, first,
in the emphatic and authoritative mention of the salvation of
the disciples as the end of his approaching death; and, secondly,
in his handing over, in connection therewith, to the heirs of
salvation, the emblems of that salvation, not merely to be gazed
upon, but to be taken and enjoyed. He therefore in the most
formal, the most tangible, and the most assuring manner, depo
sited in their hands and sealed in their persons, not only the
symbol, but the thing symbolized, which was to be to them the
possession of the saving death and its fruits. This is the gift of
the Lord's Supper, this is the real body of the Lord's Supper,
with which the Church consoled herself, and the confession of
which, even in the Beformed Church, was renewed in particular
by Butzer, CEcolampadius, and Calvin, though without sufficient
avoidance of the rocks of that materialistic mode of conception of
Catholicism and Lutheranism, the overcoming of which was the
special mission of the Beformed Church. No body, no blood was
given, or could have been given, in a natural or supernatural
way ; but in a purely spiritual manner, by the word accompanied
by the emblem, could the claim to the efficacy of the operation
of that death, which was consummated in the broken body and
the outstreaming blood, be imparted to the disciples. And the
love of Jesus has its monument, not merely in the fact that he
died with such thoughts of salvation, but also in the fact that in
the last agitated and quickly fleeting hours of his life he did not
forget to say and to give to his own, as the secret of his cross
and as the pearl of their future, that which in the agony of his
passion and of his death his mouth would no longer be able to
offer them.1
1 This is the fundamental thought in my essay on the last supper, the thought to
which I would still draw attention, instead of the exceedingly vague definitions of
recent times as to spiritual and spiritual-corporeal enjoyment (Neander, Bleek, Jul.
Miiller, Meyer, and others). Meyer's Komm. and Beck's Dogm. Gesch. 2nd ed. 1864,
p. 425, have not rejected this; Weiz. p. 557, Schenkel, p. 278 sq., Gess, pp. 147 sq.,'
have similarly expressed themselves; Pastor Dr. Bodemeyer in his Illustration oi

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 323
But the transaction of Jesus at the last supper is doubly
important. It possesses an importance in itself; and at the
same time it throws the clearest light forwards upon the death of
Jesus, and upon the intention and the self-consciousness with
which Jesus firmly and resolutely went to meet it. Jesus'
account of the character and significance of his death, given by
himself at the last supper, must now be looked at more closely.
He has said so little concerning the meaning of the dark fate
which awaited him, and this Bttle is again so uncertain or even
so strongly contradicted, that we yield ourselves up with the
greatest satisfaction to the detailed, primitive, unassailable, most
genuine testimony of the last supper, as to a guide and light-
bearer in the dark mystery of his last fate and of his mental atti
tude towards that fate.
In point of fact there are only three utterances that are at all
rich in references to Jesus' end — one in GalBee, one on the way
to Jerusalem, and finally that at the last supper in Jerusalem.
AB three are of the most credible kind and aB three are mutuaBy
corroborative, the last being, however, on account of its surpassing
reBability, its clearness, and its definitive position, the king of
the three. There is, however, a certain initial contradiction. On
adopting the conception of the Passion, in the Galilean Csesarea
PhiBppi, Jesus recognized the path of suffering, which the facts
of his situation disclosed to him, altogether as the personal obli
gation imposed upon him as means and way to glory : through
death to life, through humiBty to exaltation, through sacrifice to
the Doctrine of the Lord's Supper by Dr. Keim, in Stud. u. Krit. 1860, pp. 382 sqq.
has made an attack of no worth ; critical remarks by Meyring, in Luth. Zeitschrift,
1867. Volkmar declares to us that practically not much depends upon whether the
last supper factually had this meaning. Thus ends the scepticism to which Strauss,
yielded in a comfortless way (perhaps it was so, and Jesus might anticipate that perhaps
his body would soon be broken, New Life, Eng. trans. , I. pp. 388 sqq. ), at least with
the assertion that all would be well without the words of Jesus. Schleiermacher's
scepticism, which attacked at least the appointment of a permanent institution, started
essentially — as in other cases — from John ; finally he satisfied himself against John by
assuming that the disciples (except John) had at any rate understood the words of
Jesus as a command, pp. 418 sqq.
Y 2

324 THE FAREWELL.
reward, through loss of life to the Messianic throne. And he
proclaimed the same way of self-denial to his disciples, through
seff-denial the conquest of judgment and glory.1 But in his
conversation with the sons of Zebedee, near Jericho and Jeru
salem, a new direction of the thought of Jesus was announced ;
we pass rapidly over it because the new conception found its fuB
expression where we now stand, in the solemnity at the last
supper.2 The conversation with the sons of Zebedee is properly
the connecting link between Csesarea and the last supper. His
starting-point is the personal obligation and its performance, as
at Csesarea ; he imposes it upon himself and upon the sons of
Zebedee to drink the cup of suffering as the bitter transition to
the throne of the Messiahship. But, in his instruction of the
jealous Twelve, to whom he preaches humBity, he passes unno-
ticeably and almost without preparation to the new proposition
that converts the personal performances and the acquisitions in
the path of pain into a sympathizing philanthropic acting and
suffering for others : " The Son of Man is not come to be minis
tered unto, but to minister, and to give his life as a ransom for
many." As if the egoism of the disciples was needed to strip
even him of any remnant or of any appearance of self-seeking, as
if the looking back upon his life of ministry to men, which he
opposed to the self-seeking of the disciples, forced him to regard
the close of his life as a link in the great chain of his ministra
tions for others instead of for himself, he here placed his death
under the point of view of a conquest of the Messiahship, under
the new aspect of a saving of men from the burden of their debts,
from the punitive justice, from the judgment of God. With the
idea of a "ransom for many," which the Passover suggested to
him, he represented his death as an atoning sacrifice which was
to be presented to God on behalf of many, and would win from
God remission of human guilt, remission of the divine punish
ment of imprisonment and condemnation, therefore protection,
1 Above, IV. pp. 243 sq., 279 sqq. 2 Above, pp. 51 sqq.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 325
forgiveness, grace, for the many through the fall of one.1 And
now came the last supper with the double peculiarity that the
initial personal standpoint had completely disappeared, while the
philanthropic conception of the purpose of his death was in truth
redoubled. For as soon as Jesus' attitude towards men as an
atoning sacrifice was made prominent in the repeated " For you"
with which he accompanied the distribution of the symbolic
bread and the symbolic wine, Matthew not incorrectly explained
it as "For your sins;" and the resemblance to the sacrifice of
the Passover lamb — though the latter was no atoning sacrifice at
aB in a strict sense — readBy suggested the idea of atoning and
cleansing efficacy.2 But the new designation of the death of
Jesus as a covenant sacrifice now received a stiB greater emphasis
than the idea of an atoning sacrifice, nay, it absorbed the latter
into itself. "This is the blood of the covenant," said Jesus,
when he caused the cup to circulate among the disciples. He
thereby not only brought his death into a suggestive relation to
the Passover lamb, with the blood of which had been connected
the protective passing over, the saving, nay the covenant of God
with the ancient people, the covenant which was afterwards
ratified and completed at Sinai in a formal covenant sacrifice ;
but he also gave to his dying as such a higher, an affirmative,
a truly edifying significance. In the spirit of his teaching, he
offered, in the place of a merely Jewish remission and absolution,
the seal of the peace and of the filial relationship which was
henceforth to exist between God and man. And since the Old
Testament, notwithstanding the covenant and the covenants, had
never attained to the filial condition or to the kingdom, he
followed up the ancient and obsolete covenants with the divine
1 Above, p. 55. Gess, pp. 117 sq. Comp. in the farewell addresses in John xvii. 19 :
dyia£w=consecro me sacrificium (the corresponding Hebrew for sacrifice, hikdish).
2 Gesch. Chr. p. 92, note 2. That the vnip vu&v of Paul and Luke is to be preferred
to the nepi (vnip) noXXiZv of Matt, and Mark, follows from the restriction of the
transaction to the Twelve, and from the endeavour of Jesus to guarantee to them the
blessing of this death. It is different in Matt. xx. 28, where he speaks more objec
tively.

326 THE FAREWELL.
covenant of accomplishment; in truth, although he did not use
the word, which was first used by Paul, he gave the new, more
correctly the real, the true covenant, which crowned and perfected
into reality the beginnings, the prophecies, the prototypes of
Mosaic times, without on that account threatening the validity
and the truth of the law or of the prophets.1
Eich as are the relations which Jesus lends to his death, and
which he, though in scant and parsimonious words, discloses to
us in the moment when his departure seems suddenly and enig
matically to stand dark and indefinite before him and us — a
sign how profoundly he reflected even upon matters about which
he was silent — yet we cannot speedBy dismiss from our minds
two grounds for question. In the first place, how could he
thus uneasily, unsteadBy, one might say with such hasty and
feverish groping, pass from one point of view to another ? And
in the next place, when he finally found external and internal
rest in his thoughts expressed in the last supper, and went to the
cross with the serious purpose of obtaining atonement and cove
nant with God, not, it is true, for the race, but for his own, for his
disciples, adherents and believing followers, had he the power to
accomplish that which he purposed, and was he commissioned
to do it either by God or in virtue of those eternaBy vaBd
principles to which his life-ministry had been devoted?
The first question is easier to answer than the second. It
is the genuine humanity of Jesus which expresses itself in his
restless struggling after light, even in the night and in the dark
1 The covenant sacrifice, Ex. xxiv. 1 sqq. The new covenant only in Paul and
Luke ; merely covenant in Matt, (where the reading should be rb alud uov rrjg
Sia9rjKng, and Kaivrjg should be struck out) and Mark. Baur (Theol. Jahrb. 1857,
pp. 551 sqq.) has derived the whole expression of new (erase that!) covenant even in
Matt, from the initiative of Paul. Volkmar (p. 567) adopts this, and ascribes to the
Pauline Mark the disinclination to adopt the Kaivi) of his master. Weizs. (p. 557)
rightly holds it fast (which we are doubly determined to do, since we know no depend
ence of Matt, upon Mark or Paul). Only into this "covenant" no one should introduce
the dissolution of the ancient religion, as Weizs. Schenkel, see above, p. 318, n. 3.
That is a much too definite and too modern Christian opinion of the Old and New
Testaments, an opinion which Jesus' very able resort to a parallelizing of his sacrificial
death with the Mosaic covenant sacrifice by no means justifies.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 327
question of the death which was as certainly as incomprehensibly
about to befaB this Messiahship. And in truth it is not only
a human step, it is a glorious advance which stands before us
in the process of Jesus' conception of the Passion. From the
necessity of death for his personal mission he passes to the
discovery of its importance for men. How could it be other
wise, when his whole life served men, than that his death also
should serve them, not only indirectly because he would then
become their Messiah, but directly because he would sacrifice
himself for them ? From the discovery of the atoning efficacy
of his death, he passes on to the recognition of its covenant-
estabBshing power. How could it be otherwise, when the aim of
his life, the goal of his self-consciousness and the motive force of
his effectual self-communication and mediation were the blessings
of oneness with God, and of divine-human regeneration of the
world, instead of a mere blotting out in the divine register of
guilt ? But in order to understand how he began to foster in his
soul the ideas of sacrifice which he had not previously possessed,
and the Old Testament prototypes of which he had treated almost
with indifference by his Galilean utterance, " Mercy, not sacri
fice," we must not imagine that the sacrificing Jerusalem would
revive to him that vanished world of sacrificial faith, for he would
rather feel repeBed by the sacrificing Jerusalem, and his sacrifi
cial intention was firmly established before he reached Jerusalem.
Besides the fate which was coming to him and which awoke
the first thought, the prototype of the Passover lamb evidently
influenced him more than the utterances of the prophets, for it
seemed to him a divine providence that his journey, his passion,
and his dying coincided with the primitive ceremony which had
caBed Israel to be the people of God. And how many resem
blances would he soon discover between the past and the present!
Formerly the Passover lamb diverted the judgment of God from
Israel : now again a divine judgment was imminent, the Messi
anic judgment of the nation, at the thought of which he, in the
conflict of his infinite faith in divine grace with his equally

328 THE FAREWELL.
strong faith in divine righteousness, trembled for his weak and
sinful disciples.1 Of old the Passover lamb initiated the com
munion of the people and God, the victorious exodus, the glorious
entry into the land of promise. Now there stood in view a
greater future, a greater entering in than that into the promised
land, the coming of the kingdom of heaven with its Messiah, the
end of the promise, the beginning of the fulfilment. The intro
duction and the ratifying of the new passing over, of the new
era of covenant, was the new Passover lamb, the sacrificial death
of the Messiah. Indeed, we may imagine Jesus to have reflected
that, as of old immediately after the bloody sealing of the cove
nant, Moses and Aaron ascended to the God of Israel and looked
upon his form ; even so, and in a yet higher way, he was caBed
to enter into the presence of God after he had completed his
sacrifice, an expectation which, as we know, was certainly to him
on other grounds already incontestable.2
Measured by the profoundest ideas of the Old Testament and
of the teaching of Jesus himself, this sacrificial purpose appears
— if we confess the truth — rather as a relapse into obsolete
opinions which were then being resuscitated in the contemporary
dissolution of Judaism and Paganism, than as striking out a
fresh path of higher and the highest truth.3 This sacrifice ranges
itself in the category of blood sacrifices, and as such has already
been discarded by the Old Testament. For the law disapproved
of human sacrifices, and the prophets ridiculed animal sacri-
1 Comp. Matt. xvi. 26. 2 Ex. xxiv. 8 sq.
3 Exaggerated Jewish estimate of sacrifices, comp. above, I. pp. 302 sqq. ; comp. also
Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews. Human sacrifices, comp. Caesar, Pompey,
Octavian, Nero, Hadrian, M. Aurelius, Commodus. Dio. C. 43, 24 ; 48, 14, 48 ; 69, 11.
Suet. Ner. 36, 38 (Dio, 63, 14). Tacitus, Ann. 15, 47. Aurelius Victor, Ccesares,
14. Marcus Aurelius, see Capitolinus, M. Ant. 19. Commodus, see Lampridius,
Comm. 9. Comp. Peregrinus' burning himself alive, Lucian, De Morte Peregr. 1, 2,
20 sqq. ; also the cruel cults of the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, the people of Asia
Minor, Gauls, and the taurobolians and criobolians, who were Roman citizens.
Plutarch, Superst. 13. Tacitus, Ann. 14, 30. Philostratus, Vita Apoll. 7, 11.
Porph. De abst. 2, 27. Capitolinus, V. Pertin. 4. Lampr. A. Sev. 60. Spart.
Nig. 6. The Christian apologists, Tert. Ap. 9. Euseb. Scorp. 7. Minuc. 30, &c.
Examples of pagan self-immolations, Wetst. I, p. 458, II. p, 46.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 329
fices.1 He could not make the forgiveness of God dependent
upon blood, nor even upon the intercession of Noah, Abraham,
Moses, Daniel, and Job, but upon the gracious disposition above,
which lets even the sinner live, and upon reformation and righte
ousness upon earth.2 It was upon this foundation that Jesus
based his preaching of grace, which made the paternal love of
God infinite, and His forgiveness, even of loads of sin, without
bounds. It was his greatest satisfaction to exhibit the goodness,
the immensity of the heart of God, who, in mercy to the penitent
that asked but offered nothing, freely remitted miBions of sins.3
On the other hand, he was at the same time a zealot for works,
for human performances, and in the spirit of the Old Testament
he insisted upon the presentation of actual, serious, moral human
righteousness as the true means of compensation before the
throne of God.4 Thus the purpose of Jesus does not rise to the
level of his own knowledge and of that of the prophets. There
is no necessity for us to consider whether he, with his sacrifice,
even if he was the absolutely pure and not merely the purer
than others, could perfectly, without requiring any indulgence
on God's part, satisfy the demands of divine righteousness upon
the world or even only upon his adherents, and that after the
Old Testament itself had finally renounced the idea — which,
along with that of animal sacrifices, was so popular in antiquity
— of human substitutes and representatives, and had made the
cause of every man depend upon himself, his repentance and
righteousness, and upon God.6 But Jesus' purpose is explicable
1 Levit. xviii. 21, xx. 2, comp. Gen. xxii. 2, 12. Jeremiah xix. 5 (against the
burning of the children to Baal) : " which I neither commanded nor spake of to them,
nay it never came into my heart." Against animal sacrifices, e.g. Isaiah i. 11, lxvi. 3;
Amos. v. 22 ; Micah. vi. 6 sqq. ; Jer. vi. 20 ; Ps. 1. 8 ; Prov. xv. 8.
a Comp. only Ezekiel xiv. 14 — 20, xviii. 23 — 32, xxxiii. 11 ; Ps. xlix. 7.
3 Matt, xviii. 21 sqq.
* Matt. v. 20, vi. 33. At least with and after forgiveness, vi. 14, xviii. 35.
6 The well-known question, discussed from the time of Anselm down to the present.
Acceptilatio ? The idea of the substitute, Gesch. Chr. p. 207. Even Noack, p. 220.
Strongly rejected, with special reference to Abraham and Sodom (Gen. xviii, 23 sqq.),
even in view of Noah, Daniel, and Job, Ez. xiv. 14 sqq. Yet the idea of the melizim
(luz), Job xxxiii. 23, or, as the Talmud says, of the intercessors (sannigor, Buxt. p. 1509,

330 THE FAREWELL.
from the circumstances, from the imminent death which accord
ing to God's wiB was the legitimate martyrdom of a witness to
the truth, of the witness to the truth, and which in the imagina
tion of men involuntarily clothed itself in Jewish conceptions as
soon as an attempt was made to describe its character and value.
And Jesus' purpose is best and most fuBy explained out of his
heart, and it rises to the level of his heart. He made a strong
effort to procure for the world a benefit out of his death. He
wished to perform for men a deed such as he in his faultless moral
energy demanded of himself as of them, a deed performed even
in his passion, even under the eye of God, to whom he would
present a human performance. With the ardour of a pure self-
forgetting love he sought the salvation of his brethren, and was
so moved by his sympathetic view of their defects as to doubt
that which was to him most certain, the divine grace, and to place
himself in a representative position before the judgment. These
acts of will, which were accompanied by aB the holy zeal, all the
bravery and love of the Son of Man, and finally even by the
faith in the love of the Father to the Son and to the sons, by all
the old thoughts of his Galilean spring, — these acts of wiB give to
his purpose its moral worth and its eternal truth before God and
before men, even though the conception upon which they are
based or which accompanies them, viz., that of the necessity of
a divine propitiation in this way, was not entirely free from
error.1 These acts of wiB chain humanity to the cross of its
Greek avvriyopog), or of the Paraclete (peraklith, Buxt. p. 1843), is still retained by
Philo (see above, I. p. 323 ; Grimm, p. 331). Comp. the reconciler, Ecclus. xiv. 16, 23.
The blood of purifying, 4 Mace. vi. Comp. 1 Cor. iv. 13, xv. 29 ; 2 Kings iv. 10
sqq.; Rom. ix. 3; Phil. ii. 17. Wunsche, pp. 17 sqq.; Delitzsch, Hillel, pp. 34 sq.
1 Gesch. Chr. pp. 206 sqq. In order to reconcile the old (Matt. vi. 12, v. 45,
xviii. 27 sqq.) and the present standpoint of Jesus, we must not forget (1) the per
formances even to the hyperbole of satisfaction which he bad required (xvi. 24 — 26) ;
(2) the adjustment which he kept in view between God and man even after men had
entered into the filial relationship (Matt. vi. 14 sq., xviii. 15, xii. 36, xviii. 3). The
essential distinction, however, remains that he had formerly taught a grace in the main
unconditional on the only conditio sine qua non of Matt. vi. 14, whilst he now held
that grace to be conditioned by the great sacrifice. We cannot think of finding a mode
of reconciliation by saying that he intended his sacrifice to apply only to the guilt

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 331
tender-hearted friend, of its powerful representative, of the
defender of its honour, even now when so many have renounced
the old conception. And that old conception itseB has made
it possible to miBions, with the inteBectually mighty and yet
Jewish-thinking Apostle Paul at their head, to beBeve not only
in the bottomless depth of their sinfulness, but also in the
redemptive attitude of Jesus, in the paternal wiB of God, and in
an end of the sacrifices. For the great majority of men are not
able to believe in ideas and spiritual truths, but are able to
believe in facts in which those ideas and truths have become
visible. And we might almost believe that Jesus had in view
this very majority, this need of weak men burdened with old
and new sins, since he so evidently intended, not mainly to give
something to God, but to give in the last supper a pledge to
men, in the first instance to his friends whom he loved with a
genuinely human love, and then — according to the broad and
yet correct view of Paul — to all, even to those sinners for whom
no one else in the world would sacrifice himself.1
In the Lord's Supper, Jesus not only explained his death and
in a certain measure testamentarily made it over to his disci
ples and to us, but with an earnestness proportioned to his own
estimate of this death and of this testament, he took precautions
that it should be remembered in every age, nay, that it should
contracted after entering into the filial relationship. On the other hand, a continual
oscillation between the standpoint of grace and that of Jewish satisfaction can be
established (above, III. p. 115, n. 3).
1 Gesch. Chr. p. 92. Holsten's objections (Zum Evang. des Petr. und Paul,
p. 177) to the latter representation are overthrown by the fact that in the last supper
at any rate only the effort to comfort men is prominent, not the influence upon God,
which is postponed until the cross. That I have not intended to exclude the idea of
iXaor. to God, every word both formerly and now must show. The above representa
tion, however, as a whole reminds me again of Holsten's opinion (p. 179) that the last
supper transaction of Jesus — which, in contradiction to Strauss and Volkmar, he defi
nitely holds fast — was only a thought of the moment. To him it is a trausitory moment,
to me it is the last definitive self -consciousness. — Noteworthy difference between 1 Cor.
xi. 24 and 2 Cor. v. 15 ; Rom. iv. 5, v. 6 — 8. Reconciled by Matt, xviii. 14, xx. 28.
Rom. v. 7 is primarily applicable to the death of Jesus, and verse 6 only in connection
with verse 7, since he (in a genuinely human way) dies for the godless only as for the
partially or potentially good. But Paul again places himself on the ideal height of
Jesus, Rom. ix. 3.

332 THE FAREWELL.
become a strong, dominant, and striking foundation-stone of the
community he left behind. In requiring the repetition of this
transaction, Jesus incontrovertibly — for the facts here are too
certain for the doubts of the most recent critics — referred to the
certainty of his departure, to the necessity of organization among
his little society, to their essential distinction from the great
Jewish society within which they stood and within which they
were at first to abide — a fact that altogether excludes an imita
tion of the meals of the Essenes.1 The remembrance of the
Lord, of his death, of the covenant sacrifice by which he founded
a new world, he wished to elevate to the keystone of the meetings
of his followers, and thereby, without any definite limitation in
detail, to guard against a relapse into the purely Jewish character,
a relapse from which the Jewish-Christian community, as is weB
known, scarcely escaped, and so far as they did escape were
saved chiefly by retaining their Master's breaking of bread.2
That we know of this will of Jesus, and that the Lord's Supper
has been perpetuated until our days, we owe in a notable manner
almost exclusively to the Apostle who was not present, and who
wrote as it were at a distance that account of the Lord's Supper,
the exactness of whose details, derived from the mouths of eye
witnesses, compensates for the fact that the writer was not
himself an eye-witness.3 Only Paul, and Luke after him, have
not merely the two elements, but also the addition of Jesus:
" This do in remembrance of me ; this do, as often as ye drink,
in remembrance of me." And it is scarcely to be questioned
that in consequence of these words of Jesus, the Apostle Paul, in
1 Above, p. 316, n. 1. Comp. I. p. 383. Gesch. Chr. p. 16. Hilg. thinks of the
Essenes day and night. Comp. Strauss, quoted above, p. 316, u. 1.
2 Acts ii. 42 ; 1 Cor. x. 16 sqq., xi. 20 sqq.
3 It is still disputed whether Paul claims an immediate divine revelation, or refers
to a mediate hearing through Peter and others. The former has been held by Oalov,
Bengel, Flatt, Olsh., De Wette, Osi., Jul. Miiller, and even Riickert. The latter by
Siisskind, Schulz, De Wette, Neander, Strauss, Hofm. Meyer makes a poor attempt
at combining the two : mediately (because not napd, but dnb, distant reference), and
yet a revelation, namely, by intimation of the Spirit or of an angel, or by ecstacy !
Exegesis scarcely leaves a doubt that the second explanation is the correct one ; comp.
also 1 Cor. xv. 3, and my essay, pp. 68 sq.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 333
his exposition of the Lord's Supper, was led to throw the chief
emphasis upon the memorial character of the transaction that
stood between the departure and the return of Jesus, upon the
announcement and the confession, within the community and in
a certain measure to the ears of mankind, of the death of Jesus
that was brought to pass for the benefit of men, although a
mysterious element, obscurely expressed, was by no means absent
from the Apostle, and — again an incentive to the repetition of
the transaction — has been by the Apostle afresh imposed upon
the church.1
The only point open to question is the mode in which, accord
ing to the wiB of Jesus, this transaction should be repeated. It
is evident that he as Bttle thought of a mere repetition on the
anniversary of the eve of the Passover, as of such a literal repe
tition of the words by which he instituted the ceremony as
gradually became the use of the church. By requiring a repetition,
" as often as ye drink it," he evidently sought to sanctify by this
custom every common meal of the disciples. By bidding them
" do this," he required primaily only the transaction itself, the
breaking of bread and the circulating of the cup with a regard to
him and his last meal, and not the literal repetition of the words
by which he had accompanied those acts.2 And if there were
any doubt here, a glance at the apostolic church would bring the
1 1 Cor. xi. 26. The uncommonly difficult question as to wherein Paul or John
sought the mystery of the last supper, we may leave to the exegesis of 1 Cor. x. and xi.
and John vi., and to New Testament theology. Comp. my essay, pp. 107 sqq.,
although there are many things there that need modifying. In general, Paul and John
stand nearer to each other than is usually believed ; John stands upon Paul. The latter
has the idea of a real Kovtovia of man with the body and blood of Christ (1 Cor. x. 16,
comp. i. 9; 2 Cor. xiii. 13; Phil. iii. 10), not only through subjective disposition
(1 Cor. xi. 24, 26), but through objective appropriation of the elements of the sacrifice
meal of Jesus, the bread and the cup of the Lord (ix. 13, x. 16 — 21), by which
mysteriously a personal union is effected with him, the second Adam, in his passion
and resurrection, or with his spirit, the spiritual manna of the wilderness (x. 3), the
miraculous effect of which, again, is the unity of the body of the church (x. 17, comp.
with x. 3 sq., xii. 13, also vi. 17 ; 2 Cor. iii. 17). On the other hand, 1 Cor. xi. 27,
which is to be explained by verse 26, needs no mysterious exposition. In John vi.
it all amounts to the participation in the nvevpa. See below.
2 Matt. xxvi. 29 does not apply merely to the Passover cup.

334 THE FAREWELL.
question to a decision. The Acts of the Apostles knows simply
of a daily breaking of bread in the congregation in Jerusalem, to
which custom the words of institution would the more certainly
be wanting because the congregation in Jerusalem did not ascribe
any saving efficacy to the death of Jesus untB they came under
Pauline influence. But even to the Apostle Paul, the stiB older
and more trustworthy witness, the upholder of the sacrificial
death and of the mystery of the last supper, the frequently
recurring Lord's Suppers of the Christians completely coincide
with the remembrance of the death of Jesus, and nothing is said
to show that there followed these meals, as a distinctive ceremony,
either the breaking of his bread, or the circulating of his cup, or
the repetition of his words.1 It is simply the separation which
occurred centuries later between the love-feast and the Lord's
Suppers, the fruit of persecution and of the degeneracy of the
love-feast, as well as of the graduaBy developed and increasingly
mysterious views of the Lord's Supper, which has led many to
carry back into primitive Christian antiquity a distinction which
was very far from existing then at all.2 The fact of the later
separation of the two transactions, and ultimately of the complete
abolition of the Lord's meals or love-feasts with their abuses early
denounced by Paul and with their manifold unprofitable features,
might certainly give rise to the supposition that Jesus had set
up an institution which did not contain within itself the conditions
of universal practicability, which was not adapted to aB circum
stances, being planned, as it were, too modestly, and with a view
to meet the requirements of a sraaB community, not of a universal
church. Common meals, such as Jesus ordered to be kept up in
1 Acts ii. 42, 46, xx. 7 ; 1 Cor. xi. 20 sqq. That in the speeches of Peter at Jeru
salem, given in the Acts of the Apostles, a recognition of the saving significance of the
death of Jesus is essentially lacking, is well known, and is shown equally by Lechler as
well as by Holsten.
2 The second century, from the letter of the younger Pliny to the Epistle of Jude,
and to Justin, Ignatius, and Tertullian, even also the third century (Eus. 6, 43), show
no certain trace of the division. First in the times of Chrysostom and Augustine the
love-feasts appear partly as something separate, partly as something obsolete ; Gieseler,
K.G. I. ii. p. 299.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 335
memory of him, could be continued only so long as twelve or a
few more came together, but not the hundreds and thousands of
a Corinthian congregation or of a modern church. This objec-
• tion would, however, be precipitate. The modern congregations
could meet together at a meal of remembrance, in order to satisfy
the command or the anticipation of Jesus, as well as they can to
celebrate the Lord's Supper. Moreover, just as he himself held
this first meal only with his most intimate friends, he has in truth
not excluded the festive meetings of families and friends for the
purpose of talking about his life and his death ; and when we
examine closely we see that he has in reality determined nothing
with regard to the size or the frequency or even the detailed
customs of the assembBes, treating these things in his grand
manner as of secondary importance in comparison with the main
point.1 With the institution of the last supper, the fareweB evening
of Jesus at Jerusalem, as narrated by Matthew and Mark, is at
an end. On the contrary, in Luke the conversations are still
spun on ; and much as is here doubtful, several correct reminis
cences are not to be overlooked. Of the four conversational
fragments which Luke exhibits, there is not one which might not,
at least with great probabiBty, be transferred to another period.2
The controversy among the disciples and the admonition to
mutual ministration occur in the same form, according to the
two other sources, in the incident of the ambition of the sons of
Zebedee at Jericho, an incident which Luke has there passed
over. The promise of the table in the kingdom of God and of
1 The above does not render unjustifiable the striving after a feasible approximation
to the institution of Jesus; to which belongs above all the retention of the Green
Thursday, whose prerogative has even recently been sacrificed by fools to the Friday,
even where the ancient custom had been preserved, e. g. in South Germany imperial
towns ; next the use of the very words of Jesus ; and finally the " taking " by the com
municants, who are not to be condemned to have the wine poured into them like
children. Comp. my essay, pp. 115 sqq.
2 Luke xxii. 24 sqq. In general, Strauss, Ewald, De Wette, and Meyer, thus express
themselves; on the other hand others, Sieff., Paulus, Olsh., Neander, also Bleek, even
Ewald in single instances, here find welcome points of contact with John,

336 THE FAREWELL.
the judgment-seats, hangs together with the words addressed to
Peter on the journey to Judaea. The word of warning to Peter,
as weB as the admonition to be armed, belongs evidently, as the
subject shows and as the other accounts betray, to the depar
ture from Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives.1 The present
position of these conversations is condemned not only by the
evidence of the other testimonies, but also by the insupport-
ableness, nay the unworthiness, of the childish dispute in the
solemnity and seriousness of the moment, and finaBy by their
great want of connection. And are the great promises to the
persistently faithful disciples in their place between the cor
rection of jealousies on the one hand, and the great impending
test, nay, the prediction of the apostacy, on the other hand ? Or
the charge to purchase swords, after the announcement of the
shameful apostacy ? That many disconnected things are here
found together can be explained. The author or his sources
wished to give longer farewell speeches. The table of the
kingdom of heaven did not badly join on to the announcement
of the completion of the Passover solemnity in the kingdom of
heaven ; whBe the admonitions to hunrility were strikingly
apposite to the act of ministering which Jesus had just per
formed at the last supper. At any rate, these passages are not
to be treated in a depreciatory manner; they contain what is
peculiar, and they are in their place at the place. Indeed,
something like the first speech may have been uttered at the
table of the last supper itself. We are at once reminded of
that addition to the last address to the Pharisees in Matthew,
which is so little appropriate there, because it contains in itself a
private conversation of Jesus with his disciples, that was thrown
together with the correction of the Pharisaic longing for the title
of Babbi, simply by the association of ideas.2 But this speech is
appropriate on this quiet evening, if we admit that the ambition
1 Comp. Luke xxii. 24 and Matt. xx. 24 ; Luke xxii. 28 and Matt. xix. 27 ; Luke
xxii. 31, 35, and Matt. xxvi. 31 sqq.
2 Matt, xxiii. 8 — 12. Comp. above, p. 201.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 337
of the disciples depicted by Luke, and excited either by the
kingdom in sight or by Jesus' preference for individual disci
ples, might disturb the sacred exaltation of the evening; and
we have a great right to bring that very speech in Matthew
hither, because the contents, sometimes to the letter, resemble
the speech in Luke, particularly in the requirement of mutual
ministration. The speech in Matthew shows us, to our gratification, that
there was no question of jealousies ; and to our stBl greater
gratification, that the Lord, who at the last supper organized a
part of his community, by no means aBowed the last weighty
hours to pass by without final words of preparation for the Bving
organs of his community. " Be ye not called Babbi," he said,
" Bke the Pharisees ; for one is your teacher, but aB ye are
brethren. And caB no one father upon the earth, for One is your
Father, the heavenly. And be not caBed leaders, for one is your
leader, Christ. He that is the greater of you wiB be your ser
vant.1 For who is greater, he that recBnes at table or he that
serves ? Is not he that recBnes at table ? But I am in your
midst as the servant.2 But he that shall exalt himself wiB be
made low, and he that shaB humble himself wiB be exalted."3
With unspeakable excellence he compressed into these brief
words the meaning of his last meal, the confession of faith and
the brotherly principle of his community, consolation and teach
ing to those whom he left behind.4
1 The titles Abi, Rabbi, Mori, see above, III. p. 15, V. pp. 206 sq. Rab or Sar
(Isaiah xliii. 27, comp. Buxt. p. 2534) would best correspond to the title Ka9ny. As a
curiosity it may be mentioned that Osw. Myconius in Basel refused to take the doctor's
degree merely on account of this word, upon which Carlstadt had already laid stress
(Jager, Karlst. p. 277). Hagenb. Oekol. u. Myk. p. 341. At most a doubt may arise
as to the title "Christ." The title due to the author, Matt. xi. 2 ; Mark ix. 41.
2 This according to Luke xxii. 27. This passage is appropriate to the whole Passover
meal, at which Jesus had served his own, part of the time standing; as R. Gamaliel
II. served, standing, the three Rabbis, whereupon R. Joshua, appealing to Gen. xviii. 8,
answered : invenimus majorem, qui ministri officio functus est. Kidd. f. 32, 2.
Wetst. p. 458.
3 Comp. Ez. xxi. 26, &c. Rabbis, in Schottgen, p. 198 ; Wetst. p. 482.
4 The brotherliness already in principle in the Sermon on the Mount.
VOL. V. Z

338 THE FAREWELL.
We may be allowed to make one more conjecture. The eve
ning of the last supper might have yet another addition about
which all the Evangelists are silent. According to Matthew, and
evidently also according to Luke, Jesus instituted baptism as the
second visible sign of his community, after his resurrection, at
the moment of his separation from earth and from his own.1 By
being placed in the history of the resurrection, baptism shares,
as an institution of Jesus, all the doubts that gather round these
last incidents themselves. And yet baptism — as is shown by
the practice of it by the Apostles and by Paul, and the equality
with the last supper given to it by Paul — must be plainly
referred back to the initiative of Jesus, however unhistorical
may be the practice of it by Jesus from the beginning of his
ministry, as described in the fourth Gospel.2 Is it not possible,
nay probable, that the Gospels have removed the institution of
baptism from its original place to a later date, wishing to exhibit
him who was ascending into heaven as the Lord of heaven and
earth, therefore as the legitimate possessor of the nations, and
therefore as the ordainer of baptism for all nations ?3 The insti
tution of baptism evidently belongs to the last part of Jesus'
career, to the time when he acknowledged John to be the sent of
heaven and his baptism as a work of heaven, i.e. after Jesus had
reached Jerusalem.4 Again, it evidently belongs to that point
of time when Jesus, at Jerusalem, busied himself with the final
organization of his community, with the constitution of their
peculiar new customs in distinction from the old, with appointing
the symbols of the completed covenant, and with the handing
1 Matt, xxviii. 19, comp. Luke xxiv. 47 ; Acts ii. 38. Spurious appendage of Mark
xvi. 15.
2 Acts ii. 38, &c.; Gal. iii. 27, &c. ; especially 1 Cor. x. 2 — 4 (baptism and Lord's
Supper in Old Testament) ; also xii. 13. Will any one ascribe the initiation to the
Twelve, who were so very dependent upon the " Teacher" ? John makes Jesus baptize
iii. 22, iv. 1. The expression in iv. 2 is certainly such that it may quite as well point
to 1 Cor. i. 17 — according to which Paul represents baptism as performed by subor
dinate deacons — as to the fact that the disciples did not practise baptism until later.
The introduction of baptism by the Baptist, above, II. pp. 239 sqq.
3 Matt, xxviii. 18 sq. points to this. 4 Matt. xxi. 25.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 339
over of the fruits of his death. If this is correct, then the insti
tution of baptism would best fall on this evening ; it would be
the second symbol, and it would be the work which the Apostles
as the new teachers, who nevertheless were but brethren in their
relation to each other and to the fellowship of salvation, were to
prosecute. He would scarcely ordain at once the baptism of all
nations, as the apostolic time proves to a certainty and as is later
to be shown ; but without an exact definition of the terms, he
would ordain the baptism and forgiveness of penitents, believers,
those that were ready to become disciples, those who would live
according to his life and commands, and would prepare the way
for his return.1
The fourth Gospel offers yet another addition to the last
supper evening, and that the greatest of all. Jesus' farewell to
his Twelve is carried through five long chapters, the introduction
of that second chief division of the Gospel which is devoted
to the glory of his death.2 The farewell on the Mount of
Olives and that at Jerusalem are in a free manner used as a
foundation, and echoes of these last sayings, of the sayings
of Jesus in general as reported in the previous Gospels, are
scattered here and there. Thus the mention of persecutions and
the comforting with the Holy Ghost point to the Mount of
Olives, the admonition to mutual ministrations in obedience to
the one Lord and Teacher points to the sayings at the last supper,
while the promise of re-union points to both farewell addresses.3
In truth, however, a new and richly organized world of revela
tions is based upon the older material. First we have the last
meal without the Passover lamb but with the accompaniment of
the washing of feet — the emblem of mutual ministration and of
the new commandment of love received by the young community
— and the designation of the betrayer, with the thrusting out of
whom into the covenant with Satan begins the glorification of
1 Comp. Acts iii. 19 sqq. 2 John xiii.— xvii.
3 John xvi. 2, 32 sq., xiii. 13 sqq., 35, xiv. 3, 16, 18, &c. Comp. the announce
ment concerning Judas, xiii. 2, 10, 21 ; concerning Peter, xiii. 36 sqq.

340 THE FAREWELL.
the Son of God who is to triumph in his passion.1 Then there
are the last sayings, the consolation at departure, which is
afforded by the announcement of the necessity of Jesus' death
for the building up of the community, by the promise of a new
comforter, the Spirit, nay of the glorified self -revealing Son him
self, and by the prospect of a victorious conclusion of the world-
conflict. Finally, after the grand words, " In the world ye have
tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world,"
there is the high-priestly committal of the present and the future
community, consisting of Jews and GentBes, into the hands of
God.2 The tone of the sayings becomes more and more exalted
until we reach the last prayers, exhibits both the consciously
victorious divine hero, for whom there exists no question of
personal and arduous sacrifice but only a work of bearing witness
to the world, and the tenderly loving, anxiously careful, sadly
pathetic earthly life-companion, nay friend, of these disciples.
This tone of triumph, this tone of affection, this divine-human
bearing, without the Jewish colours, customs, imaginations, and
calculations that have grown so strange to a later age, and possess
ing the breadth of a glance over the whole world, wiB ever faB
with a magical power upon the human soul which would hear
the passion-anticipating Lord speak yet once more richly and
grandly and intelligibly and warmly to it and to aB the faithful
of the future whom he must have seen in spirit. But these
sayings are not historical. They are the outpouring of a Christian
spirit who raised his feelings, his faith, his thoughts, his wishes
and his hopes, as high and made them as great and as lofty as
he had power to do, and then transferred them to the soul and
1 John xiii. 2—30.
2 John xvi. 33 and xvii. The full historical character was not upheld by Liicke and
Neander, nor now by Ewald, p. 555, and Weizs. p. 554, although Weizs. at the same
time very strikingly speaks of the essential harmony of these farewell speeches with the
Synoptics. It should be added, for curiosity's sake, that whilst Bretschneider's Probab.
very strongly challenges these speeches, especially chap. xvii. (Weisse, II. pp. 294 sq.,
is still more zealous against the altogether unhistorical chap. xvii. ), Paulus, in L. J. I.
ii. p. 165, could think that John had written out these speeches perhaps on the next
day !

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 341
the lips of the Master upon whose breast he in spirit was lying.
Hence we do not enlarge this history by a detailed consideration
of these farewell addresses, and we simply relegate them to the
exegesis of this Gospel. For — to refer to only a few points —
these farewell addresses know no Mount of OBves, no prediction
of the future of Jerusalem, and of the return of the Son of Man ;
they know no Passover evening, no last supper evening, and
no institution of the symbols of remembrance, which, much fur
ther back, at the Galilean Easter, are arbitrarily and obscurely
aBuded to, but are nevertheless betrayed.1 The history of
the betrayer is arbitrarily transformed ; and instead of the fes
tival evening, an ordinary meal is arbitrarily introduced, into
which the last supper cannot be interpolated by the most per
severing art, and at which there took place a washing of feet as
impossible as it is unattested. This latter incident is only an
imitation of the foot-washing and foot-drying by Mary, and a
plastic reaBzation of the genuine words of Jesus in Matthew and
Luke concerning the ministering Lord, just as the interminable
farewell address exhibits an elaboration of the long speeches
in the earlier Gospels, particularly Luke.2 Thi Jesus, fearless,
1 John vi. 27 sqq., with those truly subtle paradoxes which estranged the Galilean
people and the outer circle of disciples ; (1) he is the bread from heaven, vi. 35 ; (2)
his bread is his flesh which he gives on behalf of the life of the world, vi. 51 ; (3) it is
his flesh and his blood which he offers to be eaten (rpiiyuv to bite) and to be drunk,
in order thereby to dispense life, eternal life. These paradoxes were ultimately (in
vain) relaxed in the sayings, vi. 61 — 63, which were again obscure, but the more proba
ble meaning of which is, that (1) his ascension should remove the idea of a consumption
of his body or his corpse (truly no exaggeration but a removal of the offence) ; (2) that
his flesh would not be profitable, but only his spirit ; (3) that this spirit was throned in
his words (comp. verse 68). Taking all together, Jesus had spoken only figuratively
of the appropriation of his flesh, he had in reality spoken of the appropriation of his
person (vi. 57), but in the sense that reference was made first to the Spirit as alter ego
of Jesus (vi. 63, comp. 56 and iv. 14, vii. 38, xiv. 16, &c), secondly, to the proceeding
of the Spirit out of the death of Jesus (vii. 39, xvi. 7, xx. 22). The similarity of this
view with the Pauline one is illustrated above, p. 333, n. 1. It is Alexandrianism in
Christianity. 2 The washing of feet, xiii. 2 sqq. (slave's work, comp. Friedl. p. 64, yet see the
beautiful example of the Rabbi's mother, above, p. 268, n. 1 [Paulus, I. ii. p. 729],
generally before the meal, Luke vii. 44, but here in the midst of it, John xiii. 2, 4, 12,
23), is evidently developed out of Matt. xx. 25 sqq. , and still more Luke xxii. 27 (thus
Strauss, Baur, Scholt., while Weisse, II. p. 274, will base it upon the Johannine utter-

342 THE FAREWELL.
victorious, speaking long and oratorically at the moment of the
greatest tension and when the need of being prepared for defence
was the most frightfully urgent, is only the dogmatic Son of God
of the later confession. The much-promised Spirit, the indweB-
ing of all divine powers in the community, the unity of the
Church, the equality of believers with the Son of God, the kingdom
of God in heaven instead of upon earth — aB this is the Chris
tian philosophy and the Christian Church of the second century.
Not a particle can be broken away from the whole. But the
ance, xiii. 10) ; on the other hand, the defenders of the fourth Gospel seek rather in
Luke the slight trace of what is exactly narrated in John (even De Wette, Bleek, Ewald,
Meyer). After the washing of feet, which followed the (Passover) eating (comp. xiii. 2
and Ewald ; according to Wichelh. not until the next day), or even preceded it (Paulus,
Friedlieb, Langen), there followed the last supper; but, again, concerning the inter
polation of this into the Johannine account there exist the most diverse views (most after
xiii. 30, others after 32, others 33 sq., others 38, Bengel, Kern, Wich., Rope, after
xiv. 31, comp. Strauss, 4th ed. II. pp. 404 sqq., and Meyer, chap, xiii., close). Weizs.,
p. 556, saw at least that this transaction of the washing might belong to another
evening, and he is right so far that Jesus did not overload his disciples with sym
bols at the close, but is certainly incorrect in holding both. The suspicious circum
stance that the historical last supper is set aside, while on the other hand the
washing of feet — quite invisible in the old sources — is introduced, has been met in
different ways. The last supper, in his time — opp. Synopt. — already an established
custom (Krabbe, p. 468), John would have assumed as having been long known and
described (Paulus, Olsh., Liicke, Neander, Bleek, Ewald) ; or Jesus had virtually
instituted it in Galilee (Casp. pp. 133 sq. ; Gess, pp. 59 sq.), assertions which Schleier.
(p. 420) put to tie blush by his greater seriousness. Further it is said, the washing
was not repeated, because it was not instituted as a special transaction (Neander),
because it was the special act of Jesus (Ewald, Hase), or because it was the sentiment,
not the act, that was postulated (Meyer) : so much the more occasion for the sup
plementary narration of John (Neander, p. 526 ; Krabbe, p. 466). Quite against
xiii. 14 sq., certainly correct, in that the pedilavium (not in specific sense, 1 Tim.
v. 10) cannot be proved until Augustine's time (Merz, Herzog, IV. p. 630). These
weak attempts at defence show how untenable is the whole Johannine account. And
if John himself is so economical as not to give Jesus the credit of both washing and
last supper on the same evening, and if he has evidently suppressed the really historical
last supper and substituted for it the quite unattested washing, those are justified who
admit neither the suppressor instead of the suppressed, nor both, but who dismiss the
suppressor. This is done by Fritzsche, Strauss, Weisse, Baur, Hilg., Scholten, Volkmar ;
whilst A. Schweizer formerly (Joh. pp. 164 sqq.) defended the foot- washing, Weizs.'
half-accepted it, Renan will rather admit it than the last supper authenticated by later
men out of the plain table-customs of Jesus ; and finally, Noack (p. 233), the saviour
of the fourth Gospel, finds it better proved than the last supper. Weisse, II. p. 272,
has, with special energy, censured the theatrical character of the transaction. On the
other hand, Hase, p. 235. On John xiii. 10, comp. Origen, t. 32, 5 sq. Scholten,
p. 292.

AT JERUSALEM. THE LAST SUPPER. 343
signature of unhistoricalness, visible to every eye, lies in the
violent act of destroying the last supper evening. This is an
act of violence pardonable only on account of the fact that the
author, breathing in Gentile-Christian freedom and yet still in
an atmosphere of mystery, wished, despite aB the ancient
accounts, to believe and to celebrate, not a Jewish, but a genuine
and complete Christian Passover. Thus developed to him the
unhistorical history that Jesus ate no Passover lamb, but himself
ended as the veritable, the one permanent Passover lamb, on the
Passover day itself, a day before his actual death.1
1 Comp. above, I. p. 174. In a remarkable manner, Strauss, 4th ed. II. p. 408,
thought of John's non-acquaintance with the scene of the institution ! Weisse, II.
p 276, thought of the absence of these portions in the delineations of John !

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